Day Twenty - Really, is it already day twenty???

Today was a really great day. We woke up this morning and got ready for church. Kendall and Kanta both looked very handsome in their nice clothes, and Kanta was able to meet a Japanese chaperone from one of the other exchange groups that is staying with a family here in our town.

After church we left to visit and have dinner with Kendall's other grandparents (Layne's parents), and some of Kendall's cousins were there as well - the cousins that we saw at the county fair yesterday. They had a GREAT time together! They played and played and played, and it is really nice to see Kanta speaking English so well. They played soccer and we were very impressed with Kanta's soccer skills. He is such a good boy and gets along so well with everyone that we are really going to miss him a lot when he leaves to go back home next week! But we're not going to think about that right now, and we'll enjoy this one more week together.

Tomorrow we are going to an amusement park (www.lagoonpark.com). Julie is taking them in the morning, and I will be joining them after work.

Here are some pictures from our fun day today:

We went to church this morning (just like every Sunday), and Kendall and Kanta both looked so good that I had to take a picture before we left.

The future Nagatomo Yuto showing his amazing skills.

More soccer in the backyard.

Joshua showed the boys how amazingly flexible his arms are, so they all tried to do the same thing...and failed!

Kanta sneaked up behind Gabby and really scared her! He told me before he did it so that I could be ready for the picture :)

The boys wrestling downstairs in the family room.

Back outside for more soccer!

The kids played a game where you have two teams on both sides of the house, and the goal is to throw a ball over the house - and the team on the other side tries to catch it, which is very difficult because you don't know exactly where it is going to come from. Nobody could believe that Kanta could throw the ball from so far behind the house and still get it over, but he did. Wow!

Kanta threw the ball over two cars AND the house!

Everybody waiting for Kendall's team to throw the ball over the house from the other side.

I told them I was going to get a picture as they tried to catch the ball, and they all decided to pose. The girl on the right is their super-smart cousin Karen, soon to be a junior at the university. She just returned from a summer working in Colorado.

This time the ball came over the house so fast that Jaydon didn't even have time to see it and fell over when he tried to catch it.

So...the kids had a funny idea to cover Gabby with grass. This is how it started...

...and this is how it ended...almost...

...they eventually even covered her face!

Jaydon and Kanta playing football

These guys had so much fun playing outside today, so I decided I needed to get a group picture - from left to right it is Gabby, Alex, Keiera, Kanta, Jaydon, and Kendall

Kanta found this old "joke" tie in the bedroom downstairs and was wearing it around this evening :)

We thought it was about time we got a picture of Kanta and Joshua...especially since Joshua is leaving on Wednesday to go to Chile for two years as a missionary! The first day Kanta was here and met Joshua, it was funny because he looked up at Joshua and couldn't believe how tall he is (Joshua is almost 2 meters tall)