2 Weeks Gone

With the school year starting it is hard to find time to update this. We have been communicating with Anna Rae through every mode available, emails, a weekly phone call, old fashioned snail mail (It took 11 days for her to get the package I mailed to her on the day she left.) It is good that we are using ALL forms because emails have not been reliable as Anna Rae's host family struggles with several computer viruses. Their computer is in 'the shop' yet again! I keep forgetting to ask her if the school has computers for student use. Every form of writing that she sends us has a slighly different voice, with her hand written letters being my favorite. She told us she has eaten something that she would like to learn how to cook; some type of pie like pastry with garlic and cheese I think. It was hard to hear her on the phone on Sunday. She couldn't find the cordless and she felt like she was disturbing people and we kept asking her to speak up. Her field trip to Switzerland was today. I wonder how it went. She was not all that eager to go, she said she would prefer to have the routine of school settle in. Oh well, like I told her, on a field trip, with more casual conversation, she may pick up more language than sitting at a desk. As for Chris and I, we enjoyed the Kittitas Fair and rodeo on Saturday. We saw Travis Brasile rope a calf in 5.9 seconds (last year we saw him rope one in 5.4). As always the smell of fair food was a lot better than the way it felt once it was resting inyour stomache; so much grease (but I do love the grilled onions on the hamburgers!) Today we went for a skate on Alki and then came home and I weeded and Chris mowed the lawn and I went and ran errands in nearby Burien. I am doing laundry
now; only the second load in a week. That is one of the differences at our house since Anna Rae left. Last week when I washed the last of her t-shirts that was in the laundry room, I hesitated and considered keeping it slightly wrinkled and smelling of her deodorant. But then my practical orderly self came back into focus and I tossed the shirt in with the rest of the load. I even miss the popsicle sticks she would forever leave on the rop of the magazine rack as she got all engrossed in a book or the TV. So you see, you ARE missed, Anna Rae!