Itsuka

Itsuka- in Japanese it means love. And that name totally describes our Japanese exchange student. She is loving, kind, gentle, patient, smart, a perfectionist, daring, polite, and cute. We love her. She is only staying for a week. :( We wish she was staying for a year, or 2 years, or maybe just forever. Itsuka ( pronounced... Its-ka) arrived on Saturday, the 27 of March. Where she was greeted by clowns at Emily's school. Can you imagine, you get off a plane, you are beyond tired, and then these creepy looking, big footed, crazy make up people are greeting you? If it was me, I would have gotten right back on the plane and said, TAKE ME BACK! Funny thing is, the Japanese exchange students seemed to love the clowns. Also, they had a pot luck.... I am American, and potlucks scare me. I just take little bits of everything cause you don't know what anything is. It is always meat with some sort of soup ontop of it and put in a crock pot. ALWAYS! And somebody always brings chocolate chip cookies. The cookie part is fine, I can handle that part any day. Anyway.... here are some pictures that show our past days with Itsuka.

Emily and Itsuka meeting for the first time.

The pot luck... WHAT DID I TELL YOU! CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES ON THE FAT RIGHT.

The "beloved" clown

We all went to Tolmie State part when she arrived. We walked around and threw rocks and walked the trails. Stuff that didnt require a lot of language.

Sunday, we took her to the Space Needle. :)

It sure was cloudy, but that didn't prevent Seattle from looking pretty amazing.

We introduced her to some good ole' American snacks.... REDVINES!

Itsuka really wanted to have tacos. So, we made tacos. Please, no comment on my apperance, I was sick....

Twister. Japanese people must be really flexible, cause Itsuka would never fall during this game.

I think this is cute. I dont know why. But it is her book about America. And what cracks me up is that there are 2 cow boys on the front of the book. Cause you know... here in America we all live on a ranch and have about 5 horses. That is just how America is.

Our savior....

Itsuka wanted to make us a Japanese dinner one night. She made Teriyaki chicken. When she was telling us what she would need, she mentioned maple syrup. We were all sure that she was confusing this with some other English word. But nope... you use maple syrup. And let me tell you... it was one of the best dinners of my life. I LOVED it! Yummy! We now call this dinner Itsuka's Chicken! Yummy Yummy Yummy!

YUMMY DINNER ITSUKA! And.. bonus, I FINALLY learned how to use chop sticks. Well, sorta. There were times where I just gave up and stabbed the food with my chop sticks. But other times I could sort of use them correctly. But Itsuka, she was the master. I think that she could have picked up a slippery microscopic item with those chop sticks. She was a pro.

Then we took her to Cabelas.

Ya, this is what we do in America. Go to stores, put on weird hats, and look like we just killed something.

She taught us how to do Origami.

We all made Cranes.

More pictures to come. But let me say, this has been a great week and we all LOVE Itsuka.