Meet and Greet Picnic!

Saturday finally came and the kids got ready to meet their host families. Since I still had a lot of preparation work to do, I left out some cereal and bread for the kids and told them to fix their own breakfast. After that, they still needed to clean up the house and fold up their bedding. I give the boys +10 bonus points for having the cleanest rooms. And the girls? Um... Well, I believe in positive re-enforcement, so let's give the girls +10 bonus points for simulating what a tornado would do to a bedroom! Nice science project, girls! :-P

After a few gentle reminders from me, the kids finally got to work and the house was reasonably clean by the time the host families arrived. I have to admire their mental toughness. The kids were very nervous about meeting their host families, but they still packed their stuff, cleaned the house, and got themselves organized without too much prodding from me. Again their parents should be proud of them. They've been very good this whole trip, and they've displayed a lot of maturity and responsibility too.

We had planned a "picnic" at the parsonage house around 2:00pm, but the Konens wanted to pick May and Jan up early because they had plans to see an ice show in the afternoon. So the girls would be the first to leave the group. When the Konens finally arrived at 11:00am, everyone rushed to the windows to see their car drive up and to get their first look at a host family. Then May and Jan got their gifts out of their piles and gave them to Mrs. Konen. Mrs. Konen seemed very nice and I'm sure the girls will be in good hands with her, however May and Jan looked very sad to be leaving their friends. As the girls loaded their suitcases into Mrs. Konen's car, the rest of the group said their good-byes. All week long I'd been teasingly asking May, "Are you going to miss me?" To which she would laughingly reply, "NO!!" (At least until I pulled on her nose long enough to get her to say, "Yes!", haha!!). But as the girls got into the car, May started crying and that started Jan crying too. I asked May, "Aw, are you going to miss me now?" To which she finally replied, "Yes!" :').

Jan and May with the Konens

After that tearful farewell, it was James (Jetnipit) and Sea's turn to go. The Kupskys had originally planned to pick them up around 2:00pm, but they surprised us by pulling up around noon. The boys weren't quite ready to go, but they didn't complain. They got their gifts and suitcases together while Justus Kupsky and Jet played some basketball. I talked over some details with Mr. Kupsky and then the boys loaded up into the car and drove off to a basketball tournament.

Sea and James with the Kupskys

So now our little group was down to seven. The house seemed quieter already and the kids were a bit subdued. Their week in Valders was coming to an end and their tight-knit group was breaking up. So we quietly cleaned up the house and prepared the food for the meet-and-greet picnic. Around 2:00pm the rest of the host families showed up. The Millers, Brills, Popes, and Rycrofts crowded into the house (the Franks got a bit lost and showed up an hour later, which worried Jet quite a lot!). At first, the Thai kids hid in the kitchen, while the host families talked in the living room. While I was in the kitchen getting some drinks, Sky came running into the room and hid behind the refrigerator. She said to me, "Teacher! My heart is going 'Boom! Boom!'" Hahah!

When the Popes showed up, TJ immediately introduced himself to Tong, "Hi! I'm TJ!" and Tong replied, "Hi! I'm Tong!" So I knew those two would get along just fine. I also encouraged Gam to show the Miller kids how to make paper birds, which helped her break the ice with them. Later on, I found Tong and Gam playing with the Miller kids downstairs, so they seemed to be doing very well. The older kids, however, needed a lot of encouragement to get them out of the kitchen and into the living room where the host families were.

Jump and the girls prepared some fried vegetables, rice and Thai omelet. It was the best we could do to simulate Thai cooking since we didn't have very many Thai ingredients or things to cook them in. They did a really good job, though, and the food tasted very good. Eventually Gird and Sky squeezed into a chair together to talk to Mr. Brill. To use a Wisconsin expression, they looked like "a deer stuck in headlights", which means their faces were frozen with a look of wide-eyed fear, hahah! But they talked a bit and answered a few questions, so that was a good start for them. I knew they were very nervous so it was pretty brave of them to come out of the kitchen to talk.

James (Jirayu) looked very sad to be separating from Gird and Sky. He looked like a puppy that had just been kicked :-(. I talked with him a bit about focusing on the positive and how it was important for him to think about what he had, not what he was missing, but I could see he was probably going to suffer from a bit of homesickness once the group broke up. Jump seemed to be getting along well with Adam Rycroft (the Rycroft's son), but he came up to me at one point and asked, "How old is Adam?" I told him that Adam was about the same age as Jump, but he didn't believe me because Adam was so tall! Haha! Jet seemed to be doing fine as long as he had a basketball in his hand, so he and some of the boys were playing ball outside and becoming fast friends. Basketball seems to be a universal language that all boys can understand. When Tyler Frank showed up, it immediately became clear that the Franks would have to deal with two teenaged comedians, so even though Jet was a sport nut and Tyler was a computer nut, I think they'll do fine together.

My parents stopped by to say good bye to all the kids too. They really enjoyed having the kids over to their house and I think my Dad is actually going to miss them! After some good food, some introductions, some jokes, and some pre-planning for the baseball game, the host families began to take the kids home. The kids stuffed their suitcases into each car and said their good-byes. As each car drove off, our group got smaller and smaller until I was alone in an empty house.

James with the Nelsons

Gird and Sky with the Brills

Jump with the Rycrofts

Jet with the Franks

Gam with the Millers

Tong with the Popes

It's been a great week and I'm very happy with the way things went. We had a few minor problems, but nothing unexpected. The kids were all really great and it's been wonderful sharing this experience with them. I'm not sure if they're going to miss me (haha!), but I'm really going to miss them!

Friday Fish Boil

On Friday, we spent the whole day cleaning the house and packing suitcases. I wanted the kids to be ready when their host families arrived so there would be no last-minute scrabbles to find missing socks or papers. I had the kids put everything that belonged to them in separate piles, and so we had 11 different stacks of suitcases, coats, and gifts scattered around the downstairs of the house.

The kids had been great all week, real troopers, but the anxiety was beginning to show. They were VERY nervous about meeting their host families and being separated from their friends. During the past week, they had become a tight-knit group, and now it was time for them to go their separate ways so they were a bit anxious about it. Walking around the house I noticed several sad faces, and strangely enough, cleaning does not cheer kids up. Huh. ;-)

So we went back over to my parents' house. The kids really enjoyed visiting my parents and so I knew hanging out at their house would cheer them up. Plus I needed to make some photocopies of their documents for the host families and schools, so I needed to use my Dad's copier. First we had to eat dinner and luckily enough, the village fire station was having a "fish boil" that afternoon, so we dropped by the station before going to my parents' house.

In rural America, fire and emergency services are often handled by volunteers. The villages or towns might contribute some money to their budget, but quite often the firemen and paramedics need to raise money to support their station. So they might have bake sales, fish boils, or raffles to bring in some extra money to buy equipment. When we arrived at the station, they had parked all the fire trucks outside to make room for tables inside the station. The kids lined up and the firemen piled food on their plates, then they sat down and ate their fill. We had boiled fish, potatoes, carrots and onions. They also had desert and milk.

Sea and James (Jetnipit) had taken some pipe cleaners from my Mom's stuff and fashioned them into "Harry Potter" glasses. They took turns daring each other to walk up to the milk/desert tables while wearing the goofy-looking glasses. It was very funny and they got plenty of strange looks from the other people at the fish boil. Meanwhile, the sons and daughters of the firemen were busy pouring coffee and milk for everyone, and one boy had on a scout uniform. Jump noticed that the patches on his uniform were the same as the patches on their scout uniforms back in Thailand. Another cool connection to things back home.

After the fish boil, took a few pictures on an old fire truck they had parked inside and then we walked back up to my parents' house. The kids finished wrapping presents, blogging, and watching TV while I tried to get all the copying done. Next time I do this trip I'm definitely hiring an assistant to help me! I didn't finish the copying before I left Thailand, and I wasn't able to finish it at my parents' house either. So I took the copier back to the parsonage and stayed up all night copying! Since I needed copies of all the documents for myself, the host families and the schools, it took almost 8 hours to finish all the copies! And that's not including the time I spent in Thailand copying too, Ugh! Also, chaperoning a bunch of teenagers by myself wasn't easy, so next time I'm definitely bringing along a female chaperone. That way, I'll be able to get some sleep! Hahah!

Gift Wrapping and Lefse-Making

Well, it's Wednesday morning here. Sorry about the lack of updates over the weekend, but it was a bit hectic! Wow, I just realized that my last blog was last week on Thursday morning! Time really flies when you are busy!! I'll try to make up for it by posting all the blogs today, so grab yourself something to eat and settle in!

On Thursday, we made plans to go over to my parents' house to wrap some gifts for the host families. So we packed up paper bags full of presents and got ready to walk over to their house. While we were doing that, Gird, Sky and James (Jirayu) excitedly showed me a note they had found on our front door. It was from a reporter from the local newspaper who wanted to interview our group about their trip. So on the way to my parents' house we stopped at the Valders Journal to talk with the reporter. He brought the kids into his office a few at a time to ask them questions about America and Thailand. The kids were a little nervous and shy, but they answered the questions very well. Gird even showed him the comics she's been drawing in her diary and he liked them so much, he took a picture of Gird holding her journal. One week in America and she's already a superstar!

At my parents house the kids settled in to wrap and decorate their gifts. My Mom put out paper, stickers, pipe cleaners, crayons and markers for the kids to use and they proceeded to make a HUGE mess :-). My Mom's dog, Pepper, attached himself to Tong, James (Jetnipit) and Gam and wouldn't leave them alone. Whenever they sat down, he would jump up in their lap and lick them. Some of the kids also used my parents' internet to blog and update their Facebook pages.

I was a little worried about how my Dad would react to having his house overrun with children, but he seemed to enjoy it. The first thing Tong did when he met my Dad was to rub my Dad's belly and ask him, "Mr. Carroll, why are you so fat?" Haha! That really endeared him and so my Dad took him upstairs to his office so Tong could show his blog to my Dad. We had pizzas for lunch and ice cream sandwiches too, of course!

After trashing my parents' house, the kids stacked up all their gifts in one corner and headed back to the parsonage for dinner. We had a light dinner because we were running a bit late and had to get over to the parsonage by 7:00pm. I made sure the kids bundled up warmly because I knew the weather was going to turn quite cold after dark. During the day it had been a bit chilly, but once the sun went down, I knew the temperature would drop to at least -5'C, so I didn't want any of the kids to get sick because they weren't dressed warmly enough. I also packed an extra jacket in my bag because I knew Gird was going to need it. She's been unwilling to sacrifice fashion for warmth and so she's always insisting that her thin hoodie is warm enough, but I knew she'd need something extra to keep her warm on the way back home, so I put one of my windbreakers into my backpack just in case.

Once at the church, the kids got ready to make some lefse, which is a Norwegian flatbread made from potatoes. Valders was originally settled by Norwegians and so lefse is a traditional food that still eaten by many families in the area. The potatoes are mashed into a paste and then using a lot of flour (because the mixture is so sticky), they are rolled up into small balls. After that, they are flattened out using a rolling pin and then grilled on a large flat grill. Once they are finished, they can be buttered and topped with sugar and then rolled up and eaten. Mmmmmm! Delicious!

Some people from the church had volunteered to help the kids make lefse, including Mrs. Brill and Abbey Brill (Gird and Sky were still too shy to talk to her in person, good thing they had Facebook!). Pastor Jim gave the kids a little instruction, and then they got started. May, Gam, and Jan made a huge mess mixing the dough with their fingers. They ended up with their hands just covered in lefse paste. Tong was doing a great job cooking lefse on the grill. He had a wooden stick to flip the lefse with, but he didn't have very much lefse to show for his efforts because every time he finished one, James (Jetnipit), Jet and Tong would eat it! At first, Gird, Sky and James (Jirayu) didn't want to get their hands dirty so they hung back while the other kids kneaded the dough. But eventually they started cooking lefse with Sea and had a great time. Jump was getting lefse turning tips from Abbey, but then Mrs. Brill stepped in to show him how to do it, hmmmm.... ;).

The first one to eat their lefse was James (Jetnipit). Pastor Jim showed him how to butter it, top it with sugar, and then roll it up. When James took a bite, the expression on his face was very funny. He looked like he'd just eaten some dried glue :-), hahah! The lefse was very, very dry, and a bit thicker than normal. Eventually the kids got a little better at rolling thin lefse and also putting enough butter on it to make it softer, it still wasn't perfectly Norwegian, but it was very delicious! We ended up with a big stack of lefse and so we took that home so we could eat it for breakfast.

It was a long, cold walk back to the parsonage, and Gird needed an extra jacket, of course. As fashionable as her white hoodie was, it wasn't up to handling -5'C temperatures (with wind chill dropping it to -10'C!!). So even though it was horribly uncool, she gladly took my extra jacket to wear on the walk home. Fortunately it was dark out so nobody could see her fashion faux pas! We got back to the parsonage around 9:30pm, and so I told all the kids to get ready for bed. It had been a long, busy day and I wanted them to get some sleep.

I had to have a little discussion with the boys, because they'd gone into the kitchen to make some cereal instead of going to bed. At the beginning of the week, I had set up a "snack shelf" full of food that I told the kids they could eat any time they wanted, but the food for meals was not to be touched. I didn't want hungry teenagers eating everything in sight and leaving us without food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In Thailand, it's very easy to walk outside and get a bowl of noodles or a snack for 20 baht. Food is very cheap there, and it's one of the ways in which Thailand is a rich country. However, in America, food is very expensive, and for people in the countryside, the market might be a long, cold walk or drive away. So it is important for the boys to learn that they can't treat the kitchen as an all-you-can-eat buffet, but it's good that they learned that lesson with me, and not their host families.

Overall, the kids have been wonderful all week. I've seen them take big steps towards maturity and responsibility, which is exactly what these kinds of trips are supposed to do. The kids have really grown a lot. They haven't always liked it when I've lectured them about misbehaving, but as I told them, they are representing Thailand here and so they need to be on their best behavior. For many local people, these kids will be the first (and maybe the only) Thai people they ever meet, and so the locals will develop opinions about Thai people and Thailand based on what the kids do. So I've been reminding the kids all week to be extra good, and for the most part, they have been really, really good kids. Their parents and Thailand should be proud of the way these kids have represented their country over here. I get many compliments from people about how well-behaved and courteous these kids are. Great job, guys!

Laundry Day

On Wednesday, we had a little downtime. I've been keeping the kids pretty busy so far, but they needed a break to reflect on what they've done so far, write some postcards, and do some laundry. So we had an easy and relaxing day. The oldre boys walked over to my parents' house to do some laundry (my Mom's been drafting all the kids into making button-bookmarks and surprisingly even the boys have gotten in on the act). I made Tong stay in bed because he's been feeling sick, so while he napped upstairs, I had the girls for their first orientation class. I find it's easier to get the kids attention if they separate into two groups. Otherwise the boys just compete to see who can annoy the girls the most :-P. I talked with the girls about their trip so far and answered their questions about their schools and host families.

After that we walked down to Christel's Piggly Wiggly to do some shopping. I wanted to give them a chance to buy any "girl stuff" they might need without the boys around, but instead they just bought ice cream sandwiches, ...girls.

While we were at the Piggly Wiggly, I ran into my brother's eldest son, Jason. I didn't even recognize him! Last time I saw him he was a 13 year old kid, and now he's a 20 year old man! Wow, that made me feel old! After, Christel's, we walked over to the post office to get some stamps for their postcards. It costs 98 cents to mail a postcard now!! Wow! That's so expensive!

We ate lunch at The Diner, a small restaurant just down the street from the parsonage. Gird and Sky have been taking photos of nearly everything they eat, so they got some lovely pictures of a hotdog and a hamburger. They also showed me their diaries that they've been writing. Sky has been writing quite a lot and she has pages filled already. Gird has been drawing very creative and funny cartoons in her journal. In one comic, she tells about her dismay at the prices over here. She bought a small bag of pretzls from Auntie Annie's in the mall and it cost her $3.50, so in the comic she drew her eyes bugging-out and then crying because the bag was so small and she was not full after eating the pretzls. What a great way to document their trip! Of course, Gird split water all over her journal too, so I'm not sure if it'll survive the trip. In Thailand there is a saying that a "clumsy girl is a beautiful girl". If that's the case, then Gird must be the most beautiful girl in Thailand because she is certainly the clumsiest! So far she's dropped her notebook and her phone, and she spills just about everything. James was joking with me earlier that after this trip, Gird is going to have to buy everything new again! Haha!

Most of the boys had lunch over at my parents' house although a few boys mistakenly thought that my Mom was their maid and that she would make all their sandwiches for them. Nope, this is America boys, so get used to doing things on your own. If she lays out food for you in the kitchen, then you're just going to have to get off the sofa, walk in there, and make it yourself. Most of the boys got themselves lunch, but the ones who didn't learned a valuable lesson.

After the boys returned from my parents' house with fresh laundry, the girls took their turn and I sat down to talk with the boys. The thing I want to accomplish most with these orientation classes is to talk about potential problems and then give the kids the tools to solve those problems. So, for example, we talked about homesickness and how to deal with it. We also talked about problems they might encounter at school and what to do in those situations.

Around 4:00pm my brother stopped by with his two younger sons, Bryce and Cole. They'd been looking forward to playing some basketball with the boys since Monday, and so they immediately started up a game. They played for almost two hours! Sea, Tong, and both Jameses also played some Bocce ball in the yard. James (Jetnipit) is surprisingly good and he won most of the games. At least, until I started playing, hahah!

My Mom has been having way too much fun cooking and baking for these kids. I've tried to convince her that I have enough food already and that I'm quite capable of cooking for all the kids, but she makes food anyway. She's baked some banana bread and corn bread for them, and last night she brought over a big pot of spaghetti. The kids really enjoyed it. Gird and Sky also made some brownies in my Mom's kitchen, and they were very proud of their accomplishment. The brownies were delicious too, thanks girls!

So it was a pretty uneventful day, and yet we still managed to do a lot. It's about 6:00am right now on Thursday morning. I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to upload this blog, but hopefully I'll be able to post it this morning. Tonight we're going over to the church to make lefse, which should be a lot of fun. Lefse is very delicious so I'm sure the kids will enjoy making it.

Maritime Museum

On Tuesday after breakfast, we went to the Maritime Museum in Manitowoc. We took the school bus out of Valders on Highway 151 and so it was the first time I've seen the huge new Spancrete factory just outside of town. The whole village sits on a big deposit of limestone, and so the town's main export is stone, marble and concrete. It's the town's main employer and in fact, my brother works as a safety engineer at Spancrete. In the past few years, they've really expanded their operations, but now with the economy slowing down they are cutting back again. I asked my brother about doing a field trip at the new factory, but he said it was a bit too dangerous in there for little kids and they probably wouldn't understand much of what's going on since it's a very complex operation.

When we arrived in Manitowoc, I noticed a lot of changes since the last time I'd been there. The entire western part of town has been built up and many new businesses have opened up along the entrance into town on Highway 151. Wal-Mart had been there when I last visited, but now it's surrounded by many other stores. Tong was very curious to see "Springhill Drive", but unfortunately we didn't drive past it.

The Martime Museum has been completely rebuilt since the last time I was in Manitowoc and now it's actually quite nice. The submarine sits in the river next to the museum, not far from were they used to build them during World War II. It's the USS Cobia and although it wasn't built in Manitowoc, it's very similar to the types of submarines they build here during the war. The museum staff was very happy to welcome a group from Thailand and they even gave us a free DVD video about the USS Lagarto, a Manitowoc-built submarine that was sunk by the Japanese in the Gulf of Thailand. The kids were excited to see Thai-language on the sides of some of the boats in photos from that DVD. Apparently the Lagarto had only recently been discovered and a research mission had been sponsored by the museum to visit the grave of the Lagarto just off the coast of Koh Samui. They made a DVD about the submarine, its construction in Manitowoc, its battle with the Japanese minelayer Hatsutaka in the Gulf of Thailand, and the discovery of the sunken submarine 60 years later. So the kids discovered a small connection between Manitowoc and Thailand already exists.

The first thing we did was take a tour of the submarine. The USS Cobia has been faithfully restored and it's practically in working condition. The older kids were more interested in taking lots of photos of each other on the sub, but I did manage to prod them into asking the guide a few questions. They do allow kids to stay overnight on the submarine, but I was correct in guessing that might be a bit too scary for the kids. During the daytime it's fine, but at night I bet that sub gets pretty spooky. It's very cramped and dark down there, and I bumped my head a lot, ouch! The kids really enjoyed the tour and they certainly took a lot of photos!

I set the older kids free to explore the museum, although I think they spent most of their time exploring the gift shop! I took the younger ones downstairs to the children's area. First they tried out the fishing-simulator, which allowed them to see what deep-sea sport fishing was like. Then we went into the waterways exhibit, and they stayed in there for the rest of the day. It had large basins of water that simulated rivers, canals and dams. The kids could put boats in the water and experiment with different currents and winds. They could also use pipes to build elaborate fountains which helped them to understand water pressure. Of course, from their point of view, they just had a lot of fun! They didn't visit any other part of the museum because they had so much fun playing in that room. I only managed to catch glimpse of the rest of the museum, but it looked really nice. They had lots of boats and engines and shipbuilding equipment displayed in very interesting manner. I would have liked to explore that section of the museum more, but it was time for lunch so we had to go.

I took the kids down to Nikko's, a Thai-American restaurant not far from the museum. Again I'm trying to balance familiar tastes with new tastes to help the kids adjust. The kids ordered fried rice and tom yum soup. It was delicious, however the tastes had been Americanized to suit people here. So the tom yum soup, for example was not sour and spicy, instead it was very sweet. The fried rice was actually spicier than you'd find in Thailand, but no matter, the kids were just happy to eat some Thai food. I took some pictures of the kids enjoying their meal and I managed to catch Gird with a very funny expression. I don't know why, but whenever I take a picture of her, she's always got a strange look on her face. I think she just has bad photo luck! Haha! I promised her I wouldn't post the photo to my blog, but if you want to see it, I'm willing to sell it for the right price. Right now, I've got Gird paying me $20 a month to "remind me" not to "accidentally" upload it, but if you can beat that offer, I'll go with the highest bidder, hahah!

After lunch we went to the library. The kids have been great about updating their blogs, and so they were eager for another opportunity to get online and update everyone on what they've been doing. I'm about a day or two behind on my own blogging, so I uploaded Monday's blog while we were at the library, but I didn't get a chance to do much writing about the museum trip while we were there. I'm writing this blog on Thursday morning because I didn't have a chance to get online at all yesterday. Sorry about the delays, but usually the only chance I get to do these blogs is when I wake up at 5:00am to get breakfast ready for the kids. Yesterday, I was a little tired, so I slept late, which is why I didn't post a blog. I did upload a video, though. I've got some more videos to upload, but I want to edit them before uploading because they are a bit too long for youtube. Hopefully, I'll get those uploaded some time next week.

When we got back to the parsonage house, we had to wait a little bit for Pastor Jim come let us in because I forgot my key inside and locked us out, oops! When we got inside the kids went online to blog about their day or to chat with friends and family back home. Tong has been feeling a little sick lately, and when kids are sick that's when they miss their moms the most, so he had a little bout of homesickness. I've been trying to keep the kids busy so they don't notice it so much, but keeping them busy also increases their fatigue and makes them more likely to get sick, so it's a bit of a balancing act. Keeping them just busy enough to not be homesick while at the same time giving them enough downtime to rest, relax and recover from jetlag. So far, the kids have been doing remarkably well, but eventually they are all going to get a bit homesick.

Staying together as a group has been helpful, but once they go off to their host families, I expect their homesickness to increase, especially with the ones who are staying on their own. On Tuesday night, Tong was feeling tired and sick, and so that's when homesickness is really going to show. After a good night's sleep he was fine, and on Wednesday he was playing happily with the other kids, so the best cures for homesickness are: keeping busy during the day and getting a good sleep at night. In the next few weeks, I suspect that a few parents are going to get tearful, "I want to come home!" phone calls. That's normal and to be expected. Please check with them to make sure nothing is seriously wrong and then just be supportive. Chances are, after a good night's rest they'll be just fine the next day.

The boys playing with my nephews

I've got a lot more videos from this trip, but it'll take me a while to edit them all. So I'll probably post the videos some time next week. In the meantime, here's one of my nephews playing basketball with my students.

Cheese Factory and Dairy Farm

Today we woke up early and ate breakfast. The school bus was scheduled to arrive at 8:30am, so it was a bit of a rush to get 11 kids showered, fed, and dressed before then, especially considering we only have one shower and one frying pan. But with a little encouragement, they all got ready on time. The bus rolled up at 8:30am and we were out the door and on our way to Kiel.

We visited Hennings Cheese to see how cheese is made. This is the same cheese factory that was featured on the Discovery channel recently, and so we got to see the real thing for ourselves. First we watched an introductory video and then we got ready to go out on the factory floor. The cheese-making process is very sensitive to bacteria, so we had to put on hair nets and use hand sanitizer before we could enter the factory.

The whole building is keep refrigerated, so it was a bit chilly for the kids without their jackets, but they had a great time looking at the big vats filled with cheese curds and whey. The string cheese extruder was also very interesting, as big ropes of string cheese were squeezed out of the machine. We also got to see them waxing big wheels of cheddar cheese and we checked out the storeroom where they had huge wheels of cheese that weighed over 650 kilos!

After the tour, they gave us some fresh string cheese and cheese curds to taste. The kids liked the curds, but they were a little bit too salty. We learned that it takes about 24 hours for the salt to "migrate" throughout the cheese, and so when it's fresh, cheese is very salty. But it was still delicious and the kids liked it very much. They spent a bit of time shopping in the gift store and then we loaded up onto the bus to go to lunch.

We stopped at a Chinese buffet in New Holstein for lunch. The kids enjoyed a little taste of "normal" food. They've been missing rice and stir-fried cooking, so this was a welcome break from American food. Jet-lag and system-shock has started to have an effect on the kids. They are getting sniffles and minor headaches and some of the kids are suffering from minor stomach problems (too much cheese!). We've also had a few emotional outbursts too. All of this was expected and so far the kids have been dealing with it very well. It's not easy to travel thousands of miles, flip from day to night, stay far from family and friends, and adjust to new foods and experiences. So I've been trying to balance the new with the familiar. They've got to get used to the food here, but I also try to make sure they get some tastes of home too. It helps them to adjust both physically and emotionally.

After lunch we drove past the school in New Holstein. Gird, Sky, May and Jan were very interested in the school and pleased with what they saw. I asked Gird and Sky if they approved of New Holstein's school and they told me they prefered it to their school in Thailand because it looked very beautiful. So I hope they are feeling a bit more reassured.

We went to the Fieder farm outside of New Holstein to see how milk is produced. When we got off the bus we were met by the Fieder children, who had taken the day off from school to meet our group. The two Fieder girls are in 4th and 5th grade so they will be classmates with May and Jan. Hopefully they will become good friends! The Fieder kids led us to the barn where we met their Mom, Dad and Grandpa. The Fieders were very warm and friendly people, and it was very kind of them to show us around their farm.

At first the kids thought the cow barn was too smelly and dirty. The cows were doing what they do best (eating and pooping), and the kids found that to be both fascinating and disgusting. They also worried about getting their shoes and jackets dirty, but I told them that's just part of being on a farm. The Tim and Angie Fieder have about 200 cows on their farm so it's a very big operation.

After we toured the cow barn, we went out to see the calves (baby cows). The kids have been feeling a bit run down and emotionally strained lately so it was good to see them brighten up at the sight of the calves. There was also a bit of snow in the shade of the barn and so the kids enjoyed stomping around in it. Gam stuck her hand in the cage of one of the calves and it promptly began to suckle on her hand as if it was an udder! Hahah! She ended up with a hand full of cow saliva! Since the calves were obviously thristy, the Fieders brought out a big water bottle and let the kids feed them.

Then Tim Fieder brought out one of their tractors. An absolutely HUGE green-and-yellow John Deere tractor. They let the kids take pictures from the cab and wheel wells. They used the tractor for moving cow feed into big mounds for storage. After that we walked over to the milking parlor and the Tim's Dad showed the kids how the milking machines worked. The kids put their thumbs into the milker so they could feel the pulsating suction of the machine.Once we finished in the milking parlor, the Fieders treated us to ice cream sandwiches and Angie Fieder gave me a big stack of educational materials for the kids. She often teaches American city kids about farming and so she had plenty of materials on hand. Again the Fieders were very kind and gracious hosts and the kids were very appreciative of their hospitality. It was certainly one of the high points of their trip and something they will always remember.

After we returned to the parsonage, my brother, Bob, stopped by for a visit. He brought his two sons, Bryce and Cole, with him and they quickly challenged the boys to a game of basketball. The kids became fast friends and a physical game of basketball developed. Pretty soon Bryce was telling my brother that he didn't want to leave. He wanted to keep playing basketball with his new Thai friends. Cole didn't want to leave either, although I suspect that had more to do with the fact that he had homework waiting for him! We tried to get Jan to agree to do Cole's homework (they're in the same grade), but no amount of bribery would get her to agree to do his homework! hahah!

After dinner some of the kids went over to my parents' house to do laundry. My mom drafted them into making button-bookmarks and they really enjoyed the activity. My mom has also been cooking way, way too much food for these kids, but I think she's really enjoying having all these kids running around.