Our Halloween Exchange Student

Here is Yuuki when we first picked him up from BYU.
He is very nervous here in this picture he tells me later.

It was especially fun because he got to be here for Halloween
which is something not celebrated in Japan, and therefore really fun for everyone!
His English wasn't the greatest. Sometimes I would be talking to him and Nathaniel would be standing there and say, "Mom, he isn't getting a word you are saying" right out loud! Or he'd just shake his head at me. The girls would talk to him like he was a deaf Indian.
"Yuuki! You having fun in A-mer-i-ca?"
John would skip around the house singing, "Yuuki likes to dukey! Yuuki likes to dukey!" I was really glad in moments like this that his English was so limited.

Yuuki's pumpkin came out great even if this picture doesn't do it justice!
This was his first pumpkin carving experience. I think he thought I was a little crazy when I roasted up the seeds and offered him some but he ended up really liking them and I sent some home with him. He said they tasted like peanuts.

Left to right John's, Rebecca's and Nathaniel's.

Sarah was especially impressive because she free-handed it.

I went into John and Rebecca's classrooms to do this Halloween craft with the kids I got out of a Family Fun magazine. I spray painted 60 gourds and cut out twice as many bat wings for this project!

Here is John's class all holding up their bats.

This was followed by the school Halloween parade. What a madhouse!

John's teacher is the cutest isn't she? Love her.

Rebecca and Brooke. Check out those fake lashes I put on Rebecca.

Some of the neighborhood kids. John is front left and Rebecca, who had sprayed her hair black with her friend at some point, on the top left.

We of course made Yuuki get dressed up and trick-or-treat. These are Nathaniel and Sarah's last minute costumes. Sarah is the 80's aerobic instructor and Nathaniel is a leprechaun I guess.

Gettin' ready for some Jane Fonda, baby!

John wasn't feeling so hot and ended up peeling off his costume and parking himself on the porch to hand out candy.

We took Yuuki to Boondocks. We all had a blast.

Laser tag. Love the missing tooth!

There were smaller go carts for the smaller kids.
I was very impressed when John finally agreed to drive one.

There's John waaaay in the back!

The jet lag started in pretty good after Yuuki was here for a few days.
This was on the way home from Boondocks. We all but had to carry him into the house.

It was dark when we left Boondocks and I ended up going past a turn to get to the freeway and drove a few miles down a road that was looking more and more dark and abandoned by the second. The GPS wasn't receiving signal and so Nathaniel filled in by saying in his best GPS voice, "You are now entering serial-killer zone."
Ha Ha!

Took him to Temple Square on Friday night, which ended being a disaster. The road construction was so bad it took us almost 2 hours to get there.
Then I managed to get lost in Salt Lake somehow--good grief. We got to the temple just as they were starting to close gates and such. We missed our show at the planaterium and everyone was exhausted, cold, cranky, and hungry.
No doubt it was a real eye-opener for Yuuki as the night wore on and I began to lose it.
At least we had a good dinner that night on the way home at a BBQ restaurant.

Yuuki ended up being a great kid. We razzed him quite a bit about his picture that was sent in his application. It was obvious he didn't think it was a great portrayal of him either and he laughed. He was a very kind, warm, curious, and polite boy. Just as we've found all of our Japanese exchange students to be really. It was a great experience.