I know that I am not supposed to begin a letter with an apology, but here it is. I am sorry I have been so sporadic about writing this summer. I am assuming you are having the same problem yourselves. Everything is just so busy and chaotic and the days seem to fly by all on their own accord. I have sort of a love/hate relationship with summer. Mostly I love it. I love the long warm days, the lack of homework, that feeling of having all the time in the world. I love to stitch outside until the dark and the mosquitoes drive us indoors. I love sitting outside until 2 in the morning wrapped in blankets watching for a mysterious meteor shower. And I love weekend trips to Bear Lake. It's funny, I watch with a certain dread the last week of school. Christian is positively dancing and counting the minutes, yet a significant part of me thinks--YIKES--three months--what are we going to do. And then each year, we get to this time in August with registration, and meetings with counselors, and the First Day looming in the near future, and I feel sort of sad. Like how did it go by so quickly? There were at least a hundred things we wanted to do, and for some reason only a few of them actually happened. Teri, of course, in her mean streak, will spend the next 2 weeks humming It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and Christian will protest loudly.
We have had a very fun experience this August. We have hosted a foreign exchange student for a month who is part of a group of 22 youth from all over the world spending 4 weeks in Ogden honing--or maybe acquiring-- their English skills before moving to a host family for the school year. I have to say that we have had a blast! My first instinct was to say no, because I am just not very spontaneous, but Bob and Chris and even Teri kept saying--it might be a lot of fun. So we have had the joy of having a 15 year old French boy--Lucien with us. What a great experience. He is so sweet and darling and came to us with very little English. We are half way through, and I look at him now and cannot believe how much better his language skills are in such a short time. We have made hundreds of pieces of French Toast, experienced the trauma--on my part--of a major haircut, been on the go pretty much 24/7, and shared the Olympics through his eyes as well. For some reason, this week he and Chris have given up sleep and seem to have endless things to do until we chase them off in the wee hours of the morning. I know that he is going on to a lucky family in the Midwest, but I can't even think about it. Ah--the joys and surprises of summer.
Summer is always busy at the shop. We love welcoming people from all over the world, and in spite of the price of gas, that hasn't changed this year even though I heard on the news that our prices in the West are the highest in the country. Great! We have been busy filling market orders and preparing for the upcoming retreat. We have also had many, many darling things stitched, so just watch for the pictures to come up. I know that Teri has been photographing and preparing to put some of the pics on the blog, but she will have to write explanations since I am not sure what she is putting on.
Well. I have to go on. The deliberation and purchase of new athletic shoes for 2 15-year-olds seems to be in my immediate future. As is the movie--The Dark Knight which I have put off as long as I can. See you next week--I almost promise.
hugs--Tina
Christian, Lucien our foreign exchange student from France, Chin- Wei- From Taiwan, and Raphael also from France, on an excursion to the mountains.
Tina's Bob, Raphael, Lucien, and Christian on the gondola to the top of the mountain behind our city.
On a trip to the lake last week end, we took Lucien up to visit Paris Idaho, Population 576. He said it is very different from his Paris. He has the greatest accent!!!
