My first post of 2014! The air crackles with excitement as the crowd roars its approval with a shout of . . . "Whatever!"
Anyway, I will begin the new year by reporting on the remainder of Akane's visit with us.
Akane had stayed
with us during the summertime during her initial exchange student visit. When we have had exchange students in our home, we try to incorporate them into our family; letting them participate in our normal family routine of reading scriptures and praying and the like. It was no different with Akane during her first visit nor was there any change this time even though she wasn’t a visiting exchange student. Other than the trip to Vegas, we really didn’t do anything with her that we didn’t normally do during Christmas time. One evening, we asked her a lot of questions about her life in Japan. She showed us where she lives and the university she is attending using Google Earth. It was interesting to use the "ground view" aspect of Google Earth to actually see a close up view of her home. She also showed us places she likes to visit, places where she has scuba-dived and places where she has vacationed. At one point during her visit, I wondered if she was enjoying her stay with us because we weren’t going places and doing “exciting” things every day, but as I watched her interact with us, I realized she was happy and it wasn’t necessary for us to be doing anything other than what we were doing.
In keeping with including her in all our Christmas
traditions, we watched Mr. Krueger's Christmas and our slate of Christmas cartoons on the 23rd (Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Noses Reindeer, Twas the Night Before Christmas, The Year without a Santa Claus); reading the
Christmas story in the Bible and Book of Mormon and watching It’s a Wonderful Life on the 24th;
opening presents and visiting Jen’s parents on the 25th. We wanted her to feel a part on Christmas Day, so Jennifer made sure she had some presents to open. It's funny. As I look at the pictures of that morning, Akane took the time to shower and dress nice before we opened presents and the rest of us are in our pj's with crazy hair. Our visit with Jennifer's parents was very nice. Jen's mom also had a gift for Akane and we had a good time opening presents. Dinner was different. In previous years, turkey has been the main course, but Jen's dad wanted prime rib this year--yum. We had a nice day and enjoyed the time with family.
On the 28th, we returned to the Los Angeles Temple with Akane to see the
lights and go through the Visitor’s Center. On the way, we ate at the same In-n-Out we had found three weeks earlier while taking Xavier to the temple. Jennifer had told one of the Sister missionaries we met when we came three weeks before that we would be coming again. After walking around the temple and showing Akane where I had proposed to Jennifer, we entered the Visitor's Center and found the same Sister. She remembered us and wanted to help us find another Sister missionary in their ranks who
could speak Japanese to Akane. The closest person the Sister could find was a Sister from South Korea who could speak a small amount of Japanese. At first, this seemed to work and Akane and the missionary appeared to have a conversation. A few minutes later, however, the Sisters were able to recruit a visiting
“civilian” sister who had served a mission in Japan (one of those non-coincidental coincidences). It was fun to watch them interact. Jennifer and I were able to show Akane some pictures of the rooms of the LA Temple from one of the displays in the Visitor's Center and to show her a picture of a sealing room like the one in which we were married.
We gave her a
Book of Mormon in English (we couldn’t obtain a Japanese language book in time)
before she left us on New Year’s Day. Another
drive to LAX and melancholy “good-byes” came at our parting. She told us she would like to visit again
sometime; we told her our home is always open to her. It was a lot of fun having her here. Beyond just the fact that Jennifer was happy
to have another female in the house for several days, Akane seemed to fit
seamlessly into our family and our routine.
She made it safely back to Japan.
It would be fun if we could visit her one day, but since I don’t know if
or when or how that would happen, for know we can hope that she will able to visit us
again sometime.
One of the presents the boys received was the Mario Kart game
for the Wii. We found that not only did Akane like playing this game, but Jennifer liked it to. Usually, Jen doesn't join us when we play video games. It was fun for Ben, Isaac and I to have the girls wanting to race with us. We all played it together quite often. Akane also participated in our New Year’s Eve
party that we throw every year. Sister
Frego and her daughter Jasmine and the Grahams joined us (the Grahams, as they do every year, made
it until midnight; Sister Frego and Jasmine needed to leave earlier). We played Apples to Apples and Catch Phrase and ate snacks. The TV glitched on us during Ryan Seacrest's countdown to midnight; we had to make do on our own this time, continuing the countdown and shouting "Happy New Year!" when we thought we'd reached zero. We toasted with our traditional sparkling cider. The evening was a little bittersweet since we knew we would be taking Akane to LAX in order for her to catch her plane.
