Maggie and The J's

Maggie spends a lot of time with Jan and Julie-she goes to church with them quite a lot and recently she helped them make vegetable buckets to grow food for the local community.  I suspect she was talking to this plant before she put it in the ground

She certainly likes to give it her all and get truly involved in everything she does!!!!

Jan and Julie took Maggie horseback riding for her birthday.  She looks like she had a great time with them

Maggie loves all animals, she really needs to work with them when she's older.....

Graffiti Run 2013

We did the Graffiti Run (Graffiti Walk?) in Sauget on Sunday morning. I had said I wasn't going to do another one after the Color Run last year, but we got a discount on this one, so I thought it was worth trying again.  It took us for ever to get off the highway, there were so many people.  Someone told me that there were 10,000 people did this run and honestly I think it was too many for the location, but it worked out OK for us in the end.

These are pictures of us before the run, when we had nice white shirts!!!!

This is Ben and Emilee-Ben knows her because she goes to his school and her brother is on the unsanctioned gymnastics team with him

We could see the first colour station as we were walking up to it, you can see all the colour that had drifted across the field into the water!!!

The whole area around the stations was completely covered in colour-I can see why they wanted to do it out in the middle of nowhere!!!!

Maggie and Ben at the end of it all.  Luckily, the colour comes out really easily!!!

Greta makes it back home....

We got a message from Greta this morning-she has made it back home and everyone was very excited to see her.  American Councils had posted this pictures of all the Lithuanian exchange students taken at the reception at the Embassy in DC on Monday.  With stopping in DC, it took her 3 days to get back home so I am sure she is exhausted but happy to be back with her family.

Greta's last weekend

Well, it finally arrived, time for Greta to go home.  She tried to cram everything she loves about America into one weekend.  Sam made her hamburgers on Friday night.  She was in heaven.

We went to breakfast with Arline, and Jan and Julie, on Saturday morning-combination of birthdays and goodbye breakfasts.  Greta wanted to have Cici's pizza for dinner.  We have really ruined her diet while she has been here.

Ben, Maggie and I were doing the Graffiti Run on Sunday morning, we had registered to do it before they changed Greta's departure date.  Greta wanted Sam to take her to McDonalds and Starbucks, that pretty much rounds out her favourite eating places. 
We said goodbye to Greta before we left for the run because there was no way we'd make it to the airport in time.  Happily, her flight was delayed and we managed to get there just in time to say another goodbye.

The kids are missing her already.  Ben went from "3 days to go...., 2 days to go...." to "she said she'd text me when she got there, why haven't I heard from her?"

Adventure Club

The kids at Adventure Club are selling lemonade this Summer for childhood cancer support.  The high school students made the stand.  Looks like Maggie was helping out for a while.

Day 4 of Adventure Club and her teacher comes walking down the hall with her when I picked her up.  This always instills a feeling of dread in us.
Teacher:  We had an issue today.
Me:  Oh, what happened?
Teacher:  Maggie got under the desk and drew on the walls with marker.  We talked about how this is not 4th grade behaviour
Me:  (putting on stern face)  Maggie, you know you're not supposed to do that
Me:  (thinking to myself)  That's it?  Thank goodness.....
It's all relative....

Maggie turns 9...

We have so much going on this week (I thought it would be a nice quiet week, but NO) that we got to Wednesday morning and I still hadn't done anything about Maggie's birthday. So, I left work early, picked Ben up and we went to the Dollar Store.  We got her 9 balloons and put them in her bedroom to surprise her.  When she got home, Ben said that he'd messed up her room and could she help him clean it up.  Goodness, some times he's such a charmer.

We also bought Maggie a bunch of things from the Dollar Store and put them together for her.  Of course, she loved all of it.  We are for ever grateful that our kids can be made happy by a trip there.....

Maggie wanted to have my pizza and my chocolate cake for dinner.  I got her these really cool candles for her cake.  They were dripping wax all over the cake before I got them all lit, but we ate it anyway!!!

She was conducting us while we sang Happy Birthday to her!!!!

Yes, we are moving again

We are going to move to another house (eventually).  Jason just bought a house in Webster Groves and is going to rehab and extend it.  It's going to be great for us, so we decided to sell ours and buy this one.  I can't believe I am going to let our house go, I absolutely love it.  Still, it will be worth it in the end.  I started a new blog to document our process.
http://thiswillbenumberfive.blogspot.com/

The end is near......

One of the local coordinators had a get together for the exchange students. It was a great opportunity for them to see each other one more time before they all start to go home.  There was a small lake on the property and the kids had a great time in the canoe.....

until Maggie tipped it over!!!!

The kids had a great time, they really enjoy being with each other.  Of course, the host brothers and sisters had to get in the middle of it.....

Maggie's ship came in because Laura's mother made macaroni and cheese.  She ate two enormous plates of it.  We had to cut her off after that....

The girls lazed around in the nice weather.  Ben and Maggie spent a lot of time giving them back massages.

Poor Vaiva-her hot dog fell apart

Before everyone had to go, the students did their usual photo ops

Group Hug

They always like to take a picture of them jumping in the air.  We took loads of pictures trying to get them all jumping at the same time.  We almost did it!!