Home!

I am finally home for a while. This summer has been so crazy! It has been a while since I have written anything on here, so this might get a little long.

The rest of Summer Scholars was really fun and I miss the people I met there. I stayed at Michael and Caroline's house for a week after that was over. It was so much fun spending time with them all! Ryan and Calvin are fun. They are going to be so big when I get back from Japan! On the Fourth of July, we went to the parade in Provo. That was fun even though we didn't stay for the whole thing. It was a lot longer than the one in Bessemer! I was a little disappointed that I missed marching band this year though.

I left Utah on the 5th. My flight left at a very early 6:30 in the morning from the SLC airport. Everything with my flight went well. My luggage was almost 15 pounds over the limit (ooops) but I had a really nice lady checking me in and she let it slide. I think it had something to do with the fact that I was traveling all by myself and I'm only 16. Anyway, once my flight got into Chicago at about 10:30, I got my luggage and was off to figure out Chicago's train system. I took the train to downtown Chicago, then found my way to Grand Central Station to get on the AmTrak up to Milwaukee. At this point, AnnaMarie and Tyler, who were supposed to pick me up, were on a plane that was late from California. I was a little confused when their friend Erika was at the station to pick me up instead of them. She took me over to the airport where we picked up AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie.

I stayed there in Milwaukee for a few days, then we all drove up to Ironwood. Two days later (on the 10th), I left for the Grand Rapids Rotary Conference. I didn't sleep very much, but I had a really good time. It was good to see everyone one last time before we all leave for our exchanges, and it was awesome to meet more people from, back from, and going to Japan! I also received my guarantee form while I was there! I already had most of the information from talking with my host dad, but it was still exciting to get it! On Sunday, we drove back from Grand Rapids and said goodbye to all the inbounds and other outbounds.

On Monday, June 14, I left for Girl's Camp! It went through Friday and was really fun. I was a youth-leader in charge of the fourth-year girls. Fourth years go across the lake one night during camp and actually camp in tents, so I got to lead that with a few other youth-leaders. We made a fire and had s'mores and then we got to get everyone up nice and early so we could all canoe back in time for breakfast. Being a youth-leader is awesome because you get to lead all the camp songs and be crazy! I love Girl's Camp. It's sad that this might be my last time. Maybe I'll be back in time for it next year. That would be Christy's first year, too.

I finally got home on Friday, and I got a call from Sister Anderson. She asked if Rosalie and I would want to babysit her kids while Brother Anderson was a scout camp. She lives in Ashland, so I just went over to her house on Sunday after church. I stayed there until Wednesday. It was fun to spend time with her kids and with Rosalie. I'm going to miss them when I leave.

So, now I am finally home for a while! It feels so good to sleep in my own bed. Now I have about 4 more weeks here, then I take off for my big adventure!

Host Family!

I am so excited! Right now I am at my Summer Scholars camp at BYU. This week has been awesome, but I am going to tell you about the best news first.

Two days ago, during our free time, I checked my email hoping to hear from Chip and Sharon about Japan. The email was not there, so I was really disappointed. After a while one of my friends here told me to see if anything went to my spam folder. I didn't think there would be because Chip and Sharon's emails always go to my inbox, but I checked anyway. It turns out that my host Dad had emailed me on the 10th! I was so excited!

My host family is adorable. My host Dad and Mom seem really nice and they have two sons ages 5 and 6. Their names are Toro (5) and Wataru (6). I guess they are both really into Pokemon, so I'll have to work on that.

I will live in Yokohama, which is a little ways south of Tokyo on Tokyo Bay. It is a huge port city. My host family's house looks really nice. They live in a complex with a swimming pool and gym and there are tennis courts pretty close to my house that I could see on google maps. That is really exciting for me. Now I'll be able to keep in shape while I am there.

The school I will be going to is an all girls Catholic school, so that'll be interesting. I guess I will have to travel about an hour to school each day. My host Dad said I'll take a bus from my house to the train station (10-15 minutes), then take a train to another train station (35 minutes), then walk from that station to my school(10-15 minutes). That will be a good time to write in my journal though. That is about all the news I have for now. I don't have any official Rotary information, but I am going to be in the Kanagawa East Rotary Club, in District 2590.

Okay, now for the rest of the things I have been doing. On Friday the 13th, I went to the outbound Rotary Conference out at the Conserve school. It was awesome! I had a ton of fun and it got me really excited for my departure. Grand Rapids is still to come... Anyway, I got home on Sunday and we took off for Utah! It was great to hang out with AnnaMarie. Katie, Benjamin, Christy and James so much! We stopped at the Badlands, which were spectacular, and we even saw the Jolly Green Giant in Minnesota!

Once we were in Utah, we all took a trip down to Arches National Park with Michael, Caroline, Ryan, and Calvin. Ryan is getting so big and Calvin is such a sweet baby. We did a lot of hiking in the hot sun and saw some really pretty landscape.

On Sunday, Calvin got his baby blessing. That was nice. After that, Dad, Benjamin, Christy, AnnaMarie, and Katie left. James and I went to the other two hours of church with Michael and Caroline. After church we dropped James off a BYU and I haven't seen him since. Hopefully I'll be meeting up with him during my free time on Friday. Monday morning, Caroline helped me get all checked in for camp here.

Camp is really fun. I am in the math/cryptology class and it is really interesting. It goes a lot into computer sciency stuff so I was totally lost yesterday, but today I understand it! It was very exciting when it just sorta clicked. We have done really cool activities each day. Monday we had a BBQ and went up into the canyons to a park. Tuesday we had a Pajama party and watched Enchanted. It was really fun and even the boys liked it. :) Yesterday we took a trip to Temple Square up in Salt Lake City. It was so beautiful. I love going there. It is alway so peaceful. We got to watch the Joseph Smith movie there too. The movie was so powerful. I cried a lot, and so did a lot of other people. Tonight we are having a dance with the sport camps so I am very excited! It is going to be really fun. Everyone here is so nice and I have made a lot of new friends. I really want to keep in touch with a lot of people, then maybe I'll see some of them at BYU if I go to college here. Anyway, I just wanted to share all of my good news. I should get going now, though. Free Time is almost over.

Summer Break!

It's been a while since I have posted something on here. I was just going to wait until I have some news about Japan, but it is taking forever, so I'll update everyone on what has been going on. 

I am finally done with school and track! Yay! I had exams last week and now I am done. As for track, UP State Championships were on May 31. I competed in high jump and hurdles. I finished with a 2nd place in high jump and a 3rd in hurdles, which I am pretty happy with. High Jump was a little disappointing because I only jumped 4'10" and the girl who took first beat me in a jump off at 4'11". But I am still pretty happy about 2nd. My meet prior to that one was amazing though. It was the Kraemer (our home meet) and I won high jump with a new PR (personal record) of 5'1"! I was very happy. Too bad I couldn't have done that on Saturday too.

This last week Marianne has been up and it has been really fun visiting with her! We have had a picnic on the bluff in Bessemer, watched a lot of Dr. Who, and had a girl party last night in the motorhome, which is air conditioned. ;) But she has to leave tomorrow. That's sad.

So, that's all that has really happened since the last post. But the rest of this month is going to be crazy! This Friday I leave for a Rotary Conference. AnnaMarie, Tyler, and Katie are going to pick me up from that on their way up to Ironwood from Milwaukee on Sunday. As soon as we get to Ironwood, we are getting into the motorhome and leaving for UTAH!

I am really excited to see baby Calvin, Ryan, and Michael and Caroline! We are going to stay in Utah for a few days, then everyone else besides James, who is starting school at BYU, will drive home. I am going to stay there and do the coolest thing you can do during summer vacation. I am going to math camp! :) But seriously, it's like cryptology and codes and stuff so It'll be fun. So stop laughing at me. I'll get to meet people, and they have trips to Seven Peaks waterpark and Temple Square and they'll have dances and stuff. Plus it will give me a few more days to visit Michael, Caroline, Ryan, and Calvin before I go to Japan. After camp I'll be flying home by myself. 

Hopefully I will get my information about Japan in the mail before I leave. I have a feeling that it'll come the day after I leave for Utah, so I might have someone check the mail for me... 

Gray Envelope...

So, last Monday (I know that was a while ago) I was in the locker room after school getting ready for track like usual when one of the girls coming in was like, "Hey, Abbey, your Dad's out in the hall looking for you." I go out to see what he wants and he looks at me, says "gray envelope", and walks away... There is only one thing that I could possibly be getting in the mail that is so important that he would do that to me. My host family and city assignment!

Through the next hour and a half of track practice that seemed to drag on forever, the only thing on my mind was "oh my gosh! I get to find out my host family! I get to find out my city and school for next year! Yay!" I was getting so excited! The minute I got done with practice, I rushed home where we had to get the whole family together before I could open my envelope. We even called AnnaMarie up and put her on speaker phone so she could hear. Finally I could open it!

I open it up and see something about Congrats on your exchange... blah blah blah... I'm your travel agent... blah blah. Then, the most exciting thing in the whole envelope.... Visa applications! I was so disappointed. I almost cried. This whole thing is sort of funny in retrospect, but at the time it was really sad. It really wouldn't have been very disappointing if I hadn't been getting all excited over the last 2 hours.

In Dad's defense, he really did think it was my host family assignment. But it didn't make the whole thing any better. So, now it is back to waiting. Hopefully I will actually have some exciting news to share in a few weeks. :)

My Very Own Travel Agent!

I have exciting news! I got an email from my travel agent! Yay! Dad told me to check my email because he had received an email from her too. At first I thought it was going to be my host family, but it wasn't that exciting. However, this is a very big step toward finding out my host family, city, departure date, and flight. 

All of the RYE (Rotary Youth Exchange) students have to go through Rotary's travel agency (It's Your World-Travel) so finding out who my agent is is fun and I wasn't really expecting it. I forgot that we each got agents. Anyway, I sent in my little registration form, so more news should be coming soon! I can't wait!

I'm going to Japan!

Last September I applied for to the Rotary Youth Exchange program. I was the only one in Ironwood and Hurley to even apply so... I got the spot! Yay! I was officially the fifth one in my family to be an outbound! In October I went to the first Rotary Conference as an outbound student and it was really fun. At the conference I got my long application and over the next month I filled it out (with blue ink only!) and did all the requirements. I put my countries in order of preference with my first choice being Japan! Once the application was sent in in November the waiting began...

Finally, on January 15th, I got an email from the outbound coordinators asking if everyone had received their country assignments. I emailed back saying that I hadn't but I'll probably know in a week or two. About 20 minutes later, they emailed back telling me that I had gotten my first choice! I am going to Japan! This all was happening in school during second hour, and when I found out I started crying because I was so happy and excited! I was still crying when I walked into English (my third hour class) and people kinda looked at me funny, but I couldn't help it.

Now I am very impatiently awaiting information on my city, host family, and departure date for Japan. I know my departure will be between August 17 and 24, and I am pretty sure it will be on the 17th. Last night I came to the brilliant realization that that is just over 4 months away! So then I started panicking because I can't speak Japanese... or understand it! I've been working on it, but it's hard and I have a feeling that as soon as I step off that plane I will forget everything I have learned so far. :) I'll have to work on that with AnnaMarie!