Welcome to Michigan USA

Well, we picked up our new foreign exchange student from the Airport in Detroit, on Friday morning. The plane was right on time. Anna-Lena is the one on the right, Charlie is in the middle, and Lesley is a girl from the high school we took along so Anna-Lena would be able to make a friend early.

We took her to Cabala’s to show her around, it has been several years since I had been there and it was the original one in Nebraska., I had forgotten how really big it is.

She and Charlie started out riding on Saturday afternoon, but weren’t gone very long before they ran into an hornets nest, the ones who build nests in the ground. The horses went crazy, Anna-Lena jumped off her horse, tore off her sweatshirt, and headed for the house. She was stung about a dozen times. Luckily no major adverse reactions. Charlie went back to get his horse and said her shirt was covered with the bees. When he looked later, he surmised that the horses has stepped right on the nest and pretty much tore it up.

We had invited a few kids over to meet her on Saturday night. We were going to have a bonfire but couldn’t because of the burning ban.

Ok Plan B do hotdogs on the grill, while the kids hung out in the yard.

It poured rain.

Ok Plan C – move the grill to the carport, - and we made roasted marshmallows, for s’mores over the propane flame.

On Saturday Charlie took her to Katie’s house, another horse person, she came home all excited about watching the equestrian competition today.

Shonda Starts a new semester at JCC today. She will be working regular hours and not weekends, and makes more money. Yeah!

Whitewater rafting and Hornets at home.

Charlie went whitewater rafting, in West Virgina, with the Springport FFA this week. They drove down on Wednesday and rafted on Thursday. and were planning on camping Thursday night and driving back on Friday.
They got caught in a down pour which wasn't so bad while they were on the river, since they were going to get wet anyway. Most of the kids had never been camping before and left all of their bags next to the wall of the tent, so by the time they got back to camp EVERYTHING was wet, so they decided to start back on Thursday night.
I guess all of the kids had a good time, and leave it to us, Charlie was one of the few to get hurt. He got dumped out of the raft and hit his elbow on some rocks, nothing serious but it looked really swollen.
He took a camera but couldn't get any pictures of the rapids because he had to have both hands on the paddles when they went through.

Here is a picture one of the girls took, of him jumping off a cliff.

While he was gone, it was my job to water the horses, while doing that on Wednesday evening I found a hornets nest in the lilac bush, the hard way. I got to close to the bush and must have bumped it with the hose, I only got stung once but boy were they mad. I managed to go out and take this picture this morning. I think it is kind of interesting if I do say so myself.