Sushi at Sakura!

I treated Jule to sushi tonight at Sakura.  :)

You may say "ewwwww Sushi" right?  It's a common misconception that "sushi" is raw fish.  Sushi is not raw fish.  Sushi is the rice used to make the traditional Japanese rolls that contain meats and vegetables that are cooked.  Sashimi is raw fish.  We did not order sashimi.

Ask Jule how she felt about the sushi!

For her memories, above are the ones that we ordered.  I think her favorite was the Dynamite Roll... even though she doesn't like shrimp.   :)

Wildwood Harvest Festival

Today we attended the Harvest Festival at Wildwood Park.  Wildwood is a park in Little Rock with winding pathways through wooded hills.  In the middle of the park is a lake.

It was a nice day outside (82 Farenheit / 28 Celsius).  We went to the festival with our friends Laura Womack and her daughter Maddie, as well as Jordan and Marissa Alexander.  Jule and I (well I) prefer to travel in groups.  It makes things more fun.

We went on a hayride.  The kids painted pumpkins, dressed scarecrows, shot a bow and arrow, and fed some swans.  It was a lazy kind of day just enjoying the outdoors.  Here are some of the pictures...

Jule and archery.

Marissa and Jule in the disappointing "hay fort"

Swans in the lake.

Our friends Laura Womack and Maddie

Jule at the lake.

Jule the scarecrow and her little pumpkins Maddie and Marissa.

We Have a Redneck Olympian!

As I've been promising for months now, we traveled to Clinton, Arkansas on October 13th to participate in the Redneck Games of Arkansas.  We wore our best Redneck clothes and teeth so that we'd fit in with the crowd.

I have good news to report.  Jule is officially a Redneck Olympian!  She has won a silver medal in the roadkill toss.  What is that????  I'll explain below.

Jule's friends Andrea and her sister Daani are also Redneck Olympians.

If you haven't been reading the blog, then you may not know what a "redneck" is.  To state it again, a redneck is a low-class person who is generally stuck in old fashions and doesn't care too much about how he or she looks.  A redneck most of the time has no job, drives a very old truck, and has a dog that rides in the back of the truck.  He (or she) might chew tobacco, have really bad teeth, wear pajamas to Wal-Mart and be just all-around "tacky" in appearance.  A redneck would be poor, so creativity is needed to have fun.  (For instance, instead of going to a water park, a redneck might just put some plastic trash bags on the ground in the back yard and squirt water on them to make a water slide.)  Rednecks usually have deep southern accents.  You can ask Jule about how our accents differ from one place to another in America.

The girls posing with some other Redneck Olympians.

Here are a few of the events:
1)  Redneck Bowling:  rolling a tire into empty garbage cans to see who can knock down the most.  Jule's friend Daani took a bronze medal in this competition.
2)  Roadkill Toss:  (Roadkill = a dead animal that has been hit by a vehicle.)  The Roadkill Toss game is where you throw a (fake) dead animal as far as you can.  Jule tossed a skunk the second farthest and came away with a silver medal.  Andrea got a gold medal.
3)  Wheelbarrow Race:  Put your friend in a wheelbarrow and complete an obstacle course.  Andrea pushed Jule, but the girls got stuck going around the barrels and lost.  :(
4)  Three-man Slingshot:  Two people (Jule and Daani) held a giant slingshot while Andrea slung eggs and apples at a broken-down truck.  The girls were VERY good at this.
Others:  Hay bale roll, seed spitting contest, lawnmower races, and more that I can't remember.

Redneck Bowling

Roadkill Toss

Three-WOman Slingshot

Wheelbarrow Races

Of course, I had my camera out and wanted to get pictures of everything.  So I made the girls do "Redneck profile pictures."  And here's what we got:

Andrea

Jule

Daani

I hope you laughed as hard looking at these as I did while I took them!  

School Pictures Are Here!

Here's Jule's sophomore year school pictures from Sylvan Hills High School in Sherwood, AR.

I hope that all Jule's friends and family members who are reading across the Atlantic are doing well in Germany and Poland!  We are keeping very busy here in the U.S. and making the most of the beautiful fall weather we have.  

I've posted earlier this week our plans for this weekend (Redneck Olympics and Harvest Festival) and I have been busy this week with all the details for our Baltimore / Washington D.C. trip next Wednesday.  There are lots of little details to work out.  One thing that I am *not* going to plan is how we'll get from our hotel in Baltimore to our hotel in Washington D.C.  This is something that I want for the girls (Connie and Jule) to figure out... how do we ride the Metro, where do we buy tickets, what stops do we take, what is the cheapest and fastest way to get there, etc.  I know this is easy in smaller cities, but in case they ever find themselves in a large city and unsure where to go, I want them to understand what to do.

Big thanks to my niece Connie's grandfather (Grandpa Marret / my dad that you've seen in this blog) and Connie's mom and dad (my sister-in-law Nancy and my brother Tony) for giving this experience to Connie!

Watch the blog for Redneck Olympics pictures on Saturday.  It's sure to be... interesting!

Beautiful Day in Sherwood!

It's a beautiful day in Sherwood, Arkansas!  Temperature is 25 celsius / 76 Farenheight and the sun is shining bright!  This is a look outside our front door today!

This is where Jule is living while in the States.

Jule's American Pets

Jule has a few pets here in America.  Her American dog is named Cricket.  Cricket is 12 years old and is a Shetland Sheepdog.  Cricket loves Jule because Jule drops a lot of crumbs on the ground.  Cricket lives inside most of the time and is very well behaved.  She is small at only 9 kilograms / 22 pounds.  Her vocabulary is vast because I'm alone a lot and, therefore, talk to her a lot.  :)  Cricket is my "miracle dog" because I lost her in a different state (three hours from my home) when she was young and found her living on a hillside by herself four months later.

Fizzgig (Fizzy for short) is Jule's American cat.  Fizzy lives outside most of the time, but he has all his medications and shots so that he can come inside from time to time.  He and Cricket are friendly.  Fizzy is a stray cat that wandered up to my house while I was sitting on my front porch on my birthday last year.  He was fairly young (maybe six months old), and was starving and covered in fleas.  I HATED cats, but I couldn't turn away a starving animal.  I spent two hours trying to get close enough to him to pet him.  Finally he allowed me to run my hand down his back, and he liked it!  :)  The next night he brought his mother to my house for dinner, and the night after that he brought both his mother and father.  They are two stray cats in the neighborhood.  Fizzy just never left my house and I have worked with him enough that he is a very sweet little cat.  He's still getting used to the idea of Jule being here.  :)

It's been a while... but big news!

I haven't written a post in a few days.  That's because it's been relatively quiet around here.  Jule had a friend to spend the night here on Friday (Andrea) and the girls watched movies until the wee hours of the morning.  We slept late, ran some errands, and then ended up at the Alexander house on Saturday night helping Marissa with some crafts she's making for a school fundraiser.  Then Sunday we slept late (again) and then went to the Alexander's (again) because they were having bar-be-que ribs.  We love to eat, so.... this was an obvious choice.  While waiting on the food, Jule had her first experience playing American baseball with a baseball glove.

Shawn had bought Mango Pepsi, and Jule tried it.  (She said it's good.)  As I've mentioned before... we have so many more twists on brands in America.  I think one reason is because our stores are so much larger (super stores) and they have room to display many more products.  Thus 19 different types of Oreo cookies.   :)

This weekend we attend and participate in the Redneck Games of Arkansas in Clinton.  Then we'll attend the Harvest Festival at Wildwood Park on Sunday.
  

Harvest Festival:  HARVEST! Festival celebrates the sights, sounds and aromas of autumn in Arkansas. HARVEST! is home to Wildwood’s Arkansas Pickin’ & Fiddlin’ Championship, which provides a background of bluegrass music for hay rides, a hay fort, pumpkin patch, vendors of Arkansas homemade crafts and wares, miniature railroad and garden railroad displays, an iron forging competition, a culinary competition, wholesome foods for purchase, and a variety of family arts activities. A special treat this year features Americana performances provided by Ballet Arkansas.

Jule's first quarter at school ends next Thursday (October 18th).  Because of this, she has a day off school on Friday, which means that we have a three-day weekend where we can do some traveling a little further away.  

Where are we going next weekend?

Can you guess?

It's October... Time for Terror!

We have no "Oktoberfest" in the United States.  I miss this time of year in Germany, but the fact that Americans go overboard for Halloween makes up a little for our lack of a drinking holiday.

Around the first of October, specialty Halloween stores pop up across the city to help you prepare for Halloween.  Jule and I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Spirit of Halloween last night.  Here is some of our fun...

Surely there is something wrong with us.

Rockin' the "party glasses"

We will begin our decorating for Halloween this weekend.  We'll be sure to post before and after pictures of the house.

BOO from JUUUUULE!

Jule's American City

Jule lives in a state called Arkansas.  It is in the middle of the United States.  The city she lives in is called Sherwood.  Sherwood is a suburb of the much larger city, Little Rock.  Generally, we would say that Jule lives in Little Rock since it is well-known.

Little Rock is the largest city and capital city of Arkansas.  The general area has a population of over 700,000 people.  Little Rock's name comes from a small rock formation on the south bank of the Arkansas River called la Petite Roche (in French, "the little rock").  The "little rock" was used by early settlers as a landmark.  It's directly across the river from "big rock" which is a bluff that overhangs the river. 

We actually have a pretty cool trolley system.

Little Rock isn't famous for too much.  You never hear people say "I'd love to go to Little Rock!"  It's not a popular tourist place.  In fact, the things that we're generally known for are not great things.  Most of the world has heard of or studied the Little Rock Nine... the nine African-American students who enrolled in an all-white Central High School in 1957.  These nine students were denied entry by the state's governor, but were eventually allowed to attend the school after the president of the United States intervened.  Little Rock's reputation for intolerance had been established on a national stage through that event.  We went through a period of very high crime about 15 years ago where the rest of the U.S. saw us as a horrible place to land.  But most people know of Little Rock only because of the past president Clinton... and he added a little disgrace to us, as well.

Despite the bad recognition, I have found this city to be a great place to live.  It is just big enough that there's always something to do, but not so large that you're stuck in traffic for two hours trying to get to work.  Only about 200,000 of the people in this area live directly in the city.  The other 500,000 of us live in smaller cities that are directly connected to Little Rock within a few miles / kilometers from the main city.

The city itself offers plenty of things to do.  We have (as any city) museums, parks, lakes and rivers, concerts, plays and many other things.  But the state of Arkansas itself (known as The Natural State) has so many diverse activities, as well, all within two hours of the city.  We have some of the most beautiful spring-fed rivers that are clear and great for canoeing, kayaking and floating.  We have some of the best fishing rivers in America, as well.  In certain places, you'll find clear lakes that have quartz caves at the bottom where you can scuba dive.  Boating on the lakes in the summer is very popular.  You'll find people hiking and camping in the Ozark Mountains.  Arkansas even boasts the only diamond mine that is open to the public for digging to find your precious gems.

An arial view of the clear Buffalo River.  It's popular for canoeing.

Another reason why folks love the Buffalo River.

DeGray Lake is popular for water sports and fishing.

This is from Petit Jean State Park, a popular hiking destination.

The Cossatot River is great for kayaking.

Our mountains are rolling mountains... not as beautiful as those in Germany.

I just wanted to share a little with you about the place where Jule will spend the next few months!  :)

The Game of Quelf

Tonight Jule played Quelf for the first time. It's a board game that really more to have fun than to compete to win.  You need to have a good sense of humor and no shyness to play it.

It's a game where you can lose points for getting very hard questions correct.  (Because if you can do very hard math problems, then you're too smart and should move backward a space.)  There are rules that you must obey if you are unlucky enough to land on a rules space.  One rule we had to follow was that we must hold up something that was bigger than our fist... for the whole game.  There are other crazy things that you must do.  One card made me jump up, run to the window, scream "It's raining outside" then run to the sink, splash my face with water, and run back to the table dripping wet and say "How did you avoid getting wet?"  I also had to balance a set of keys on my head until my next turn.

Jule had to spin in a circle seven times.  She also had to act as a dog to Marissa who was her dog trainer.  We watched Jule sit, beg, play dead and fetch with Marissa giving commands.  Hilarious, to say the least.  Those are just a few of the crazy things that we had to do as a part of Quelf.  It's a completely senseless game, quite frankly, but it is entertaining.

This is Dylan (the younger Alexander boy) acting like a yoga master to fulfill one of his Quelf challenges.










Anyhow, just another memory for Jule's travel bag!