I believe there is a special place in heaven for people who are nice to children and pets, and if so, then many many years from now, Shinya will be sure to be in that special place. The former HGU student (who spent a year at UofL and is now a teacher) came to Sapporo this weekend. We had hoped to go to the zoo together on Saturday, but our colds kept us home, where Shinya played Lego, colored in Pokemon coloring books, and played countless other games with the kids for hours.And then on Sunday morning, a time when other young people may be sleeping late at the very least, Shinya met us at Jack, Katie and Livie`s school to watch their performances with us. It`s one thing for parents to watch their children be dragged around a stage while picking their nose or not singing the words or keeping their back to the audience -- and then clap wildly at how well they did. It`s another thing all together for someone who is not even RELATED to those children to endure such a performance, and clap wildly at the end. Of course, Katie and Livie are madly in love with him. Who wouldn`t be?
And while I`m at it, I have a long overdue heap of praise to give to Mike and Debra Basil. They are profs at the UofL who came on the exchange three years ago, when their kids, Lisa and David, were 6 and 3 (David is a good friend of Jack`s and lost his first tooth on the same day Jack did). As you can imagine, Mike and Debra were able to prepare us VERY well for what 6 and 3 year olds might expect in Sapporo.
All of our favorite activities (the chocolate factory, biking along the river, which parks to check out) came from Mike and Debra. Restaurant suggestions, clothing suggestions, shopping suggestions, even the preschool recommendation -- are all courtesy of this very kind family. My handy-dandy electronic dictionary is actually Debra`s and I couldn`t live without it. They helped us get excited when I was in panic-mode, told us which things we`d want to bring (mac-and-cheese) and which things we could find here. They have made the trip all the better.
I think that`s all the thanks I will have for the night. I still haven`t straightened out the email and so have a new account set up with gmail. You can reach us at:
lisnjohn (at) gmail (dot) com
or at my work address. If you have written in the last week or 10 days to the telus address, the computer has eaten it. And if you have written before that and I haven`t replied -- I no longer have your email address. Sorry for any headaches this may cause.
