what a slacker i have ben

so I have been a total slacker lately.....I promise I will update my blog this week. I am excited because I have a host family that has wireless again....so now I will be able to update my blog at night hopefully right before I go to bed....so look for some new things this week. I have a lot to share.....

sorry I have not kept up.

they are here......

the cast has arrived to north platte!!! everyone got here safe and sound on monday, though they were running late by almost an hour. sam, khan and i had been at the bowling alley since 1 and by 2 we decided we needed to play a game so that we could kill time....

everyone arrived around 3 and it was very exciting to see everyone again. we made signs welcoming them to north platte, so as soon as everyone got off the bus they gave us huge hugs and told us how much we were missed. it was so nice to hear....especially since we had known them for a total of 2 weeks before we left to come to north platte. it still amazes me how fast you can become friends with people. i guess it is an instant bond that both people feel....pretty cool.

the afternoon activity was bowling and i think the cast really like it since some of them had never been bowling.....


after bowling everyone met their host families and were very excited to get home and meet with them....


after host pickup, khan and i went home for dinner and then off to the costume shop. we had to find 1940's outfits to wear to replicate the canteen. the canteen is what makes north platte famous....it is a place where all the soldiers came and got cake, cookies, apples, popcorn balls....so we decide as part of our regional learning it would be fun to recreate the canteen.....we had some fun with the costumes....
( not really sure why some photos want to upload and then some don't....the funny costume ones don't seem to want towork...will try later. )

just a day on the farm...

today we went to see mary lynn's parents and brothers.....khan and i really enjoyed seeing all of the farm equipment. i never knew how big and how expensive everything was. just the machine that picks to corn is $300,000. WOW!!! we had a lot of fun testing all of the machines....we got to see the sprayer, the corn husker, the tractor, and the semi truck. we even got to honk the semi horn!!

the semi is pretty cool ...the bed was actually pretty comfortable. not sure i would really want to drive for a living but it was neat for a day. i couldn't believe the truck has driven 701,000 miles. can you imagine if ever car ran for that long?? i thought i had a lot of miles at 100,000 on the pathfinder.

khan and i near the tractor....we are ready to hit the farm







is this an alien or a farm machine???? you decide.

dinner last night....

annette and jim shreck invited all of us over for dinner last night...talk about some good italian food....

here is the group at the dinner table.


can i ever not get pasta on me...why is it when you wear a white shirt you always spill on yourself!! LOL.

good ole' county fair....

yesterday brian, khan and i went to the county fair...it was cool to see all of the animals, but boy were they smelly!!!

here are some pics from the day at the fair

some bubbly to celebrate

last night after getting the 85 beds that we needed....brian, stu, mary lynn, rejean, khan, sam and i all decided we needed to celebrate with some champagne...we decided to make champagne punch....( pink lemonade, strawberries, and champagne) very tasty!!!




we have also decided that khan can not eat anything without her red pepper flakes....thai people sure love their food hot!!!

crazy hat night at the fort cody trading post

khan and i decided to go to fort cody to get some postcards...we ended up finding these funny hats...so of course we had to try the all on.










the other weird thing at fort cody is the two headed cow that was born in north platte.

pictures from bowling the other night

the gang before bowling...rejean,stu,khan,christy,sam,brain sam,khan,and christy

sam getting a spare

we really don't understand this why.....does anyone?? customers wanted...no experience needed???

khan's first time bowling

everyone can now sleep in a bed...

WE HAVE FOUND BEDS FOR THE WHOLE CAST!!!! i am very excited....we actually have 86 beds so we have 1 extra. I am happy to say no one will be sleeping on the streets. We have come a long way from 20 beds last wednesday ....

great job sam and khan!!! we all make a great team!

83 down...2 to go

thats right....we have 83 beds and 2 more are needed. i never though finding 2 beds would be this hard. i think we called about 10 people today....now we just need then to call us back. let's hope something comes through because we have champagne chilled and we are ready to drink it!

khan and i might make some more calls tonight...we will see. right now we are off to fort cody with mary lynn to buy some postcards. hope there are some good ones there. :)

happy anniversary

happy anniversary mom and dad.....33 years...congrats!!!! love you both.

we are almost there...

so today's lucky number is 81....we are almost there with host families. we need to find 4 more beds and then we are done!!!! we are already planning a party for when we find the last bed. break open the drinks. wahoo. i am hoping tomorrow we get the last 4 beds we need. keep thinking positive thoughts.

khan and i spent most of the day working on allocation cards...basically what allocation cards are are the piece of paper that tell what family you are staying with and if they have any children, pet and if they smoke. i have noticed not 1 family in north platte has said they smoke. pretty amazing! the cards are done now we just need to assign roommates. we are hoping to do that tomorrow. i was also busy working on the schedule...should be a good one.

tonight a bunch of us decided to go bowling....what fun. khan had never gone before so it was an experience.....actually khan won the first game and then i won the second. we had all forgotten how much fun bowling can be....

here is the group that bowled....stu.rejean.khan.sam.brian.christy ( will post pictures later....not working right now)

after bowling brian drove us around some and showed us some more places in north platte that we have to go see before we leave, but as we were driving we ran into this funny sign....not sure what it is suppose to mean?? any ideas? sam, khan and i decided we need to go around np and find all of the funny signs...trust me there are a lot here. ( will post pictures later....not working right now)


we decided to that we need to write a list of the good things and bad things of north platte. now that we have lived her for a week and a half we decided that we are residents and can start saying funny things that we have noticed.

our list -- sam, christy, and khan

Good things about North Platte
1. Everything is so close! Errands that would take 2 hours to run in Denver/Pittsburgh/Bangkok, take only 20 minutes here... leaves a lot of free time to...
2. There is actually fun stuff to do here.... the Lake is wonderful. And tonight we went Bowling.
3. Everyone here (for the most part) is super friendly. Men go out of the way to open doors for you and everyone waves at me from their front porches and cars when I go running.
4. People LOVE Up with People here. There seems to be a genuine excitement about us being here and the show. Hopefully the show will get sold out!!
5. GREAT food. My host mom is an awesome cook... let's hope I fit in my clothes when I leave here. I have seriously never eaten so much meat in my life!
6. Rush hour here is from 5pm-5:05 pm.... and by rush hour I mean 3 people coming to a 4 way stop at the same time!!
7. Cheap ice cream!!

Our only complaints are the lack of cute men (under 50), good shopping, skyscrapers, mountains and/or hills and real restaurants!!

all and all a good day.... :)

another productive day

today was kind of a low key day...we didn't have that much going on but we did get a lot done. good news is we got 2 more beds....so we are up to 74!! getting there slowly and surely. brian (my host dad) is suppose to check with a few more people tomorrow...so maybe i will have more to update tomorrow. keep your fingers crossed! :)

most of the day i spent working on the schedules for when the cast comes...we try to make creative schedules since a lot of people collect them from each city. can't tell you what i did yet since the cast has yet to see them and i know some of them check out this website....so i will have to post it later on...

we went to the kiwanis club meeting today and that was pretty funny because i think we were the youngest members there by about 40 years. the members kept cracking jokes about each other but no one heard them which made it even funnier. they would ask what everyone was laughing about and then they would be told the joke about them. lol.

brian and mary lynn took khan and i out for mexican tonight...it was pretty good. then when we got home we decided to take it easy....but of course we found a project to get into. mary lynn likes making bracelets and earring so we each made something tonight. i made a bracelet and khan made earrings.

here is a picture of my bracelet ( of course blue and green my favorite....and i am also wearing a sarah catherine design bracelet..ps. sarah you have been getting a TON of compliments on your jewlery when i wear it....)

i can't believe i have been in north platte for a week....it actually seems to be going by quicker than i thought. tomorrow our fun activity is going to be bowling...wahooo. :)

the global village

we did an activity in denver right before i left where we had to make a map out of oursleves...we had to arrange everyone so we look like the world representing the countries where we live....and they read us this information.....food for thought...

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human
ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:
there would be
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere
8 would be African
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would not be white
30 would be white
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death: 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
6 persons would possess 598% of the entire world’s wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
1 would own a computer.
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for both acceptance ,
understanding, and education becomes apparent.
Therefore,
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead, and a place to sleep
— you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness
— you are luckier than the million who will not survive the week.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace
— you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealth.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture,
or the pangs of starvation
— you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend a religious meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death
— you are freer than three billion people in the world.
If your parents are still alive and still married
—you are very rare, even in the United States
If you can read this message
—you are ahead of two billion people who cannot read at all.

my first time....

there is a restaurant in paxton nebraska that is know for all of the animals that it has around the place.....but it is also know for their food. ( yes the animals at one point were alive!! )

one thing that i had never had before saturday night was " rocky mountain oysters"...well i tried them...ahhhh.....what was i thinking?? actually it wasn't that bad at all...though i still think i would rather not know what i ate. ( if anyone doesn't know what rocky mountain oysters are....google them and see what you get. LOL.

here are some pics from ole's.

good news about host families

So this weekend we decided to really try and go all out...we wanted to get the 90 beds that we need for everyone when they come to north platte. we didn't get 90 yet but we do have 72...So Sam, khan, and I are pretty excited about that. :) I think we have done a lot of work since last Tuesday when we had about 15 beds. Word is getting out that we need some families to host us and tonight we had our host family meeting. It was great to see everyone there and know that they are going to help you out.

this weekend we had a lot of fun at the shrew's lake house. They have a nice cabin and we went jet skiing and riding around on the boat....


here are my host mom and dad in north Platte.( Brian and Mary Lynn)




the advance team hard at work ( Sam. Christy. Khan )