10 k race, Cross Country Camp, Housing 8 People From The Republic Of Georgia For 10 Days! 

Wednesday & Thursday: Wednesday’s run was an easy 10 (in 1:20) and Thursday’s run was an easy 8 (1:02). I felt ok for both of those runs. It was a busy 2 days of getting our house ready for the Foriegners we are housing for the next 9 days. They are coming from the country of Georgia. We said we were able to take 5… So lots of cleaning… My girls helped a lot and then again made plenty of messes (one being the cereal spilled all over :/).  

 We did lots of grocery shopping (and saw our friend Wes there :)), went to a birthday party, played games, did crafts and Corom and I were able to get out and go to dinner with our friends… We found out that the “free” dinner our friends won was a sales pitch… We had a great time and had a good meal. 🙂 

Friday: Today is the 24th of July… A big holiday for Utah. I went and raced the Speedy Spaniard 10k (and then the girls ran the 1 mile run). I held onto a 6:06 pace and came in at 37:55. I felt good for the 1st 2 miles and then fought for the last 4 to finish off taking 1st in women’s. It was a good run. I ran 3 1/2 before and 2 1/2 after for a 12 miler for the day. We then headed straight to the parade…  

And then to the fair/carnival….   

We got a phone call today saying the Georgians are coming in late tonight instead of Sunday morning… It’s all good right? 🙂 We went to the firework show….   

And then Corom left at 11:30 pm to pick up our group of 6 now instead of 5.  I hurried to finish up their rooms… We took in 5 girls from the ages of 10-17 and their dance director (his daughter is staying at our house). 

Saturday & Sunday: I had an easy 10 miler this morning (Saturday). It was a little tough because I was so tired from the active day yesterday and from going to bed at 2 a.m. trying to get the Georgians settled in. We hung out in the morning and then met up with the other host families for a picnic at the park. (21 Georgians all together.)   

 These next 2 days was filled with getting to know them, their rehearsals, playing around, taking them to the mall (while we went to church) and taking home 2 more boys from the Republic of Georgian group that needed a place to stay (their host family wasn’t able to take them for some reason)… So we took in Giga and Erik. 🙂  Wonderful kids all around & the director, too. He was pretty strict when he first came but if you know Corom, he won Alex (the director) over. He really grew fond of Corom… It was funny too watch. 

It was cute because the girls wanted to make our family dinner on Saturfay night. One of them (Salo) asked if we had eggs and then showed me a picture of hot dogs. Her and Ana boiled hot dogs and scrambled eggs. They asked me if I wanted the recipe on how they made it. So cute!!! We were fortunate because 5 out of the 8 people spoke English (not the director though)… But that was probably a good thing because if he didn’t want us to do something but it was fun for the kids, we just shook our heads like we didn’t understand. 🙂 But really… Corom can get away with that kind of stuff and no one gets mad at him for it. 

Monday-Wednesday: I had to leave for cross country camp. Corom was maning the house and running the Georgians to and from their rehearsals. Monday and Tuesday were busy for him for what the Folk Fest group had planned for them… When I get back, they have free time all day up until the evenings for when they perform. Anyway… Cross country camp: lots of running, team building games, Clinique’s, speakers, skits, movies, fire pit, goal setting and most important… The kids getting to know each other and knowing each others abilities.  (On a side note… I had to run 10 miles on Monday, 12 miles with speed on Tuesday and 8 miles on Wednesday… That was tough for me because with these mountains… It was straight up and straight down… My speed I had to change a few things but I did my workouts.) 

We went on some really hard/tough runs!!! They were straight up hill type runs that wiped us all out! But once you reach the top on every route… Well worth it!  

 On Tuesday night we had our rival school come up to join us for the evening. 🙂 It turned out really well!!! We did a run together (about 70 kids total) and the other coaches, C. Thompson and I hung out. They cooked dinner (and I helped with dinner) while Thompson did a get to know you/ice breaker game with everyone. Corom and the girls came up (thompsons family came up) and had dinner with us. We went right into a dance party (our friends Jeff and Travis came up to DJ it). Corom (and everyone) left around 10:30 p.m… Once they left we put on McFarland (outside on a projector)…  

We got up early, cleaned, packed, listened to Tyler Shepard from the local running store, went for a run, and then made it home. I got home around noon-1 and went right into hosting and helping Corom with the 8 Georgians! Oh… One more thing about camp… Lots of dead bats in the chaperones cabin!! We made a couple of the boys come clean them out but I still slept in the schools suburban.  

Wednesday-Sunday: Lots of fun, fun activities and great experiences!!! It was fun having Corom taking work off to do all these activities. We took them to the local pool one day… It was Anastasia’s birthday. 🙂 The life guard sang her happy birthday. 

 Corom taught them how to ride the motorcycle and took them on rides… Any down time we had, they would be out there riding it (I was a little nervous because the boys just learned how to do it but whatever).  

We took 17 of the 21 Georgians (with the 2 other host families, one being the Fullmers) to Yuba Lake… They were able to go boating, fishing (and they caught a ton of fish), kayaking, tubing, paddle boarding, etc. We had so much fun!  

The same group went to Salt Lake to walk around Temple Square, shop around at the mall, and they played around at a park…    

  We were able to take them to Sundance Resort for a lift ride. They absolutely loved that!!! It was beautiful.   Then of course, there were their night performances! Absolutely wonderful!! 9 other countries came to put on a 10 to 20 min dance performance along with the Utah dancers. We were able to attend each of their performances (well not Tuesdays… Corom came up to camp with me and later picked them up when the show was over). Our group did a sword fighting dance-amazing, and many more… I wish I could put a video on the blog! But they were so good!  

       This week, we had 2 of the kids staying at our house that had birthdays… Of course we had to celebrate!  

 Now today is Sunday… We sadly had to say goodbye and send them off to the salt lake area to spend a week up there with another host family fir more performances! It is amazing how sad we were to say goodbye. It was a great experience and so much fun for our family. My girls just Loved the boys. I’m in trouble!!! The picture on the left is with Alex (the director). The top right is with the (7) kids that stayed with us (and Alex)… The middle and bottom picture are of some of the boys & men that hung out with us all week long… (My girls had a crush on the boys in the middle picture.)  

 Here are some random pictures of the week… The top left picture is of our neighbors (Travis Barney) coming to borrow our cafeteria tables… They used Corom’s motorcycle to hall it back to their house. The Georgians thought that was the funniest thing…  

Well once they left… It was off to church! I was grateful because our friends (Barneys) invited us to come have dinner with them… That helped a lot after this busy week!!!  It was a fun week and I’m sad it is over…