Week With The Republic of Georgians

August 7, 2017

July 30 – August 6th (my birthday): Everyone that knows us, knows that we are always housing different people from different countries. We love it! This past week we took in 4 boys (Tengo, Tato, Va Ko, Onosay) from the country/Republic of Georgia 🇬🇪 for the Springville Folkfest. The Springville Folkfest had 8 other countries come out this year and when we heard Georgia was coming again, we jumped right on it and requested them. There were 5 other host families housing the Georgians and we all became instant friends/family. Much time was spent together. But oh, the fun we all had. I loved the other host families and I want to thank them for everything. I will only be able to show a fraction of our week. They kept us laughing all week long and they were so full of energy! The car rides were the best! Some of the videos is upside down or sideways but once you click on it, it is normal. But the upside down explains our week… 🙂

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On top of their cute personalities, they were extremely talented! (I have so many videos of their performances but am unable to load most of them.)

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They danced with real swords… it was so impressive. The 4 girls that came are beautiful dancers and really lit up the stage.

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All week long there was a whole lot of singing and dancing every place we went (stores, parking lots, restaurants, etc.). For my birthday, they sang and then started to dance right out the front doors as we were leaving. The employees came out and said they were calling the cops on us. This video was at Beto’s Mexican place at a little after midnight… the video is not the best because I recorded it off my live facebook page (and it was shortened by a few minutes). 🙂

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Another time when we came out to our van and they were right in the middle of singing… this really was how our week was. It was so funny!

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We absolutely loved these boys and getting to know the entire group was so fun. There were 21 of them all together. If we could have… we would have taken them all into our home! This will be a picture overload but who cares! 😉 This is the group, obviously in action (and thanks host families for taking such great pictures…)

We stayed busy the entire week, always finding different things to do during their downtime or running them around when they had certain places they needed to be at. We took the group up Payson canyon to make s’mores… their 1st time tasting smores.
We hiked the grotto…

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…and then taught them American football. Salem Hills HS’s football team came out after one of their practices and spent the next hour or so with the Georgians and 2 other countries. Great group of kids (all around)… Some of them really got into it.

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Lots of park time where they practiced all week and of course, swimming in the pond.

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I took the 4 boys that stayed with us up to Sundance for a lift ride…
And then signed the group up to play mud volleyball in a city tournament. They absolutely loved it! This was their 1st time playing (with a net) and they were pretty good at it.

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Some random, fun pictures…

…and lots of selfies (so not me but it was funny)…
There were injuries and one that needed to see a doctor. George hurt his knee in one of his performances (we absolutely loved George… just an amazing person all around). I was so grateful that we were able to call Dr. Mike Fullmer (a very good friend of ours and also our pediatrician)… he got him in right away!

We went to the Bean museum at BYU (top pic), played lots of games and had a fun time hanging out!
We spent one of our days at the local pool… One picture is a little funny but of course it was Corom’s idea…
They Taught the girls some of their dance moves, ate a lot, and always had their shirts off whenever possible. 🙄😉 They for sure Kept us entertained.

They were so good with the girls! Always playing around with them.

Corom and I had to laugh because this went on every night with the push-ups! Corom would put a song on and without fail… Onosay would get down and do his push-up routine. So, of course, this made the blog. Mike and Amy were there for one of the nights and we could not stop laughing.

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On our way to beach camping, Mike was motivated to do push-ups at the gas station. Onosay motivated him to do more push-ups throughout his daily routine.

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One night, they made us some Georgian food… it was really good! My boys met the drill team and absolutely loved that! And the girls loved them…
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The group performed for the Veteran’s Home in Payson. It was an amazing experience and the veteran’s loved having them there! (Pic above)

Pic below… more performance pictures and as I mentioned before… they were incredible. The crowd loved them. The Austria group was pretty dang funny, too! Very entertaining.
Just hanging out during all the performances…We went to Wal-Mart on many occasions… they loved that store. 🙄 They got in trouble there at least 4 times! The cops were almost called on 1 occasion, some guy wanted to fight them on another (he didn’t know that they didn’t speak English and kept asking them to back up but they didn’t), and 2 other times the employees tracked them down to tell them to be quiet and to stop singing with their microphones. It was pretty hilarious.

Dancing after their performances of course and then it was my birthday on the 6th…. we all stayed up until 3 (Corom and I barely) while they kept going.

It was hard to say our goodbyes but that’s just how it goes. Maybe someday we will be able to go visit all these people that stay with us!
Oh… I did get a birthday song from the group before they loaded up on their bus. (As mentioned earlier… the 4 boys sang to me at Wal-mart at midnight last night but we were kicked out).