Sister City Shobu BBQ

Here's Troop 371.

Front left side is Renee. She graduated early last Sunday with Trevor's class. She is waiting to hear back about starting boot camp for the Navy.

This was today at the Rod & Gun Club, where we went to help with a Barbeque for our sister city, Shobu, Japan. This is an exchange thing that spun off from the middle-school student exchange. It continues the Sister City relationship we have with Shobu. This exchange is open to teens & adults - it's also with couples (spouses, friends, parent & older child).

Our job today was to prepare the tomatoes, onions and lettuce for the hamburgers (we did that at my house), and then to help with setting up the picnic area and maintaining the buffet line. After everyone had eaten, it was our turn with whatever was left over. This year they also had a community college band come to sing "American" song from a bunch of genres - jazz, show tunes, R&B, etc. That was fun.

We had another troop with us, also four girls, and we were given a donation of $100 ($50/troop) for coming to help. We also got any leftover food items, from the extra ketchup to tubs of potato salad. The watermelon wasn't great, so while there was bunch left, we didn't keep it.

Not all the girls could stay till the clean up, but Diana & I did, along with two girls and a co-leader from the other troop. Last time, we'd left after the food was cleaned up, but we stuck around this time to hear the little speeches from the Japanese people and their hosts. There was a translator to help everyone understand each other's language, so this took a little time. Diana & Stephanie were especially interested in listening to Japanese. It's not taught at their High School, but Diana is the president of the Japanese club, while Stephanie has been a member since she started High School. Both girls would nod and say things to each other to see if the other one had caught something. It was cute.

At the end, Diana & I were talking to the guy who had invited us (for the 2nd year now) to come and help with the food. When he found out how interested Diana is in Japan, he said he'd give us specifics about their next trip (October 2008?) in case she wanted to come along! Diana is thrilled! When we got home, I told Lee about it and he'd like to go too! It's only a 10-day trip, so that would be pretty dang cool for them to do together. We're okay with Diana missing school for it!

They gave us too many tomatoes & onions to prep tho. I need to figure out what to make with pre-sliced tomato & onion. Salsa?



This is what we're really like - pretty much all of the time. We're gonna miss Renee next year.