Catch Up

Oh, hey.  I'm here!  I just took an unintentional hiatus from blogging, my longest absence here since the birth of my first child.  Oops.  We've been busy!  So that means I actually have a lot to post about despite my lack of doing so.  So, lets catch up a little, old friend.

A while back we had a friend from Joplin, Missouri contacted us saying he had a friend biking Route 66...

He'd started in California...

 And made it to Dwight, Illinois where he was stranded with broken spokes.

Derek agreed to help him out and after work that evening drove over and picked up Kaz.

By the time he got to him, all the bike shops that could do repairs were closed.  So he brought Kaz home for the night.  As we discovered more about Kaz, we found out he was from Japan and had flown into California, bought a bike and started riding Route 66.  He wanted to ride the entire length, ending in Chicago.  Then he planned to hitchhike to New York City and meet up with a friend. He spoke very little english so we did a lot of communicating via a Japanese to English app on our phones.

After I fed him a large American portion sized meal, he pulled out some colored paper and started folding.

He made origami, which fascinated the boys.

Cooper got a bird and Miles got a ninja throwing star.

And I got a flower.

Kaz did some laundry, took a shower and slept...  and the boys were ready to entertain him the next day while we waited for his bike to be done getting repaired.

They played Wii Sports.

And the boys interrogated him with silly questions because the app speaks out loud and they thought their questions in Japanese were hilarious!

And soon, Kaz's bike was done and ready to go!

So we said goodbye to our new friend and Derek drove him back to Dwight to continue his ride.

We connected with Kaz on Facebook so we saw that the next day he had made it to Chicago!

And he didn't waste anytime to start sightseeing. 

And soon, he was in New York!

We also got a postcard last week from Niagara Falls.

He'd told us he wanted to go to Canada and get some maple syrup.

It was a fun adventure to watch and now we have a place to stay, should we ever visit Japan.

With the promise of a visit to all the best sushi restaurants!  :)