Hikaru has had a lot of fun camping.  We took a 5-day camping trip to Glen Rose, TX., where we camped at Dinosaur Valley State Park.  There we saw models of dinosaurs from the 1964-65 World's Fair in New York, REAL dinosaur tracks fossilized in the Puluxy River bed, a racoon invade our campsite...haha, a Jack Rabbit, deer and much more. 

America is very different from Japan, but Texas is very different from any other state in America.  My mom and I have tried real hard to show her all the wonderful things in Texas in 30 days.  Texas is so BIG that it is probably impossible to see all of it in even a whole year, but from what she has seen and expereinced, she loves it!  We hope she comes back to visit!

Hikaru was surprised when my mom handed her a wire hanger (that we have at home in the closet with her clothes hung up on them).  We showed her how to unwind it and put the weenie on it.  It was so funny.  My mom ended up putting the weenies on for all of us because the hangers were still kind of bent and it was hard to get them on there and not fall off.  She thought it was weird at first to cook on the open fire, but then she liked it. Kind of like everything else she's seen....it just takes some getting used to before she catches on.  Then when we made s'mores...she LOVED them and got real excited and even took a picture of it!  It was so cool!

After about 15 minutes of Hikaru freaking out about swimming in a river with slimey rocks and fish and other stuff, she finally started having fun.  She wanted to go everyday and didn't want to get out when it was time to go back to the campsite.  I am glad she likes to swim and have fun because I do too.  (Note: The other person in the photograph is my friend Rayna from California. I am in the middle.)

The day before we came back home, my mom took us to Fossil Rim, a wildlife reserve in Glen Rose.  We saw all kinds of wild animals and took a guided tour so we could get a better look and learn about the animals and the reserve.  Hikaru loved the tour. She loves animals just like me.

My mom and I go camping all the time and have never taken anyone else with us.  This time we took my friend Rayna and my twin cousins, Katie and Kianne from Grapevine.  It was quite an adventure for my mom to take a trip with so many tweenie & teenagers...haha....four of who had never gone camping, but we had fun.

Katie kept laughing and saying "Fun Times in the mini-van!" and we would all laugh because if you know my mom, you know that she is not the mini-van type, so imagine my mom, young-at-heart grad school student-single mom taxi-driving a van load of girls...haha!  Anyway, so here we are coming back from a trip to the local grocery store.  We had to get like 3 bags of ice every day!  (Pictured: Hikaru, Rayna, Kianne and me)

I love camping and this was my second time to Dino-Valley. We had a lot of fun looking for dino tracks in the river, splashing, and getting some sun.  This is a pic of Hikaru, Kianne and me in the river. the rocks were slippery, but we had fun.

I think Hikaru has like 3 or 4 baseball league t-shirts.  She loves to watch baseball but usually doesn't play.  I played softball at a league in my hometown this past year and loved it!  So I brought my gloves and balls and stuff so we could play catch.  You can't see them but she is throwing the ball to either Rayna or Kianne who are on the other side of the tree.

The home stays are short, and take place during the summer. The Japanese delegates come for just one month, usually from the third week of July to the third week of August.  A home stay/camp combination program is available in many areas.

English speaking adult chaperones accompany the delegates to each state.

There were over 100 Japanese exchangees in America last summer and 17 of them were in Texas participating in this program! Hikaru was the only exchangee in Hunt County and the only one north of Interstate 35 in Dallas.  We are so lucky to have had such a wonderful opportunity! 

Check out my Slide Show link to see more pictures of Hikaru's visit.