Merril has a friend from Japan, Shota, and Merril ships cars to him in Japan. Shota needed to come to California to purchase cars and get then ship them to Japan and needed a translator. Shota brought his family to America for the first time. Aya is the Mom and they have 2 kids, Ren who is Mikayla's age, and Goonji, who is Mark's age. When they finished their purchases in California, Merril suggested they come up to St. George and see the sights. We took them to the sand dunes at Snow Canyon and to the lake.
Goonji was the cutest thing ever!
Mark had fun being burried.
They thought the lake was super fun!
I didn't hardly take any pictures of the parents. This is one of the only ones I took of Aya, she's holding Goonji. Aya was super nervous in America. She didn't want to be left alone and wanted to stay by Merril all the time. After they came here, Aya and I went to Walmart to buy souvenirs.
She doesn't speak English and I don't speak Japanese but we both had Google translate on our phones. We were able to muddle through and communicate well enough. As I was having something translated, a random passerby commented, "Isn't technology awesome!" It sure is.
They stayed for a few days and then Merril took them back to California so they could fly home.
Just a few comments about children. Kids are kids, no matter the culture. Ren and Mikayla and Goonji and Mark didn't speak the same language and somehow that didn't matter. Tablets, cars, scooters, and mud just cross cultural boundaries. They played so well together and laughed and we all thought it was so funny.
On a sad note, we were going to take them up to Kolob and the Tahoe engine started making the most horrible noise. Merril said it sounded like rod noise and that the engine was done. So we towed it home. After towing me for a while, the steering decided to go out as we were going around a corner and I just about plowed into the side of a car. I was able to stop and the car moved out of the way. What a crazy turn of events.
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