How does one Travel Around the World in two Nights?

By having an International Night!

Last week, we as a church body had a homeschool "international night." Each family chose a country to study, then the school age children wrote reports and helped to prepare displays for their table.

It was a crazy, crazy week! I definitely feel like I've traveled through six different countries in two nights... Wow! What a ride! To say the least, I'm very glad it's behind us.

Preparation...

A proud self had just completed our Haitian flag.

Mom was gone one day last week. KK thought it would be funny to screw all the lampshades in upside down to see if Mom would notice. She never did, but Nate ended up turning them around. :)

Ry and Kels came over several times to use the internet for research on their country, Afghanistan. Of course, Buggy came along too.

She loves to chaw on carrots.

Peek! :)

Little fingers

Her carrot got so disgusting! I picked it up once and it had a couple long black hairs on it, along with a bunch of dirt and grime.

The little boys made a very systematic numbered pattern for the Haitian hut that they were building. 

I was cleaning out the sewing/catch all room when I came across this garland. Abi draped it over KK and declared that he was our Christmas tree.

He wasn't impressed. :)

The hut's coming along!

They mixed crushed up used mortar into grey paint to replicate the rough exterior of a Haitian hut. 

Painting the cardboard walls of the hut.

Tin foil roofing

They cut out a little table and chair and a bed from card board.

Pile of groceries

A cabbage leaf hat

Wednesday night was our crunch time. There were so many last minute things to do! We wanted to get everything done Wed. so that Thurs. would be clear for cleaning house. A man and his family that Dad met at Leadership Seminar were going to be stopping overnight Thurs. Ah! Right in the middle of International night!

Just about everyone pitched in to help Abi finish the food. They're making the Haitian dish called "Pickliz" here.

It has cabbage, carrots, onions, lots of vinegar and spices. Dad calls it coleslaw on steroids. :)

I worked on our "Haiti Fast Facts" cards. I was in such a raging hurry that I didn't see the mistakes that I made on them until after I'd printed about 70 copies of them... Arg.

Sam, practicing his report on culture and religion.

More preparation...

...And a lot of dishes!

Thursday- First Night

Originally, Dad thought that the family that would be staying with us was just David Bagwell, his wife Elizabeth and their toddler Leah. Well, just a week before they came, we found out that David's whole family was coming! It was going to be ten people total. To relieve the burden and share the joy :) Dad asked Ry and Kels if they wouldn't mind having the younger couple. They said they could, but when Thursday rolled around, they were too far behind in IN prep. That afternoon, they called and asked if they could bow out. So, we scrambled to get Mom and Dad's room cleaned and the bedding washed. As we were cleaning, Dad yelled upstairs, "Honey! They're an hour away!" Well, that was fine 'cause we were almost done anyway. Right in the midst of all that, Ryan came over to do some last minute research. He and Kels were pretty far behind in the IN prep, so he asked if one or two of us could go over and help Kels. Thankfully, we'd just finished everything but the cooking, so Mom and I went over to help, while Abi and Dad worked on our food. Our company arrived while we were gone at Kels'. Mom went home after awhile while I stayed to help longer. I 'm glad we were able to help them out, otherwise, I'm not sure if they'd been able to get it all done.

This was one of the Martin's Nepalese appetizers. Each table was supposed to have some sort of snack or something from their country.

I'm not sure what this display was at the Martin's table, but it looked like a cake. I thought it looked good enough to eat!

More Martin appetizers

Info board

Joel hadn't quite finished his geography display, so he worked on it at chuch.

Someone set up a table for Elson and Ellen Miller in Tanzania.

Zooks prob'ly had the most extravagant display.

They did Egypt. That's one country that needs an extravagant display! It's rich history goes so far back that it would be easy to spend a long time on.

The Nile river at night

Chupps had Chile

Emma made palm trees for their display.

Our Haiti display wasn't looking the best, but by the next night we had it spruced up.

Those are fruits that are grown in Haiti. That pestle and mortar are from a Haitian market.

I found Abi and the Chupp ladies upstairs in the apartment kitchen making food.

Chupps made something similar to our pates. 

Abi, shaping pates.

Ry and Kels' Afghan flat bread.

Gavins did Ethiopia. This is a page from the scrap book that they put together. Unmarried girls have their lips pierced and stretched like the girl pictured above. Once they're married, though, they don't wear the disk in their lip anymore. Yuck!

Ry and Kels' Afghanistan display.

Kels made these Afghan rose water cookies. The rose water made them smell like soap or perfume, but they were really yummy!

The Zooks made these Egyptian date balls.

Steamy rice

Since some people thought we should make something other than beans and rice, Abi made a Haitian spaghetti with hot dogs. Easy, and American too! :)

Kels made this wonderful Afghan dish. I don't remember what it was called, but wow, was it yummy!

TEmpting the poor Bug with food...

The Bagwells, going through the line first as guests.

Looks pretty ethnic, what?

The "dessert" table.

Since my cousin Liya was adopted from Ethiopia, Aunt Carol was able to borrow things from Uncle Bernie and Aunt Erin. This is a traditional Ethiopian dress.

Joel, giving his report on Nepalese geography.

Listening...

Annetta gave a report on Nepal's history.

Of course, I've got to insert Katelynna in here somewhere!

I liked how Gavins did their report. Aunt Carol told the history, geography, religion, and culture by going through a list of questions that she asked her family. 

Brie read a well written report on Ethiopian animals.

Dad, introducing Haiti

School children 12 and over were required to give an oral report, while the younger ones just displayed their reports on the tables. Sam wanted to read his report. He really did a great job!

KK gave a good report too.

Leon, introducing Egypt

Jason, giving his report...

...and Shawn

Katelyn sat so quietly with Kels and looked at this book.

Cleaning up later

:)

Michael with the youngest Bagwell boy.

Markie

 Clean Up Friday Morning

 I just had to insert this picture in here. Gram was in town Thursday and got our euros for Ireland. (By the way, we leave a week from today!)

After the Bagwells left, we trooped over to church to clean up the mess. And boy, was it ever a mess!

Abi cleaned mouse and cockroach stuff out of the kitchen drawers.

KK and I swept the dining room floor.

Daddy and Sam mopped it.

Never fear, Abi sanitized the drawers, washed the utensils and we took all the towels home and washed them.

Moving the coat rack in preparation for the community outreach that night.

The poor dilapidated table that we usually have under the missionary board had a hard time folding up. :)

Coffee station for the crowd

We moved some of the tables around to make things flow better for the expected big crowd that night.

Moving Zooks booth was  interesting...

We had to take their palm tree down in order to move the table. :)

Securing it back up.

 Friday- Second Night

For our Friday night event we invited the community. I didn't think that many people would come, but we had quite the crowd!

Our Haiti display looked really nice, if I do say so myself! :)

Aunt Carol's table

Martin's

Zook's

Abi made Haitian rice with bean and red sauce to serve samples of at our table.

None of us were allowed to eat anything until after the end at 8:30. That day, I never ate breakfast, I only got a small something for lunch and was too busy to get any supper before we left. All that food was so tempting! I asked Dad if I could sneak just one small thing from our table, but he said no, we need to be strong. I didn't really feel like being strong, but I survived! :)

Mom and I worked on a board for the two children's malnourishment programs in Haiti called "Medika Mamba" and "Nourishing the Needing."

Rhoda :)

Daddy and I served samples of our food.

The Chupps made these strawberry cream cheese empanadas that were scrumptious!

That's my cousin Liya from Ethiopia. We think she's really cute!

Coffee and drink table

Another picture of Lynna. :)

Mm... more rose water cookies... 

Afghani bolani with yogurt dill sauce

Martin snacks

:)

If you can, try to read the caption to the right of the picture to learn about an interesting Afghani tradition.

Sweet Kels

Sammy gave many people a spiel on Haiti life using his picture board that Dad and he made. It was so cute to listen to him! He really stuck to his job well, even though he told us later that he was getting pretty tired repeating all that info. :)

Sam, telling about the map that Dad and he made.

Aw... Mother and Daughter in loves.

The little girls had fun playing with some other little children that came from the community.

Saturday morning found our family back at church cleaning again. Rachel and some of the children came to take their table down while we were there. They ended up staying to help us clean. That sure was a big blessing! We prob'ly would've been there for quite a bit longer if they hadn't helped. Thanks, Martins!

After we finished cleaning, Dad took us all out to eat at the Coe Creek Cafe in Elliott as a reward for our hard work the past week. Josh and KK missed out on the cleaning and Coe Creek 'cause they went to an auction with Joel and Ben. Oh, well, too bad for them. :)

By the time we got home, we were so wore out from everything! Mom and I took naps, while the others just lazed around. We were just glad that the whole thing was finally over.