Saturday/Sunday

On Saturday Kaelei and Lisha slept in till 10 AM because we were up late again the night before. Kali slept over at Anna's house the night before because the ball that she went to ended really late. Kali came home from Anna's house at about noon and at 12:30 Anna's mom, Katharina, came and got the three of us to go to a swimming activity. Anna's little sister, Laura, was swimming in this too so she was "the cool girl with American friends". This swimming activity was a fund raiser of some sort and it was a 24 hour consistent relay, 3 PM on Saturday to 3 PM on Sunday. Kali and Kaelei were disappointed that they missed church because they couldn't see Tobi (the cute kid). There were several other teams that were involved in this relay too. The teams there were not very big compared to the ones at home. Our team was the biggest and it had about 30 people including the three of us. Each team was divided into groups with about ten people in each group. Each group (out of all the teams) were given 3 times that they were to swim. Lisha's group swam from 4 PM - 3 PM, Midnight - 1 AM, and 8 AM - 9 AM. Kaelei and Kali were in the same group and they swam from 8 PM to 9 PM, 4 AM - 5 AM, and Noon - 1 PM. So each group did there own little really for an hour at a time. We had loads of fun! We set up our own little tent with sleeping bags so we could sleep between our time sto swim.

We got to know a few people on the team. Sabrina was a very nice girl and is going to be turning 18 this year. Dimitri was nice but seamed really shy because he thought that when he spoke English that he sounded dumb. But we were able to talk to him a little bit even though he would get really embarrassed if he didn't know the English word. Dimitri looks like he is 17 or 18... but he's 15... he he. There was one boy, Jannik, that spoke really good English. Jannik is 18 and he went to school in America for a year and that's why his English is so good. Lisha talked with him nearly the ENTIRE time. If she wasn't sleeping or swimming in the water, she was talking to Jannik. Kaelei and Kali went jumping of the diving platforms in the side pool but Lisha didn't want to go with them because she was still talking to Jannik. Kaelei and Kali went of the 5 meter platform a few times. The three of us, Sabrina, Dimitri and Jannik all played ladders and Uno together. Since Lisha was always with Jannik she taught him all sorts of card games.

At the 24 hour relay the team gave us nice t-shirts with the team logo on it and team caps too! Kaelei and Kali's grope got a first place trophy for swimming the most meters out of all the groups. And Lisha's group got a second place trophy.



On Sunday after the relay was over, Katharina took us all back to Quinn's house had we were kinda lazy because we were so tired from not getting very much sleep with the relay and all. We watched an intense soccer game, Spain v Italy. It went into over time and it was still tied 0-0, so it went into a shoot out. Spain won 2-4 and it was a great victory because Italy won the world cup two years ago. The game went late so we went to bed late... again. And we were about to go to bed when this HUGE SPIDER came in the room. Now we are not exaggerating when we are saying that it is GINORMOUS!

The Spider Story, as told by Kali with the help of Kaelei and Lisha:
It was about 12:22 at night and we we sitting on our beds, talking. When out of no where an ENORMOUS spider crawled sinisterly into the room. DUHN DUHN DUHN DUHN (organ sound) ...then Kaelei said, "OMG YOU GUYS THERE'S A HUGE SPIDER SITTING BY LISHA'S SHOE!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Kali screams like a damsel in distress as she lunges onto Kaelei's pillow, saying with wide eyes, "Sorry 'bout your pillow, Kaelei, but my butt's on it now!" Then as we contemplated the horror of the situation, we realize that we need to do something before it crawls into Kali's half packed suitcase and is lost forEVER. "Who's gonna squish it?" we ask. "I will if I HAVE to," Lisha squeaks bravely. "I won't! I would cry," Kali says almost in tears. "Me neither," Kaelei says, "but here's my shoe, Lisha." " THANKS a LOT, Kaelei," Lisha groans. "You're welcome, have fun," Kaelei responds, grinning. Lisha slowly stalks the spider, tail sticking straight up in the air, tensing for the kill, when all of a sudden..."Guys, I can't DO it! It's eyes are looking straight into mine...and it looks so BIG!" she wails pitifully. We sit there, plotting for about 5 minutes. "What should we do?" we ask. "Let's get Benny!" someone suggests. "Maybe he'll hear us if we yell!" Kaelei says hopefully. "BENNY! HELP US! THERE'S A BIG HUGE SPIDER!" Nothing happens. "Darn it." "Kali, go wake them up! They're YOUR relatives." they suggest. "Not by MYSELF! What if there's MORE?!" "Ok fine," Kaelei snaps, "I'll come too." "What about Lisha?" Kali squeaks pitifully. "Oh yeah, just leave me here to DIE!" Lisha exclaims, "when you get back, make sure to pay for my funeral!" So, Kali and Kaelei left, making the long trek up the stairs, leaving Lisha at the mercy of the terrifying spider.



Lisha with the sp-sp-spider (as told by Kali and Kaelei while Lisha diligently helps Quinn with her math homework):

So, while Kali and Kaelei are upstairs doing who knows what, Lisha is downstairs sitting on her bed carefully watching the spider for any movement. I really want to get a picture of this spider, Lisha thinks, but my camera is in my shoe, right next to the spider. Oh well, I'll try it anyways. So she creeps down to Kali's bed and perches precariously on the edge, trying to find a way to get the camera without disturbing the spider. She looks into the spider's eyes, engaged in a crucial staring match with the spider, "No, I can't do it. It's just too scary!" she says out loud to no one in particular. Then suddenly the other girls showed up with reinforcements. The scare was over.



Back to the other girls: tap tap tap...Kali, quiet as a mouse goes up to the bedroom door of Quinn and Benny and softly taps on the door. She's afraid to wake them up, but she's even more afraid to leave them asleep with the danger in the basement. "Quinn?" she softly whispers. No answer. "Quinn?" Again, no reply. "QUINN?!" "What? What happened? What's wrong?" Quinn says groggily, sitting up in bed. "There's a HUGE spider downstairs in our room and we don't know what to do about it. Will you help us?" Kaelei cackles like a witch, thinking how hilarious the whole situation is. "Yeah, sure, just gimme a second," she says, getting out of bed. So, we hurried down the stairs to rescue Lisha from the utter peril of the beast. "OH MY GOSH!" Quinn exclaims, finally awake, "THAT THING IS HUGE! You guys weren't kidding! That's the biggest spider I've ever seen!" So, Quinn goes to fetch a jar to capture the spider with. "HOORAY FOR SPIDER-WOMAN!" we cheer, semi-quietly. (Don't forget, we wouldn't want to wake up the little ones.) Then we took pictures of the spider, now at OUR mercy, in a transparent glass jar. Kali got an awesome close-up picture of the horrendous hairy monster. Then we flushed it down the toilet and went to bed.



***Author's Note: We will post a picture of the spider later, for now, just use your imagination.***