Things are busy around here. Beds moving, closets getting cleaned out, school supplies being purchased. It’s not your average back to school time. You see, we’ve got Cole leaving for college next week, and that involves a lot of organizing, purchasing, and getting ready. Since he will be living at BYU for most of the year, he won’t be using his room quite so much, so we are moving John into that room. Poor Cole now needs to clean out his closet full of STUFF that he’s been collecting for the past 10 years. Sadly, he doesn’t have any of those nice purging genes (messy parents, both of us), and sorting and organizing are NOT high on his list of talents.
On the other end of the house, we need to vacate John from Jenna’s room. When a girl reaches a certain age, you see, it’s no longer cool to room with your brother. I’m amazed at the amount of legos, star wars figures, stuffed animals, etc, that I have pulled out of that closet.
My trash can is uberfull, and we just took a truckload of bags full of stuff to DI.
Why the rush, you may ask. Well, we are expecting a new addition in the Erickson household. Calm down, calm down. It’s not a baby. We are hosting an exchange student for the school year. Her name is Larissa and she is from Germany. She arrives on Saturday.
You might say we’ve been working up to this decision for a long time, with our short term exchange students from all over. We had a host family coordinator contact us about a year ago, to ask if we would like to host a student. While it wasn’t possible then, when she called again last winter, we thought that we might have the basement finished, and with Cole leaving, that might be a possibility. We chose our top three choices from the profiles we were given, and then didn’t hear much. In April, we found out that our school district only accepts a certain number of students, and they really have to be in the top of their class to come, and none of our picks made the cut. No problem, I thought. WE don’t really NEED that extra stress in our lives. But our coordinator was persistent, and eventually got slots transferred from other schools who were not using them. We picked from a short list again, and eventually we found out that our pick had been accepted, and we would actually be host families for a German girl.
Yes, I did have a little say in her nationality. If I’m going to have someone in my home for that long, I want someone I can actually communicate with, even if it means dusting off my rusty German. We’ve spoken on the phone, and she seems like a really sweet girl. Her English is also very good, so that’s a plus.
She comes in on Saturday. School starts on Tuesday, but we’ll have to try and register her on Monday and hope we can get some classes for her that she likes.
Besides all the cleaning and organizing, which we aren’t loving, we are excited to have her here. Since she’s here for school, not just a ‘vacation’, we won’t feel like we need to entertain her all the time. Hopefully she will be making friend and meeting people, and it will all be a great experience for all of us.
In the meantime, wish me luck. I still have the rest of the closet to clean out, beds to move, carpets to clean, and bathrooms to organize. In addition to that, I kind of promised one little boy I would take him to Seven Peaks SOME time before school starts.
WHY am i just now hearing about this new addition to your family?? You must have mentioned it last night after I left. I’m excited for you – I’m sure we’ll do the same in a few years. Is it thru Nacel? or in another group?
Sounds like fun! We’re moving furniture all over the place here, too, so I hear you on the stress levels. It’ll all be worth it, right?
Holy Cow you are getting another child for a year? Remember the German exchange student who came to Brighton? What was his name? He and S. Capner were an item? Funny. Holy cow Cole is going to BYU? Holy cow you painted your bathroom Dover Gray? I love that color!