The First Two Weeks

Urara has been in our household for 2 weeks now.  It is really hard to believe that it has been so long and yet not so long at all!  We have done a lot in those two weeks, though, and Urara has been a real champion, hanging in there through thick and thin, battling exhaustion, homesickness, and even some physical ailments.

But I'm getting ahead of myself!  "Gotcha Day" was Friday, August 14 at 7pm.  We were informed the students wouldn't get dinner, and although many families live in Northern Virginia, many of us don't, so we were not too happy about our kids going hungry for all that time, and a long drive on top of it.  We left around 5:30, and the traffic was HORRIBLE.  We barely made it, it was 6:58 when we pulled into the church parking lot.  The volunteers were determined to start on time.  They have a little ceremony where during the day, the students draw their national flag, and at the ceremony they are on display and tell their names and where they are from.  As soon as they go down the line, the lead volunteer says "Students, find your families!" and the kids all run out to their families.  It is a really nice way to see all the kids coming to our area, and this year we had 27, which is an amazing number.  Urara is the only Japanese student, which is unusual, typically there are a few!  But it made it easy to find her :)

Once the kids were released, she came and found us, and Leah gave her her teddy bear.  We exchanged hugs, gathered up Urara's gear, and hit the road.  It was a nearly 2 hour drive for a 15 minute pick up!  But I can't really complain as there were people who made a 3 or 4 hour drive!  And frankly, once you have your kid, you don't really want to hang around much anyway.

I had packed a picnic dinner of sandwiches, chips, grapes, and cookies, and we stopped at Burke Lake Park to eat dinner.  There we finally got our "gotcha" picture, which I had neglected to do before we left.

Urara was suitably impressed by the size of a Wegman's sub, and indeed we ate it for 2 days.  Leah played on the playground for a little while, but I was cognizant of the fact that it was A) getting late and B) Urara had been on the road for 3 days and was probably anxious to get home and relax.  So I made Leah get in the car in short order.

Sampling Wegman's finest

The next day, Saturday, was a whirlwind. I always really hate the first days and weeks of an exchange.  As an introvert and naturally shy, I feel like I need to keep busy and keep the student busy because it is generally an awkward time and I feel awkward.  I had thought we would spend the afternoon at the pool, but Urara wasn't feeling up to doing that, so I had to make alternate plans.  Once she woke up, we spent some time going over the household rules, and then we went downtown to the farmer's market and to the grocery store so that I could have Urara pick out things she wanted to eat.  She didn't pick out anything at all, I think she was afraid to do so.  But she went along and smiled a lot.  And Leah more than made up for her anxiety about choosing foods. Ha!

Urara presented me with some beautiful gifts from Japan.  She gave me a furoshiki, which is a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth used to present gifts.  And she gave Leah a traditional Japanese outfit, in pink of course! I can't remember the name of it, but it is lovely.  Leah immediately put it on and loved it, and Urara made sure it all was wrapped and worn just perfectly.

After a few hours, we went to my old standby, Chuck E. Cheese's. It is an arcade for children, but grown ups can have fun there too.  Leah has a particular pirate game she enjoys and Urara played that for nearly an hour with her.  This is saying something, because the games are built for small children, so either you have to be kneeling on your knees or hunched over the machine to play.  But they had fun.  We won lots of tickets, and Leah got some fun prizes.  Everyone was happy.

That evening, we had been invited to a house concert at the home of a member of our local UU fellowship.  They were hosting Gaye Adegbalola and the Wild Rutz.  Gaye was famous for performing with the group Saffire-the Uppity Blues Women and comes from Fredericksburg.  She was a long time educator here, and was the first African-American member of the Fredericksburg school board.  These days you can find her performing with her new group, Gaye Adegbalola and the Wild Rutz, and that is who we went to see.  There was a potluck first, so Urara got to try different foods, and then we listened to the music for about an hour and a half.  But we had been so busy, and Urara said she had a fever and didn't feel very well, so we left after the first half of the concert.

Gaye Adegbalola and the Wild Rutz perform at the Manse

She asked what we were doing the next day, and I said nothing except going to the UU in the morning, and that made her happy.  She was not up for doing as much as we had that day.  I knew we were overdoing it, but my nerves got the better of me!  I was really glad she could say what she felt, though. :)

Sunday we went to the UU for the first time.  The speaker wasn't that great, in my opinion, and we were seated right where the air conditioning was blowing on us, so we were both freezing!  That afternoon we decided to go see the Minions movie.  I had asked Urara if she wanted to see it and she did, so we took Leah and I really enjoyed it!  After dinner, we took a walk around the neighborhood, and met our neighbors who were very happy to get to be among the first to meet Urara.  We also played some board games and watched TV and played the Wii.  Nothing too exciting, but good ways to settle in.  We had bought Urara a Tangled game, and she and Leah were both very lucky with it, while I was not, and that made both girls laugh that I kept getting stuck.  We played that several times, and we played Jenga.  Jenga is an awesome exchange student game.  You are all kind of working together to create a tall tower, and no language skills are needed.

Monday was another busy day.  We started off at Fredericksburg Academy for computer training and set up for Urara.  Each student has to bring a laptop with them when they attend FA, and we had to go and get it set up, and get Urara a username and whatnot.

It took quite a long time.  The laptop was in Japanese, which made it impossible for anyone to understand what was going on or being asked, and Urara was having difficulty translating it.  Eventually it turned out she needed a phone number to text a code to, so she asked me for help with that, and we were able to get the code and crack the system.  I think it's all working now, but it took us quite a while!

Afterwards, we had to go up to the post office to pick up a package Urara had shipped herself, and Leah was screaming she was hungry, so we made a quick starbucks stop.  Urara got to try a cotton candy frappucino, which according to her Facebook is something she has been dreaming about.  All I can say is that it was VERY pink.  She said it didn't have any flavor other than "sweet".

Happily the Stafford post office was able to locate her package no problem, and I even ran into some people I knew while we were there, which was fun.  Once we got home, Urara took her package upstairs, but soon came down with a green tea KitKat and asked if I would like to try it.  Yum! It was amazing.  Leah didn't care for it, but I thought it was pretty great.

Urara at the WWII Memorial--she is now a Virginian!

That evening, I had decided we would go down to DC.  The weather here has been PERFECT, no humidity, no heat, no rain, just gorgeous, and I love to do the DC trip soon after the students get here.  I was second guessing myself a bit in that AFS Virginia had decided to move up its DC day to September, but decided to press ahead.  And I'm so glad I did!  We were able to have our first real conversation in the car; it lasted a really good long time and I discovered that Urara was just such a delight!  Her English is very good, although halting, but it is getting better every day, and every time we actually talk, I feel so happy because she is such a lovely person with such a fun personality.

We did the usual--trip to the Capitol building followed by the White House driveby, WWII Memorial with the walk to the Wall, Lincoln Memorial, and Korean Memorial, then hopping in the car and driving over to the FDR Memorial and MLK Memorial with a look at the Tidal Basin in between.  It is a good tour and lasts a few hours, with a lot of walking.

Because of the length of it, Leah started getting tired.  She is not a little girl any more, all spindly legs and arms in every direction, and so I carried her for a bit, but I got tired and put her down.  Before I knew it, Urara had scooped her up and was carrying her down the Mall like a pro!  There was a LOT of giggling.

I gave Urara a lot of history as we toured the various monuments, and we were able to talk about WWII in a very open way that I thought was great. And I learned the most interesting thing there, on the Mall, surrounded by monuments to war and our war dead:  in Japan, they don't teach about these things.  They want to de-emphasize war.  It isn't that the children aren't taught that it happened, but they don't dwell on it.  And they certainly don't glorify it.  After learning this, I was suddenly hyper aware of how with these monuments, we do the exact opposite.  And I think maybe the Japanese have it right.  It was literally an earth-shaking moment for me.  I started to think about what I know about American history, and realized it's a history of war:  The Revolution, the Civil War, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, 9/11 and the attendant conflicts...  I thought of non-war history and basically came up with the Roaring 20's.  Most all other American history seems tied up in war.  If tomorrow this entire exchange imploded, I would have learned enough in that instant to make the whole year worth it. Seriously.

So, we got home close to midnight, and we were all quite tired.  I had to work the following day, and Urara had asked if she could go to the mall sometime.  I made sure she knew where the free WiFi hot spots in the mall were and introduced her to the ladies at the day care where I drop Leah in the mall.  They said she could come in at any time if she needed something, and I asked her to please Facebook message me 2 or 3 times that she was safe, and I left her to shop, which is something I hate doing anyway.  She communicated very well throughout the 5 hours she was there and said she had a great time.  I didn't have to shop, which meant it was a great time for me too!!  She said things here are very expensive compared to in Japan, which may be the first time I've heard an exchange student tell me that prices are not good comparatively.

I can't remember what we did Wednesday other than possibly visiting my mom (I think!?), but Thursday I had to work in the morning for a couple of hours and Urara was happy to go back to the mall.  I picked her and Leah up at 12:00 and we got in the car and drove to Dulles Airport to pick up Ine, our student from Belgium from last year.  I was having a big birthday this year and Ine decided to come back for it.  She talked her parents into it, and arrived Thursday around 3pm.  Leah had no idea what was happening, but when Ine emerged from customs, I think the entire airport heard a shriek of "INE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  We had lots of hugs, I introduced the two girls, and we headed home.

One the way home, we stopped and got our first potato chip taste test for Urara--Funky Fusion chips.

Urara was the only one who liked them, so we let her have them! :)

Now, this could have either been a total disaster--our beloved former student showing up less than a week after our new student arrived--or a total hit.  And with the personalities involved, I wasn't too sure.  Ine is very quiet when she doesn't know someone and Urara was still learning the ropes, but I am pleased to say that the girls got along just great.  It was nice to have someone who had been in Urara's shoes before, they could talk and Urara could see that we really did bond as a family and we had a wonderful time together.  The first night, we took dessert over to my mom's and the girls did some crazy stuff--whatever Ine did, Urara followed.  It was hilarious.  I was really pleased how well they got along.

Leah's fondest dream was that she could go to the mall with her big sisters and not her mom.  She is of the opinion that she is on the cusp of teenagerdom anyway, despite the fact that she is 6.  I had to work for an hour on Thursday, I think it was, maybe Friday? So the girls agreed to take her to the mall.  I gave them some money, as Leah wanted to buy me a birthday present and then she took the girls to Starbucks so they could drink fancy drinks and wander around the mall together.  After I picked them up, we rented these rolling animals they have--for $6 you can rent a giant stuffed animal to ride on around the mall.  It makes for quite a spectacle to say the least, and the four of us formed a little parade and rode down the mall together.  It was hilarious--some people even shot video of us.

Leah also got picture strips taken with her sisters, and all in all, it was all her dreams come true.  She asked if she could do it again with the girls on Tuesday, when I had to work again, and I agreed she could, and they agreed to take her.  They are such great big sisters!  Leah is a lucky little girl.

The rest of the time Friday and Saturday was spent preparing for my party. I turned 40 on August 23rd, and threw a big party in my yard on the 22nd.   I hired a musician, Bob Sima, to come and play, and invited about 200 people to come.  I think about 50 showed up.  It was an awesome night.  The girls helped me decorate and we organized the yard and put food together, and then got to sit back and relax.  It was so nice to introduce Urara to all these wonderful people in my life and she could know that they were there for her too.  I felt like the most loved human being on the planet, seriously.

After the concert was over and the majority of people were gone, we had a bonfire in our firepit with a few friends who stayed.  It was super fun, we toasted marshmallows and had a lot of laughs.  We will have to do another one in the fall sometime!

Musician Bob Sima performing at my party

Ine and Urara enjoying the concert with some of my friends

Urara and Amber toasting marshamllows at the bonfire

Urara turns out to be a bit of a firebug--she enjoyed poking the logs and breaking them up and shooting sparks everywhere.  :)

King Neptune guards VA Beach

As Urara and I discussed her first week in the US, I gave her the choice of a day trip to do the following week:  either a trip to the beach or a trip to King's Dominion.  She decided she wanted to go to the beach, so for my actual birthday on the 23rd, I told the girls to wake up early and we would drive down to Virginia Beach for the day.  I had thought we would leave at 6, but it was darned near 8:30 before we were on the road--we were all tired from the day before!  All three girls gave me presents that morning before we left, and then we headed out.  It was a special way to wake up to 40!

We arrived at the beach at around 11:30 and staked out a spot near the water.  The tide was coming in, so we had to keep moving our towels backwards and backwards.  The water was VERY choppy, the waves were huge, and Leah kept wanting to go in.  She was not happy that I made her wear a float, but there was no choice with the water so bad--I got tossed a couple of times as did the older girls, and we were being carried along the beach by the water without a second thought.

My girls

Me and the two older girls

We had a wonderful day.  We packed a picnic lunch and ate at the beach--staying there till almost 6pm when everyone declared they were done.  Full of sand, sunburned, and exhausted, we loaded up the car and headed back.  Soon, the familiar "I'm hungry!" sounded from the backseat, and I found an Olive Garden for us to stop at.  Say what you want about me, I love, love, love the Olive Garden, so it was the perfect place for a birthday dinner.  I felt bad tracking in with bathing suits, flipflops, wet hair, and whatnot, but I guess they are used to it, as they didn't give us a second glance.  Ine and Urara split a Taste of Italy platter, and we all shared a piece of cake. It was absolutely the perfect way to spend my birthday, honestly.

The kids leaving the field--Urara is in there somewhere

 Monday was back-to-school night at Fredericksburg Academy, where Urara is going to school this year.  The parents and the kids were separated and so I went and met with all Urara's teachers and she went off with the other students and enjoyed games and a tour and other activities.  Ine came with me and all her old teachers were thrilled to see her.

Tuesday morning, I took Urara shopping to get some school supplies.  I had asked her if she brought anything with her, and she said yes, but it turned out she hadn't, so we went and got what she needed.  She had a better sense of it all once she had been at school and I had gotten a syllabus from each of her teachers.  I thought she made nice choices, everything was flowery and pink and pretty, but my opinion on these matters probably doesn't matter a whole lot anyway! :)

Afterwards, we picked up Ine and Leah and I dropped the girls off at the mall again so I could go to work for a couple of hours.  Leah got to ride the animals again and the girls gamely pushed her when the battery ran out of juice.  She had a blast.  This has cemented in her mind that she is indeed a grown up.  And I was happy for her.  We spent the afternoon at the swimming pool, swimming and relaxing in the sun.  That evening, we went over to the UUFF, as I had to start choir practice.  I introduced Urara to Jason, the choirmaster, and he said "Your name is Urara?  My son would love saying that!  Only he'd call you RAWR!" and thereafter, she became known as "Rawr!"  She was warmly welcomed into the soprano section (I'm an alto) and she said she had a great time singing with the choir, and so has decided to join.  I am thrilled we will be able to do this together.  It is awesome!

I can't remember exactly when, but we also squeezed in some board game time.  We played more Jenga, which led to a lot of squealing and screaming.  I ALWAYS lose, and Ine has never lost yet.  It was looking good that she would tip the tower, but ultimately she returned to Belgium on a 15 game winning streak.  Playing Monopoly was a bit more challenging--the girls lack the killer American instinct.  Once the properties were all bought up, neither one wanted to make bargains, so we sat at a standstill with roughly the same amounts of money and properties, until we finally called it a draw.  Still, it was fun!

We also watched a LOT of TV together.  Earlier this year, while Ine was still here, my friend and fellow host parent Amy and I embarked on a journey to watch all 6 seasons of LOST by the end of summer.  We hit season 6 just as Urara arrived, and were determined to finish, but that meant the girls had to sit around and watch stuff that didn't make a whole lot of sense to them if they wanted to be in my presence in the evenings.  They both did, and bravely trooped through.  Amy and I finished last night and now we will choose something to watch with Urara so that we can bond over that experience. :)

Wednesday, Urara started school!  She was naturally a bit nervous, and I think she did a great job despite that.  She joined the cross-country team and went to her first practice, and was able to make some contacts right away. She calls all the people she meets her friends, and has showed me a few selfies on her phone already with some of the kids from school!

I'm so impressed with her openness.  Even though it's hard in the beginning, her doing this now will pay off in the weeks and months ahead when her friendships blossom more fully.  She is talking to a lot of people, which is great!!!

To celebrate, we went to Carl's Ice Cream after Urara finished her homework.  Our local volunteer, Paul, tells all the kids coming to Fredericksburg "Make sure your family takes you to Carl's!"  Carl's is famous and has been featured on national television, as well as being ranked some of the top ice cream in the United States.  Urara asked me about it not too long after she arrived, so I decided to go there as a special treat.

It was a big hit, unanimously.  Everyone enjoyed their ice cream very much!


Thursday, I had to drop Ine back off at the airport to go back to Belgium.  My mom picked Urara up after school, and when I arrived back in Fredericksburg, they were happily eating dinner and enjoying themselves.

Yesterday, there was a fun day at Urara's school, so she was able to dress casually.  I had to take Leah to get her hair done, and so my mom again picked up Urara and we met them at her house.  Urara and Leah and I made dinner for everyone there as a thank you for helping with our transportation hiccups during the week, and that was just great.  We came home and Urara told me it was the first day she was really, really homesick--she had been sitting in the school at the assemblies and everyone was talking with someone and she didn't have anyone to talk with.  She talked to her mom for a while last night, and was feeling a bit down, but she said she felt a bit better.  I hope in time she will feel comfortable talking with me about things as well.  The fact she told me what was going on was good, though!  I don't want her to feel she has to pretend everything is roses and sunshine--the US is like anywhere else and in an exchange year you will have good and bad days both.  It's normal, even if it's not fun.

We have some exciting times coming up.  We will be going to see Disney on Ice on September 10th. We went last year to see Frozen on Ice with Ine, and we loved it, so when I got the email about this one, I showed it to Urara and asked if she would like to go.  She practically flew off the chair with excitement.  She said they have it in Japan, but she has never been to see it and she would love to, so I got tickets yesterday.  It is a celebration of 100 Years of Magic, so I'm excited to see what that's like rather than just Frozen!

My cousin is getting married at the end of September, and Urara will be able to experience an American wedding, which is exciting.  She will also have her first track meets with the cross-country team, and Leah will finally be starting school on September 8th.  We have birthday parties and concerts and all kinds of things going on.  It'll be an awesome fall.

It has been a long summer!!  I'm ready to really get into our routine with both girls in school and me at work on a regular basis.  Urara being in cross-country is going to be helpful with my daycare pick ups and her school pick up and my work schedule--I was trying to figure out how that would work when I finish work at 3:15, would have to pick up Leah by 3:30, and yet be at Urara's school by 3:10 to pick her up!  Now I don't have to pick her up till 5:00 which makes it significantly easier, and once school starts again, I can go back to my old start time of 9AM and get done with work at 2:30.  Being a single parent means juggling a lot of balls in the air, and I couldn't do it without my 'village' behind me! 

So here we are--it's the beginning of our third week.  We only have 45 weeks together, if my calculations are correct, and so each week slipping by is significant.  This weekend, I will be the leader at the UU and Urara has agreed to be my person I can focus on in the audience so I don't feel too nervous.  I also have a Girl Scouts meeting in the afternoon at the local library, so Urara will finally get to check out the library and we can get her a library card if she likes.  Today I have a meeting at 3:30 to practice tomorrow's event, buy my friend Amber and I are going to try and do something so I hope we will find something fun to do with Urara.

Wow, what a whirlwind it's been!!  So much news to report.  :)  I hope you've enjoyed this update, and all our adventures so far.  I have a feeling September will be a LOT of fun and  so will our year with Urara!!  Keep checking back and hope to see you again soon!

Welcome Eve

It's the night before the night we pick up Urara.  It's hard to believe!  We chose her in November, and now we are on the cusp of her arrival.  YIKES!  It has been so weird to have so much time, and yet I didn't really prepare much before this week.  So now, I have been running around like crazy, trying to get everything ready and in place so we can have a smooth transition.

It's odd, reflecting on my past hosting experiences, which I can't help but do.  This time last year, we didn't even know Ine existed.  We were matched with her at the end of August, and she arrived at our house just about 2 weeks later.  We communicated via email 2 or 3 times before she arrived, but we had no sense of who she was, and it was a rush.  We have had a couple of months to email Urara, and get to know her a little better.  She seems lively and cheerful, and of course excited.  When Ine arrived, I left two days later to go to London.  Urara will be here for 2 weeks before school starts, and although we have a lot of territory to cover in that time and a lot to do, it's still 2 weeks to get to know one another and bond and communicate and learn from each other that we missed with Ine.  In contrast, we had a full month with Penny, who didn't start school till after Labor Day, and there were times that the days seemed to drag on, trying to entertain a teenager and a 1 year old, and figure all that out.

Still, there are similarities.  One of my favorite activities is figuring out what we are going to to take to the pick up location to welcome our student with.  We always take a stuffed animal, and I always make a flag with their name on it, and we bring a US flag as well.

This year, I took Leah to Build-A-Bear Workshop.  She'd been after me to go, as they have an Elsa bear from Frozen.  She really wanted one, and she's been so good this summer adjusting to life as a day care kid, so I agreed to take her to get one if we could make a bear for Urara.  She initially said that was my job, but once she got into it, she wound up making the bear herself!

As you can see, we traded in the American flag for a US flag pinwheel, and Leah helped decorate Urara's name flag with stickers.  We chose to use a lot of pink, as that is Urara's favorite color.  Leah enjoyed the BAB process, she got to put a heart inside the bear and groom her, and she even got to name her and print out a birth certificate.  The bear's name is Zuma, for some reason.  Go figure.

But Leah is just thrilled to have made the bear and will probably insist on carrying it tomorrow. :)

I also like to put a welcome basket in the room, and so we've spent some time shopping around town for little odds and ends.  I never put anything too exciting in there--pens, a notebook, something for the student to do with Leah to break the ice a bit, something about town.  This year's basket includes a fancy box of tissues Leah found and fell in love with--pink of course and shaped like a purse.

She also picked out some Frozen candy and a pink glitter cup.  I'll be drowning in pink before the next 10 months is over!

Because I am not too sure how Urara's English is, I invested in a couple of Japanese/English phrase books, and they arrived from Amazon promptly.

I'm giving the Oxford Picture Dictionary to Urara directly, although she has probably come with something, because all the Japanese is written in Japanese characters, not in phonetics, and I can't understand it at all.  I hope to learn some Japanese this year, I really enjoyed learning Thai writing when Penny was here and she said I had surprisingly good penmanship, so I hope that translates!  I hope to at least be able to ask Urara if she is hungry or tired as needed, and we can always text one another if we need to as well. :)

I also made a little binder for her with all our household information and information about town.  AFS gives each family a participant questionnaire that you can sit and talk with your student about the household rules and such, and I thought it would be helpful to have it all written down in advance as well for when we sit down to talk about it.  I was so happy to find some fun stickers to add to the cover!  You can't see them so well, but there is the US Capitol on the bottom, as well as a kimono, and I put Japanese and US flags on top.

I would be remiss if I didn't thank my friend Amber for stopping off at the local visitor's center and bringing back all kinds of travel brochures about our area.

I also attended parents' orientation at Urara's school, which was informative even if Ine did attend the school last year.  It was fun to see the people in charge again and talk to them about AFS.  They are very excited that AFS is sending another student their way.  I got a nice picture of the school while I was there.

Otherwise, we have been cleaning the house like crazy.  I am not the tidiest person that ever lived, a byproduct of having a young child in the house and preferring to be the fun parent than the parent who keeps the house looking like a showplace, so we are often cluttered.  But I have been busting my hump hard this week, and I think I need to put a plan in place that we all pitch in and clean up here once a week. 

The first week should go by quite quickly!  My plan for tomorrow is simply to pick Urara up at 7pm as directed by AFS Virginia, get her home, give her a quick tour of the house, and get her to bed.  She should be on a good schedule by now, as she has been in the US since Wednesday morning, but I want to hit the ground running on Saturday.  We will give her a tour of town Saturday, and stop off at the farmer's market as well as the grocery store so she can pick out some foods she likes.  Then we will spend Saturday afternoon at the swimming pool before cooking out in the backyard for dinner.

Sunday I will introduce her to life at the UU, and introduce her to my friends there.  Monday, we will go over to her school in the morning to learn about what her computer needs to be able to do, and Monday afternoon we will go back to meet with the head of the upper school and get her schedule cemented into place.

Tuesday I have to work, so I will have to give her some choices in activities. My mom will be back in town and might be willing to entertain her a bit, although I'm not sure.  She could also go to the mall, hang out with Leah, or ??  We'll figure something out.

Wednesday is a big day, as Ine is arriving back in the US.  I turn 40 on August 23 and am having a party, and Ine decided she wanted to come back and celebrate with me.  I am so moved about this, I can't express it, not only that Ine and I cultivated the kind of relationship that would bring her back after only 6 weeks, but that her parents would allow her to come back so soon.  Thursday I am supposed to work again, and then Friday we will get ready for my party, which is on Saturday.  The following week, Urara starts school already, which is IMPOSSIBLE to believe...

So it's going to go by very quickly, I suspect, and it will be a great deal of fun.  Because I tend towards introversion, I often don't like the first weeks of the exchange experience, but I feel like this time it will be fine.  I have found that having plans and keeping busy is the key to a successful start; if we are doing, I don't feel as if I have to be so interesting and smart all the time!

So I'll be writing again soon about our pick up experience!!  Keep checking back for updates, and thanks for following our journey.

Welcome!

Hello again, and welcome back to another year of fun with our little AFS host family!  I am so excited to be able to host another student this year through AFS USA... This year's student is Urara from Japan.  Hosting her is special in two distinct ways:

1.  In 1990, my family hosted our first exchange student, Yuko, from Japan.  I loved Yuko so much.  She was only with us for 3 weeks in the summer time, but I thought she was amazing and we had so much fun.  I have wanted to host a Japanese student ever since.

2.  This is the first year I have handpicked our student.  Our three prior students, I left up to the AFS "wheels of fate" to determine.  I have absolutely NO regrets about it at all.  We had amazing bonds with our girls.  But I'm really curious to know how I've done in selecting a student versus accepting a student!

So Urara will arrive in about a month, around August 12 or 13.  I selected her back in November, but we've only been allowed to email for about a month now.  I hear from her really quickly as soon as I write to her, and I have also heard from her parents.

Urara is from the Ibraki prefecture in Japan, just north of Tokyo.

Her city, Hitachiota, has about double the population of Fredericksburg, where we live.

One of the most interesting things I've learned so far is that Japan has over 6,800 islands.  I thought it was 4.

So far, the only thing I've really done to get ready is to attend the local AFS host parents orientation.  This took place on Saturday, July 11th up in Oakton, at the same place where we are going to pick Urara up on or about August 12.  I missed orientation last year because we were matched with Ine so late, I got to go to an abbreviated version the night we picked her up.  It was nice to go to this one and meet the other families, although in truth, I don't think I will probably get to know most of them as we are the only family in Fredericksburg this year.  That kind of stinks, because I really loved both the families that hosted last year in town and it was nice to share rides and kids and have fun with them!

AFS volunteer Jerene Thomas who has been a volunteer for more than 50 years, and Nancy Thompson, who has been involved for 10

The orientation was interesting, we learned a lot of things I already knew and I picked up a few tidbits I didn't know, which was good.  It's good to get dates locked in as well, so we know when we have to be various places.

I found this sign in the church afterwards, and it pretty much sums up why I love learning about other cultures via foreign exchange:

 

Today, Leah and I started cleaning the house and moving furniture around.  I spoke to Ine about her bedroom and her experience in there, and she said she had wished she had a shelf so she could have put stuff on there and kept her desk clean, so I managed to make that happen.  I'm pleased with how the room looks and look forward to decorating it.  I'm also pleased with getting the rest of the house in better order.  It sorely needs organizing and cleaning before Urara's arrival!

In the coming weeks, I'll be tweaking this blog a bit, so this boring style isn't staying this way.  But my favorite blog background site is down at the moment and hopefully will be back shortly.  Till then, keep checking back for updates!  I'm sure we'll have more fun to come!