Less than Two Weeks!

The final countdown is on!  In less than two weeks, we will welcome Astrid into our home.  It's so hard to imagine--we only got the idea at the end of May, but today turned the calendar over into August. It seems to have happened fast!  We have been in contact with Astrid almost every day since we were officially matched in early July.  I'm afraid we write too often or two much, but she always responds within a couple of hours and with great enthusiasm and excitement to hear from me or Leah.  They swapped love letters last week--Leah asked me to email Astrid "Dear Astrid, I love you.  Love, Leah" and Astrid replied in kind.  Leah was so tickled, she said, "Mom, we should invite Astrid to be our host student."  I wonder why she thought we were in touch before that!

Now we are hammering out the final nuts and bolts.  I've been changing the dead light bulbs around the house, decluttering and cleaning, shopping, and this week I've been in touch with Astrid's new school to get things ready academically.  It turns out she will start school on August 24, which is surprisingly early to me!  I like to go to the beach for my birthday, which is August 23, so we'll have to go a day or two early so that she is well rested in time for school. 

Astrid emailed me today that she was starting to prepare her schoolwork, assignments for which she had found on the school website.  I was so impressed by her initiative to start doing her reading and whatnot.  I emailed the head of school to confirm that she was in the classes that required summer reading, and she is, but the teachers said she didn't have to do it.  Still, she wants to do it, so I think that's great.  She'll be well prepared to start.  We also got the morning bus squared away--the school is about 20 minutes away from our house, and although I am willing to drive my kids there every morning, it does make it difficult to get my morning routine complete.  The school has very helpfully offered that we can use their morning bus service, and so I'll only have to drive down to the school once a day, which is awesome.

In other news, I successfully trained nine host families for AFS Virginia last weekend.  It was a pretty awesome crowd and they said they learned a lot.  I was excited for all the kids coming, as I think they are all going to some pretty neat families.  We have 27 kids coming to VA from 15 different countries, I do believe, including one other girl from Denmark.  Her host mom was at my training so it was nice to connect.

So that's where things stand with only 11 days to go!  I am learning about Denmark and that will be the subject of my next post in a day or two.  Until then, consider hosting!  We still need host families!!  Visit AFSUSA.org for more information.  You'll never regret it.