One week until we are an international family!

Only one more week and we will become an international family. We are hosting an exchange student from the Netherlands, who happens to be the daughter of a friend I had in high school. I love that we are part of one family's multi-generation exchange experience.

Mother and daughter will have very different experiences though. Bridgette went to my high school in a small town in Montana back in 1982-83. Life was different back then, no internet, no cell phones, no facebook! We live in southern California in a city with three very large high schools. The culture difference between Montana and California is striking, and the climate difference is drastic. Suffice it to say, Fenna will not be reliving her mom's experience even though I am a common person for both of them. Just thinking about hosting Bridgette's daughter has really made me think a lot about the dramatic differences in my life from then to now.

We only have 7 days until she arrives. I was nervous before, but now I'm feeling more confident that things will be great. My main concern is that we are so much more chaotic, busy and loud than what she is probably used to.

I finally decided to make a list of what I wanted to get done before Fenna arrives and school starts. We always save our house projects for summer because that's when my husband finally has time to devote to anything that needs attention. He was sick for a few weeks this summer and his projects were not getting done, not at all. In fact, he still hasn't done anything on his list. Oy. But, I made a list for myself and felt a lot less overwhelmed with life in general once I had my scattered worries all typed out in a nice neat list.

I was knocking things off my long list and feeling like I might actually be able to survive the summer without losing my mind.  And then, I did myself a huge favor and divided my list into sections:  stuff to do, stuff to do after school starts, and stuff for Keith to do.  Ahhhh, my list of things to do before next week not only became manageable but it is very possible I might get it all done! Wouldn't that be something!

Keith was supposed to start back to school on Friday the 5th, but he has to go in on Monday the 1st. That gives him today to finish his list. No worries, I told him if he doesn't do his stuff he can hire someone to take care of that.  Hit him in the wallet, that'll motivate the boy!

Since our daughter moved home with her 11 month old tornado of destruction, we've had to make a lot of changes around here. She works, so I am often herding all three runts by myself. This does not help me get anything done. I deleted things off of my to-do list just because they were going to be impossible.  I removed all of my summer sewing projects from my list. There just isn't time. Maybe after school starts, maybe I can hire a babysitter for Libby and Charlie so that I can sit down and sew. In the meantime, I'm trying to run the rug doctor in between naps.

The biggest change with adding them to the household was shuffling the three bedrooms. What a big job! The room I had ready for Fenna became the little girls' room and their room became Lexie and Charlie's room. Now the guest room is being transformed into Fenna's room. It sounds a lot easier than it is.

Fenna gets a bigger room with a bigger window than she would have had. She will be the only bedroom on the main floor, but that might be nice for her too. She'll have more privacy in the mornings when she is getting ready for school, and the bathroom downstairs is the best one. Plus, if she has friends over, they won't have to go upstairs to her room and pass by all of our rooms. This should work out just fine... seven people in one house and Fenna ends up getting her own room and it is a nice sized one too! It isn't pink though, that's the big sacrifice. 

I let the exchange student company know about the additions to our household. The main YFU representative that I have contact with delegated the responsibility of running a criminal background check on Lexie to another YFU rep. After a week of not hearing anything, I contacted YFU again. She delegated the job to yet another YFU person. So far, her emails have included five or six other YFU workers (since the beginning of our contact). I have no idea who our rep really is since it seems to be a different person each time we have any contact. We completed our on-line host family orientation too. I'm glad I didn't drive all the way to Orange with three kids to watch a power point presentation of the parenting handbook. Anyway, that is done and there were no surprises in the information. Pretty straight forward common sense type things. The information was good though, it just wasn't anything I couldn't figure out on my own.

Now that there is only a week left, I'm trying to think of the last minute things that need to be done too. I found a dictionary and a thesaurus to put in her room, and last night I found my MLA handbook.  That's what she'll need for school! I hope her reading list is a good one, I probably have some of the books already, we'll see.

What a difference a list and a week make! Last week I was nervous and this week I am just excited. I'm still not ready though. Good thing I have a few days yet!