Our First Week With Our New Friend

On July 14th I went with two other ladies to the airport and picked up 24 exchange students and 2 chaperons from China. They are from the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province, and I am helping teach them English. They can read and write English very well. But because of the large classroom size in China they do not get much speaking practice. So they have come to the United States for one month to improve their English language. They go to a very prestigious middle school and all of them are very , very intelligent! We will be studying English 4 hours each day and having an activity in the afternoon to immerse them in the language.

We have a 14 year old girl staying with our family, and she is wonderful! Her American name is Grace and she is very sweet and fun. We are getting to know each other and she is becoming more comfortable everyday. Mady treats her like a new toy and cannot get enough of her. I am trying to not let her drive Grace crazy! She has no siblings...
We have had a very fun first week. Which has included finding a huge Iguana in the backyard, and me catching the french bread on fire in the oven!! We have also seen the Falls and had a welcome party, toured the fire station, the court house, the public library and spent 4 hours exercising at the YMCA. As a family we have gone out for Mexican food, went to a fish feed at church, and gone on a picnic and canoeing! Grace was surprised by the hot tub and enjoyed it immensely. We introduced her to Target and the Mall and she took care of some souvenir shopping. When she found a Michael Jackson shirt she lit up! One thing she really wanted to get in the US was drum music so we took her to the Music Center and she was very happy to purchase 3 music books and some new drumsticks. We are having so much fun with her and in a couple of weeks it is going to be very hard to let her leave. She has already told us when we come to China she will invite us to her house. And we plan on taking her up on that offer.