Our New Friends

Meet Yixue (a.k.a Sherry) and Aining (a.k.a Kelly)

They are here all the way from China to participate in a program to help them learn better English and learn about American Culture.  We are their host family for 2 1/2 weeks.  They will be here until August 11.  We signed up for Sadie and Landon to be a part of the "buddy" program where they spend 5 hours every day with them.  They spend an hour practicing English, then they have an hour lunch break then they have a fun activity for the rest of the afternoon.  They have all kinds of field trips planned like Seven Peaks water park, hiking Timp Cave, Park City, SLC, and a farm.  Then the program needed a last-minute family to host two students because someone had to back out.  So, here we are!  It's been really fun for the kids.  Sherry and Kelly are getting better at English every day and we are communicating better and really enjoying the experience.   They are hillarious!

When they first arrived and we pulled into our driveway, they saw our garage door opening after I pushed the button, and they about died!  They had never seen such a thing!  They live in high-rise apartment buildings, like everyone else in the cities in China.  They were totally amazed at the size of our house.  I doubt that their little apartments are much bigger than what we lived in as students!  They are loving going outside and enjoying the fresh air at night. 

Sherry is an only child and Kelly has a 7-year-old brother.  So they are really having a blast with all the kids in our house.  I'm sure this is an experience they will always remember.  And we will, too.  The only part I don't like is the daily trip I have to make to Provo.  And if we weren't carpooling, it would be three trips a day.  One to drop of the Chinese girls at 8:15, one to drop off  "the buddies" at at 11:00 and one to pick them all up at 5:00! 

We celebrated my birthday on Sunday afternoon with our Chinese friends and the Brady's, our good friends who are building a house in our neighborhood (yeah!)  We BBQ'd some shish kabobs and had lots of other yummy food, too. Sadie made me a delicious mandarine orange cake.  Isn't it cute?

One year older and hopefully wiser.  Happy birthday to ME!