The Girls

We are loving being a host family for two foreign exchange students. Mathilde (the blond {I looked that word up because I wasn't sure if it had an e or not apparently it can be written either way just like grey and gray...I've never been blond, someday I'll be grey!}) is 15 and from France. Her English is quite good, and she and Madi are really hitting it off. Cristina is from Spain and is almost 17. She made us the yummiest dessert last night (truly the yummiest without chocolate thing ever and super easy too) {5 lemon yogurts, a can of sweetened condensed milk [she called it "condensable milk"], and the juice of three lemons, put it all in the blender then refrigerate...that's it, sooo good!!}.

We introduced the girls to s'mores last weekend. They only drink milk in the morning and don't eat breakfast (some days Mathilde will eat a strawberry or two). I did get them to each eat a donut (can also be spelled doughnut:)) this morning. They (especially Cristina) are generally running late in the morning, so milk works. It's amazing how calm I can be with kids that are not my own even when I am freaking out about how late we are. I have to drive them to a bus pick up location at 7:30 each morning. They have "school" most mornings and then trips in the afternoon. They are on a Disney trip this weekend and will be back Sunday night. Then they leave Monday the 15th. I'm going to miss them. Dropping them off this morning I realized how hard it is going to be to say goodbye to them for real. We will definitely be doing this again.

Early this week was an annual tradeshow that Mike goes to. Tuesday was a semi formal dinner reception. We all went, that's what those fancy pictures are of. Yesterday they had a car wash for Give Kids the World. Jonathan and Madi worked at it too. I didn't take any pictures, but a friend did, so maybe we'll see some eventually. Last night all four teenagers went out at 9:30 for karaoke. I cannot believe I have kids old enough to be going out at 9:30 (yes I know this is debatable), at least for now we still have to drive them! Although Jonathan did do some driving yesterday.

Speaking of teenagers, I have about 25 other blog posts in my head and this is supposed to be about the girls and not about everything else, but women are like spaghetti (every thing touches everything else as opposed to men who are more compartmentalized like waffles) and one thought goes right into the next. Having two more teenagers here makes me realize even more how much my own kids are growing up. As I'm typing this I'm listening to Pandora Taylor Swift Radio (go ahead judge me) and I've heard two songs about kids growing up...it's killing me!

Here are some pics of our five kids...