French Exchange

Skip got into the car this afternoon with a silly little grin on his face.

He likes to pretend that he is this aloof guy that has deep thoughts, and never speaks, but I see his face, and it is betraying him.

On the outside, he is Mr "I am not interested in anything outside of math and computer gaming", but I see that he really is quite taken with the thought that he will probably get to go to France next year with his class, and things that are happening in the next little while are paving the way.

You see, today he got to PICK his Exchange Student. The information packets came to the school this week, and in class today the teacher read out the letters that the 15 students from France had written to introduce themselves. So when Skip got into the car with this little smirk on his face, he was quick to reach into his backpack, and pull out this fat info packet.

So, next month, we will be hosting a boy named Remy. He is almost 15, and has an older sister and a younger sister. He plays football (soccer for the uninitiated Americans), and he likes computers and video games. He's allergic to pets (probably a big bonus in Skip's eyes), and his family looks like the typical 'beautiful people' you might see in a French magazine. I'm not kidding! His parents could be movie stars. Maybe they are! I'm probably nearly as excited as Skip is. I've been on Google maps, looking up the place where Remy is from (Bayonne, France), and am seeing if I can find street-view of the area around where he lives. Now I'm composing an email (in my head) to send to his mother, letting her know about our family, and how excited we are to host him.

Kelly took one look at the packet, and said "He's cute. And he's not THAT much older than me... Hey! If I take French in high school, I could go visit him, right?"

Good grief!

But now I'm off to use my limited French skills, and the mad genius of Google Translate to compose a welcome letter to Remy's mom.

I'm such a nerd.

Anyways. Now I also want to do a big purge of all the crap in our house, so we don't look like hoarders when he comes to visit.

I've got 4 weeks.

He arrives on April 7th.

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This choir-piano gig is really kicking me in the butt.

I'm away from home so much, and more and more I feel like we live in a dump. I need to schedule in time to do housework, because this whole "I'll do it when I get to it" is just not happening for me. I honestly do NOT know how actual working mothers do ANYTHING. My hat is so much off to you!

Here.

Have some photos:

Kelly had a few friends over on the weekend. And I'm currently renting a great 24-70mm f/2.8 lens that i needed to test out with FIREWORKS!

And Nate took this opportunity to light one of the big flying flower spinning-fireworks-of-doom. What an eye-opener. I'm glad we didnt' burn down the house. Enough said. Heh.

Kelly's basketball team is coached by two college ball players, and the team was invited to come to their coaches' final home game of the season, and play at half time. While the women were in the locker room, several men from the men's team coached and reffed the girls. It was a hoot to watch. The girls were so excited to be on a real court that they had trouble putting on their game faces. Big grins were the order of the day, whether you were on offense or defense. They just split the team in half, and had half wearing the jerseys, and the other half wearing white t-shirts. Of course, Kelly took that opportunity to lose her school shorts, so she had to borrow a pair of Nate's leftover from the summer. Hooray for younger brothers that are the same size as you.

Here is one of the coaches, going up for a lay-up. This was her final game for the team, as she's a senior, and leaving the school in May. Man, she was fun to watch. She really pulled out all the stops:

And here is the other coach, after getting fouled.

These two women were great role models for the team. I am very happy with Kelly's basketball experience this year, even though they have lost every game (except for the first one).

And now a last photo.

We went to the beach yesterday.

I know. I shouldn't say anything. Don't hate.

I'm still doing the dailyshoot.com photo challenge. I've missed a few days, but otherwise, I'm still in the game. This was shot for yesterday's "Make a photo that features water". Today's is "photograph a simple shape". Um...?

And I would talk about the fun in Chinatown (I feel like such a tease when I say this, but I *do* want to tell the stories, and this way, I keep reminding myself to do it... eventually), but Nate is asking to make "puffs", and it's time to put the dinner in the oven , too. Man, I didn't think I was all THAT busy, until I realized that i haven't played Bejeweled Blitz for about 2 weeks. And I used to play 100 (or more) games of it a day.

Cold Turkey. It works.