Well, with the weather clearing, so did our minds clear over the weekend. After narrowing our exchange student choices down to the two J's, and thereby deciding to stick with CCI, as they did make first contact and I feel somewhat linked to them as a result, we were in great turmoil as to which J would be the best match. Brian, upon being shown the profile sheets, immediately chose J2, the soccer obsessed 16 year old from Sweden, who also lists jogging, friends and music as her top passions. Megan, on the other hand, chose J1, from Denmark, who lists her main hobbies as caring for horses, reading, cooking and crafts. Both have long lists of other hobbies, which include cycling, biking, swimming, and other normal daily activities.
I spoke with the woman from the agency again after my last blog, she called to tell me she had put the girls on hold for the weekend, and after she gets approval from our school district (which I hope won't be a problem, they seem to take a few each year), she will speak to me and I will tell her which one we have opted to pursue. So, by Monday we were to have a selection. I also spoke to a local family who did host a boy from China, and found that he was able to play on the high school soccer team, despite having only been placed over Labor Day weekend. That gave me hope that I would be able to find J2 a place on that team, even if I can't work out anything outside of school, on a travel team.
Mentioning this to Megan brought forth an onslaught of anger. She seemed not to wat J2. I suspect she was afraid J2 might steal some of her spotlight. She was offended by the closing line in the girl's letter, "I am a girl who needs to play soccer." ? Not sure why that would offen Megan, but after speaking to her some more, she gave it some thought and decided that J2 would be fine. So, this is our final decision. Of course, J2 could have changed her mind, or she may not want to come with us, as she did ask not to be the oldest. But hopefully, although she is older than Megan, it won't be a big deal, as I believe they will be in the same grade.
To sum up the J2 characteristics that made me promote her as my candidate: she loves cats, writes extremely well, has a passion for a sport that will hopefully keep her busy and out of trouble, and will allow her to make friends, she is not terribly tall, and all of her reviews were very positive. I think she will fit in and she might even be a good friend for Megan. My only concern is that she will develop a whirlwind social life, as she does seem to be quite pretty, and, of course, she is Swedish and will be a commodity at the high school, and this will leave Megan feeling somewhat slighted, as she has no time, and sometimes not much inclination for a social life.
So there it is, the next installment. If there is any change or any finalized plans tomorrow, I will update. Meanwhile, in other news, yesterday was finally sunny!!! Kevin had promised that we would go out and pick up a dogwood and another small tree to block out the one section of fence that wasn't really screened well from the road. It was quite a successful day! We got a small dogwood for $60, which is happily in the ground directly across from the kitchen window. It looks like it may be a little crowded relative to a small evergreen, but that will have to be moved if they don't complement each other as they grow. The other tree, a white pine, has an absolutely perfect shape. We stuck that in the corner of the yard where my beloved holly was, because the holly didn't really provide much of a screen anyway. We moved the holly to where the fence needed screening, as that's a smaller spot. So everyone seems happy for now, but we will have to watch them for signs of shock at transplantation. I will try to get some pictures and post them. I wish I could figure out how to do them within the post. So far I have only figured out how to link them AS a post, from photobucket. And today is to be a day of softball (Kevin), bottlecapper training (Megan - these are the anti-drug and alcohol high schoolers who travel to the elementary schools and talk about saying no), baseball (Brian), and being a church greeter (me - gah!) More later! (disclaimer: post not proofread)
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