Cabby!

It amazes me what little time it takes to grow to love another person.

We had a new and wonderful experience this summer. Although we were sad that couldn't make it out to Utah to see our family and friends there. The silver lining was that we were able to take part in an exchange student program. We were sent a wonderful girl from Taiwan. She stayed with our family for 3 weeks. That isn't very long at all. But when Cabby left we were all in tears. We really wished that she could stay with us. I had been waiting to post all our adventures with her until after she left...but then I was so depressed about her leaving....that I couldn't bring myself to write on my blog! I know...I'm a goof ball.

Cabby is such a sweetheart. That's not her real name...her real name was very hard for us to pronounce, and so lucky for us she has an English name too! I had been making name plaques for the kids. So Sarah and I made this one for our new family member.

She spent most of the weekdays with her class. They did lessons the first part of the day, and then after lunch they did fun things like Bowling, Skating, Beach, Shopping. They even went off for a few days to Disney and Universal Studio's. So on the evenings and weekends when she was with us she needed some down time to relax and just be a part of our family. We didn't do anything very exciting but we had a lot of fun. I hope she did too.

With Cabby as a part of our family...our van was full to the max!

We took her to the Pine Island Swimming Pool. We like it because it has a diving board and a slide. Once we got there however...we found out that Cabby had never been on a diving board. They don't have them where she comes from because they are too dangerous. And she was not about to go on the slide either. She said 'It's Horrible!" in her sweet little voice and with her cute smile on her face.

The kids played tons of board games and car games. Especially the girls. I think the most popular was Uno. They played that many times over the three weeks. They also played Nick's picture bingo game called Zingo...and Harry Potter Clue, and Harry Potter Scene It, and lot's of other little games.

Along with watching movies...which we did quite a bit...the boys also got Cabby to play x-box with them once

.

We went out for pizza of coarse. And Cabby tried Root Beer for the first time. When we asked how she liked it she said "It tastes like tooth paste". I said "Oh no! You can get something else if you want". But she said that she likes her tooth paste! She ended up drinking Root Beer with the kids every time we went out...so I guess that means she likes it. I'd like to try Taiwanese tooth paste!

Jumping on the Trampoline was another new experience for her. The kids loved that. And while she said it was "Terrible!", she sure did smile and giggle a lot. =)

Cabby said we could invite some friends over to ask her some questions about her country and her culture. Everyone had a good time and learned a lot. And we surprised Cabby with a birthday cake and present. Her birthday was just a few days after she went home. One of the things we learned was how much time she spends at school back home. We were shocked to discover that she leaves at 6:00 am and doesn't get home from school 'till 9;00 pm and does homework until about midnight! She get's every other Sunday off. And not much of a summer break at all. Wow! She told us that Home School looked like a lot of fun!

We made s'mores on the grill. Cabby said they were too sweet!

She like our Harry Potter wands that we made last year for Libby's birthday. So one day the girls made new wands and Cabby made one too.

She even came to church with us. It was here that we discovered Cabby had never used a drinking fountain! The girls thought that was funny. Although I think she enjoyed meeting some of the young people in our ward ... she said she didn't understand most of what they were talking about in the class.

On her Final night. I was having a really hard time getting the girls to bed. They just wanted to stay with Cabby. So we decided to open up the futon that is in the guest room, and let the girls have a little sleepover. They were all so happy and I was finally able to get everyone to bed.

Then the sad day came. We woke up early and packed Cabby and all her stuff into the van. We drove the 45 minutes to the school where the buses would pick her up and take her away. Many tears were shed. I had tried to tell the kids before that Cabby probably missed her family and wanted to go home...but she told us she didn't. And she wished she could stay.

I really can't cover everything we did in those three weeks, and I didn't take pictures of everything either. She liked Pizza and Hot dogs. She didn't like mashed potatoes or strawberries. She shared a yummy snack with us which was like broken up dry Raman Noodles with a yummy savory flavoring on them, which we loved. And then a strange dried fruit with a minty/sour/spicy flavor that we didn't like so much. She like Twilight but doesn't think either of the boys are good looking...especially not Jacob. All the Taiwanese girls seemed to think that Jon was cute though. They kept saying something that sounds like "shuh shou" Which means handsome. =) She likes Taylor swift...and thinks the Beetles are old music...She has just one older brother, and seemed to enjoy having 4 younger siblings while she was here. She made a Great big Sister. She even got Libby playing the piano again. They played a little duet together. Here's the video.

Here are a few more random pics. We are so glad that Cabby came to stay with us and we will never forget her. Hopefully we'll see her again if she comes back to the US for school in the future.