Our time with our Chinese exchange student is almost up. We have had a lot ot fun with Yanming AKA Summer. She has been so sweet and I think she's brave to live with a family for 1o days when she sometimes didn't have a clue what was going to happen next but just took it all in stride. I think there's a lesson for me to learn in that. I knew that Chinese New year was special in China but until now I didn't really have a clue as to the depth of the feeling the Chinese have for this time until this week end. We were honored to spend all day with the most awesome group of kids I've ever been around. Emilee and Taylor got to help make jiaoza from scratch all morning. Then a family who spent 20 years in China cooked an 11 course meal for the group and their host families this evening. It was special beyond words. After the meal we watched Chinese TV with the kids and got to see the holiday from their perspective, they LOVE card tricks, call it magic tricks and they are very good at them - we sat around with a group who tried to outdo each other in their prowess with the tricks. It was hard to say goodbye tonight knowing we probably won't see these kids again. I came into this experience full of migivings but we will say goodbye to Summer tomorrow afternoon with the realization that we have been given much more than we gave and we would sign up to host another student with this organization tomorrow.
