Those of you who have read this blog for a while, or who know me in “real life,” know that we have hosted several exchange students through the years. Most of them were wonderful experiences and I truly enjoyed getting to know these kids. In fact, I still keep in touch with most of them and we’ve been exchanging emails and making plans to see a couple of “our” kids while we are in Paris. I can’t wait!

Unfortunately, our last hosting experience wasn’t quite as successful. Without going into a lot of details, I’ll just say that it left us with a bad memory of hosting and exchange students. (Some of you met the student and understand the challenges we had to deal with.) 

After having such wonderful experiences earlier, I hated that we felt so…scarred…by our last hosting challenge. It shouldn’t be a challenge. It should be fun. It should be an adventure. There will be challenges throughout that adventure, of course. But the experience itself shouldn’t be so difficult. 

After much thought and reflection, the empty nesters have decided to share our nest next year with another exchange student. 

We are excited…and, understandably, a tiny bit nervous as well. But mostly excited.