I miss meine Laura!!

Almost exactly a year ago, we "got" Laura, an AFS exchange student from Germany. When we finally met her in person, we had already been IMing and e-mailing for months, so we felt that we knew her, but finally here she was -- a new member of our family, and we could "keep" her for a full year! (This picture was taken on the day she arrived, with three of our four kids. Laura is second from the left.)

And oh, what a wonderful year it was! Laura was (and is) wonderful in every way! She was (and is) sweet, kind, helpful, funny and full of life. We had to send her back to Germany in late June and it felt like torture to give up someone who had essentially become a daughter and sister to us.

Here's a VERY abbreviated pictorial chronology of our year together. And yes, of COURSE I'm making her a scrapbook!

This is Laura and Kat (16) at Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho, where we went before Laura could even shake her jet lag!

Laura got into Halloween with Aleks, Kat's twin brother.



"What odd holidays you American's have!" Yes, that's a raw turkey. (The glob in the middle, not my hubby. He's fully cooked.)



After the meal, tummies full. (Twins Kat and Aleks on the ends, Elisabeth in the middle, Laura spanning all...)

And now, because Blogger just suddenly refuses to display any more uploaded pictures, I'll insert a "to be continued" and just start a new post. (Help! What am I doing wrong?)