Marlene and the Exchange Students

Marlene has been here now for 2 1/2 weeks and we are loving the new addition to our family. We could not have asked for a nicer, fun, and enthusiastic person. She and Kinsey are having a great time checking out all the stores in Manchester and working on their wardrobes. Marlene also likes the outdoors and has been playing lacrosse, shooting baskets, throwing frisbees and just generally playing with Jamie. He is thrilled!
School started last Friday. There are a total of 11 foreign students and four of them are from Germany. The day before school started, I invited all the EF exchange students and their host family kids to the Bromley Thrill Zone. We spent 3 hours going on a variety of rides. In this first picture, Sasha (from Northern Germany) is standing on the left and Marlene is standing next to him in the brown sweatshirt. Sasha is living with Matt Rosenthal who is lounging (posing) on the bench.







Here's another, closer in, picture of Marlene. I don't know - with this expression she must have hit a bad shot in miniature golf.




















When we were looking at Marlene's application, there was one area of concern. She liked cats (which is essential), but she stated that she did not like dogs. We were aghast. How could anyone not like dogs? Well, even if she didn't like dogs in general, we knew that she would love our two dogs. At least, that is what we were hoping. Yeah, well look how much she dislikes dogs. She has been won over by Brook and Belle. If we breed Brook again in the Spring, we are convinced that Marlene will want to take a puppy back with her to Germany in June.















There's one more thing we have learned about Marlene. She loves Nutella. I think she even considers it one of the major food groups. We introduced her to Vermont Maple Syrup last week, but she wasn't impressed. So, on Sunday morning, I made pancakes and, instead of butter and syrup, we put Nutella on them. Oh, my God, they was good! I had five kids for breakfast that morning (due to sleepovers) and they all loved them. I will never eat pancakes the old fashion way again. I'm also sure that it is alot healthier. I mean Nutella is like peanut butter - made from nuts-right?

Marlene Is Here

Our biggest news this week is that Marlene Wessel, our German Exchange Student, came last week. The poor thing had to travel on the day of the terrorist threat in London, but luckily it did not impact her trip. --just the weather did. She was delayed for several hours and didn't arrive into Albany until after midnight!

Marlene is from Brensbach, Germany (near Frankfurt). She is 16 years old and will be a junior at Long Trail School.

I need to get a new picture of her to post as this one is from her exchange student paperwork. She is much cuter in person. She also is a wonderful person and we are all so happy to have her be a part of our family.








































These two pictures of the bedroom that we decorated for Marlene. I wanted something that a teen would like, but something that we could also use as a guest room in the future. Found these comforters at Linens and Things for $25/each and that was the beginning. One of my favorite things about the room are her curtains. Actually, it's a curtain - it is a shower curtain, even attached to the curtain rod by cute shower hooks. I originally was going to cut it in half and shorten it to the lower sill. But, my creative Kinsey put it up as is and it looks adorable. As the craft magazines like to say, it was a great "no-sew" project. We don't have the dresser knobs on yet in these pictures, but we bought some wooden ball knobs, painted them the green wall color and then put on blue polka dots. They are a great finishing touch.

Marlene has also done a great job of making the room her own. She brought many pictures from Germany and wanted to put them on her walls. We bought some 12 x 12" cork tiles, glued them to the walls and she hung up all her pictures on them. I'll have to take a picture of the wall and picture art because it really looks good.