The silence has been broken!

Wow! I cannot believe it has been 2 whole months since I have posted anything! It's good to be back! I have a lot of catching up to do!

Let's start with this cutie!

This is LEIRE. (LAY-DAY?!!)
I still cannot pronounce it quite properly!

Leire is our foreign exchange student from Spain. She stayed with us for a month last summer. We loved her so much that she came back!!! We enjoyed having her be a part of our family for another month this year. Although, I have decided that time passes way too quickly and her time with us seemed so short.

Leire is 15 and comes from a small village just north of Madrid, Spain. She loves dancing, traveling, singing and getting her picture taken. Okay, okay, the first two are true. The last two are not. She is a dancer and loves ballet especially. She also is quite a traveler. She has traveled more than most of us and has big plans to go to big places in the future. The singing and getting her picture taken are two things we like to tease her about. However, she does sing quite well in the shower! (her singing voice is great---she is just shy) She is also camera shy and hides whenever the camera comes out! But don't you think she is so cute?!!! She is an only child so living with our family of 8 is a big change for her, but she survived beautifully! She really bonded with the kids this year and they all adore her. She endured many things during her stay including our sarcasm, silliness, boxing fights, strange food, loooooong car drives, (5000 miles), quoting obnoxious movies, (Dumb and dumber), stinky feet, other stinky things (Jake and Alex!), stinky skunks in the campground, 2 weeks of tent camping, eating out of a soup can, helping with mounds of dishes, just to name a few. So she is a mighty survivor! And we love her for loving us despite all of our craziness!

We are hoping to see her again next year. But no matter what the future brings, we have made wonderful memories with a wonderful girl!