Finally, Mette Arrived.

Back in late December of last year the school contacted us and asked us if we would be willing to host an exchange student for the last semester of lthe year. Julie and I have talked about hosting an exchange student for several years, especially a Swedish exchange student so I could re-learn Swedish, but we always thought we would wait until all of the kids were out of the housebefore we did it. For some reason, the idea of doing it now instead just caught our attention and we thought that we would look further into it.

The student they were looking to place was an 18 year old boy from Bogota, Columbia. The more we read his profile the more we knew that he just would not be a good fit here in Fairfield nor a good fit in with us. He liked living in big city and all the activities that big cities offered. He liked going to discos and clubs, and he liked going to cultural events and places. He talked about having servants at home and liking to occasionally help the cooks in his house with meal preparation. We thought he was going to be absolutely miserable in our little house and especially disappointed in our little town. We passed on him, but asked if they had anyone from Sweden, and especially an athlete from Sweden.

They showed us three possible students; one boy from southern Sweden, a soccer player who was going to be a senior, a track girl also from southern Sweden, also going to be a senior, and a junior girl from northern Sweden who had participated in track before. Julie and I instantly settled on the senior girl from southern Sweden; Mette Ericsson. It was like she jumped off the page at us and we knew she was going to be a great fit with us. However, we were still worried about how disappointed she would be in our little town.

We first contacted Mette and her family in January of this year. We exchanged emails and pictures almost weekly for seven months before she arrived. We felt like we already knew her and her family well by the time she finally arrived in late July and she just slipped in and became a part of us. She has been here for a month and half now and we feel like she has always been a part of our family. She has definitely stolen all of our hearts and we are glad she is here. She is playing on the Camas County High School volleyball team right now. She plans to play basketball and run track. It’s going to be a fun year, although very busy making it to all her games and matches as well as Jeff’s.