If you invite someone into your home...

...you open up a huge hole. And into this hole come a lot of things, good and bad. For us, good; it was Van, our foreign exchange student from Vietnam. She introduced us to the Vietnamese culture and also to a wonderful girl – herself. We love her and even through the thick and thin of daily life, she will always be our daughter now.

Now, what did this open into our home? She visited us from college (she returned to the U.S. from last year and is now attending college at Winona State-Minnesota at age 17!) over Christmas break and brought a friend. Her friend happened to be another exchange student from China with an exchange program through Winona State. She stayed with us for almost 3 weeks and also became a part of our extended family. She, Rui, is from China and is 21 years old and studying for the next few years at Winona State. Our son, Spencer took a liking to her, just as he did Van… here’s a picture.

Thanks Van for opening up our home and creating a hole that we hope will never fill in.