The Aussie

For two weeks in January, I had the opportunity to host an Australian, Kylie Young. Mesa High School, where I work, host 40 Australian students every other year as a part of a cultural exchange program. We farm the 40 kids and their 4 chaperones out to Mesa High families to get the American family life experience (which I'm sure varied greatly depending on what kind of family a kid was placed with...) Kylie was one of 4 adult chaperones... but she was the only YOUNG adult. So I volunteered to take her on and give my back bedroom a reason to be a guest room. I even got it all cuted up for her! See?

I got all ready for her to come and joined all the other Mesa High host families at the airport on the evening of December 30th. Kylie was one of the last ones to come out to the baggage claim because, as a chaperone, she had to hang back and deal with some baggage of her own... geez. Kids these days. So I just had to wait around, holding my little homemade "Kylie" sign, until she came out.

"Kylie, where are you??" says I, whilst holding my sign in the air.

Oh, there she is! Yay!

It was really fun for Wendy and me to have a 3rd roommate (or housemate, as Kylie calls them. PS We really should adopt that term. Because "roommate" makes it sound like Wendy and I share a room, and we don't. And besides, how do you differentiate between a roommate in your room and a roommate in your house... Tami was my roommate, but Lippy Lapril was my room-roommate. That's stupid. Housemate suits me much better). So Wendy and I were happy to have another housemate... kind of a big step in our relationship! Our first foreign exchange "student".

Kylie spent two weeks total with us. The first week I was still on Christmas break so she just hung out with us and did whatever we did. That included some hiking day trips, shopping, hanging out with friends (she's a lot better aquainted with the Mormon ways of having fun... without alcohol. Bless her heart... I think she craved a beer with her mates everyday!), and celebrating my birthday. The second week, she went back to work as a chaperone and went on day trips around the state with the kids.

It was fun having her with us for that short time and just talking to someone from another country about all of our similarities and differences. Kylie taught us lots about the Australian way. My brother Shawn served his mission in Australia and my Dad in New Zealand, so I didn't feel totally foreign to some of their ways. Among my favorites...

eating Kiwis whole... fuzz and all!

And eating Veggemite. Period.

I've had this crap before (I mean yeast spread) but I tried it again just to please Kylie. My dad use to eat it on his toast too. I think it's foul. This time, however, I tried a veggemite & cheese sandwich and that wasn't too bad. The cheese kind of took the bite off a bit.

Some American things we introduced her to: Sugar, sugar and sugar.

(here she is eating one of many pizookies we made for my birthday party)

And the source of all sugar: Wal-Mart.

(Here she is playing Guitar Hero at Wal-Mart. Kylie was actually really good for a beginner who had never even seen someone play guitar hero, let alone try it herself!)

The common ground we shared?

The outdoors

The Wind Caves in Usery Pass

The Natural Bridge in Tonto

A love of friends

Stupid picture of me and Greg, but Kylie is in it!

And the Phoenix Suns

Yes, Kylie, from Down Under, is a HUGE Phoenix Suns fan and has been her entire life! Isn't that crazy? I don't think I knew about the Suns until I lived here and I'm probably only a fan because I live here! But when I found out how much she loved them, I thought it would be a crying shame if she was this close to their home and didn't go to a game. So I got some nosebleed tickets and we made it to a game. They played the Indiana Pacers and sucked the entire game... and lost in the last 0.9 seconds (what's up with our sports teams losing at the very end? Huh, Cardinals????). But Kylie was in hog heaven and that made it all worth it! Just goes to show that Dreams come true at Spendy & Wendy's house.

So come for a visit...
we promise to take the "Kylie" sign down in the guest bedroom!