10 months and my baby is finally coming home

My girl is FINALLY coming home!   We have had a TERRIBLE time with IYWT (It's Your World Travel) with Josie's ticket.  My advice:  do the visa application and travel arrangements yourself.  Josie left Oct 5, 2011 and is returning Aug 8, 2012.
We are also hosting an exchange student from Spain and she will be here the day after Josie.  Josie will be here Wed and our other student will be here Thurs.  So it's been quite been busy here.  I wish we had more time with Josie before the student comes but after our travel agent did not make reservations soon enough we ended up having to take a later date.  Ugh!
I'm going to start posting in regards to hosting a student.  We are so excited about hosting and I think we will really enjoy being on the other side of an exchange.

Fundraiser was a success!

Okay, I need to give an update. We raised $951 with the yard sale and then sold a refrigerator (that was donated) the next week for $250 to bring the total to over $1200!!! God has blessed us every step on this journey. We will be having another yard sale fundraiser in June, so between the 2 fundraisers and hopefully Jo finding a summer job we will have the $$$ for her plane ticket and a few other exchange expenses (camera, luggage, traveling expenses, etc).

Josie's host mom also sent us a copy of the acceptance letter from the school she will be attending in Marbella. It is I.E.S. Salduba secondary school. I translated the website (thank you http://www.microsofttranslator.com) to get a better understanding of the school and what they offer. The Spanish schooling system is different than ours, but I think it will be good and Josie is very excited at the prospect of learning Greek and Latin. How much she'll be able to learn, with it being taught in Spanish, is questionable. This should be interesting. LOL

School in Spain doesn't begin until mid September, so it looks like I will get to have Jo until the end of August. Jo has enjoyed talking with her host sister who will be coming to the USA while Jo is there.

We should be hearing from It's Your World Travel and we are STILL waiting on her guarantee form. Only 2 other exchange students from our district have theirs, so it's not as if we are behind. Our friends and neighbors have all been extremely supportive and I can't say what it means for others to be excited for Josie and about her exchange.