We are sitting in the airport in Amsterdam right now waiting for our flight back to America! Cannot believe how quickly this semester flew by… I know that our moms are reading this and thinking- fast, yeah right! But really it is hard to believe that in less than 10 hours we will be back with our loved ones in the states. We are excited to see you all.

What a semester it has been… we have been blessed and surprised as our love for the people, country & language has grown. We have made some really great friends out here and are excited to return. I wasn’t sure if I was going to feel that way at this time, but I am thankful that we do.

I wanted to post a few things about what we have been up to lately- I have decided that I like these posts because it will be fun to look back at one day to see what our time in language school was like. Hope you enjoy them too! (I plan on adding more pics when we get home- I don’t have them all on my computer right now- sorry!)

1. Hosting…

We had 4 boys come visit us for about 2 weeks at the end of May. One of them is our good friend Drew, who will be moving out here with his family this fall! We can’t wait for them to come! The boys came for a vacation before summer school started up. It was encouraging to see them & fun for Chase to get to visit locals with them.

2. Eating… I hope that none of you are worried about what we have been eating, because even though we can’t get the same things we can in the states and we have to experiment with recipes and pretty much make everything from scratch, we do not lack in the food department. In fact cooking and baking for a lot of us is a way to let our minds rest after studying Arabic all day.

Part of the yummy eating we have been doing lately includes a Chinese dinner cooked by some of our Chinese classmates, along with a traditional tea after dinner. It was so yummy. I also made a homemade lasagna for our friends, of course a Pioneer Woman recipe, that was delicious, but sort of expensive to make- not sure I will ever make it on this side of the world again, but it was fun to try!

3. Bittersweet moments. This semester we met a family that we became super close to, super quickly. It has been such a blessing to get to know them, however, super sad because they just finished there last semester of language and will be moving to another country for a new job in two weeks. 🙁 This means when we return they will not be in our town- which makes me super sad. Liz has become a dear friend to me… one that I feel like myself around, one I feel like I can speak like a 2 year old on visits with & not feel stupid cuz she speaks awesome, one that I can just sit and talk for hours with, one that I can go on visits with & throw parties with, one that I can talk about cooking with, one that I can get pedicures with (we have decided to make it a goal to see how many countries we can get pedicures in together- so far we have 2 down!), one that I can cry and laugh with… it is hard to believe that we have only known each other for under 5 months. She and her family will be greatly missed, but we are excited for what lies ahead for them.

The last few weeks we tried to fit in as many things together as we could. We had a going away dinner at our house for them, a party with some other students, got a pedicure, and went to “the big city” one more time together… Love you friend! Thanks for everything!

4. Studying… We finished our first semester of Arabic study & we both passed! We feel like we did well for our 1st semester, but know that there is so much more to learn & look forward to seeing ourselves grow in the language and start sounding like at least a 4 year old! ha I was telling Chase that I really love speaking Arabic. It is so fun to be able to (well try to) express yourself in another language. As most of you know, I love to talk… so now I am learning how to do this in another tongue- lucky for Chase- ha! I feel like it opens your mind & world so much more. What a blessing that we have this opportunity to learn.

5. Packing & moving… Yup I said moving! We are moving into a villa in the fall. We found a place to live that is much cheaper than where we are living now & the added bonus is that we have a carport & and a housh (outside yard area that is blocked in by walls). We are excited, but have been super busy with the move & feel almost as exhausted as we did when we left America 5 months ago. We are hope to get to rest before wedding festivities start next week!

6. Reflecting… we have been trying to take some time to think back on this semester- on how we did, what we can do differently, what we did well & what we stunk at, how we studied, how we spent our time, etc… This summer we hope to be able to put these thoughts on paper and be able to share them with you.

7. And finally discussing how Chase can be more involved in this blog! He desires to share stories with you all & has lots to tell- he is just sort of a “social media introvert” (we discovered this when we moved out here). We have some fun ideas that you can look forward to in the fall.

Better go about to run out of free internet! Sorry for the novel- feel free to read as much as you would like!

-Britt