Hi everyone,

I have a lot to tell you!! I apologize for being quiet for so long. I will tell you about Christmas, my new sport, new experiences and school.

I’ll start with school. The last week of school in 2022, I had the choice to change my schedule a little bit. I choose to do that because I was not really happy with band I was playing the trompet. But it’s really hard to become better. if you do not know how to read notes and you do not really get one on one attention from the teacher. So I decided to change my schedule to get the schedule I wanted. I alsohad to change US government. So I changed US government on the second period to weights, so that I can become stronger for the new sport I’m doing what I will tell you about later. The first period band I changed to US history. What definitely is more interesting for me since I do not really like politics. The last day of school we wore some Christmas clothes to school so that’s what I did go see the Christmas pictures on my blog.

I’m now going to tell you about Christmas, New Years, new experiences and my 2 week vacation. About two and a half weeks before Christmas we went Christmas shopping in Idaho falls. That was a awesome but crazy experience! I’ll explain why. We were not the only one who were going Christmas shopping. All the stores were overflown with people and we had to wait a long time to pay and get out of the store. I’ve never seen something so crazy. We went from store, to store,to store to get everything we wanted to buy for everyone. Its cool how big of a thing Christmas is in America. I had a great time walking around with my, stillthen new host family. I got to meet my host moms (Tammie) parents. They are really nice and we will probably visit them later in 2023 sometime.

Start of the vacation. I had been sick close to the vacation and missed some school. I got better but I was still really exhausted and tired so the first few days of the vacation was just about getting some rest for me. When I had rested enough I started doing a lot of fun stuff like ice skating. I almost went every day before Christmas. Tammie made cookies and me and Enna decorated them. Me and some other friends of me went to help in the senior center to help provide the old people dinner. I think that was about it what I did before It was Christmas.Christmas Eve day I went to a friends house were we made gingerbread houses. Everyone had difficulties but I was having no problem at all. I was done the fastest and to be honest mine looked the best too. The actual eve of Christmas Eve we all put on the same Christmas pajamas and made a cute picture if front of the tree. We had a lot of stuff under the tree. Christmas Day morning we got to open our stocking. We had to wait for Nick my host parents son to come home from work to open the rest of the gifts. When he got home we got straight to it. And started opening our gifts. I got a suitcase since I already have to much stuff to take home. I definitely needed an extra suitcase to take most of my stuff home. I got a water bottle were you can put flavor in its pretty cool. I got a nice blanket some socks some underwear since mine started to get holes in it. All and all it was really nice. Tammie and John definitely spoiled me a little bit. The days after Christmas I went snowboarding with a friend. That was absolutely awesome since I have never snowboarded on a real mountain with trees and a ski lift. That was a very cool new experience. I sat in a sled behind the snowmobile that they have. We were going pretty fast and we’re hitting some jumps so that was really sick. New Years came up and we went to the opening from the library in big piney. It was like a New Years party/ opening from the library. But to be brutally honest it was pretty boring. But after the party I went to my friends house. The house of Haidi and her new host family and we celebrated New Years there. We had a great time. The next day the first of January. We started the year really good because we went snowshoeing, that was cool but a workout. You would think you walk on top of the snow but that’s not true you definitely still sink in and it’s really heavy to walk. But it was cool to have it done once. After that I suggested we should go to my house and put the sled behind the snowmobile again and go in the sled with the 4 of us (Me, Haidi, Enna and Kelsey). You probably think how is that supposed to fit I have no idea honestly but it worked. We definitely had to cuddle each other though but it was so cool and it was so nice to let them experience what I experienced. We were going over little bumps again and we were going fast. But then the rope broke but we fixed it and drove home. When we got home we played some Mario cart on the switch and then they all went home. We went snowboarding/ skiing maybe two days after. we had a great time that day too. For Enna and Haidi it was their first time skiing. It was funny to see them struggle but eventually they got the hang of it a little bit. This was about my whole two weeks filled up with new and cool experience I had an awesome time.I’m really happy with my new host family they definitely know how to keep me busy and happy.

I’m not even at the half of what I want to tell you and I already wrote so much.

I’mmaking a part two so don’t forget to read that one too.

Thanks for reading!! Keep all your nice massages coming. I know I don’t react to them but I definitely read them.

Sincerely,

Esther <3