When I arrived here I wasn’t sure how it would go, I was scared about having a bad relationship with my host family, not feeling in the right place and not making new friends. When I started practicing on the softball team, I got along with new people, and I made good friends. It really felt like a family. I think the choice of joining a team was the best decision I could do in that moment because it helped me to fit in this new life. In my opinion, I always have had a great relationship with my host family, and I enjoyed spending the Christmas holidays with them and learning new traditions. I also traveled to Montana, and I visited new places that I really loved. Now it just feels like I am home, and I like it so much. My English has improved a lot, and I know so many new words.

Nuria is having a great time here so far, and she has a very good relationship with her host family. She feels like she is one of them. She played softball for three months, and she really loved it. In November, she tried to play basketball, but it wasn’t her thing. So she decided to quit the team, and now she is able to spend more time with her friends, and her family and try new things. For Christmas, she went on family trip in Colorado. They went to a water park, and they visited a zoo. Now she has a lot of new friends, and speaking English is not a problem anymore because it feels like her native language.

Lara has a great relationship with her host family. She said,“My host family is like a second family to me. We get along very well and they do everything they can so I have a good experience. That’s also why I really don’t want to leave.” In fall, she ran cross country. She didn’t really love the running part of it, but there she found some great friends and had a lot of fun. She also played basketball for a couple months, but it wasn’t really fun to her, which is why she decided to go to offseason conditioning for track instead. She met a big part of her group of friends at cross country practice, but she also found a lot of good friends during class and games. So far the furthest she has traveled was to Lincoln to watch a volleyball game. Other than that, she has been to Rapid City, and in March, she will probably travel to Arizona with her host family. For Christmas, her host mom’s dad, sister and niece came over. They had a really fun time, watched Christmas movies and ate a lot of really good food.

Oriol really likes his host family, they do a lot of activities together, and they like the same things so they get along really well. Here, Oriol can practice the sport he enjoys the most: basketball. He really likes it. For Christmas, he went with his host family to a NBA game, and he enjoyed it a lot. He really likes this new experience. He hopes he can do it again. Besides Christmas, he has visited Orlando, Denver and Lincoln, and he though it was amazing.