This gift of a year in American can help young people reinvent themselves while learning to negotiate a new culture with new friends and a new family, albeit a little family made up of a boisterous hound and a writer-teacher who's happiest in the mountains... thank goodness for Aunt Connie and Uncle Ben right up the street... and the soccer, ski, and baseball teams! It is really one big family.
Thanks to William and Soenke's families for loaning us these boys... we'll take care of them.
Safe travels, boys!