So Proud…

May 26, 2011

The sum­mer of 2000 we had the honor of host­ing an exchange stu­dent from Alba­nia. Julian was the sweet exchange stu­dent we could have ever hosted. All of us have such found mem­o­ries of him stay­ing with our fam­ily his junior year. The one thing I remem­ber laugh­ing about a lot was when he would say “no” but shake his head “yes”. I would just look at him so con­fused and ask him what his answer was… then tell him here when you shake your head like that it means yes not no… we would just laugh. The entire fam­ily adored him… grand­par­ents, broth­ers, sis­ters, my niece’s and nephew etc. You can­not help but love him when you meet him.

These pho­tos still hang on our wall.

Ans­ley never let him out of her site. You can see in this photo how loved he was by her. He and Terri had fun together too but Ans­ley my good­ness she always wanted an older brother and Juli stepped right up to the plate on that task.

Juli would do any­thing Ans­ley asked, it did not mat­ter… play­ing in the snow, watch­ing a kids movie… any­thing. He taught her how to ride a bike which has fun mem­o­ries and includes her slug­ging him with all her might and a cross armed pout in the house for a few min­utes because he let go of the bike even though she was rid­ing it on her own. We still laugh about that one. She did finally for­give him for break­ing his promise that he would not let go of the bike and back out they went to show of her rid­ing skills.

This day was bit­ter sweet. Juli was going back home, but back home meant Boston, MA. His mom and dad were able to get visas to come and live in the US and we were so thrilled.

I got to go and meet The Guri’s in per­son one sum­mer while they were still in MA. It was so great to see Juli again and meet his won­der­ful parents.

So now to the really proud part… Juli just received his Mas­ters Degree! We are so very proud of him. The photo above is of his sister-in-law, brother, Juli, nephew Oliver and Julian’s mom. I’m assum­ing Dad is tak­ing the photo. They now own a home and live in Florida away from the MA win­ters and are spoil­ing lit­tle Oliver, who just so hap­pens to be the first Amer­i­can born Guri in their fam­ily. They are so proud of this lit­tle boy. He is just the cutest.

Con­grat­u­la­tions, Julian. It was such an honor to have a lit­tle part in help­ing you achieve your dream. You will always be a part of our family.