It’s been just about three weeks since our foreign exchange student, Krissy, landed here in Flagstaff and joined our small family for the 2026-2027 school year.
We love having her here! She’s absolutely incredible.
I mentioned it in a recent post, but Krissy is a FLEX student from Ukraine. She’s a senior at one of our local high schools here in Flagstaff, and so far, she’s adapting to our family, our town, and life in the States pretty well!
She’s all set up in her bedroom at our house. Ryan and I are still deep (deep!) in renovation mode, but she’s been a champ about it. Her bedroom and bathroom have been completely untouched, and I think are the only rooms in the house that are free from dust and debris.
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Ochi absolutely loves her, and she absolutely loves him. She takes him for walks just about every day, and I think it’s her favorite “chore.”
I’ve taken her out to explore most of Flagstaff in the few weeks she’s been here. We had a few days of wandering downtown, and we’ve been enjoying all the late-summer activities in and around town, including the Route 66 Centennial car show, Sunday farmers market, Labor Day Art in the Park and the Coconino County Fair.
We’ve also checked out some of the thrift stores around town as well as the antique and vintage stores on Fourth Street.
We’ve also made time for a few quick local excursions. I brought her down to Sedona for orientation on her second full day in Arizona, and the drive down state Route 89A brought her to tears. She loves nature and being outdoors, which makes her a pretty good fit for our family, of course.
We went paddle boarding together out in Winslow this past weekend as well. It was her first time stand-up paddle boarding, and she had a blast!
Ryan’s still busy with fire season — he’s somewhere up in Montana right now— but he was home for three days during her second week here in Flagstaff. He was able to drive Krissy to school and pick her up, and get to know her a little more.
We’re both excited for Ryan’s fire season to end so he can spend a bit more time at home with us and we can start embarking on some more family adventures.
Regardless, Krissy’s been settling in well at the house.
She loves paint by numbers, diamond mosaic art, reading, baking and board games. We’ve been spending a lot of quiet nights at home making chocolate chip cookies, reading books, and watching sci-fi shows (Dark Matter, of course) with the English subtitles on so she can improve her language skills.
Krissy’s also getting accustomed to school.
She knocked most of her required classes out back home, so she has a pretty elective-heavy schedule here at school. Her favorite classes so far are world history and Spanish. She’s made a few friends at school, has started attending open gyms for winter sports, and has joined a few extracurricular activities.
I’m also getting accustomed to being a parent. I attended my first parents’ night at her school last week (wild!) and downloaded approximately 234,302 apps that let me know everything I need to know about school.
No more listening to the radio in the mornings to hear about two-hour delays, folks. It’s all digital now.
Fun fact: I tried to call the attendance line last week to report Krissy’s tardy. Apparently there’s no more attendance line, and you actually just use an app. Ope.
We’re all adjusting here.
We celebrated her first full day of classes a few weeks ago with dinner at Karma.
I can’t overstate how thrilled we are to have Krissy here in our home with us for the year. I have a feeling the school year is going to fly by, but we’re trying to soak up every moment we can with her. She’s so outgoing, curious, fearless and resilient. We absolutely adore her!
