They attended a year of high school together and considered themselves friends and sisters.
Julie Anderson and Kristen Hornseth-Fevang married their spouses about the same time and had babies in the same week.
More than 30 years ago, Hornseth-Fevang was a 15-year-old exchange student from Norway who wanted to see America. She stayed with Anderson’s family for one year.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryIn October, the friends had a reunion.
Hornseth-Fevang visited Anderson at her home in Greenwood and the duo and some of Anderson’s family went to the old stomping grounds from when the girls were 1980s teenagers.
They visited Greenwood Park Mall and had tea in Franklin. Hornseth-Fevang went to Indianapolis to see how the skyline changed.
“We have just been having lots of family dinners,” Anderson said.
Once Hornseth-Fevang went back to Norway after her year in the United States, the duo stayed in touch.
They wrote letters to each other and Hornseth-Fevang traveled from Norway when Anderson got married.
Anderson went to Norway and stayed with Hornseth-Fevang and her parents.
Soon, they weren’t friends. They were family.
“She became one of the family and her family became my family,” Anderson said.
Keeping up with each other got easier with the birth of social media.
They plotted another trip with Hornseth-Fevang coming to the United States to visit and remember a year of her life.
Now, they want their children to get to know each other in hopes that the exchange will span a few generations, Hornseth-Fevang said.
“We kind of get together to encourage the next generation,” she said.
