In the News, again!!!

The print shop has had a lot of success with the New Testament Mangas printed in the last two years. So much so, that the books have won a prize for the best Christian comic books in France in 2009.
The local newspaper picked up on this, and we (Philip and Stéphane) are in the news once again.


(Click here to see the article)

Thanksgiving in France Part I

Thanksgiving is not a holiday in France. But we still usually celebrate it. Since Philip is working and some of the kids are in school on Thursday, we usually wait until Sunday. I might be tempted to skip all the work, but the children won't let us. They obviously enjoy eating the traditional Thanksgiving meal more than I enjoy making it! But before judging me too harshly on my laziness, realize that making a Thanksgiving meal here, means making most things from scratch! This includes cutting up the pumpkin and boiling it, before I can make a pumpkin pie. It also means making cream of mushroom soup if we want a green bean casserole. That's right, no canned soup in France, and no canned pumpkin! And NO canned cranberry sauce either! But we are lucky to live on the Belgian border where we can purchase Ocean Spray fresh canberries.

We tried to order a turkey from the butcher one year, but ended up with two 7 pounders instead of the 15 pounder I ordered. Just NOT the same thing! (At Christmas, it is EASY to buy a big turkey!) So we found the answer. We raise our own now. This is trickier than it sounds. We have never succeeded in getting a turkey to set on her eggs. So we buy baby turkeys. But turkey babies are very delicate, and die easily. Especially if they get wet. And turkeys are too stupid to stay out of the rain of their own free will. But we have gotten pretty good at it, and usually have 2 or 3 that survive til Thanksgiving.

Here is this year's lucky bird.

One of our guests (a fellow student of Mélanie's from Morocco) asked to come a day early and help us.

And here is our 22-pound turkey!!!

Our "Pizza" Oven

Some of our wonderful friends gave us a great Christmas gift a few years ago. And if you come to our house for supper very often, you are likely to see it in use at some point. We can use it outside, or slip it into the fireplace during the winter. It makes wonderful pizzas, but is really a flammeküche oven. Handmade in Alsace.

Flammeküches

We start with a sour cream base with a touch of nutmeg,

And add onions and chopped bacon.

And toss it in the oven,

For Philip and me!

Bible Contest

Each year, the youth from our church participate in a Concours Biblique (Bible contest) on November 1st, All Saint's Day. This year was no exception. Well... it was an exception! But I will get to that. Our boys, Peter and Nathan were part of the team. 

Each team consists of five members, with each person memorizing one chapter of the assigned chapters. This year 1 Peter was the chosen passage.

This year for the first time the contest was divided into three locations: St. Dizier, Paris, and Lyon.

In the morning rounds, each contestant answers two memorization questions (this is not as easy as it sounds: an extra "a" or "and" and the point is lost.) and two context questions. By the end of the morning we were tied for 4th out of seven teams.

Here is our team hard at work.

In the afternoon, the speed rounds have tight competition. The contestant has to be the first to push his buzzer AND have the answer ready immediately. Here is Nathan competing against the other contestants of Chapter 1. (The three judges are in the background.)

Our champions!!!!! Myriam, Peter, Jonathan, Débora (our niece), and Nathan. In spite of having three first-timers on the team, they won the 1st place trophy.

Seven teams of five contestants = 35 young people memorizing scripture!

And since there were three contests in France, 100 young people memorized a chapter of 1st Peter!

Summertime with the children Part II

The second part of our trip took us to Normandy. We stayed with Michel, a friend of the family that actually has room to invite us all. He lives in an old farmhouse, so we felt right at home.

We spent the first day visiting the D-day beaches.

Many of the German bunkers are still intact.

The cemetery of Colleville.

The German cemetery.

The second day, Michel took off work to spend the day spoiling us.

The ocean at Carteret was magnificent!

And lunch was fabulous.

La Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg houses the biggest Aquarium in Europe.

The French nuclear submarines are made in Cherbourg,

and la Cité de la Mer has one of the first ones made:

the Redoutable.

Fascinating!

And in case we hadn't been spoiled enough,

we finished the day watching UP in 3-D.

After one last picture in the phone booth in front of Michel's

(we have done this every time we visit Michel, but it is getting crowded)

We headed home via the Memorial of Caen (no pictures, sorry),

and a few visits with friends and family.

Alex and Marie close friends of Philip's parents.

Claudette, Philip's mom's cousin.

Jeannot and Louisette, Philip's aunt and uncle.

And last but not least, a visit to the first house Philip's parents

lived in. His dad decorated this well.

Summertime with the children Part I

We picked up all our little and not so little "chicks" from their various camps, and headed for the English Channel for a week at the beach.

Sitting on cockle shells at le Crotoy beach.

Our big, strong dam diggers.

Friends that managed to find us!

Nathan turned 12 on vacation.

Nathan enjoying one of his birthday gifts.

Mussel hunting or is it collecting? The picture is misleading. Most of those mussels are too small to harvest.

Mussel eating!

Sunbathing.

Sleeping. The cottage only sleeps 5 so the boys roughed it. Wesley would say it was

the best part of the trip. He couldn't wait to get to bed each night.

Peter contemplative.

One of Mélanie's friends joined us for a couple of days.

Notice the white cliffs, no it's not Dover!

We are on the French side of the English Channel!

I just thought the train station at Abbeville was too cute not to include!

Summertime without the children

In August, Peter, Nathan and Laura went off to camp for two weeks. And Stéphane and Mélanie signed up to work at Nathan and Laura's camp. So Philip and Wesley and I had to find something to do to keep us busy.Wesley stayed a few days with his cousins and did a variety of fun things.

Including fishing!

And Philip and I relaxed a bit near Epinal.

Then we went home to a garden that was producing way more than three people could eat!

We decided to take advantage of the empty house, and relative lack of laundry to remodel the laundry room. It is taking way more time than we hoped, but is starting to look like we want it to!

Philip's brother Jeannot redid all the electricity.

His dad helped with tearing out tiles and putting up plaster board.

And we finally got to painting after the children were home.

It is starting to look better but still needs plumbing before I can do laundry. (Luckily we have another hookup or I would be at the laudromat alot!)