Weekend at the Farm

Every year we host 30 to 50 young people at a youth retreat over Pentecost weekend. (The Monday after Pentecost is a holiday here.) They get to experience life on the farm: the rooster alarm, the cat that eats sandwiches (who said that keeping food up high was to keep out bears!?), the outhouse (that is just for them, WE have a real bathroom of course!), sleeping in the straw, and a real campfire. They must have a great time because they keep coming back. There is lots of fun and games, but we pray they leave here stronger in their Christian walk. This year's theme was making the most of your life for Jesus, because you only get one shot at it. (ok, that is a paraphrase!)

Here are a few photos.

As you can see the weather was perfect!

We needed big pans for this many people!

One group always puts on a special "theme" supper and evening for us.

This year it was Medieval Night.

The queen and princess of the evening.

The youngest knight.

The toughest knight!

The bravest knight.

My knight without the shining armor.

Here is the crowd.

We tried to make the farm look nice...but this is the only proof we have. The goat got these, or was it the turkey? They were pretty while they lasted!

Grandparents on the Farm

The big highlight of our month of April was the visit of my dad, aka Grandpa, and his new wife, Grandma Judy. I traveled, along with Wesley and Laura, to the US for their wedding a year ago, but some of the family had not yet met Grandma Judy.
They spent three weeks here, helping out on the farm, doing odd jobs, touring Europe a bit (they braved going to London on their own), and spoiling us. We tried to spoil them too.

A taste of America in France!

Visiting Mons, Belgium

Indoor mini golfing in Belgium (yes, that is a beer stein, Belgium is famous for good beer!).

Belgium is also home to the French Fry!!! And you thought they were French!!!

Saxophones were invented in Belgium too.

Train ride home from Paris (think they look tired?) (I am looking for more Paris pictures)

Visiting Fort Leveau in Feignies

More on Goats on our Farm

Anybody out there still wondering what we named the baby goats? We haven't reported back on this, because we are very embarrassed to say that we can't seem to agree, so we are still calling them: Boy Goat and Girl Goat. Here are a few of the "winning" names:

Thessa and Nicky (this is what the Bible scholars prefer)
Caramel and Nougat
Star and Buck (my own personal favorite)
Caddie and Whompus
Ginger and Pablo (this is the preference of the younger set, based on books and video games)

Good thing we never let the children in on naming the new human babies! They would still be running around nameless!

Needless to say that the (goat) babies aren't very little any more (they are way bigger than the photos here), and are into all sorts of trouble when they manage to get out of their pen. I am not sure I will have many flowers in our courtyard this summer. In case you didn't know, goats LOVE geraniums. They assume any and ALL geraniums were planted for their pleasure, and they prefer the ones that are the hardest to reach. Which means that they trample anything in their way to get at them!

Don't let this cute little face fool you!!!!!!! It is just looking for trouble!

We are enjoying fresh goat cheese and goat milk. 

More Babies on the Farm

We try to buy chicks every spring, and this year was no exception. We keep them warm for several weeks under lamps, and they go from being cute little chicks to being ugly chickens!

The beach on the English Channel for Easter!!!!

Our church joined with several other churches in the Lille area for a weekend retreat at the beach. This is exciting for several reasons. For the children of course, the beach was the main draw. For us, it is a great chance to fellowship with Christian friends we don't see very often, and also to have an Easter Sunday service that was standing room only! (I am exaggerating a bit here!)

I had checked the weather forecast before leaving and didn't really think we would enjoy the beach much, but as the pictures show, we didn't let the cool weather stop us.

Sand castle contest winner (everybody won something)

I didn't try the water, but it didn't look very warm!!!

The last evening we had a talent show (most of the "talent" was hilarious) where the public was supposed to all be bedouins. Some of us took this more seriously than others!

Visit to the Logos Hope

The Logos Hope is currently in the port of The Hague in Holland. Since that is only a three hour drive from our house in France, we decided this was our chance to see an OM ship and of course to visit Jérémie! We spent two nights on board. Since I had a hard time choosing pictures I will let the pictures tell the story.

Here we are with our niece, Débora who jumped at the chance to join us. As you can see, the port is right at the edge of town (and it was windy)!

We received a royal welcome.

We brought French necessities to the Frenchies on board.

Visitors get to take a video voyage that presents the ship.

The Logos Hope is a floating bookstore and we LOVE books!

Jérémie gave us a tour of the engine room where he works.

It doesn't show, but the noise this generator made was deafening, and there were three more just like it that weren't running!

Visiting the "gigantic" room of Ruben and Betsy, friends from our church who are also on board. (We couldn't all fit in the room Jérémie shares with 3 cabin-mates.)

We had a suite (and two more rooms) with a bit more space than Ruben and Betsy, since we were visitors! The children thought that sleeping (and living) on a ship was wonderful. Laura and Wesley cried at the idea of going home.

We even got to see a lifeboat drill!!!!

We had a great visit with Jérémie on board the Logos Hope!!!

New arrivals on the farm!

Well, it feels like spring is here, (sorry for you poor folks that still have to deal with snow) and spring on the farm, means babies!!!!! The first babies of the season were born today. Their arrival was very much anticipated.

They were due on March 6th. Being overdue helped to push the anticipation level up a notch. Mélanie woke up at 5 am on Friday after dreaming of their birth and went to see if they had arrived! (Now that is a dedicated farm girl!) For the last few days, we have been checking on Vicky (we didn't get to name her) first thing we get up in the morning, last thing before we go to bed, and almost every hour. We were hoping to get some great birth footage. But the babies (or should I say kids?) made their appearance on Sunday morning while we were ALL at church!
Since Philip was preaching the final sermon of our series on Thessalonians at the time they were born, the kids have considered Thessa and Niki as names. But we are still open for suggestions. Please leave your ideas in the comments below!!! We have a boy and a girl by the way.
We bought Vicky a week ago from a friend that needed to stop goat farming.(She still has a couple more to sell if anyone is looking for a goat!)  It has been a long time since we have had goats on our farm. Philip is already getting excited about the goat cheese we will be making.

Hard to say which kids are cutest!!!!