Let it snow! Let us eat cake!

We were surprised with some snow mid-week...it seems other parts of France have been hit hard but we got a very light coat. It normally doesn't snow here. The city doesn't own any snow plows, and they don't seem to salt much either. Nobody was out shoveling sidewalks so walking to work was tricky for a couple of days.

Other than that, life has gotten back to normal. We invited a french friend over for lunch today after church - she's leaving us in a month to spend five months as an exchange student in Germany so we will really miss her. We also learned our missionary friends (Charles and Debra) are having a baby in August, so we are excited to share this blessed time with them!

I will start my teaching schedule again next week so I'm looking forward to getting busier. Zack is staying busy with work and taking a few french classes. Here he is with a group of other Anglophones in a french conversation group at a local library.



France has this great tradition in January called "Fete des Rois" which means it's an excuse to buy a bread-like cake and invite friends over to share it with you. Whoever eats the slice with the carved figurine inside is "King" or "Queen" for the day and gets to wear a crown. So far, I have eaten four king cakes at various places. We need to carry this tradition back home with us because it really is a nice way to create an excuse for neighbors, family, coworkers, etc. to get together for coffee and cake. Here's a picture of two of the little men that I found in my cake...that means I was a "queen" TWICE! (...which doesn't really mean much at all)

And now, your moment of zen...







(you'll have to click this one to enlarge and look at the bumper sticker)

Back Home (the other home)

We made it back to Angers after 24 hours of traveling, waiting, traveling, waiting, waiting....our first flight was delayed due to a snow storm in Newark so we were re-routed through Houston (yes, the wrong direction from France) to a flight to Paris. That was a BLESSING because Paris is only 2.5 hours from Angers, whereas Cologne, Germany (our original destination) would have been 9 hours. Our reasons for not flying out of Paris was because it was too expensive, and it turned out we got routed there anyway. We prayed something like this would happen and it did!

Our flight from Houston to Paris was delayed 6 hours because something was wrong with the plane (yikes!) so that was a lot of sitting around. And the 8 hour flight to Paris was a lot of sitting around, too. Sitting around sure can be expensive.

We are thankful to be back home and it was a blast seeing our gracious family (thanks for hosting us!) and our wonderful friends. We look forward to seeing some of your friendly faces soon over here in France.

Happy New Year! Bonne Année!

So we were able to stick around in the States for one more week in order to spend New Years with a bunch of good friends at the beach. The weather was a balmy 60 degrees on average. I even wore shorts a couple of days. I got to play that long game of Risk I've had a hankering for, but was conquered in the end. Elizabeth played lots of pool and hit the beach a few times, walking, that is.
We had a bonfire on the beach for the last hour of '06. We roasted marshmallows and hotdogs (separately, of course). We then toasted the New Year while a few hundred yards away some polar bear clubbers braved the frigid waters for a very short time. Before making this post we took some pictures of us and a few friends with someone's MacBook.

Enjoy

Happy New Year!