A Small Taste

I'll add a link to the 400 some pictures(!) once they are uploaded, but this should give you a quick taste of our time in Rockford. We had a great time inspite of the sickness that seemed to get us all. Thanks, B & J, for a great time! (Can't say that I'm thankful for the flu, but, hey... the rest was great!! )
Okay, here it is.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

He's 62 and we love him thru and thru!
Happy Birthday to the world's best husband, father, grandfather, etc.
Have a wonderful day.

Our 1st Christmas

OK, so they're a little late, but better late than never, right? Last Sunday night we celebrated Christmas as a family following our church's annual Christmas caroling to shut-ins. Below are a few shots of the fun we all had sharing presents with one another.

While it worked better with our travel plans to celebrate on Sunday night, we still wanted to enjoy the "Christmas morning" experience, and so we saved stockings and the kids' "big" presents (they received their very own toy laptops) for early Monday morning before we left on the big trip. Before they got to see what was in those last two packages, though, we took time to read the Christmas story, and--of course--enjoy some cinnamon rolls!

Albert's Family Visit

We are enjoying having Albert here with his parents and twin sisters for a few days. They are a real sweet Christian family. We manage to communicate using easy English and lots of hand motions!

Look Who is One Today!!!

Happy Birthday, Stefan!!
We love you and wish we could give you some birthday hugs and kisses!

Bordeaux Christmas is Over!!

We had dinner at about 1:30 today. I had planned on 13, but we only had 9. We were sorry that the Rottiers were sick, but we had a good time with the Lees, Lianala, Wilfiried and Shibo (Chinese). Hyo Soeng made an entree which was delicious and then I served an almost traditional turkey dinner!
Afterward, we played some games, had a white elephant gift exchange, sang some French children's songs (one of the gifts that we gave was a book of chansons and Lianala knew them all--the Lee kids knew many of them. ) , had a time of sharing around Christmas carols and Matthew 1:18-25 . It was a very nice day. Can't wait to hear about you all and your day.

Some Christmas Photos!

Still a little energy left for new toys after 27 hours in the car!

The only fun thing about seeing Santa...waiting in line!!

Making friends with cousins!

In line waiting to see Santa!

We have the flu bug going around here, so we really haven't done any celebrating yet.  It's definitely taking its course, and it isn't fun.  So far, Bob and Brian seem to be the only ones that haven't fallen prey.  Hopefully that continues.  Just wanted to get you a few photos and try to add a link so you can see the rest.  Never used a MAC before and not getting much help from brother, Bob!  :-)  Hope you all had a merrier Christmas than we!  Hopefully we will be able to celebrate tomorrow.

Christmas Morning-- à deux!

After a "long winter's nap", Dad and I enjoyed stockings and then cinnamon rolls together. Rather traditional, huh?

Christmas Eve-- à deux!

Well, it is 9 pm and we are all finished and ready to go to bed! At least, I am! Dad is downstairs playing with his Christmas presents (a 19" monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse). We had the traditional meat fondue--only the setting was different!! Then, non-traditionally, we opened up our gifts. We had a memorable first time of being "alone." Well, we are 61, it was bound to happen sometime, huh? Tomorrow we will be "13 à table", I believe.

3 Church Cantata!

Well, it is history!! And the Lord was so good in answering prayer. The 25 piece choir did great, the 3 pianists were super and your Dad was outstanding! There were 60 in the audience (plus one dog!) so that is a total of 85. The readers--Eli, Lianala, Timothee and Jana--did a great job. We had a nice "collation" afterwards. Thanks for praying.

2 YEARS!

How the time does fly!! Happy Anniversary, Brian and Johanna. We love you both!

Thought you'd enjoy reading a letter Dad just received!

Coucou Papi !

Tu as oublié ta casquette hier soir et nous on s'est bien amusé avec !!! Elle est chouette !!

Regarde les photos !

Bisous

Noémie, Elise ,Samuel, Gabriel

15 Years!

Happy 15th anniversary, Dan and Brenda. You are one sharp looking couple!

Christmas Program and The Empire Brass at Orchestra Hall

Grandma and Grandpa. (These are at Orchestra Hall.)

The boys.

Isa and I ready for the concert. It was soooooo amazing!

My precious parents who are going to celebrate their 15 anniversary tomorrow!

Right before the Christmas program!

All of the the singers and readers. Our title this year was 'Who is He?'

Holiday at Peace

We wanted to give our children a taste of the orchestra in a format we thought they would enjoy. So we all dressed up and took them and Aunt Donna on a "family date" to downtown Greenville and the Peace Center to hear the annual "Holiday at Peace" concert by the GSO. The Maestro Tchivzhel was in full form. The singer, Doug LaBrecque, was not outstanding, but his ego made up for what he lacked in vocal quality. We enjoyed a stop at Spill the Beans coffee shop (in its new location). We were pleased with how much M & M enjoyed the concert.

Letting our Holiday Spirit show...

My head "Elf" did a fabulous job at distributing the ornaments...

her young assistant found the lower branches work very well...

Our resident "Santa" pitched in...

and all were rewarded with Hot Chocolate & warm Christmas cookies...

It was a GREAT start to our Holiday Season....

Annual Student Christmas Party!

Last night we had the student Christmas party and the annual "white elephant" gift exchange. It turned out to be a great evening. Laetitia is here and she helped immensely (I wish we lived on a farm so we could keep her :-)). We were 18 in all. As you can see, we had raclette (which is also becoming the tradition!)

What the "mouse" did while the "cat" was away!

Just so you know that I kept busy---I moved the bookcase from the salle into the hall, the one in the hall into Dad's office and the corner bookcase from his office into the salle. Easy to write, but lots of work. Probably won't look like this tomorrow so thought I would show you now. Dad is on the train (I hope!) on his way home and I am headed to the airport to pick up Laetitia.

Christmas Spirit

I may not be decorating at home, but by all means, I'm in the spirit! :-)

Decorating the Tree!

Tonight five girls came over to help decorate our tree. We started with pizza, did some decorating (don't ask about the lights!), had devotions and ended with the "leftover" chocolate fondue from the Ladies' Tea. I invented my own system! We had a nice time. Now I have a house to clean :-)

Scrooge......

going "over the top" to please his wife!!! Dad put the tree together tonight, so that the girls and I only have to decorate it on Wednesday. Of course, the lights would have been nice, but then that would be really, really over the top!

BJU Lighting Ceremony

We started out the evening by going to BJU's lighting ceremony. They are getting more and more "techy"! All of the words were on screen which was nice. It was not super cold, but if you look at Viviane, you would think it was -20!! Liz was being careful to make sure her daughter didn't get pneumonia!! :-) We then went over to the William's for our 5th annual party! I think that Michael and Liz were the ones who started that tradition. Then the girls came over for a sleep over--I think that is the 6th year of that! I made the traditional pancakes and bacon for breakfast! It was fun! It was a great time with lots of fellowship and great bonding. The season has officially begun. Click here for more pictures.

Ladies Christmas Tea in Pessac!

It is over!! Lots of work, but everyone enjoyed it a lot. It was the first time for a "chocolate fountain" for many of them, so that was a nice extra. We had 22 ladies and girls. Audrey, Lianala and Anne did impersonations of Elizabeth, Mary and Anne. They did a great job. It is 9:15 and Lianala is just leaving. She stayed to help me clean up -- am I thankful!

First Christmas Party!

Last night Tim and Ruth had Grandma and Aunt Ruth over to show them pictures of NM. Amy was also hosting a party at her appartment after the Spartanburg Dickens Christmas Festival. I joined T & R's dinner and then after watching the videos that they had taken out west, we went over to Amy's for dessert. It was fun to all be together. Amy has fixed up her apartment quite nicely, and is all ready for Christmas. Well, she doesn't have a tree, but I don't think she's getting one! It was fun, and I was glad that I put the painting aside to go out and be with family.

Our Christmas tree

Monday, after we got home from Raleigh, we braved the cold and drove out to the woods of Home Depot and bought us a real, genuine, Fraser Fir Tree. We then had a good time as a family setting it up in the parsonage. Check here to see news about our time in North Carolina.