Kittys in the kitchen

The boys playing in their new "kingdom" - the
back yard.

Discovered that this is Arianna's guilty look - the "I found the
coffee cream that was left on the table and helped myself to it
as well as using some to paint the floor, aren't you proud of
me" look. 

What a beautiful day we are having today.  It is about 80 degrees outside with clear sunny skies.  Last weekend went well.  We had a good time at our friends house on Saturday and had a good conversation as well.  Lilia was sick and stayed home.  She still wasn't feeling good on Sunday, so only Caleb, Micah and I went to Barcelona.  We had a great time there.  The services went well.  We had a wonderful Mexican food lunch, complete with Tamales.  On the way home we ran into heavy rain and hail that slowed traffic down, as well as traffic as everyone was returning from the four day weekend.  It took four and a half hours instead of the normal three.  The rain continued on monday and tuesday, along with moments of high winds.  Our house is somewhat sheltered where we are now, so we did not notice it, but there were gusts of up to 70mph in some places.  I worked all day monday on some computer problems which I still have not resolved.  I did finally finish my web site, http://chevalcatharelimoux.fr , and it is in English as well.  Translating the French to English was more difficult than I expected, because of the horse vocabulary.  I knew what certain things meant in French, but did not know the English equivalent.  I'm sure there are still some things that do not make much sense.  If you find something, let me know.  Bible study went well last night.  The market was well attended this morning, I had a man stop by who was interested in the Bible study.  We talked for a little while and he said he would like to come to it.  This weekend we are celebrating the anniversary of the church in Carcassonne, there will be a picnic lunch after services on Sunday.  Some people have asked, and the answer is "no", we have not begun packing for the states yet.  We still have several weeks to go and many other things to work on.  Tomorrow I need to paint our bathroom and the back hallway, to name a couple.  We will have some cherries ripe shortly, if the birds do not eat them all.  Sunday morning, the stray cat the we have half-adopted had her kittens in our sun room.  We let them stay in the kitchen for a few days, but they are back outside now.  I have to admit that they are cute and she is a good mother. Caleb has already started worrying about who will take care of them while we are gone.  I assured him that she was doing fine before we arrived and will do okay while we are gone.  Have a good weekend.  God bless, JASON

This past week in pictures

We have had a good week.  I will try to let the pictures tell the story.  Below, Lilia had a school swimming competition this past Wednesday, and it was in Limoux, so the whole family went.  She did well, competiting in three different races, and winning 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. 

 The boys had their final basketball tournament on Sunday afternoon.  Their team has grown some with some new additions, so they did not play as well, but at least got to rest some.  Micah made his first basket, and Caleb made one as well.  The picture below shows Micah passing the ball to Caleb.

 We have found some time to clean up around the house.  Monday and Tuesday I spent some time on getting the house prepared for our absence and the possibility of others staying in our house while we are gone this summer.  I had to repair some holes, and replace the caulk around sinks and bathtubs.  I hope to be able to paint the bathroom, and a small back closet in the morning.  I also worked in the back yard.  We have some the seeds  I planted already coming up.  Arianna, below, is actually kissing one of the roses that bloomed.  Roses do really well here.  You do not have to trim them back and they will be filled with roses. 

 We have not had the Bible Study this week, because Thursday was a day off.  Lilia invited two friends over to spend the night, and we played Monopoly with the boys.  I do try and keep contact with everyone by phone.  Arianna came up and snuggled to me while I was on the phone, and I think it was Caleb that took this picture. 

 I do not remember sharing about taking a trip to Rennes-le-chateau.  Seems like it was last Saturday that we went to the village of Fa for a garage sale and on the way back decided to stop by and visit the village Rennes-le-chateau and see the fortification on top of the hill.

 We enjoyed the brief visit, especially since the kids got in free.  The boys enjoyed wandering all over.

 We had another wonderful view from the top and the weather was just lovely.  It has been cool and sunny most of the week.  It started raining last night and continued today, so I was unable to go to the market.  I have been able to get a lot of work done on the website.  You can check it out at http://chevalcatharelimoux.fr . 

Andrew was invited to a birthday party at McDonalds on Wednesday as well.  Tommorrow we are invited to spend the afternoon with some friends, pray for this opportunity.  Sunday I will be preaching at the church in Barcelona.  Hope that you enjoy your weekend as well, and that Sunday morning finds you praising the Lord with fellow believers as well.  God bless, JASON

Long distance

Andrew and I running for 6 minutes.

Micah and I running for 12 minutes.

Caleb running and me, trying to stay caught up.

I forgot to mention in the last blog about last Saturday morning.  Last saturday we participated in "Le crosse de mille enfants".  A long distance race involving thousands of kids from local schools.  There were over 5 000 present this year.  This year I ran with our three boys who were participating.  I ran 6 minutes with Andrew, 12 minutes with Micah, and 15 with Caleb.  At the end I was pretty tired out but had a lot of fun running with the boys.  We also had the opportunity to visit with the other parents who attended.  Things are still going well.  I have made a lot of progress on the website that I am working on.  But I still have a few bugs to work out.  I hope to have the home page up tonight. We had three present for the bible study.  The market went well this morning.  The weather was lovely and there were a lot of people out.  Looking forward to a busy weekend.  God bless, JASON

Elections

Lilia gets a hug.

One of the pictures I will be using for the website.

Well another week has gone by already.  May always seem to pass quickly in France because there are a lot of holidays.  Last Tuesday was a holiday and today is a holiday as well.  Angie has been enjoying the garage sale (vide grenier) season.  I don't think she has missed one yet.  She has found some good deals, especially on summer clothes for the kids, which we will definitely be needing in the states.  We had one couple for Bible study last week and we had a good visit with them.  The elections took place over the weekend and Francois Holland has won.  This means that France will have a socialist party President for the first time since 1995.  We will have to see if the excitement is shared in a few years.  I have finished the official demand for the basketball team to come, June of next year.  I have been looking forward to this for a while now.  It will be hard to wait another year, but it does take some time to plan and for the people going to raise their funds.  My father should soon have his Doctorate thesis finished.  I'm looking forward to reading it.  Sunday we listened to the last sermon on the series, the Song of Songs.  This summer looks like it will be busy.  I'm looking forward to feeling the Texas heat, it has been a while.  I'm getting prepared to post some pages up for the website.  I'll post the link when I finally get it going. I think it is time for supper.  I grilled a little last night and we had a guest eat with us.  I looking  forward to some leftovers.  God bless, JASON

Theater and Sports

Arianna playing with her brothers outside.

Before the play starts.

You may have to click this picture to make it larger,
Caleb is wearing the red vest.

Caleb is stealing the ball, or getting it stolen, Micah
is in the background.

Things continue to go well.  We have had strange weather lately.  Friday I was able to go to the market, but the wind starting picking up.  Saturday it was full force and caused some damage in other parts of France.  I saw some video of planes landing in the strong wind west of us, and it was frightening just to watch.  There was a chance of rain all weekend long, but we did not get any.  Saturday I planted an little in our garden.  I had to pick and choose some items that would do well while we were gone and that would not give the fruit until we returned.   I planted some watermelons, onions, canteloupe, squash and chives.  I do not expect a big harvest because  I do not have a green thumb, but I enjoyed the work.  Angie was preparing for a ladies prayer meeting, so Arianna and I did the work ourselves.  Friday evening, Caleb was in a school play.  Now, this was not an ordinary school play.  The city spent in the neighborhood of 40,000 euros, and involved 500 students, live band and orchestra.  It started at 8:00 Friday night and didn't finish until 11:00. Thankfully we had gotten a babysitter for Arianna.  The play was about Jules Vedrine, an aviator who lived in the early 20th century.  He was the first to fly a plane at over 100 mph, and set several distance records.  He also is the first to land the plane on a roof of a building.  He was almost elected mayor of Limoux.  Caleb played two acting parts in the play and did a good job.  We hope to by the DVD eventually.  Sunday services were good, afterwards the boys had a basketball tournament.  They played with another team because there teammates were not there.  They did a good job, Caleb scored a couple of times.  I missed a great picture opportunity because our phone froze.  The boys had finished playing a game and came to meet us in the stands.  We noticed that they had left their water bottles and asked where they were. I looked down to the court were Micah was sitting with them, and no surprise, he had stacked one upside down on the other.  They looked so funny stacked like that, and it shows that Micah was not really paying attention when I wasn't his turn to play.  Arianna was well behaved at the tournament and even entertained others with her cuteness.  Today I am working on the monthly report.  Hope to have it done soon.  Tommorrow is a holiday and I am thinking of something fun to do with the boys.  God bless, JASON

Lilia helps out in the nursery Sunday Morning.

The strong and large part

Arianna under our apple tree which is now blooming.

A bay tree in our side yard, with a fig tree behind it.

To the untrained eye, this might look like weeds, but it is
actually, sage, parsley, and two types of mint.

There is a bee hive station behind our house, and I guess all
the bees come to our house to drink out of our rain catcher.

Lilia working on her homework, which I never have
to tell her to do.

One of our "ceps" in the back yard.

We had a good weekend.  There was the threat of rain almost every day.  Thankfully the weather was nice Saturday morning when I helped some good friends or ours move.  We had a good time and got everything moved before the rain came in that afternoon.  Sunday at church I did the kids lesson on the True Vine, John 15.  I enjoyed the lesson and it was made even richer by the fact that we live in the largest grape producing region in the world and every one is well familiar with the "Cep" the strong large part of the vine that remains, which the vines grow out of.  You can see in the picture some of the "ceps" that the boys and I pulled up while clearing a vineyard with a friend. We replanted them in the back yard, looking forward to having some grape jelly in the fall, something that you have trouble finding in the stores over her.  Sunday afternoon we got a baby sitter for an hour and went and visited with some friends.  We enjoyed the time together and a little break from the children, it has been over a year since we had a moment to ourselves like that.  The kids are back in school this week, I stopped by the mayors office to get the paperwork filled out to have them transfered to the school closer to us next year.  The boys have no problem with it, because they all have friends in that school as well.  The rest of the week has been preparing for the Bible study, doing a few odd jobs around the house for Angie, and working on getting a internet page set up for a friend.  I am setting up this internet page for him, not only to help him out, but also to force myself to become more familiar with how to do it in hopes that I can make a site for myself by then end of this year.  We still have been getting plenty of rain here and there and the temperature has remained cool, jacket weather.  We almost had a visitor come over, a friend that went to high school with Angie made a business trip to Spain and was held up waiting, so he was about to schedule a trip to come spend some time with us, but ended up being freed up to return to the States. ( I had a bried interuption that you were not aware of, had to chase a mouse out of the house.)  We have a busy few days ahead, check back for more information soon.  God bless, JASON 

Work ethic

Working in the fields.

We stopped by a bookstore in Carcassonne, the boys sat
down to read.

Arianna playing blocks with her brothers.

This is the last day of our kids two weeks spring break.  Oddly I think we had better weather during their winter break in February.  We had a good weekend.  I made a slight mistake last week not checking the messages on our answering maching and found out Friday that I was needed to play the piano in church on Sunday.  I practiced for several hours Saturday and did "okay" on Sunday.  I should have practised a little longer.  Last time I practiced a little too much and this time not enough, so I should know exactly now what is needed :)  The kids have been spending a lot of time inside.  Caleb did spend the night Sunday night with one of his friends.  Sunday Lilia and I went a visited with some friends.  Tuesday we got out of the house some and went shopping and playground hopping in Carcassonne.  After we got back home, I took the boys to help a friend clear out a vinyard.  It was good work for the boys.  My boys needed a few lessons in work.  They tend to complain about the size of the task at hand, and about their fellow employees, and about the pay. So this was a good occassion to explain to them about being a good worker.  We spent a couple of hours at it and by the end they had gotten a good rythym.  One of our good friends is moving this weekend and so I have been stopping by to help them out as time permits.  The big move will be on Saturday.  Bible study was good last night.  I did not go to the market this morning because of the cloudy skies and chance of rain.  I will make a trip to the dump this afternoon with some of our stuff and some from the family that is moving.  I like working, and it seems not to matter what I am working on.  I have just finished running through the tutorial of the Dreamweaver web-making software.  Intersting stuff.  Other than that, I wanted to mention that Andrew has not sucked his thumb for a good while now.  He does a little while he is sleeping but that is far better that before.  I am not sure what exactly motivated him to stop, I just explained that it probably is the reason that he is getting sick more than the rest of the family.  The rest of the family is doing well.  We still have moments of un-ending laughter, which is great.  The kids all seem to have a good sense of humour.  I always enjoyed cheering people up and getting people to laugh.  That was a tough part of moving to France, I couldn't communicate, therefore it was hard to be funny.  ThankfullyI communicating better now.  We pray that you have a good weekend.  God bless, JASON