Return to school, then another vacation.

We returned to school monday. It was an interesting day. The electricity went off at 3 in the morning and didn't come back on until 3:30 in the afternoon. The entire street for one block was out of power. It didn't have a great effect, the worst part was we had very little hot water. We are off thursday this week, like the french 4th of July. We picked right back up learning in school and have leaned future simple tense. We also learned the difference between "savoir" (to know) and "connaitre" (to know), confusing. The weather really has been pretty the last week. It was interesting, for weeks it was chilly with 50% chance of rain everyday. Then one day it was clear and warm and has been for about a week now. Attached is the kids wearing the sunglasses that Angie bought for them. JASON

Our children.

Just a little information about our kids. This picture taken before school one day this week.

Lilia is doing very good. She has been picking up french a lot faster in the last few weeks. She has also been taking piano lessons from one of the other language school students. She is very talented. This week she was making up her own song on the piano, with both hands playing different notes and tempos. I am impressed.

Caleb is also learning quickly. He enjoys sharing what he has learned each day. He is very musical as well. He can already sing about 20 songs and chants in french. Yesterday at lunch he taught me a round that we sang at the same time. He is still very popular at school with all the other students. He is sensitive. We watched a movie with the kids the other day and during a sad part he said, "This makes my heart sad".

Micah seems to be doing well. Fully potty trained (Yeah!) He likes school, I am not sure about his level of speaking. He doesn't talk a lot at school. He likes to play by himself even at home. He does know several songs and words, but he doesn't usually speak it to me. The teacher said that he was very calm and daydreams some.

Andrew likes his school. He is learning a few more english words. He told me yesterday that he wanted to "sit down". His sin nature is also kicking in good. He stomps his leg at times when he is upset. He is real cute when he is sleepy and laughs a lot.

One other note, I did add some videos of Angie and I singing some French Christians songs on youtube and Godtube. Just copy and paste the links below into your address bar, and click 'view more by same . . ' to view some more of them.
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=581ccf2e167e543c3cbc&page=9&viewtype=&category=mr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olZSWwVW5R0
Enjoy and check back as we learn more ourselves we hope to post them. God bless, JASON

Kids Recital

We have had a good week. It seemed to have passed real fast. I was thinking one day I'll have this blog available in French as well. This week the kids did not have school and we did, so the school put together a daycare for them. It was real nice, they were able to play with other missionary kids and they learned songs and memorized verses in French. It was real cute. So far I have found that writing in French takes more space that english. I was talking with a German student at school and German is a lot longer. He wrote a letter, one page from and back, and then translated it into English and it took only one side of one page. It gets interesting in class when you are trying to get the teacher to explain what a certain word is in French, while trying to use what little French you know. This week marked the point of no more English, or German, or any other language while at School. This has made the conversations a little simpler. It helps us speak with the German students, because French has become our common language. I am really looking forward to having it learned. JASON

End of the sunny days.

We had some rain today. It ended our week of sunshine which was nice, but at least the sidewalks will be clean. I learned that there are 500 injuries a year in France due to people slipping on the doggie surprises left on the sidewalk. We had a good week so far. Our teacher is trying her best to keep the two hours of homework a day rule. We are looking forward to being off next week. Caleb and Micah are finally going to get to see the Eiffel Tower. I don't know where else we might take them.. JASON

True Happiness!

I have found the key to true happiness, at least for two of my sons. They usually get a little fussy on the way home, part hunger, part sleepy. Today they didn't fuss at all. They key - soon after we left they found a stick and carried it all the way home with them. THey had such a good time with a little stick they didn't fuss at all, until we got home and I made them leave them outside, oh well. Check out this awesome missions video. http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d305d79c2ebc8c188342

JASON