Castle on a hill

Looking at Queribus

Panoramic view from the top.

Lilia presents Queribus from the parking lot.

Looking into the gorge.

Hail!

Easter egg hunt.

Time has gotten away from me again.  Last week passed well.  I do not remeber much now of what happened.  Arianna has been really cute.  Angie felt a little under the weather at times.  Most people here blame that on the change in temperatures on almost a daily basis, and sometime it even changes during the day.  One day this week it started out cold and rainy, then changed to sunny and warm and before long, it was cold and rainy again.  Bible Study and the market on Friday went well. Our Easter weekend went good as well.  Saturday, the girls went to do some shopping and so I took the boys on a bike ride.  It went well, they all learned a little.  Caleb learned not to wander in front of others.  Andrew (who was acutally on his scooter) learned not to go too fast, and Micah learned that it is not a good idea to look down to watch how your bike works while you are actually riding it.  Services went well Sunday, we did get to visit with several visitors at the church in Carcassonne.  We missed hearing most of the services with our sending church because the internet connection was poor.  We did take time for a brief easter egg hunt and had good discussions all day long about the meaning of Eastser.  Monday and Tuesday I helped a friend work on his ranch.  I am planning to help him get a internet site up and running.  This will be practice as well for when I get my own site up soon.  While I was helping, Lilia was riding horses, which she was happy with as well.  Caleb has school in the mornings this week, even thought they are on their two weeks spring break.  He is getting a little extra help in French.  We are enjoying all the Spring flowers around.  We almost lost them all a couple of days ago, and storm rolled through and we had a downpour of pea sized hail.  The boys were impressed.  Angie had gone to pick up Lilia from a friends house and missed the majority of the storm.  Yesterday I took our oldest four, and one of their friends to see Queribus, a castle high on a hill (click it if you want to know more).  On the way we stopped and looked at a gorge that was beautiful as well.  Today I finished up the Bible study and had a quick session with my language helper and am getting ready for the Bible Study this evening.  Enjoy the pics, God bless, JASON

Grab a quick family pick.

Kidsitting

We have enjoyed the last few days. My father has had several funerals this week and so we have helped in watching the 8 grandchildren. Yesterday I made out about 20 thank-you cards. I think today I will call the consulate and make sure that all our paperwork is in order. I would also like to pick up some post cards to send to our friends in France. I hope to let the kids go out and play in the yard. We had fun Monday getting some yard work done together, but yesterday it rained most of the day. Attached pictures is of lightning that I captured during the storms that we went through in Arkansas. God bless, JASON

Stormy Weather

A storm came through last night right at the kids bedtime. Micah was a little worried and it took a while before he went to sleep. I brought the lesson at the church in Carcassonne before the prayer time yesterday. I enjoyed it, I hope that everyone understood what was said. They laughed when they were supposed to, so that is a good sign. It helped me to see just how long it would take to prepare a short message in French. The answer - a long time. Wednesday I took the boys for a hike. I will attach those pictures later. Attached picture is of our cactus garden and of the sun rise a few mornings ago. We are still waiting for out interent connection. I will stop by there today and see if there is a problem. Lilia's table arrived that we have been waiting for over a month, so I will pick that up as well. I stopped by the Library this morning to see what was required to get the kids library cards. I also stopped by an "association", club, that has information and activities for people trying to learn French of other languages and people who are new to town. Lilia and Caleb have been loving their swimming classes on Wednesday. Also this week I have averaged 4.1 liters/100 km or 57.359 miles to the US gallong. That has to be a record. Looking forward to a good weekend. God bless, JASON

"I stuck the pencil in his ear because the music didn't stop."

Such was Micah's explanation as to why he tried putting a pencil into Andrew's ear. I'm still trying to figure out the logic on that. We had to make a couple of Doctor visits this week. Lilia had fallen down while skating a couple of weeks ago and had been complaining about her hip popping and hurting ever since. We scheduled an appointment with the Doctor tuesday. Had X-rays at the hospital Wednesday and went back to the doctor who prescribed two prescriptions, said it wasn't serious and told her to stay off of it for 4 days. One nice thing about france in the health care system. Dr.'s visit - 22 euros. Two x-rays - 46 Euros, Two prescriptions 9 Euros. And everyplace asks if we want the paperwork to send to the government who might refund us some based on our income. I couldn't accept it even if we would have received it. It was cheap enough already. It was also neat that Angie and Lilia only had to wait ten minutes at the hospital to get the x-rays, even without an appointment. The Doctors appoitment was 6:30 a night. It worked out well. Also this week, we had our first real storm, hail started falling. I like storms and so I was enjoying every minute of it. We had a good week at language school and I feel like I am picking up a little more. Language learning comes in stages with plateaus. It is not a continual process, you have periods where you feel like you are learning nothing and then suddenly everything makes sense and then the process repeats. I think my plateaus are close together. Also attached is a picture of Andrew by the window. The hail woke him up. God bless, JASON