Le jour de Saint Valentine.

We finished a busy week, due mainly to tests. There was a test Tuesday over concession and consequence. Something I had never thought of was that there are different French words translated as "however", "nevertheless", "in spite of", and "yet". They have the same significance but each can only be used in a certain grammatical order. Tuesday's test did not have a word bank, which was a first. So we had to remember all the different phrases by memory and make sentences with them, 10 different words to express cause, 6 for consequence, 3 for concession and 3 for another one that I can't remember at this moment. Thursday we had a mid semester test which took two days. Thursday morning we did the grammar part and Friday we did reading and oral. For Friday we had to answer questions over dialogues the teacher would play for us, and then we had to give a three minute speech about a subject with the teacher and then she would ask questions. We only had ten minutes to prepare. Other than tests, we received two packages from our church this week. This morning I did work on our taxes and got caught up on email. This evening, Angie and I are going to watch the movie "Fireproof" from the makers of "Facing the Giants". It arrived in one of the packages from our church. Attached picture is of the flowers I bought Angie this morning, and a picture of a picture taken when we left our wedding (still have birdseed attached to us). God bless, JASON

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's day to you all! I hope you all have been made to feel special today by your valentine. Jason got me a plant with pink flowers and I got him some chocolates. Not that that really matters to you all but I just thought I'd share. I am home again with Andrew. He was feeling really bad yesterday until I finally gave him some medicine. I called Ian, the student here who is a doctor also. He said Andrew is ok and does not have the contagious form of conjuctivitis but he may take a week to get better. We are on day four now. He was wanting to get ready this morning with the others so he got his shoes on too.

Yesterday we enjoyed a good visit from Virginie and TJ and I got to talk to my dad on our home phone now that it is working. Jason also bought us a printer yesterday. It will be nice to have one again. He bought it from and electronics and appliance store called "Boulanger" which is also the word for baker and it is on the every bakers sign. So it is strange to say he got the printer from the boulanger. Later I went to the same store and picked up an electronic kitchen scale so I can weigh things in grams. I also got hair clippers so I can give the boys much needed haircuts.

At school this week we started learning more kitchen/cooking vocabulary. That will make reading instructions and recipes a lot easier.

Hope you are all well. Thanks for your prayers. ANGIE