We're hanging in there in the pre-Christmas rush. I dread December every year and the stress of what Christmas is 'supposed' to be like, full of annual traditions that I can never keep up with and have given up trying to, brings me to a halt. I don't come out of my blue funk until January! We finally got a Christmas tree today and will decorate it tomorrow. The kids decorated the house the other day, hanging up Christmas decorations or setting them out wherever they could - we don't have much along the lines of decorations. Today we painted pinecones green and then sprinkled glitter on them to make them look like little Christmas trees. There was so much glitter that Patrice thought they looked rather gaudy, but the kids thought they were pretty.
I'll have you know that I got the glitter out of my Gramma Ginn stash from the hobby shop - so you could say we used antique glitter of 50+ years. I always LOVE using stuff I have from the hobby shop - I have several shoe boxes full of stuff. There are things I come across that I don't know how to use, or don't know how they were meant to be used, and wish I could ask Gramma about it. I like seeing her handwriting on the little boxes - and the old price tags!
On the church front, Patrice was released as Elders Quorum Pres a few weeks ago so we've enjoyed having him home the last few Sunday evenings - he used to have meetings. He's now the new Institute teacher so although our Sundays are calmer our Friday nights are more hectic. We have our seminary class (I'm not teacher) Friday nights at 6pm and then our YM/YW activities at 7pm. It seems to be the only time we can get the youth together. It's not so bad because they don't have school in the morning. But now Patrice teaches Institute Friday at 7pm while I'm with the YW so we go as a family. We bring a video and the kids lay down in the next room and watch a video while we are in our respective activities. So far so good. The kids get their weekly dose of a movie. They've been pretty calm. The only problem is they don't eat enough before leaving at 6:30 and then they're hungry when we get home at 9. I'll have to work on the organization there - make a snack for them or something. We're still ironing out the wrinkles as we've only done it twice so far.
Patrice conceded to letting me go to a multi-stake youth conference Dec 26-29. The only hitch is that I have to find a ride to the stake center (over an hour away) because the bus leaves at 7:30 AM! That was Patrice's one condition - we only have one car and he didn't want to do that drive with the kids, etc. I totally understand, I wouldn't want to do it either! I went to a youth camp in the summer and it was interesting to see how the French run things (or don't!). I hate to admit, but I wanted to go to the youth conference to see what it would be like. It's 4 stakes, Nancy, Lyon,(French) Geneva, Lausanne (Swiss) and is to be held on 'Black Lake' in Switzerland. The timing is poor as lots of people vacation during the holidays or have other commitments with family. But it's so hard to find time during the school year that the youth are available, and come summer everything shuts down because everyone is gone on vacation. Big problem here, drives me crazy. Anyway, we have 25 youth going and about 9 leaders. One of the leaders going is a sister I met this summer at the youth camp. She's a riot and we had a lot of laughs so it'll be fun to see her again. I realized at the youth camp that I am rarely around people that don't speak at least a little English and that although I live in a French speaking area, most people aren't French (or anything near it!). It's a total melting pot - French is just how we communicate. So it was fun to spend a few days of real, total French immersion. I'm assuming the youth conference will be the same so I'm looking forward to it.
I think that's about it for the moment. Let's see if I don't have a few pictures I can add.
Guillaume took some pictures out of our front window last week for an art project. The front of our house is almost one big window with a little balcony in front of it (just enough room to walk out and clean the windows). This was Alienor as she left to go back to school after lunch. Yes, she comes home on the bus everyday for lunch and has to go back for afternoon classes on MWF. Notice the nice weather. This is why I love our house - because it has LOTS of windows.
This is looking left out the window, up the hill. The wall is actually the wall in front of our neighbors house.
The driveway on the left of the wall is the neighbor's and on the right is ours. This street, although it might look like a small road, is actually the main road through town. We see EVERYTHING pass in front of our house, from tractors with cows to semis, gas tanker trucks, moving vans, etc.
Our driveway is two cars wide and then here are these trees. Patrice likes the yellow one but there are definitely a few, including the HORRIBLE 8 foot wide hedge on the right, that I dream about taking a chainsaw to!
Here's the walkway that leads from the sidewalk up to the house. It's deceiving because the door is not at the end of the path but around under the car port/garage area. The path was done in pentagon pavers but we pulled them up because roots were growing in them. Of course other projects have come up and we haven't decided what to do with this. From the front, we have a total white trash house as we like to call it. It needs major landscaping work. That little dark green tree is kind of cute and is right next to the mailbox.
Oh, about the guy that lives in this house opposite us. It's a little old man that reminds me of Grampa with a European twist. He has white hair combed forward and wears a dark beret with pants like Grampa used to wear. He keeps his yard looking much better than ours and putters around fixing stuff. I have to admit we don't do more that wave at each other so sometime I'll have to hide and take a picture of him!
Well, I hope you have a happy weekend.
Jocelyn
