Snow!!!

It snowed for the first time last week. It is so cold here. It started snowing that night but it was gone in the morning. You can't really see it in the pictures but ....really.....it is there!!!!

Abbie and Monica

They were sad to leave.


Last week I ad Abbie and Monica over at my house for a few days. It was soo great to see them . We all tried to sleep in my little room but it worked out okay. I showed them the market and my little part of town. They were onl

y here during the week so I didn't get to show them the big marketd on the weekends but they still saw alot. They had been traveling around Europe before they came to see me. They have seen more of europe than I have!!!

I was so glad to hang out with them. I even forgot I had class one morning and slept in. It was hard to stay focused when they where here but it was fun.

Here are more pictures

My room mate Amy made our table into a ping pong table. So we were playing that alot.

And we took Ian to one of the tents that was set up on the main street that has tons of things to taste and eat.

This is the other castle that we saw. It is in Amboise. Both castles are in the Loire Valley if you are wondering where these are located in France. This Castle in Amboise is actually a castle of one of the Royal families. So it was used for different purposes for the King. Whereas the other castle we saw, Chenonceau, was used by rich families. It was still used by one royal family but not directly by the king. Only by one of his mistresses. So this place in Amboise was a little different and we didn't get to see as much of the rooms or kitchen. It was still really interesting. But we liked the first one best.

It was really cool because both castles had fires going to help warm up the rooms a little.

More pictures.

Louvre

I think you guys know what this is.

There was a service going on in the Notre Dame because we were there Christmas night So it was really pretty and the choir was singing and everything.
Notre Dame

The Louvre

These three are still the Castle

This is the Kitchen which was done all in brass. The owners of the catle left alot of things as if people still lived there so you could really see how people used and lived in it.

Ian and I in France!!

This is the chateau Chenonceau.

Well Ian came on the 19th of December and then he just left this morning. Yes I am not the happiest person today but we had such a great time togther. We hung around my little town until friday when I got out of school. Then we went to Paris and had christmas dinner with my friend Preciouse at her house. Preciouse and her roommates made such an amazing dinner. We had so many courses that we couldn't even eath them all. We had soup and fish and muscles and ...some stuff I dodn't even know what is was but it was good. We all had to bring little gifts to trade with everyone. I brought things that come from my region of france and Ian and I got some cool little things like chocolate and these pottery cup things and a book. It was such a nice night. I had to translate alot for Ian but I think it was fun and he didn't mind.

Then we stayed in Paris for four days and saw all the buildings one should see when in Paris. For example Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, La Sein river, the Louvre, and all kinds of things. We had a good time in Paris.

We wanted t go to Italy but it was too expensive. So we decided to stay in France. We went to A town called Tours and stayed there for two nights. There are castles around that area so we took an excursion to two castles. One in Amboise and another castle called Chenonceau. That was my favorite one. I think we had the best time at the castles.

I will stop talking now and just post pictures.

Finally an update!!!

Here I am baking the cookies.

They are so cute.
AND here they are decorating and eating!!

Well Christams stuff is going well. We had a church service last night and we had a party in Sunday school with the kids. My friend Laina and I made.....well attempted to make christmas cookies for the kids to decorate that night. I don't have an electric mixer so the cookies were a little different than usual but fortunately kids don't care what cookies look like as long as they know they have sugar. All the cookies ended up looking like blobs but it was fun to decorate anyways. We had a good night with them .

More news is that Ian is arriving tomorrow!!!!!!! Yeah I can't wait! Then Precious is going to come for Christmas too and then on the first my friends Abbie and Monica will be here to visit too!!!! Man this is going to be a great vacation. I still miss all our home cooking at Grandma's and our tree at home but oh well.....you have to start your own traditions sometime. I'll be sure to put more pictures on soon and let everyone know what is going on. Let me know if anyone wants anything special from France for Christmas. How often is someone going to offer that to you hu? You had better take advantage of it while you can!!! Let me know.
All my love

Christmas!!!!

These are some pictures of us in the Cathedral that we sang at for the english Christmas carol service. The entire Cathedral was filled with people. I'm sorry I didn't get better pictures.

Christmas is here!!!!!

My little city is decorating for Christmas. It is so pretty. They put lights EVERYWHERE!! On the main street called the Cours Mirabeau, they built these temporary wooden houses so the vendors can keep there stuff in it all season and just use it as their store on the side walk. There are about 30 houses up so you can imagine how much stuff there is to look and and buy. On the weekends there are even more things like mary go-arounds and real animals like raindeer and donkeys. It is crazy how much stuff they can put out on that street. Everything is so pretty. I love it. I'll have to get some pictures of the animals and decorations during the day too. I'll put pictures up soon

More pictures of my weekend

This is me sitting in the fireplace room with everyone and we were singing and I always play the drum becasue I love it. It is a goofy picture but oh well.






This is where we had dinner both nights. It was a huge room with paintings all over.







I don't know if you can see...but I am on the roof!

Chateaux

The guy making the goofy face is my pastor Darren. Everyone was playing a game called Nerts. It is a really fun game.
I took this picture on the property when we were exploring.
This is the castle from the road.
This was the view from my bedroom window!!!!


This weekend I went to a castle with my church. Twice a year they are able to bring a group of people to stay in the castle for the weekend. The area in which the castle is found is called Cevannes. It is near a city called Anduze. I had so much fun. The man who owns the castle is not able, by law, to make people pay him to stay there. My church has been friends with him for a few years now and he lets them bring group and stay in his huge castle for nothing. We brought our own food and all that but the beds all have sheets and blankets and things like that already. The castle is placed on so much lad so we were able to walk around and explore things. I dont know how many rooms were in it but there are alot. Were were running around looking at all the rooms and climbing in the towers and it was amazing.
I shared a room and bed with my friend Melissa and we shared the room with another girl. It was so cold at night I loved it. We all had dinner in a huge dinning room and we set up tables for everyone. There were around 30 people who came with us so we had alot of people to feed and fit around the tables. After diner everyone would sit in this big room with a fireplace to warm up. We all played cards and read until we were all tired. (which wasn't until really late)
I just loved it. Saturday we went to a museum about the protestant reformation that was huge in that area of France. After that we went out for lunch at this family sized restaurant and ate sooo much food.

More pictures to come soon!!!