To France and Back

After a wonderful, busy, incredible visit to France, the family is settling back in at home. Our little chalet in the foothills of the Alps was beautiful. We hiked and swam and just enjoyed the beauty of Savoire. We hugged and kissed our daughter and son-in-law and five grandkids enough to last until we see them again. It was especially awesome to meet the rest of the missionary team of young adults as they made their preparations to go into Africa next year. It was hard to leave, knowing that we may not see them again for a few years but for now our hearts our full and we are so thankful to see them following God's call on their life.
I'll be posting our pictures in the Family Picture link soon or check them out in my son-in-law's smugmug.

Bumps in the Road (so to speak)

Our family had two disasters yesterday, one being much worse than the other. The first, and lesser mishap, occured while I was adding some subtle highlights to my hair. My friend Ellen called, who I see far too little of during the summer, and we talked from 8:15 until 9:00am which is a problem as I had to rinse my hair at 8:30. I now have not- subtle- at- all highlights but it was great catching up on the news with her. The kids assured me that, "You don't look like a skunk" and "At least it's not red". Somehow neither of these made me feel better.

Later, David went to town to do some last minute shopping for our trip and to wash and gas up Big Red and pick up his brother from work. As he was driving, my cell phone rang and he looked down to find it. When he looked back up he was driving into and folding in half a small pick up truck. It was a mother's worse nightmare to arrive on the scene and find two ambulances, two firetrucks, many police cars and two tow trucks. David was VERY shook up but not hurt. The people in the pickup truck went to the hospital but are doing fine. Big Red took it hard to the mouth.
I've had worse days.

Bonjour France!!!!

The passports are all in!!
Praise God!!

Double Yikes!

Okay. We're leaving for France in 6 days and only 2 of us have our passports. Kelly and Grace's passport came about 3 weeks ago. Surely the rest would be right behind. Not even close.
When we continually and compulsively checked the official passport web page the other 5 passports said, "processing". In desperation yesterday my husband called our congress woman who said she would see what she could do. She called back today and explained that the remaining 3 kid's passports had been put on hold since June 21st for some unknown reason. She got them back into motion and hopes they will be out to us in a day or two. James and my passports are languishing in the Washington DC passport office and the clerks crossed their fingers-hope to die promised that they would complete and get them to us in one day, being tomorrow.
What me worry?

Infinite Wonders

My new microscope arrived by UPS and I'm so excited. I teach a homeschool science class of between 12 and 16 kids and this year we'll be studying Biology, complete with fetal pigs and frogs, slides and petri dishes. During my school years I never really noticed science at all. I'm assuming I had science classes every year because my mom kept all my report cards and I see the grades there but I don't remember a single instance of it. I'm sure the people sitting around me were far more interesting than cells or atoms at the time. I wasn't big on studying nature on my own - daring someone to eat a bug would have been way more fun than pondering it's life cycle. But all this has changed and in teaching science I have fallen in love with it. I'm amazed over and over at this creation and wonder how any scientist can view the intricacy of our world and not understand that there has to be a Creator.
"How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all, the earth is full of your creations." Psalm 104:24

"Let's Go to the Movies"

Not typically, our family has gone to see three movies this week - a fact that all but forces my hand as movie critic.
Our first movie, "The Pirates of the Caribbean 3", was a wonderful experience, but it had little to do with the actual movie. Our friends, the Nicholsons, invited us to go with them to the Drive In. This was a 51 year old, real, honest to goodness drive in. The kids played on the playground and adults talked and relaxed till dark. With coolers, food, blankets and lawn chairs we sat out in a perfect cool summer night and watched the movie. The only slightly downer on the evening was the movie itself. I've watched the other two in the series and I'm moderately intelligent, but I had no idea who was on who's side for the majority of the movie. The movie was very long but being outside made it bearable. Skip this one if you have to watch it inside.


The second movie we attended was "Ratatouille". We had seen the previews and my husband loved the line - "once you learn to muscle through the gag reflex there's a whole new world of dining possibilities." The movie was stupid and that line never actually made it in. We went with our friends Anita and Sonja which was the best I can say for the event.

Lastly, Steven and David have been very excited about the movie, "Transformers", to the extent that Steven offered to pay for all of us to go. Between their work schedules we had to see it last night at 10:20pm. Not an ideal time to begin a movie that I was expecting to be horrible. I noticed that the theater was filled with mostly young men between 17 and 30 which told me this probably was not the demographic group to which I was accustomed but what a surprise! It was a good movie...lots of action, a little love story, good wins over evil..it had it all. The late hour was not a problem as the transformers operated at ear splitting volume which made it impossible to nod off. I give this movie a thumbs up! (There was some language which makes it a poor choice for little ones.) Even "da sis-tahs" loved it!
Pass the popcorn please!

I See London, I See France (I hope)

Grace had a check-up at Children's Hospital today and unless her labs show something really crazy the doctors have given her the okay to go to France to visit Kirsten and family and start dialysis upon our return. Now that we can exhale on that, we are still waiting expectantly for our passports to show up. I've know about our trip for over a year but decided to wait until 2 months before our departure to apply for all seven of them. How lucky I was to choose the time when the entire passport application process has ground to an almost complete halt due to the Mexico and Canada restrictions now in place. Expediting them at an additional $60 a piece was out of the question as the original cost was over $90 each! Although with our trip a mere 10 days away and no passports in sight, it may have cost less then the price of my nervous break down. I'm believing the passport agency that they'll be here in time. Yikes.

Happy Belated Birthday America

Yesterday was the 4th of July and we did all the traditional things....hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, which was manned by David. He received a lot of advice on cooking them but managed to do a great job despite the input. There was the usual baked beans and deviled eggs and my mom brought a chocolate cake that made everyone wish they hadn't eaten so much of everything else. The kids swam some and the adults sat and let their food digest. Our daughter Molly was allowed to come home from her placement and visit which made the day even sweeter. Shortly after dinner the rain started and continued through the evening. Steven had purchased an impressive array of fire works which he couldn't shoot off.
There's almost nothing in the world a boy enjoys more then lighting things with lighters, so this evening we celebrated the 5th of July and oohed and aahed over his amazing display.

I'd Rather Be....

Every year I hate coming home from the beach. I love my house and miss my cat but it's hard being back here the first few days when vacation is over. My friend Joanne gets mildly depressed at the end of the beach week also. Maybe it's having to do things and the phone ringing and appointments and at home there's so much stuff. The beach house has a few nik-knacks and not enough dishes and a book or two. Picking up is so easy...why do I own so much stuff? And there's never time here to really talk to people and coffee tastes so much better while sitting on the deck overlooking the ocean.
Till next year. Sigh.