A Week Away

To start, I'd just like to share a photo from yesterday.

The kids and I played a game together--it was the game called Life. This next photograph shows Ryan's car during our game.

Every time he has to get married in the game of Life (which is a requirement), he begrudgingly adds his wife to his car. And, this is how he does it - every, single time.


She's always in the back seat on the OTHER side from the driver. Oh dear!!!

But, that's not the reason I started this blog. I thought I would share photos from our trip south last week.

We are enjoying an extended break from school at the moment. Our partner organization had a bi-annual conference during the first week of the break (taking advantage of the opportunity to have the entire family come to the meetings), and we got to attend as a family.

It was wonderful to meet all of these people who serve all over France in all sorts of ways. We were encouraged to hear lots of stories and be able to ask questions of folks who have lived here for many, many years.

And, it was wonderful to get out of the city and see the open countryside of France once again. Best of all, it was the time when the leaves are turning colors! Yeah! We actually got to experience Fall colors.

So often I post photos of city life. This time, I get to let you see some photos which show a very different side of France.

Enjoy!

On the way to "the Farm" where we stayed. It really wasn't a farm. It was a retreat or vacation center that is probably situated on property that was once a farm.


Notice how Mark is holding the suitcase while he walks.

You might wonder if we have clued into the modern world of luggage with built-in wheels. Actually, yes we have. In fact, we would NEVER venture out to a series of train rides with lots of walking between them without suitcases on wheels.

So, why is Mark carrying the luggage?

One wheel started to break on the way down our hill to the metro. But, we didn't realize it until we were already on the train.

We didn't want to be late for our next train and possibly miss it, so we continued on. Here's the wounded wheel.


A bit later, it was looking more like this.


He tried valiantly to make the best use of one wheel.


But, alas, it was impossible to salvage it.


Thankfully, our teammates had driven to the conference and they were able to drive our wounded suitcase home for us.

But, the other suitcase didn't fare so well. The coverings on the back wheels shredded on our way back home. I guess our suitcases where not meant to handle lots of outside walking!

Anyway, I've digressed. We'll go back to our beautiful photos.

Here's a photo of the farm as we approached it.


The building where we had our meetings.


The gorgeous birch trees (which we never get to see in Paris!).


The little pond.


The horses.


The swing our children (and lots of others too) tried to wear out while we were staying at the farm.


The reaction we got from the kids when we wanted to walk into town. (They just wanted to STAY at the farm!)


The way houses look.




The train tracks entering this little town.


The train station.


The little town (Nouan le Fuzelier).


Every town has it's Catholic church.



The "Hotel de Ville" or, mayor's office, or city government office.


They even have a street named after Joan of Arc.


And, in case you are wondering how much it costs to own a home here, check this out.


Granted, this is for a pretty good sized house (by French standards) with land. It says it has almost 1900 square feet of space and a large bit of land. There is a master bedroom with bathroom and then an upstairs with 2 bedrooms with a possibility of adding 2 more. The cost? 367, 500 euros. At today's exchange rate, that would be $508,620. Oooh - la - la!

We got to visit a chocolate maker in a nearby town on one of the afternoon outings. Now, that was really fun! There's nothing better than having to taste the chocolate to understand the quality is good! :-)


I got this photo of Ryan with a chocolate piano just before we learned that we were not allowed to take photos.

But, I could take photos of the old car out front with my boys inside!


And, I loved the sky at the time of our visit which made for a great photo of the church in this little town.


Back in the town where we were staying, here are the trees in the park next to the train station. The colors were really starting to get vivid just as we were leaving.



The last photo I took on our trip - walking through the train station on our way to the Paris metro system.


Yep, it was definitely a great week to see God's great creation!