Holidays

The last couple of months have been great. We hosted an American Thanksgiving, a Christmas dinner, and a dinner for New Years! That is a lot of food and a lot of cooking in a very small kitchen. But, we enjoyed it (kinda- it's always a bit stressful) and those that came enjoyed it as well. We had people over that didn't have family around, so at least we all got to spend the holidays together. Everyone that was over was actually from another country (hence no family) and could speak English. It was pretty fun and Calem got to show off for our visitors. Also, we got some pretty good games of Pit on. But, I hope not to have to put on dinners like that all by myself anymore. Too much work!
A huge thank you to my MIL Marla for always having a Sunday family dinner. She hosts more people than we did every single week. Oh how we miss Sunday dinners with the good food and the good company! We are blessed with great families!

We also celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. Six great years with my best friend. We celebrated by heading into Paris. It was the first time we had gone there since getting here, and Colby's first time ever. It is quite a big and pretty city. We had a pretty good time and it was great we could make it a day trip and be home at night. The day was a pretty day, it did get cold and rainy in the afternoon, but really it was quite nice.

Hmmm, lets see... life I guess just seems pretty normal now. That is a good thing because it means that we are really pretty comfortable here now. We have accumulated all the furniture and appliances that we will get. It's really hard to spend money on things that you know you will just leave behind in a couple of months. So, we go without a lot of the conveniences we are used to, but we make do and we are happy!

I think the hardest thing about living here is not having a car. But, the money we save in gas and insurance each month we are putting toward traveling and seeing new things. I guess that is a good trade-off. It makes us not feel as bad going on short trips. So, we have quite a few planned in the next couple of months. It also helps that everything is so close. In a 3 hour drive, we can get to about 4 different countries and different areas in France. Not bad, huh? I'm excited anyway.

Calem is still growing like a weed. He is just a happy and agreeable kid. When you ask him something, he gets these big eyes and nods his head. I know he doesn't understand everything that we tell him, but it is much better having him say yes when he doesn't mean it than to always saying no. We went through that stage about a month ago- and that just made Mom mad.

Anyway, life is good and we are happy around here. Who could ask for anything more?