January 4 + 5, 2012

The dryer arrived and works which is great.  It does fill up the tank with 4 liters of water for each load which I empty.  Never knew how much moisture we vented outside before.  No wonder there is always visible steam coming out the vent.  Even though they both hold up to 8kg of laundry, you can’t do that much unless it’s lightweight.  I’ll, get used to little loads.    

Ahhhh, the weekend again and Ross is off.  We did get to dinner Friday night with Benjamin and Geraldine.  Both speak English quite well, so it was a nice treat for me.  We arrived early ( ??, I know that seems like late to me) 7PM for dinner so the children would still be awake. I was able to meet Fantine (7), she speaks a tiny bit of English from her time in Holland at an English school.  Gaetan (4) is a typical four year old boy, playing and talking a million miles an hour.  He immediately brought me an English book to read and we took turns saying words in French and English.   Coretin (2) is the perfect example of the third child and a boy.  My friends and I used to laugh at our 3^rd children who were boys, they were so funny and so trying to get attention but also fussing when he wanted things the others had. Children are the same all over the world, especially siblings!!  Once I am settled, I am hoping to spend Wednesday afternoons with them working on their English and my French.  They do not have school on Wednesdays here (oh how we would have loved that at Maranatha) They do Mon., Tues. Thurs. Fr. From 8:30-12:00, have until 1:30 for lunch (most go home or if older, eat with friends), then 1:30-4:30.  I think I could have handled that with Wednesday off. J   

I also have a new name here, never loved the name Lisa anyway.  They call me Leeza, that’s how they pronounce it here.  I quite like it!  Our last name McCulloch is even funnier.  They say it like this , Mac Cool Luck.   So, I am Leeza Mac Cool Luck!!! 

 Saturday we went to Ikea to get our lamps and a few things.  Then off to Auchon again to stock up on groceries for me. I had wanted to get to the store myself and just explore the aisles, but with the car issues, we were forced to go together again.  Got that taken care of and did a few things around the house.

Sunday we woke up to five inches of snow.  It is so rare here and they just don’t handle it well.  Our country area has no plowing so we are stuck in when snow comes.  It is usually maybe an inch or two a year, so this is causing all kinds of issues.  So, no church for us L I was looking forward to it and writing down the way since next weekend I’ll be alone.  Oh well, we finished a few things around here. Ross “broomed’ the walkways since there are no shovels.  I told him it would be a good day for tea and shows or movies (if we only had any English channels other than news). Every once in a while they shove an English program on, so we found two episodes of really old CSI….called Les Experts.  During the week sometimes around lunch, old episodes of Friends in English.