News Flash!!

Addie parle le francais!!!  (Addie speaks French!)

Some things she has said to us...

Ça suffit  (that's enough)

Ne touche pas  (don't touch - I think she must get told these two phrases in the nursery :)

Un bisou (a kiss :)

Qu'est-ce que tu fais?  (what are you doing?)

Je ne sais pas (I don't know)

Allez, viens (come on, lets go)

A tout à l'heure (see you later!)

And every once in a while "Oui" will pop out of her mouth instead of "yes", even when we ask her a question in English.

And to see that she really does understand what she's saying, I said to her yesterday when she was trying to do something I told her not too  "J'ai dit non"  (I said no!) to which she replied with a big smile "J'ai dit oui!"  (I said yes!).  Now we need to keep working on the obeying part.

Happy Mother's Day

Fortunately, Mother's day is a few weeks later in France and so I had a little extra time to prepare another video for the greatest mom in the whole world!

We love you!!!!

High heel shoes, baseball gloves and books...an update on us!

So here's an update on what is going on in all of our lives ...

Addie (first because she's the most interesting right now!)

 - she is now potty trained! (I'm sure some of you really don't care, so sorry, but it's exciting not to have to pay for diapers anymore!)

 - we enrolled her for school next fall. Yes, our daughter will be starting French preschool in September (aahhhhh!!!!).  I'll blog more about this later

- she can do a 12 piece puzzle all on her own.  Not only that, it's a puzzle that's made up of blocks, so it's really 6 puzzles in one.  We think she's a genius (although we're trying to teach her that she can't call herself a genius :)

-she loves wearing high healed shoes, even outside. I think that's the only pair of shoes she wore yesterday.

- she's speaking a little French.  The other day, she said "Ça souffit!" which means "That's enough!"  When I asked her where she learned that, she told me that Nadine (her teacher) says it.  Hmmmm..

- she's almost gotten rid of her black eye.  Not quite sure what happened, but she and her buddy Elias were playing and as she tells me "We crashed together and I cried."

- she is looking forward to Grandpa and Grandma Van Dine coming next week!  She can't wait to get her new pink baseball glove!

Wayne

-is still greatly improving in French (at least I think he is!)

-he's started to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in French.

- he actually likes to watch movies in French now, it's kind of relaxing for him (as long as he's seen it before)

-he's wrapped around Addie's little finger.  All she has to say is "Please Daddy!" and he'll do just about anything!

-he does just about anything for his wife too, which gives him the Best Daddy and Best Husband awards!

-he is looking forward to Grandma and Grandpa Van Dine coming too.  He can't wait to get his new books that he ordered from Amazon!

Hilary

- is making progress too.  

-  I'm reading Pride and Prejudice in French.  I got it from the library, but even when I read it everyday, it's still so slow going that I'm only about a third of the way through.  I had it for a month but had to actually go buy a copy because I think it's going to take me all summer to read.

-I'm actually learning to cook.  We haven't had pizza for dinner in about a month!

-I'm trying to get into running, but getting up at 6:30 am has been really hard!

-I'm really looking forward to mom and dad coming!!

Addie thought it would be fun to take a pretend nap with Wayne and read in bed!  I think they're both pretty adorable!

And another reason life in Paris is awesome

While we haven't done a ton of touristy stuff in Paris as Wayne mentioned, we have been able to do some, and this week we had the great opportunity to visit Versailles while getting to know some new friends from church.  Thursday was a holiday here (Ascension Day) and so we had lunch with a family from church and then they took us to walk around the Versailles gardens for the afternoon.  Now for those who live here in France, visiting Versailles may not be much, but for those coming from Dallas where the oldest building there is a little one room cabin that some settler supposedly lived in early on, this stuff here is really, really, cool!

Enjoy some pictures of our fun afternoon!

Merci Matthieu et Marie-Hélène!

Life in Paris has been awesome (but not for the reason you're thinking)

We've received many a joke about "suffering for Jesus" in Paris. Undoubtedly, the reason for the joke is that most people think (and rightfully so) that Paris is an amazing city. There's the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysées, Notre Dame, the Louvre etc. There is no end of amazing things to see in Paris.

However, in our first 5 months here, we've been able to do very little tourist stuff (any guesses on how well museums work with a 2 yr old). But we have greatly enjoyed living in Paris. A major reason for this is our church here in Paris.

The new friends we've made here have always been patient with us when we're stumbling through saying something in French. We've been invited to meals several times usually where someone needs to do quite a bit of driving to get us back home. We've been loaned a car from someone at church during our last 2 school breaks.

Our church experience has helped us greatly in 2 ways. First, having so many patient and kind people to speak with has immensely helped our French improve. Second, the difficulty that comes with adjusting to a new location has been drastically lowered. Moving to a new country where you don't know the language is often an extremely difficult transition. While the transition has still been difficult (there's a lot we still miss from home), it's hasn't been near as difficult as it could have been.


Here's a few photos from the church weekend retreat this past weekend.



Here's Hilary teaching Addie her newly aquired Petanque skills





Et nous voulons dire merci à tous nos amis à l'église d'Antony.

International Meal

For dinner tonight...

Main course - Poulet Yassa (a chicken dish from Senegal that I made for the first time)

Next course - Traditional French baguette with some good Camembert cheese.

Dessert (for Wayne)- Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie with peanut butter smeared on top.  Pour nos amis français qui lisent le blog, c'est un biscuit americain que Wayne aime beaucoup!  Et il peut manger le beurre de cacahuètes avec tous!

4 years ago...

4 years ago today...

And us now, even happier!

Guess where we're going to celebrate...the Champs Elysées in Paris!  How cool is that.

And Addie's comments about the wedding while looking at our wedding pictures..."You and daddy got married.  I was not there.  I stayed home."  I guess we'll explain all that later!