OUR EATING AND SOCIALIZING MARATHON CONTINUES

After our leisurely walk on Saturday we arrived home in time to rest before our next invitation to dinner. We feel so blessed to have met so many wonderful French friends that speak English as well as French. I believe that is an answered prayer!

Our friend, Anne-Elisabeth organized a raclette dinner, one often eaten after a full day of skiing in the Alps. We just pretended we had skied all day! She was the interpreter during the evening going back and forth between English and French so everyone could understand. I asked her later if the evening was tiring and she said, "No, it's like a game for me." The difficult part is remembering who she is talking to and which language she needs to use.

Cheese and plenty of it...
The name "raclette" (pronounced ruck-lett in English or rah-klett in its native French) refers to a meal and to a type of cheese with the same name. The traditional dish can be described as melted cheese eaten with boiled (or roasted) potatoes with small gherkins and pickled onions.
For more insight into this famous winter meal, go to http://www.raclette.com/

The girls had as much fun as we did eating, laughing and discussing traditions common in France and the U.S.A.

Now that is a beautiful bowl of fruit! A heavy dessert would have put us all into a stupor that we may not have come out of so we were happy to see the fresh fruit being served as our dessert.

Francois-Michel was our host for the evening and his sense of humor made us all feel so comfortable. His dog wanted in on a little of the action so .......

On Sunday, Sophie and her husband Olivier invited us to their lovely home for a meal and an afternnon of sharing with other church friends. Meghan was not feeling well so she stayed home and slept most of the day. She had a little stomach flu but luckily it only lasted 24 hours as did mine the week before. Meghan was sorry to have missed this outing since she has become friends with the girls, Noeme, Sarah, and Manon.

As we were relaxing and having our aperitif, one of the fellow church members, Dominique, who is a policeman, started a story with "Susie, I saw you on your bike." To my deep embarrassment and as my face got redder, I realized the story he was about to tell was my previously untold story of a close encounter with a police car. I had been returning from riding Meghan to school and decided to take a short cut home which included riding the wrong way on a one way street. To my surprise, I looked ahead and what did I see coming around the bend but a police car with it's lights flashing. My first thought was, I'm in big trouble now!! I am not only going the wrong way but I didn't take time to put my lights on the bike which is required in France. Dominique told the story of his fellow officer who was driving the car, emphatically motioned me to turn around and ride in the correct direction. Dominique remarked to the driver, "I know that woman, she's an American, just keep going." Fortunately they were on there way somewhere else and I was saved from a 130 euro fine and 2 points off my driver's license. It sure is good to have a friend who is a policeman, even in France. Not sure how I would have explained that one to Dave since he had told me as we were out biking one day that he follows all the rules because he doesn't want to try to explain in French why he was doing something wrong.

MATHEW 18: 3-4 " I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."