Movie Night

So we had an English Club movie night. It was our first one and we had 8 students come. We showed the movie on the projector at Del's apartment and had lots of snacks. It was a good night.

We showed Shawshank Redemption in english and then we had a discussion about the movie afterwards. We discussed the theme of the movie, reviewed any words that the students didn't understand, and went over the meaning of the word redemption. The meanings given for redemption by the students were "its when you are forgiven for the bad things you have done" and "its like what Jesus did for us". Pretty good answers I think!

Del settin up the movie

I told you we had snacks!

French food!

So I'm a nerd, but here are pictures of the food from the party! The party was catered and they did a GREAT job with the food. Enjoy the marvels of French cuisine.

The "spread for the day" A lady with a ham dress, some kind of fish jellied pate thing, vegetable flan, and this dish I can't remember the name of (a chicken leg, where the skin was carefully peeled back, the meat removed along with all but the end of the bone, then the mean was mixed with vegetables and put back in the skin. It is cooked and then sliced.)

Yes Ladies and gentlemen...that is ham and butter!

Impressive huh?

The cakes...these were made out of cream puffs...

and this once was chocolate! mmm

HALLOWEEN

Well here they are! It took long enough...but here are the pictures from our Halloween party! We had a GREAT time and the man below us didn't get mad at us. In fact one of our neighbors said "Did you guys have a good Halloween? Your party was very calm." Phew!



The Apartment




The Spider



Graveyard Cake...Myriam did the footsteps!

Samira, Me, Nadjate

Bruno, Lea, Stephane, Me


Katie "forgot" her costume, so she borrowed part of Brunos

All the costumes

Katie, Kristina, Marianna, Manon

A devil, a dead prisoner by the electric chair, and a scary lady

Stirring her brew!

Uh...Scary!

Carving pumpkins, as you can see, we found one orange one and the others were this weird peach color and had wart lookin things all over the skin. oh well!

Lea and Benjamin

Right after this picture was taken, Bruno acted like he cut his hand with knife. He even used fake blood to scare us!

Before the face was carved

Katie and manon degutting the pumpkin

"Jack" and "Two Face"

All the pumpkins on our mantel!

ooooooohhhhhhhhh

Del was football player

Kristina with Somebodies cool mask! oh wait....

And the winners of the Jack O' Lantern contest...and me, I didn't help.

I dont know....


Benjamin impressed us with his card tricks!

Adrienne and Lea

Videos from Open Mike Night

Well here are the videos. I hope you guys enjoy them! Thanks for your prayers as I worked toward this night! :-P

Teardrops on My Guitar

Bubbly

Hallelujah

Performance at L'Intermedia!

Hey Everybody!


Thanks for the reminder that I needed to post an update Sherry! :-)


So Tuesday night was AWESOME!!! Thank you for your prayers!!! Bruno and I perfomed 2 songs together, I preformed one song solo, and Bruno performed one song with his drummer. It was SOOO fun! Despite a few memory slips, which resulted in a few made up words (oops), the songs went well. After we finished, several people got up on the stage with Bruno and his drummer and started jammin. So I went up during the second song they sang and did a little improvising. That was fun! One of my friends took video so I will work on getting that up in the next week or so. I'll let you know when its up. Thanks again for all your support!

When it rains, it pours…

And I mean that literally and figuratively. Although right now as I sit at the table look out the window, the skies are blue and there is a cool breeze blowing through the house, yesterday was the complete opposite. It was the type of rain that reminds me of the middle of a Monsoon in August in Phoenix when you swear the raindrops are the size of golf balls! I really love the rain! Especially the scent right after or right before it rains. But I’m not a fan when it starts raining just as you are starting an English club at an outdoor sandwich stand about 500 yards from a building! Haha The group ran to meet in one of the buildings but I decided to stay at the sandwich stand for a few more minutes in case any other people came looking for our English club….bad idea! The rain only got harder! So I was forced to run in the rain and cold wind…in my nice light cotton shirt, with no umbrella…to the building only to find out that group hadn’t moved to that building! So I had to cross 2 streets, both of which had now been replaced by rivers, and in the process, managed to fill both my shoes with water and splash water about a foot and a half up my pant legs! Awesome huh?!? When I finally found Del and Katie, I looked like a soaked dog…and they were perfectly dry! Haha, oh well, I still love the rain!

Also speaking of pouring...I have had so much fun over the last 3 weeks meeting new people! We have had SO many responses from people interested in our English clubs and in language exchanges! So awesome! Through this we have met some people who are truly becoming our friends! YEAH for friends! I asked for many of you to pray for Friends and God has totally answered our prayers! So thank you! Its so nice to know people to go out with and have fun with!

Lastly… I have been telling you that I have been looking into playing at a few open mike nights….well Bruno, one of the guys that we met through a response to our flyers, is a musician!!! So…. tomorrow, Tuesday night, he and I will be playing a few songs at and open mike night at a bar called L’Intermediare!!! A friend of mine is going to be taping it, so I will put the videos up as soon as I get them!

I'm from a Soda State! ~ Another Random Entry

I was listening to Air1 the other day and found this news story funny! Luanne von Schneidemesser, PhD in German linguistics and philology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and senior editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English researched and then wrote an article on the coke vs. soda debate. He then created a map to demonstrate what areas of the United States say coke, who says soda, and who uses pop! So find your state and see if you agree. Apparently I'm from a Soda state!

A product that wouldn't sell in the states!

Onomatopia at its best!

My Birthday Party!

So in follow-up to my last blog with the pics of the birthday box, I thought I would show you how we used the stuff the church sent. We had a cluster training meeting in Spa, Belgium and my birthday landed right in the middle of that week. So I decided to take my loot along and have party with everybody there! Everyone had a GREAT time and they were all SO blessed by the generosity of my home church! Love you guys! Enjoy the pics!

A Birthday Belgian Waffle!
Sippin the plate clean (I bet my mom is SO proud right now!)Karaoke with Claire
Fun with balloons!

Wyatt with one of the LOUDEST noise makers EVER!!! The parents loved them! haha Claire with her Prize!
NO No No...the Donkey is THAT way

What would a party be with out cake smeared in someones face...

... or Guacamole if you're out of cake. Look at those BEAUTIFUL donkey tails!
Would you like a Pirate Mask or a REALLY LOUD noise maker!
And GO!
Sarah, the Queen of Musical Chairs....she won the adults round!

About to play pin the tail on the donkey!

Princess Claire with her treasure, including a tiara and a ring carefully picked out and sent over by the beautiful princess of Chats-a-lot!
A war of the noise makers!

Decorating donkey tails...Claire's was of course pink...and Will's was of course anything BUT pink!

Wyatt....I mean, Peg Leg Pete...
My party was invaded by pirates!
Look at all those kids and donkey tails! We had SOO much fun!