Bournagain

Fargo

Don’t know if you ever saw that ghastly film called “Fargo” – well in real life it’s quite a fun place. We discovered this when we spent the day here with our friends and their six children. More photos at Flickr (click on the photo).

It’s already been a week since we left Nantes. We are enjoying every moment of being back in the US , visiting friends from when we lived here to years ago at Bethany Fellowship, Bloomington Minnesota. It was such a formative time in our lives, and it’s been great showing the children all the old haunts. Even after such a long absence, as we reconnect with old friends it’s almost like we never left.

Right now we are enjoying sub-zero temperatures and snow in Valley City, North Dakota. There are a few photos at Flickr – I will try and add to this regularly.

Have you ever tried to take a half decent family photo with 6 people? We just had a friend take some pics. She took about 30 of them – hilarious. What with tongues poking out, fingers up noses, closed eyes, grumpy faces, there weren’t too many useable ones. Here’s one that’s reasonably respectable.  Thanks Phoenicia for those latent photography skills (Simon, Laura – 10, Elise – 8, Isaac – 5, Heather, Maria – 12)

Over a week without a post! One of the things I love about Christmas is spending a few days just being together as a family without the usual time pressures. We did our family celebration on the 24th, and had a really fun day just doing nothing much other than playing with the new toys, eating, talking with family on the phone, and ending the day in front of the Narnia DVD. As we sat down to dinner Laura said that it was the kind of day that she wishes would never end. I guess it’s a little taste of heaven really. The idyll is still punctuated by the odd family squabble, the Christmas dessert that doesn’t look anything like the picture in the recipe book and that the kids don’t like anyway, the bits missing from the new lego set… life goes on. But it’s great having those little flashes of perfection to keep us moving “further up and further in”.

On the 25th we braved the icy fog and drove an hour south to our English friends the Johnsons where we enjoyed several hours around their overflowing table with some interesting new people, including the pastor of the Reformed church in La Roche sur Yon.