This week has been hard for me. The kids are bored, we are all really feeling the effects of not having a permanent place to live, and we still haven't heard word one about our visa situation. We've had some major BFD's (bad france days). I know it doesn't seem like it from this blog, but I really do try to stay positive and look for the good here. It's hard to balance things in writing-I tend to post when I need to rant a bit, and a lot of the good stuff gets passed by on here. God is using our circumstances to really grow us and change us, and it is really cool to feel the change happening. We had a really good day yesterday. I have really been struggling with feeling disconnected and like we don't belong here, and yesterday i got a glimpse of what it was like to feel "normal" again. We had a relaxing morning, then I spent the afternoon with Andi (who is on our team) helping her a bit with her move. It has been so fun getting to know her, and it was just so nice to talk and laugh with her. She came over last night to hang out with the girls while Teal and I went out to dinner for our anniversary. As we were walking down this tiny street, I hear Teal's name, and I turned around and our new friend Tom (an estate agent and church member) is coming out of the door of a pub and flagging us down. We chatted for a few moments, then asked him for a restaurant recommendation. Teal knew a place, and we were headed there when we ran into Tom, but we wanted a "local" place. tom knew just where we should go, so he left his beer and friends and said he'd walk us there. Well, it turns out it was the same place we were originally headed! And it was fabulous-Chez Maxime-Teal had foie gras and roast duckand I had an amazing salad with provencal meatballs and rosemary crusted spareribs. I think the best part of the evening though was feeling just a bit like we belonged, that we are meeting people, and that we are not anonymous in this place. The girls had a great time with Andi, and they can't wait for us to go out again.

the photo is Olivia with Peyton and Caroline Wilder from Paris, and McKenna. We were at this great little snack shack outside Aix that is in an old British double decker bus.