Tuesday, September 30, 2008

More from the field trip


This was our very patient guide on our tour. He spoke very slowly and repeated things several times. You can see the confused looks on some of the students faces.


After our tour, we had a chance to play on the playground while we waited for lunch. As you can see, most of the class enjoyed the time!



Monday, September 29, 2008

Our Field Trip


Field trips are not just for kids. Our language school took a trip to an apple orchard. All four of the classes went (2 beginning, 1 intermediate, and one advanced). There are over 30 students total, and some of the people brought their spouses and/or children. We were quite a crowd!
We had a chance to listen to some information about the orchard and the history of apple orchards in Quebec (all in French, of course!) We also went for a tractor ride, had lunch in the cafe, and got to pick apples from the trees.
This trip is part of our "Conversation in Context" grade. We have two more trips throughout the semester. The two teachers from the language school, as well as two volunteers made sure that we all had a chance to speak in French throughout the day. Some of the students in the advanced and intermediate classes can carry on a conversation quite well. Most of the beginners still can't say very much. But I did now how to say, "Tu aimes manger des pommes?" ("Do you like to eat apples?") I made sure I asked that to as many other students as I could so that I could practice the little bit of French that I do know. I still messed up, and half of the time said "Do I like to eat apples?" but people got the general idea.
Today I also learned that you do not say "I am full." in French. I didn't get the exact meaning but it is like saying "I am a pregnant cow." Instead you say "I ate well." At least I was only talking to one of the teachers and one of the other students when I said that!
Ian and Isabelle were in school, but Caleb got to go with us. He was so excited. As soon as he got up he was ready to go on the field trip. He kept saying, "We are going to an apple church today." He really enjoyed the day.


Sunday, September 28, 2008

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Friday, September 26, 2008

Lac des Nations


Last Sunday evening we went to a park with a lake. There is a paved walking, biking, etc trail around the lake. Part of the trail branches off, and there is a dirt path that is right by the lake. The weather was nice, and the kids had a great time. I have pictures of the playground to post the next 2 days, because I know I will probably not have much computer time.
We are all doing well, just staying busy!





Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Sunday Morning


Isabelle wanted to wear her Vietnamese outfit on Sunday, and so the boys decided to wear theirs too. Aren't they cute?

Monday, September 22, 2008

Our classes


It is hard to see the building from this picture, but this is the building in which we have our classes. I was sitting on the front steps of our apartment building when I took the picture. As you can see, we have a very short walk to go to class.
I have the morning class, and Stephen has the afternoon class. We each have six people total in our class. Having a small class size helps with learning. (There are a little over 30 students in the language school and 12 are beginners.)
We have an average of 15 hours per week of class, about 5 hours each of grammar, dialogue, and conversation. On Wednesdays we have one hour of chapel, one hour of small groups (the men and women meet separately), and a one hour Bible Study.
I have class from 8:30-11:30 on Monday, Thursday, and Friday. Tuesday is 8:30-12:30. Wednesday I have class from 10:30-12:30.
We started with phonetics. That part was very hard! We will be working on phonetics/pronunciation all semester. Now we have memorized some basic dialogue. We started on grammar with nouns. Last week we moved into verbs-- conjugating, etc.
Our teacher, Kathleen, is very nice, and incredibly patient. She seems to have a good sense of how to explain things. When someone is having trouble understanding, she always thinks of another way to explain it.
At the beginning she spoke mostly English to us. Now, she will speak mostly in French, but if we really are not understanding, she will use English. She is really good at making sure everyone understands completely before we move on to something else.
The Wednesday morning chapel service is from 8:30-9:30 and is completely in French. All of the students from the one year Bible Institute, the language school, and all of the staff attend. The next hour (9:30-10:30) the women and men of the language school meet separately for small groups. This time is not required, but is nice to get to know the other students.
The Bible study on Wednesday is from 1:30-2:30. That is a time with all of the language school students. We are only required to go to 5 in a semester. We have just have one of those so far, and we went over some of the songs that we sang in chapel. The teacher says everything in French, and then in English to make sure we understand. We go very slow, and things make more sense to me. We also did a short Bible lesson/sermon this week, point by point. It was exciting to be able to understan some of the things from French. I think it gave us an idea of what we are working toward.
Anyway, this is a lot of typing. Next time I will just put some cute pictures of the kids.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Dress-up time


The kids were playing dress up Friday afternoon. I managed to get a picture of Isabelle dressed as a fairy, and our neighbor dressed as batman. (He had the cape, and Caleb had the mask.) The other kids were too busy playing to hold still for a picture.
Thanks to everyone who has been praying for Isabelle's adjustment in school. She is doing much better, and she had some really good days. It will still be some adjustment over time, but I think she is on her way.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

The back of the apartment


This is the back of our apartment building. I realized after I put the picture on the computer that it is crooked, but it gives the general idea. Our apartment is the one in the bottom right hand corner. None of the decks are ours.

Each apartment has a clothes line in the back. (We share ours with the other basement apartment.) We thought we would have to go to the laundromat when we moved here, but were pleasantly surprised to find that there is a washer and dryer that we share with the other apartments in the building. (There are 6 total.) The washer and dryer is a room right outside our apartment door. It is very convenient for us.
There is a chart that we sign up for a certain time in the week to use the washer and dryer. When no one is signed up, anyone can use it. We keep track of the loads that we do and pay $.50 for a wash and $.75 for a dry. This is much cheaper than going to a laundromat and much more convenient!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Playground

There is a playground that is part of the school grounds. The kids love to go up the hill and play on the slides and swings. I realized after I took these pictures that I should have taken one of the whole playground. Maybe I can convince the kids to go back today. ;)

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Note from School

I can be obsessive compulsive at times, but even I didn't think of this... Ian's pencils came back with this note today.
The newly labeled pencils.

First Day on the School Bus


Ian and Isabelle got their bus passes on Monday. Ian rode the bus home Monday, and they are both now riding the bus to and from school. They have really enjoyed it so far. Caleb was anxiously waiting for the school bus. I don't know if he was worried about Ian and Isabelle, or if thought he was missing something fun.

Ian and Isabelle after riding the bus on Tuesday.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Game Night


This past Friday evening, the school had a game night for the students and staff. Here is Ian with his friend Ian. His family lives upstairs from us. He is also eight years old in the 3rd grade. The two Ian's were great friends from the first moment they met.Here are Isabelle and Caleb attempting to play fuse ball.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Outside of Apartment


This is the front and sides of our apartment building. As you can see it is built on a hill. The kids love being able to run around outside on the grass and in the trees. I will have to take some more pictures of the grounds.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Our Apartment


These are pictures of the inside of our apartment. I will post the outside pictures separately, because there are quite a few of the inside. There are 3 steps up the front of the building to the front door. After you go through the front door, you can up a flight of steps (on the left) to Apts 1&2, or down 3 steps to Apts 3&4. If you continue past 3&4 there is another flight of stairs which goes down to Apts 5&6. We are in Apt 5. Fortunately, we had lots of help when we were unloading. That is a lot of steps to carry things down! The building is on a hill, so the back door of the building is at ground level. Once the U-haul was empty enough, Stephen drove around to the back and we carried things in that way. That was much easier.
Things are still not unpacked and put away, etc, but it will give you the general idea.
Directly inside the front door is the hallway. The door to our bedroom is directly on the right, then the door to another hallway, a closet door, the kitchen/living room area, and the bathroom door on the right.

This is our bedroom. We wanted to move it upstairs, but found out we weren't allowed. Yes, that is linoleum on our bedroom floor. I know you are jealous.
Inside the door to the right, there is a closet. It is about the size of one of our closets, in Browning. (We each had one.) As long as Stephen realizes that I need more space than he does, we shouldn't have a problem.

This picture is taken from the doorway to the inside hallway. We have a coat rack, and a small bench to put shoes underneath. There is also a closet under the stairs on the left.

This is the living room. The computer and stereo are on the desk, there is a pantry door and part of the kitchen table in the picture, too.


This is the kitchen. You can see the edge of the pantry and the desk in the picture. It is pretty small. The green curtain in the background covers sliding doors that house all of the fuse boxes etc, for the building, so we have to keep that area clean. There were dishes in the cabinets, so I unpacked some of mine. I left some of the ones that were out, and packed away the ones I didn't think I could use. I could barely fit our Rotisserie in the cabinets. They are all very shallow and small. I finally found space in one of the bottom ones. I am still trying to get used to cooking in the small space, and I am learning what works. The oven is so small I can not fit my large cookie sheet in, but I have a neighbor across the hall who offered the use of hers when we need it.
I have also learned to do any baking at night. It has been pretty warm here, and we don't have air conditioning. The rest of the house stays fairly comfortable with fans, but there is not much air circulation in the kitchen. I'm hoping when the winter comes, the kitchen will stay warm with use of the oven. :)

This is one of the bedrooms upstairs. This is the "boys side." The upstairs bedrooms are bigger than the downstairs, and we had room to put all 3 kids in one room. (There is no door to the outside from the upstairs.) They each have a dresser. You can see Caleb's in the back, and the edge of Ian's right inside the door.

This is Isabelle's side of the room.

This is the other bedroom upstairs, which we have turned into an office/playroom. This room still needs the most unpacking and organizing. The closet in here will have the treadmill, some storage, and some of my crafting things. There are also 2 small linen closets at the top of the stairs. About 1/2 of one closet is linens, and the rest is my crafting stuff and the kids crafting stuff.


We still need to get things unpacked, put away, organized, etc. We started classes this week, so we haven't had much time. Hopefully, we will get some things done this weekend.