Au revoir, Ketty!

Sunday was Ketty's last week at church. She will be going to the US for 2 months and then possibly moving back to Guadeloupe.

She has been so fun to get to know this year- she is really outgoing and witty.

les 3 amies

Emilie, Linda, Ketty

(and Antoinette's baby, Chrismyrne... 4 weeks old on Sunday!)

What a week!

This has been a very eventful last week!

Saturday, Doug and I went to Ile Barbe with another assistant...

afterwards we stopped by Bellecour for the big Petanque (Bocce Ball) tournament...

Sunday we had lunch with Loic and Mikaela...

Monday, Erin had a girl's get together at her apartment...

Tuesday we had a picnic on the Rhone after church... Erin decided to dip her feet in the water...

Wednesday, I met a few other assistants at the Opera for a free lunch jazz concert...

Thursday we left for an overnight trip with the Hendrixes to the Languedoc region. We had lunch in Minerve...

then spent the night in Carcassonne...

and then went hiking Friday morning around the ruined Chateaux de Lastours...

and finally enjoyed oysters (first time for Doug and me) on the beach in Sete...

more pictures from the trip:

2nd visit to Languedoc

Atlanta again

It is official: we're moving back to Atlanta.

Atlantans, see you at the end of July.

Doug's birthday week

Doug's birthdays always seem to last several days... this year no different!

Monday: the arrival of his big birthday package including some of his favorite things!

Tuesday: lunch out with the Hendrixes at El TexMex and then homemade icecream at Nardone.

Wednesday: Hamburgers and chocolate pudding pie at Doug's request!

Thursday: outing to the Gallo Roman Museum followed by a picnic in the Roman theater and a walk down Fouvriere Hill

Happy 27th Doug!

Ascension Retreat

Tonight we got back from our 4 days (Ascension holiday in France) at the French church camp in Ardeche, the department southwest of Lyon. It was nice to see people that we already knew from other events and to meet others as well. The retreat was pretty laid back with a lot of free time in the afternoons. So the first afternoon we went on a short hike up a "suc" (the name for the mountainous rock formations in the region) near the camp.

We were planning on going for a longer hike on the second day, but when we woke up, it had snowed 12 inches over night! Even the locals were surprised to get so much snow in May!

We ended up helping out in the kitchen on Friday... Doug especially liked slicing the huge bread.

Here are our other pictures from the weekend:

Ascension Retreat

Our next trip is in about 2 and a half weeks when we go to Barcelona with Anna Rose and Jessi!

A few things

A few things we have done lately...

For Cinco de Mayo we invited some assistants and a couple of girls from church for Doug's favorite meal, Mexican Fiesta.

On Friday of last week, we went to the Resistance and Deportation Museum of Lyon with two other assistants. Lyon was the capital of the French Resistance movement during World War II and the museum is located in former Nazi torture Headquarters in Lyon. Afterwards we rode bikes along the Rhone river down to Parc Gerland, near Lyon's big soccer stadium, and had a picnic.

Today Doug and I went to the museum at the Lumiere Institute. The Lumiere brothers, the inventors of modern cinema, were from Lyon. Their family's art deco mansion holds the museum. I liked the peacock ceiling lights (look carefully) in the winter garden room.

An early magic lantern

Doug in front of the mansion

Tomorrow we leave for a retreat at the church camp for francophone Europe. There will be about 150 people there from churches in France, Belgium, and Switzerland. Thursday is a holiday (Ascension), so most people also get Friday off work, so the retreat is Wednesday night through Saturday.

Brrrrrrrrr

After a week of temperatures in the 70's and 80's, it got REEEEEEALLY cold all of a sudden!

Come back, summer weather!

Beginning to say goodbye

Since we finished our teaching contracts this week, several of the other English assistants are heading home soon. Sarah and Katie had assistants over on Wednesday to say goodbyes.

(in the back: Maty, Jaime, Charlotte, me, Erin, Sarah, Adan;

and in front: Katie, Emily and Lesley)

It has been fun to get to know other assistants! Fortunately, they are not all leaving right away.

We still have another month and a half in Lyon, and we are very glad that we will have 4 visitors before we leave! We already knew that Anna Rose was coming, but this week, Jessi Brimm, and my parents also booked tickets to come! We look forward to showing our visitors la belle France!