Moving on up, to the east side

Well we have officially moved out of our appartment and gave back the keys. It took awhile, but it got done. Its always sad to move out of the places we end up, but its also exciting too. Where theres and end, theres a beggining. So let the next chapter begin, which also starts with a new year. So what is everyone doing for New years eve? Tonight, isnt much different than most celebrations. By this of course I mean more eating. I dont know who said the french are not as fat as americans cause they dont eat as much, cause i have never eaten more than I have here, and boy am I fat. So the menu consists of lobsters and alot of wine, among other things I am sure. Hopefully I will make it out alive. Let me know what everyones plans are, and if you need our new number and address, just ask.

Welcome to the World, Mathis!

Hello everyone! For once I, Celine, am taking the control of the keyboard to introduce you to the little miracle of our Christmas in France... his precious name is MATHIS BOUDOIRE.. it is pronounced just like Matisse, the painter, if you were to wonder how us French pronouce it!
I got to meet him for the very first time today and all I have to say is that he is the most beautiful thing I have seen! : ) So this little guy makes of Rhett, Tonton Rhett, and of myself, Tata Celine! and he makes of my big brother this really "gaga" daddy! It was pretty cool to see him like that today! As of my sister in law, she did it all naturally, without the shadow of a needle or chimicals to help her out! and now, daddy, mama and baby are doing great!
I am a proud one!

Christmas and a baby!

Well Christmas has come and gone once again. Its the first time I've had Christmas or Noël as they call it, in France. It was good, we all gathered at Celines parents place and ate way to much. The traditional Christmas meal, isn't something most of us would expect. It usually consists of Seafood, such as Oysters, salmon, shrimp, etc. It was all to good, but I think I need bigger pants now. Well, I got to call all my family back home to say merry Christmas, expect my mom. I called her twice, but she wasn't there. Then of course all the gifts, our gifts included, cd's, dvd's, wine, clothes and pitonk balls, which is the sport of bodgy ball over here. So we're excited to get into all those things. We haven't really had the time, cause its been so crazy around here. Well we are in the motion of moving out. We are moving to Celine's parents until we head back to the US. It will help us out, not to have to pay so many bills the last few months. So today will be alot of packing and getting stuff moved. Cause we have to be out my the first of january. So if you want to send us any thing by mail, we'll have to get ya the new number. And thanks everybody for all the letters and gifts and packages, I've been enjoying them all. So now for the big news. Well the on Christmas, Celines brother and wife (also named celine) came over. They live about an hour away now and with celine2 (I'll call her celine2 not to be confused with my wife) being pregnant, they didn't know if they would be able to make it. Well to make a long story short, the day after Christmas, Celine2 went into lost her water. So they had to drive all the way back to their home town to the hospital. So she had been at the hospital all day, and then last night, we got the call. They had a baby boy named Matisse. So Now I have a nephew now! and of course Celine (my wife now) has been crying all day and wanting a baby her self...So i'll have to go comfort her here now. So there ya go. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and We hope to see all of you soon.

anything chocolat covered....

Well its been a while, but its been a busy week. Its my vacation this week from school, so I figured I'd have plenty of free time, this is not the case. We (mostly celine) have been getting all our last minute shopping done, and I just got finished making chocolate covered pretzels, so what ever I haven't eating, with be going as a gift. It hasn't really felt like christmas around here, so I felt I need to do something to get into the spirit. So making some pretzels and listening to some christmas music from the internet, really helped. So i'm feeling good now! And maybe tomorrow I will make some buckeyes, that would be deliciouse. In other news, Celine has a job. WHAT? yes it is true, as of wednesday, she has started working. Its perfect timing too. But to add to our busy schedule, we've also been invited to eat at friends and family places 5 times this week, so we're not planning on losing any weight this holiday season. As for Christmas, since I've been asked this a couple times: "What are you doing for Christmas?" well I'm glad you asked! On Christmas a lot of family are gathering at Celine's parents house, I believe there will be about 14 people there. So I'm sure there will be plenty of eating there too. And everyone is exchanging gifts. So i'm hoping to get a CD from Johnny Hallyday and maybe a book of France or about Cognac or wine. I'm sure I'll be getting something like this. Well I have some work to do, so I'm off. And to sign out I'd like to recomend a holiday song. I Hope you enjoy it!

Christmas in the air!

Well if you read my previous blog you would know that we had a little end of the year gathering at my class. Well I was expecting to arrive to class and see that no one has brought anything. Because I figured they didn't understand us in the first place. Well to my suprise everyone brought stuff it was great. Towards the end of the class, is when we all gathered to eat this food that everyone had brought. It was kinda funny, cause even though we are all from the same class, no one really knows each other. So we all we're trying to communicate with each other in our broken French. And we got to find out where everbody was from. Most come from North Africa, then there are some from Madagascar, Cech Republic (sp?), Russia, China, Japon. On my thursday class, there are two asian girls. The one from Japan can speak english and the girl from China can't. Well the japanese girl wasn't there and my english friend started speaking english to the chinese girl. After about a minute of him talking she turns to him and say "I no speak english". It was great, I couldn't help but laugh. He didn't even believe me that there were two asians in our class, and he couldn't tell them apart.. he says "chinese, japanese, aren't they the same".. It was great. But it all went pretty well so i'm glad. Celine and I are going over to the Britishs guys house this week, so we'll see how that goes.


In other news, my dad always sends me these mass emails and I usually don't pay too much attention cause its usually nothing to interesting. Well this one is worth mentioning. Its a video of a house with christmas lights, but its not a normal house, you'll just have to check it out. I just put the link, since the video quality isn't the greatest, and I didn't want to distort it any more by putting it through the youtube flash thing. enjoy. CLICK HERE .

Pepé Lem pew, the original french man!

Tuesdays are always my LONG day of classes. I have about 6hrs (minus the time that I'm late cause I miss the bus). Yes usually I miss my bus, but theres always another one that comes by in 15 min. so its nothing to serious ce n'est pas grave! as the french say. But which ever bus I take I always end up on the bus with some one from my class. So I've tried to say the old Hello thing, with no responce, so its come down to who evers on the bus from that class, just doesn't say anything to any body else. So then of course we have a bit of a walk from the bus stop to the class room. With a group of people that don't say a thing to each other. It's a little creepy, or is it just me. But once in the class everyone says hello to everyone, but its customary to do so when walking into a room. Well any ways... my points coming here I swear. So thursday is our last class of the year (yeah vaca). So me and a british friend in class decided to bring something to eat in our class and something tipical of our country. And since he's british of course he wanted to bring liquere, but I think the teacher didn't thing that was such a good Idea, expecially with all the muslims in my class. So we figured everyone in the class should bring stuff also. We have a wide variety of people, Japanise, British, Africans, Russians, and the US man himself, yours truely. So we're going around the class telling everyone about this. So this is french class, people are taking this class cause they don't speak french, but french is the closest language we all have in common. So this was a crazy 15 minutes trying to explain to people, whom some are just learning an entirely new alphabet, our grand idea. But trying to explain it to these people, we relized how nice they actually where, and they weren't just being a bunch of jerks not wanting to say hello to me on the bus. I'm not holding a grudge! They where just shy about speaking a language that they are just learning. I can relate to this experience. Sometimes is just embarassing not being able to comunicate well. So now that we got our message through, i'm thinking not a lot of people understood, since alot of people just smiled at us in the middle of our conversation and said ok see ya thurday, "hey thats thursday with a cake buddy (or a shnitsle), or else" but it will be nice if some did, I'd like to enjoy some of their culture. Culture through food, thats the best way.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord takith away...

We have been struggling with the whole job situation and... well not having one! Well this week Celine had an interview for this job, and as usual with all these interviews, we weren't going to get excited about it until something happened. Well she called me right after the interview and said they where going to give her the job, what a big relief. A job, finally an answer to our prays... that is until a few days later. Celine had called back to get some info about the position, and low and behold, he told Celine that he had given the position to someone else. This was yesterday, so we have gotten all our hostility out by now, but it just sucks. So today we just took it easy. We treated our selves to a FIESTA inspired lunch.. TACOS! Which is a rare commodity around these parts, there aren't as many Mexicans here as you'd think. But apparently they have Mexicans in Belgium and The Netherlands, because that's where most of our FIESTA inspired ingredients came from. Then for the afternoon we went out to the country just to enjoy the country side. I don't make it out there too much, but its a beautiful site. We got to see so many Castles and house typical of this area. This one Castle we got to see, I don't know who owns it, but it is HUGE, and half of it was destroyed, and I believe it was getting fixed up. All I know is who ever bought it has to have a lot of money. But afterwards we went to a British Christmas market, you wouldn't believe it, but there are a lot of British in this area. So we got to sit among other English speakers and even had a SPOT of tea at tea time... So from a very crappy day yesterday, it was just nice to get out.

OH, I found a wonderful site, you should check it out, unless you already know about it, and I'm the only one who doesn't.. any ways it translates part to whole web sites into a language of your choice. So for fun I'll put this blog in FRENCH. Check out the site here or read my French version if you're bold enough. NOTE: I'm not responsible for the wrong translations.

Nous avions lutté avec la situation entière du travail et... bon n'ayant pas un! Jaillissent cette semaine Celine a eu une entrevue pour ce travail, et comme d'habitude avec toutes ces entrevues, nous n'allions pas obtenir passionnant'à son sujet jusqu'à ce que quelque chose se soit produite. Puits elle m'a appelé droit après l'entrevue et les a dites où allant lui donner le travail, quel grand soulagement. Un travail, finalement une réponse au notre prie... qu'est jusque quelques jours à plus tard. Celine avait appelé de nouveau à obtiennent une certaine information au sujet de la position, et le bas et behold, il a dit à Celine qu'il avait donné la position à quelqu'un d'autre. C'était hier, ainsi nous avons toute notre hostilité dehors à ce jour, mais elle suce juste. Tellement aujourd'hui nous l'avons juste prise facile. Nous avons traité nos individus à un déjeuner inspiré par FIESTA. TACOS! Ce qui est un produit rare autour de ces pièces, il n'y a pas autant de Mexicain ici car vous penseriez. Mais apparemment elles ont le Mexicain en Belgique et en Hollandes, parce que c'est d'où la plupart de nos ingrédients inspirés par FIESTA sont venues. Alors pour l'après-midi nous sommes sortis au pays juste pour apprécier le côté de pays. Je ne le fais pas hors de là trop, mais son un bel emplacement. Nous avons obtenu de voir tant de châteaux et de loger typique de ce secteur. Ce un château que nous avons obtenu de voir, je ne sais pas qui le possède, mais il est ÉNORME, et la moitié d'elle a été détruite, et je crois qu'elle obtenait fixée vers le haut. Tout que je sais est qui jamais acheté lui doit avoir beaucoup d'argent. Mais après nous sommes allés à un marché britannique de Noël, vous ne le croire, mais il y a beaucoup des Anglais dans ce secteur. Ainsi nous avons obtenu de nous asseoir entre d'autres anglophones et égal a eu une TACHE de thé au temps de thé... Ainsi d'un jour très crappy hier, il faisait simplement beau de sortir.

Was it the moving thing?

So tony was going to visit us up to the time I told him we where moving out the same time he was going to be here. Abviously I figured he'd want to help! But suddenly he changed his mind and made up some "I'm going skiing in the Alps" thing. Yeah like I haven't heard that one before! Oh well, thats life. Maybe next time we're both living in Europe we will pull it off! yeah if only!
Any who, thats life.
TODAY! Today was one of the longest days, well actually monday afternoons and all day tuesday! I'm currently taking 12 hours of French per week, and 9 of them just happen to fall back to back. Monday evening and tuesday all day! So theres not much to say then my brain is fried! 12 hours maynot seem that much, I mean I'm a college graduate dang it, whats 12 hours bring it on! So what do I do after a 6 hour day of French and coming in from the cold/raining day. I drink a large Hot Chocolet out of my Chicago Coffee Cup!

YUMMY

Yeah, things are better now. Well luckly I have tomorrow to rest. Well now that I think about it I have some design work to do. I'm not complaining I need the money.
Anyways, we haven't been up to much, hince the lack of info! But we have been sick too. We had to go to the docter, but luckly being under the French Republic, I get that money back. I'm feeling better too, but Celine was up most of the night coughing. So that of course means me too!
So i'm going take it easy for the rest of the day, and do that work tomorrow. I think there's a good movie on tonight!

A friend or a friend?

The French have two words for friends, copains and amis. The first being the casual friends, and the second being true friends. Friends are very important to the French, as important as family, they spend most of their free time with friends. Today we went to eat at Celine's great aunt and uncle's place. At one point her uncle was talking to her about friends. He said you can have many copains, they come and go, but you only have few amis. And Celine brought up a good point, since we've gotten here we've gotten to truely see who are amis (real friends) are. When keeping in touch gets hard, who are the one's that actually put some effert. An email, a phone call, just keeping in touch. We put up this blog site to let friends and family keep in contact with us. But it seems like alot of people just aren't checking it. Are they too busy? Don't they care? I can always tell who drops in or doesn't. Its not a ton of people checking in, but sometimes its just nice to see that people care. So thank you to all who care enough to check in on us, we know who you are and we appreciate it. So why do you check this site? Tell Us Why. Write us a comment by just clicking the comments link under this paragraph. Thanks.