I got this shot last night as I went to say a final good night to the girls and they were both in Sophie’s bed and big sis was reading the extra books to little sis.  They’re currently super into this rainbow fairy series (by now über-richissime Daisy Meadows).  With all of the challenges for both of them and for all of us together in terms of fitting in, helping out kids to do so and then live the life we’re trying to put together, it’s a joy to see how much the girls are into each other.  They loved each other before, really as good friends.  And yet it seems even stronger now – not that we don’t have hugely horrific fights.  Yet they are “it” in a sense for each other, in particular Sophie as Elodie’s principal friend.  Ex-pat families always seem so close, in our experience, and part of what we dreamed of.  Probably because they’re isn’t anyone else, for a long time.  So thoughts about families we’ve known in the past, and visions of our girls grown up as good friends when adults dance in my heads like sugar plums as I watch them from the hallway.

This is a picture that Kristy took of the girls yesterday at Mass.  They’re doing coloring books, laying on top of the heater vent trying to warm up.  It’s a bit tweaked as I had to photoshop it to add colors and light.  A cute reminder of the day yesterday.

Preaching at the mass at the Collegial church here in Poissy went just fine this morning.  Kristy got this picture of me standing with the principal priest of the Poissy parish.  I was neither run out nor burned at the stake.  So I assume that my comments weren’t too heretical (or at least not more than they usually are).  It was quite something to be there and to see all the members of our protestant church there at the mass, even to arrive there 30 minutes early and greet our parishoners who at that point outnumbered the Catholics 2 to 1.  I don’t think Max Weber talked about punctuality in his tome on the Protestant Work Ethic.  He might have missed an important point.  When we motivated to go to church this morning, explaining the difference for today, Elodie was elated, stating that the Catholic Church is a lot closer (and no hill to walk up) to our house.  I mentioned her comment in the sermon and got a good laugh.  I also got another one from stating the irony of the day, that today is a

Saturdays can be long days, with no school to interrupt the open-ended time and me often gone for most, if not all, of the day with church activities.  Kristy and the girls got busy making Valentines’ Day cookies.  Too bad it’s not tomorrow.  We’ve been preparing for a while, cards, boxes, doing things Peter Pan style – as the kids call it; all in anticipation that there won’t be much celebrating of Vs’ Day at school like the kids are used to doing in America.  Making cookies is like the cherry on top of all of this past creative fun. I love how you can tell who decorated which cookie based upon the even (or uneven) distribution of frosting and sprinkles (either in one gigantic lump or evenly placed).

I took this picture on Wednesday morning (hoping to pre-prep the Disneyland Video) and have been thinking about it ever since, in particular in terms of how the girls are growing (which some of you PM Family readers have commented, in particular Gail).

We went yesterday to Disneyland.  We’d been trying to keep the girls from knowing that there’s one nearby (about 50 miles to the other end of greater Paris).  But I guess the mouse is out of the bag.

I made it to the Poste today to pick up a package, sent from Uncle Lori from Philadelphia, known in our household as “Fairydelphia” : the city-of-cousinly-love.

The iPod cover, tasty cakes, knitted goodies and Hersery’s Kisses were a big hit: as you could tell from the multiple chocolate mustaches post lunch.  Thanks Uncle Lori!  You have a gift for gift-giving!  The red wine and cheese are on us the next time we get together.

Friends Vero and Axel invited us to join them for the day at Disneyland Paris.  So off we went.  Of course we were slowly off as an RER strike led us to miss our train by 1 minute, than wait over an hour for the next train (initially expected 14 minutes later) than change trains twice in order to cross Paris and arrive at Disneyland at around 11:30am after leaving the house just before 9.  At least Dinsey folks weren’t on strike.  And the

The girls tried on some of Kristy’s dresses recently and got very vogue for the camera.  Quite a rarity.

This past week was the semaine de l’unité, the international week of ecumenicism [the week of prayer for Christian Unity] (unfortunate that it’s only 1 of 52 weeks of the year).  We had several different events with neighboring Catholic churches for prayer, sharing about testifying to faith in the 21st secular world and also talking about acts of justice and compassion.  We are also doing a pulpit exchange for the next 2 Sundays.  I’m preaching Sunday the 7th at the Collegiale, the large Catholic church near our house at the 11:00am mass to about 1,000 people.  The parish priest is then coming to preach to our community of about 60 people on February 14th.