Raining today. Our landlord Daniel, called it the "English weather moving in". I guess when it is beautiful it is French weather and when it rains it is English weather. After being in London for 5 weeks some summers back I would have to agree.
Perfect day to get re-organized from my disastrous home PC failure the day before we left GR. Yes, this is how technology and I relate. Worst possible time, that calls for an all and all blow out of my home PC. Because I am married to an IT guy I was reminded enough to always back-up crucial files, so I did have my finances and electronic checkbook backed up. Thank you Eric. However, I had over the previous weeks built a spreadsheet, accountant that I am, of all our bills, for home and Ludington, and every pertinent piece of information possible including passwords. I wanted to have all that information with me so I could take care of business from afar. I did not have that backed up yet, because I was planning to transfer it to Taylor's laptop the day before we left. Hence, the black-out. Me and technology, gotta love it. Anyway with the rain today I can get started on the rebuild.
I was also able to Skype with my kids and grandkids today. Sure was nice to see their faces again and hear their voices. 3 months is a long time away from that crew, but Skype will help.
Taylor and I walked to the nearby market to get a few items. Our main purpose was to find ingredients to make no-bake cookies to take to our dinner hosts tonight. We were able to get them all. The peanut butter was the hardest, but we found one brand of it from Nicaragua amongst the many sizes of Nutella on the shelf.
As Taylor prepared the cookies, I read through the manual for the washer/dryer and managed to get a couple loads through.
As soon as Eric arrived home from his second day at the office we headed to the home of Justine's parents, Laurent and Vivian Achard in the town of Illkirch only about a 20 minute drive from us. This is the home Taylor stayed at when she was an exchange student here a couple years back. They prepared a bountiful meal of Lamb, fresh vegetables from Justine's grandparents garden, salad, french fries (as requested by Sebastian, Justine's brother) and of course bread and cheese. We had a rich Bordeaux with the meal and for dessert Vivian made a cheesecake that was from white cheese and sooooooooo good. It was light and fluffy like a roasted marshmallow with a flaky crust. Yum! We had lots of fun conversation even though Justine had to do most of the translating as her parents only speak some English. She did not mind, because she is studying English in the hopes to teach French in the US some day. I did find out a good tidbit from Vivian. She said if you see Rossbiff on a menu or a package it is not Beef! It is Horse! Yikes, so glad to know. After a wonderful evening we bid our good-byes with plans to meet up again Saturday night for Vivian's birthday celebration at a Lebanese restaurant they enjoy.
Bon Soir!
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