Spider Bite?

2 nights ago, Abigail came in from our backyard proclaiming she'd been "bit" by a spider. Naturally, we were concerned, but also a bit skeptical since we've never seen anything but daddy long legs in our backyard. So we checked out her "bite" and then asked her to show us the spider that did it. She explained, "The spider got on my leg and scratched my blood-hole open and then it went back to it's web." We headed outside to look under the eave of our playhouse to view the culprit. This is what we found. It didn't look harmful, and Abigail's leg looked like she had itched the scab off of a pre-existing mosquito bite, so we took this picture just in case, made a mental note to check for swelling or fever or whatever it is a real spider bite would cause, and moved on with life. Those were our pre-cautionary measures.

Warren, on the other hand was a bit more inspired. He conceived the mission of killing all the bugs in our (very large and overgrown) backyard. Naturally, his weapon of choice was a custom-made Tinker Toy fly swatter/bug killer.

He made one for Abigail, too.

Well, killing bugs got old really quick, but the hose springs eternally new, so the kids spent the rest of the evening playing in the hose. Now, 2 days later, they've spent each evening doing that. If only they could remember to put their swimsuits on before they turned the hose on, or at least stay in only one set of clothes the entire time...Tomorrow I will post pictures of Warren's water slide creation. Oh, and Abigail is still doing fine. I'm confident she was not bitten by a spider.

To Market, to Market and What is a Gite?

Today we went to the biggest local market around here in Riberac, and it was great! I've been to markets in Paris and Amboise, but I never got that "direct from the grower"-community-sort-of-feel. Here, where the towns are so small, it is easy to see why these traveling markets that spring up on the same day every week are such a vital--and exciting--part of the community. I forgot to bring my camera, but here is an all-inclusive list of what we bought:
-2 toys: balloons that are filled with moonsand or something that lets you sculpt faces with your hands--they will be great on the airplane for Warren and Abigail
-1 hat for Avery
-a jar of locally produced honey that we sampled
-cheese
-dry sausage: ostrich and chevreuil (other availabilities included, but were not limited to: donkey, with nuts, with cheese, with blueberries, pork, beef, American bison...)
-a tin of foie gras de canard--Andy has taken a liking to it
-a bottle of grape juice; the grape juice here is so good, it must be because they are so into wine. I'm excited to open this and drink it, since it is from a grower, and even the stuff we buy at the grocery store is so good.
-Warren bought a toy motorcycle with the euros we paid him to nap last week
It was so neat to see all the people walking around with their baskets or bags to hold their treasures. I loved the huge piles of wheels of cheeses and produce. I loved the man who sold the garlic and shallots and onions with his gnarled hands, I assume from producing his wares. Of course, there were bigger booths with assorted produce, but the ambiance of it all was very nice.
Here is Warren playing badminton at the game area of our gite. BTW, if my posts have you wondering what a "gite" is, it is a vacation rental home, often, but not always, in rural areas. There is government assistance for fixing up old homes that otherwise would be demolished, and that kind of started the whole gite thing, I guess. But not all are old buildings. Like this week, we are in the Dordogne region, just outside a little town called St. Privat-des-Pres, and the Brittish couple who run it operate 3 gites on the property, all of which are pretty new. You generally rent a gite for a week or more and it is--in my observation--cheaper than hotel rooms for a family, plus you have a kitchen and more privacy or space and all that good stuff. Here are the links to the 2 gites we have stayed at thus far.
In Amboise: http://www.troglodytes.fr/
In the Dordogne (southern France): http://www.frenchentree.com/france-holiday-rentals/1977/Aquitaine/Dordogne-24/dordogne-gite-pool-rural
If you ever decide to visit France, I highly recommend both. The owners of each or great people.

Oradour-sur-Glane, July 9

Yesterday, July 9, we drove the 2 hours north to Oradour-sur-Glane, a town that ceased to exist on June 20, 1944. Nazi soldiers passing through, in retaliation for the killing of an officer or just to terrorize the population before the Allies really gained control (D-day was the 6th, just 4 days before), rounded up every person in town that day, killed them all--6 escaped--and then burnt the town. Since then, the town has not been touched besides gathering up objects that belonged to people and clean-up, of course. As you enter then town, you are greeted by this sign.
This is the church where they gassed and machine-gunned over 400 women and children. There are bullet marks in the alter and the walls. In the exhibit before the town, I read the comment of a man who helped clean up the town and he talked about the way he found the people in the church. I will not describe that here, only say this, that he saw a pram--stroller--with its victim still in it. I tell you this only because that pram, or one from the town, still sits in the church, rusted and collapsed on the floor. It was very personal to see that. As I looked at that and held Abigail's hand, tears came to my eyes. Thankfully, I could just put on my sunglasses and walk out into the glare of the afternoon sun. The women and children who died here were not so fortunate. A quote in the exhibit said something like this: The men (meaning the soldiers) committed the ultimate offense against their mothers and all women--they did not spare the children.
This is pretty much what the town looks like now--everything just as it was in 1944. The men were rounded up in the city gathering grounds and then executed.

For scripture study when we we got home, I shared these scriptures speaking of the time when Christ will come again to the earth, from Revelations 21: 3-4 with my children:
"And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
I am so grateful for the eternal perspective the gospel of Jesus Christ gives me: life did not begin at birth, we chose to come here and to face the good and the bad. Life does not end at death, there is an eternity of happiness awaiting us. There is a balancing, a reconciling, a reckoning, a restitution for the pain we experience, and all this is made possible because of the atonement of Jesus Christ, who understands our sorrows and pains. "Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows..." I believe those words of the Prophet Isaiah. I take great comfort in them. I hope I will always use my God-given agency to stand up for what I know to be right, even when it goes against what everyone else is doing.

A Day on Vacation

I am so behind on what we have done since we left Paris, that I will work on that later, and just jump in where I am. We traveled a lot yesterday and got in after midnight, so today we stayed at our "woodland gite" and had a great time "vacationing" in every sense of the word. There is a pool at our gite, as well as outdoor game sets in our gite and the space to play them. After seeing about 100 games in Paris, Warren was very interested in Bocci Ball, so he and I played 11 rounds today. I played until he said he was done. It was nice not to be the timer for once, to let him decide. We also went swimming for the first time this year! It was cold, and besides Warren and Andy--who really got in and swam around--we just floated on the great rafts, but it was great. We grilled for dinner, we watched movies with the kids...a really relaxing day.
Warren spent the entire time swimming around on this pool noodle, or towing rafts around. Abigail stayed on her raft, just like me.This video is Avery's first reaction to the pool. Lest you think she hated the entire experience, I posted this photo (above) so you can see she really enjoyed the pool deck. A lot.

Independence Day [in France]

Happy Independence Day! In France, they have Bastille Day/Independence Day on the 14th of July, so today was like any other day. In the spirit of revolution, I present this photo of Avery firing off a cannon at the Leonardo da Vinci home, Clos Luce, here in Amboise. We actually visited there a few days ago, but as I scrolled through my pics to find the next photo, I saw this one, and it just felt right. The reason there are cannons at Clos Luce is this: from his drawings, they have constructed what his inventions would have looked like. He actually had several that dealt with warfare--bridges that could be taken down, moved, built quickly; cannons; a tank.
What we actually did today was the most American thing we could think of: go to McDonalds! (I guess the most American thing would've been to super-size our meals, but, we didn't.) Warren, did, however, order a Big Mac. He has wanted one all week, so we told him he could have that or a "fun meal"--as he inaccurately calls them. He ate most of it, too. If we hadn't just been eating chocolate granola on my bed before we left, he probably could've eaten all of it. Avery and Abigail had Happy meals; I don't know if they are this great in the States, but here you have a choice of a hamburger, cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, fish sandwich or Croc McDo--a McDonalds version of a French classic ham and swiss cheese sandwich. Then you choose from fries, deluxe potatoes or cherry tomatoes. Then you choose your drink: numerous sodas, iced tea or apple juice: not from concentrate. Then you choose a dessert: yogurt smoothy, apples and berries, apple compote or a pineapple wedge. Really, I could order a happy meal and be happy. Anyway, we had a great time eating our food, playing with our toys, playing on the jungle jim and eating dessert. I've never been a big fan of McDonalds, and try to eat there only when we are on our way to Pinetop and I have to buy food there so my kids can use their fabulous play area--(once we tried to skip McD's and did some other fast food chain, that didn't have a play place and we ended up eating our food in the rain at a dog park, surrounded by all sorts of unappetizing things). Then I order a salad, which I really like at McDonalds. But this week, I am so grateful for Big Macs. Sure it's not a BBQ at our parents' homes, but it's the closest thing in Amboise. Plus, McDonalds is just so American: it's big, it's cheap and it's open all the time. France is not like that. Today on Andy's email he got the Staples ad, and it was full of 1-cent deals. FYI: there is no such thing as 1-cent deals in France! That is so American. Here, it is "soldes" time, which would be equivalent to a big sale in the U.S. Every store does it at the same time, and I've read that it pretty much happens in July and some winter month that I can't remember. I guess what I'm trying to say is that everything is always on sale in the US. That's not always a good thing, but it does give the cost-conscious consumer a lot of options and puts a lot of great things within the grasp of everyone. Anyway, I love France--with it's impossible high taxes and fabulous parks and publicly-funded cultural events--but I am glad I live in the United States, even if our parks are sometimes lame and we don't have Fete de la Musique.
To celebrate--without fireworks--Andy and I read Ezra Taft Benson's landmark address, "Our Divine Constitution" off of lds.org. If you search that title, you can read it, too. It's great and fills me with a wonderful appreciation for the founding fathers (and mothers and sons and daughters) and for God, who brought forth our wonderful nation.