France (Days 6 & 7 - arrival in Vichy and church meetings in Clermont-Ferrand)

Yesterday we drove six hours to our temporary home (apartment) in Vichy.  We stopped once to put some diesel in the car.  Apart from being sick (I may have received a bacterial gift from Douglas), the drive was not bad at all.  This country is beautiful and the roads are great.  The tolls......not so much.  We are keeping track of how much we spend on tolls.  I'll post that lovely figure at the end of our trip.  The problem is, if we don't use the toll roads, then our drive time will be considerably longer.

 I love this place!  We are on the second floor.  It certainly isn't home, but it is cozy.

Peeking

Our little kitchen, and our couch.

The couch is also my bed.  See the clothes rack?  That's our "dryer".

 Our bathroom

 Our small, European washer.

Sam's bed.  Doogles sleeps on the other side next to the window, where we stuffed a blanket to protect him from falling off.

This morning we attended church at the branch in Clermont-Ferrand, approximately 45 minutes from Vichy.  We were given a warm welcome by the members of the branch and Sam was invited to introduce us (in French, of course) in Sacrament Meeting.  The four missionaries (two Sisters and two Elders) were disappointed to hear that BYU lost to the Utes yesterday.  Two of the missionaries are from Utah Valley, one is from Portland, Oregon, and I'm not sure where the fourth is from.

Isn't Sam beautiful?  Wow, I'm blessed.

Despite not understanding anything, Douglas was very good at church.  He even happily went off to nursery to play with toys for two hours.  Sam says that after yesterday, when he was forced to sit in the car for six hours and accompany Mom and Dad to the grocery store and a "boring" (for him) dinner of delicious crepes (mine was filled with something resembling au gratin potatoes, bacon, and eggs), he was just happy to do something that he wanted to do.  I was good at church as well, even though I understand about as much as Doogles. :)

By the way, we tried to get Douglas to eat a crepe with Nutella on it last night.  He spit it out!  We keep praying that he will begin to expand his diet of bread and yoghurt (and maybe a couple of other items) in the near future.  He's definitely missing out.

I'm including this photo because Sam told me something funny about the French language today.  They call their shampoo (a noun) "Shampooing," so you would say, "I'm going to the store to buy some shampooing".