This is Cherbourg. There aren't a lot of grassy areas like this, but up the hill behind our apartment we found this open spot with a beautiful view of the clustered buildings, and beyond, the deep blue of the English Channel.

This is our home for the next 6 months.

One of my favorite things about where we live. Instead of seeing the wall of another building 12 feet from our window, we see this grassy area and an old stone French farm house that someone has turned into a nice home. Trees instead of more buildings. It's nice here.

One of our favorite places to walk is this little roadway, just behind our apartment building. It's cut through a rocky hillside, and the sides are covered with moss, ferns, ivy, mushrooms, and all kinds of other plants. It is called the Chemin des Roquettes, and is actually a street. Cars do drive up and down it, but not often.

A closeup view of part of a small section of the wall. I like the small round leaves on these plants, which we see from one end of the path to the other.

On one of our walks, we found some chestnuts - real ones, that you can (and we did) eat! The coverings look like little green sea urchins.

We went to the harbor one evening to watch the Queen Mary 2 leave Cherbourg to head to the U.S. It is a beautiful ship, carrying around 1800 passengers. Quite a crowd gathered to watch the departure. A couple of similar ships dock here every month.

A de-commissioned submarine, the "Redoubtable" is in permanent dry dock for display. You can buy a ticket to visit an aquarium and tour this submarine - which we'll do on a P day sometime. I couldn't believe how long this thing is!

The cathedral in Bayeaux, France. This was started in the 1300s, but I don't know which features are that old. It is one of the most beautiful churches we've seen in France, and is in a very historic city. To follow are photos from the city and a little history.

Liz in the Bayeaux Cathedral. It is quite impressive, and at the far end is a crypt which houses the graves of some ancient priests, and a protected window to view a couple of columns in the original foundation from around 900 A.D.

A Norman boat replica on the outside of the museum that houses the Bayeaux Tapestry. Unfortunately you can't take any photos inside, but the tapestry is a magnificent art work. All hand embroidered about 1190 A.D., about 3 feet high and 210 feet long!!!, it tells the story of William the Conquerer's preparation and battle to control England. William lived here in this city, and his brother was one of the heads of the Catholic Church here. It is thought that he commissioned the making of the tapestry, but there is some controversy about its origin. It escaped destruction twice during the French Revolution.

A working waterwheel in the city of Bayeaux. I don't think it powers anything now, but it used to grind wheat.

Our branch president and Elder Crook and Jurrus and I went to Soeur Bilibi's home to trim her large hedges. It took us most of the morning to get it done. We all enjoyed getting out in the sun and doing a physical service project.

I helped too! It was interesting trying to trim a hedge of this size with hand tools!

Liz, Christine Hebert, and Elder Crook at a viewpoint of La Hague. The far end in the background is where we are headed.

Lighthouse, breaking waves, and the rocks on the west coast of our area. I really enjoy the ocean and the many sites we have around here.

Cap de la Hague. This is the far northwest point on the peninsula that we live on. The wind was not very hard while we were here, but it got stronger and the waves were getting larger when we left to go to the nearby town.

A breaking wave surprised the three of us (me, Elder Crook, Sister Hebert)! I won't show you the photo of Liz dripping wet, but she was taking the pictures and the next big wave went over the wall about 6 feet in front of her and drenched her!

Dinner with our two elders, Elder Crook and Elder Jurrus, and an English member of our branch, Adrian Varty. He lives here in Cherbourg and doesn't want to go back to England - likes it better here.

This is a lone shrub at the end of our apartment driveway. It's nothing great, but considering I took the photo in early November, it's not a bad sight!

View between two of the three buildings in our complex. Ours is the one on the right, and the two in the background are up the hill and in another group of apartments. We love the grass, trees, and flowers here, especially after living in the middle of La Rochelle surrounded on all sides by walls and streets.

Elder Jurrus and Crook and Frere Dubost on our afternoon of "peche a pied" (fishing on foot) on the east coast of the Manche Peninsula. The tide is out, and we're looking for various kinds of shellfish, mostly clams in this area. There were also some species of snails, but not many. Mussels were in areas further away from the shore. There was about 1/2 mile of exposed beach.

My "catch" for the day. I used the little rake to dig in the sand for small clams. The dark things are mussels, and there were hundreds of them attached to benches used to support sacks of developing oysters.

This strange photo is a bowl of mussels and clams that I took out of their shells for future use. The clams are rather small, but taste really good!

The fruits of our labors. A nice plate full of mussels for dinner. We still have a bunch frozen in the fridge to make another delicious meal.

Just before Thanksgiving, we went on a walk above our apartment and saw, in the distance this ship (upper left). It is gigantic! It's called the "Independence of the Seas" and holds 4600 passengers. It is at least 400 yards long and about 9 stories tall. You might want to click on the photo to enlarge it so you can really see this.

Liz at Le Vesinet, the mission headquarters in Paris. We were there for Thanksgiving - a 3 hour train ride then a local train ride and a car ride to the mission president's home. This was on November 26.

This is President and Sister Staheli, our mission president and his wife getting ready for our couples Thanksgiving dinner. We had all of the mission couples there - 4. They are great people. He used to be the personal secretary for President Gordon B. Hinckley.

This is your art section of this blog.

This is a small section of one of a series of paintings by Monet entitled "Les Nymphaes", which are housed in a museum called the "Orangerie". These paintings are about 8 feet high and 20+ feet long, and were all painted at his home and garden/pool at Givernet, not far from Paris.

Landscape by Cezanne. Every museum we've seen has wonderful paintings by the French impressionists and others. Gaugin, Monet, Van Gogh, Millet etc. etc.

One of Van Gogh's most peaceful paintings. It reminds me of working on Grandpa Walker's farm around harvest time. I remember when they used to have threshing crews come in for the wheat harvest. The straw piles were huge, and we enjoyed jumping in it. I finally figured out why the man in the painting doesn't have a face. I remember covering my face with a piece of cloth or my hat when I wanted to take a daytime nap while I was out camping!

Monet's "Bridge at Argenteuil", one of many of his paintings that I really enjoy. This was in the Musee Dorsay.

Artists are always around in Paris, painting some of the popular spots. We were on our way to the Orangerie when we saw this man painting the Place de la Concorde.

Place de la Concorde in mid-Paris. You can see the Eiffel Tower in the background. This was not a nice place 200+ years ago. A lot of the guillotine work was done here during the French Revolution.

Oneof the features at Place de la Concorde was this large ferris wheel. It wasn't too busy this day, but it looked like a good ride (for those of you who like getting up in the sky like that).

Sacre Coeur church in Paris. This sits on the top of a large hill, and can be seen from all over the city. We didn't have time to go inside, but it certainly was beautiful from below.

One of the many streets in Cherbourg that have strings of light across above the traffic. They enjoy decorating for the holidays.

This is us on Christmas Day here in Cherbourg. No, we didn't sneak away to the Riviera. This is in the backyard of our apartment building.

It's a tough life here in northern France!

One late afternoon, we wandered through the green woods of Piolant. Not a park or town, but a place.

The rest of the story follows.

No, this is not our apartment! This is the dining room of a surprise bed and breakfast stop. It was our anniversary (#42!!!) and we were on our way to a mission conference. I had been sneaky and reserved a special place for us to stay for the night. After telling Liz (as were were driving) that I had seen an interesting place to visit on the way, we pulled up to this "bed and breakfast", and after she admired it for just a minute, I surprised her with the fact that we were staying there for the night. This was taken the next morning.

West view of the Piolant Chateau. Out in the country, over a mile from the nearest other farm. It was a beautiful place with a gracious hostess and a history going back several hundred years.

Liz liked this living room. The owners worked on two floors for two years after buying the building, doing most of the work themselves with the help of one son. I think they did a great job.

How often do you get to look like you own a Chateau? That's Liz in the window above the entrance. It turned out that we were the only guests that evening, so we wandered around, enjoyed the views, and felt like this will be one of our favorite visits anywhere.

A closeup of the previous view. Does she look like she's enjoying herself?

A memorable Senior Missionary Conference. All of the seniors in our mission met together, as we had some inspirational meetings and socialized. Three of these couples have gone home now. We enjoyed getting to know them.

As part of our mission conference for the seniors, we visited two chateaux in the Loire Valley. There are dozens of these castles, mostly not open to the public, but we were able to see two of the most famous ones. This is missionaries walking from the parking lot to Chenonceau Chateau.

One of the most beautiful Chateaux (castles) in the world, Chenonceaux sits on the bank of a river, with the long rectangular wing on the right actually crossing the river. The wing was originally built as a bridge so Diane de Poitiers could take her friends across and go hunting. It was later covered and used for balls and other entertainment, and served as a hospital in WW I. More photos will follow at a later date.

This is Chambord Chateau with the senior missionaries and our President and his wife (standing next to us). A fairyland castle that was built, no joke, as a hunting lodge!

This is not a prize-winning photo, but is a reminder of the noise in La Rochelle. Boisterous groups would go past our apartment at all hours of the night, so we kept 2 fans running on the weekends for background noise to let us sleep! Then one day, Brad discovered three sheets of 2" pink styrofoam waiting for the garbage truck. With a few deft strokes of surgical skill with his pocketknife, he fashioned a jigsaw of pieces to completely block off the window in the bedroom. Aaah! Piece at last.

To start off our blog this time, here's a photo of our favorite fruit for the moment. These are grown in our area, and we eat about 3 a week. They are delicious!

Wow! What a surprise. We took a trip to Cherbourg to see where we would be living when we move there in October. The Bairds have made it a beautiful place to live. This is by far the nicest room in the apartment, but it is all comfortable.