July! Already?

What July means to me:

1. We have lived in France for almost 1 year.
2. We only have 5 months left in France to do everything we want to do!
3. We only have 5 months until we get to see (or at least be in the same country as) all (with the exception of those staying in France) of you!
4. We need to start looking for jobs (eek!). 

And now, on to the update:

Last Saturday we...

 ...made a nectarine pie...

...loaded up our minute grill...

...and had a picnic on the lake...

...with Leah and Kyle (and Sarah, but she came after the picture-taking).

It was great fun!

Then on Sunday we:

 Whipped up some of my dad's super-secret-special-chicken-wing-sauce,

Slapped it on some wings,

And had a ourselves a feast (don't worry, that's only half the fries) complete with the most amazing french fries ever. They were blanched in a saltwater brine before frying meaning the salty goodness went throughout these impossibly crispy fries. 

Oh, and we played frisbee on the lake then used the frisbee to forage for cherries.

On Wednesday Leah and I went over to visit Janice and the girls.

We sat on the couch and made Kimber smile an evil smile.

I let Kimber take a picture all by herself (I love having an indestructible camera!).

Leah made faces at Katelyn (or Katelyn made faces at Leah, I'm not sure which).

Kimber "ate" dinnner (Janice, maybe you should buy a dog?).

And Katelyn made some sweet faces at me.

On Thursday we drove to Luxembourg...

...where they spell some product names differently?

And where I can buy cream cheese for these yummy sourdough babies.

On Friday we had a baby/momma/friend get together in the blessed air conditioning at GTL (it was 94ºF)

Vicki and Lorraine are on the left, Janice and Katelyn are in the middle and Rajasree and Shraddha are on the right. All three babies were born within 2 weeks of each other.

We had a great time eating chocolate chip cookies and some amazing samosas (thanks to Rajasree's mom)

And we played "pass the baby" with Shraddha and

And Katelyn (that's Satya, Shraddha's dad and Rajasree's husband)

While Lorriane blissfully slept through it all, until she got hungry, that is. 

And later that day the bean plant came down. It needed more sun :-(

On Saturday (another 94º day)

We enjoyed lots of gazpacho (more cold veggie soup, I know, I'm obsessed) and cold beer.

And our first and last French 4th of July started off with a hometown favorite

The tomato, sprout and gouda (it should be  meunster, I know) bagel melt.

And later that day we went to Janice and Jeramy's house for a dueling grills BBQ

And while the boys grilled in the heat and the smoke...

...and boy there was smoke!...

...we stayed inside with the babies in their newly installed air conditioning!

 Then we ate an American feast

And played some intense board games.

It was, as always, a great night with great friends. Thanks so much for hosting us Dickersons!

And finally, yesterday

We ate cheeseburger flavored chips that, seriously tasted like cheeseburgers!

And we experimented with a new spaghetti and meatball recipe which was so good I believe it will now be our go-to recipe.