The Hardest Day Yet

So yesterday was amazing here at camp. It was Jonathon's last day so we bid him a fond farewell and then headed to church in Brignoud (theres a bit of a discrepency here about the spelling of the town...but we're gonna go with this one!) Church was sooo much fun. It was sooo neat to worship in another language and to walk to church with a bunch of french people. We went to the local church so emmanuelle, the other cooks, all the equipiers, and a bunch of camp families were there as well. It was so neat to see the type of sermon and worship at a real french church! In the afternoon Kaja, Kristin, and I went for a little hike to a village in the alps called Les Adrets. It was sooo cute and as we walked into the town the church bells were tolling. We even got up the courage to go into the church and look around! Then we walked around and took tons of pictures as it was one of the cutest little hillside villages...and one of the first we have seen since we've been in France. In the evening Sam and the girls made dinner--once again American style--and ate on the patio under the alps. Turns out Sam loves american meals and cant seem to learn enough or eat enough to satisfy him!

This morning was terrible as Sam had to finally leave. I have never, until today, been at Champfleuri without Sam. He was at camp TED and at camp STEVE and then here all summer with us working. The whole time he has treated Kristin and I like his long lost sisters, welcoming us into his home, lending us anything we may have forgotten, buying us batteries, getting us a webcam so we can see people at home, doing our work for us, burning us music, and leaving us little encouraging notes around during the day! Basically he's the perfect little brother, always watching out for us and doing as much as he can to make sure we adjust to life at champfleuri. Luckily for us he lives about 2 minutes away, so although its goodbye for a while I'm pretty confident that we will see him again all too soon!

But what made today the worst is that we decided to work all day long and try and finish everything so we could have the rest of the week off. Bad plan...bad bad bad plan. Turns out cleaning the whole set of dorms is not a day activity. I wouldnt be surprised if it takes us the rest of the week to finish. An example. I spent all day...9 hrs of work cleaning 13 showers. I'm still not finished! It's insane how dirty these rooms are! So I guess we wont have the rest of the week off, instead we will spend every waking moment cleaning the dorms, listening to wayyyy too much abba, having random dance parties, and cooking some delicious american recipies!

This evening was a little better as we where all sooo tired that everything seemed funny. We introduced the germans to google earth which we then proceeded to all look up our homes and vacation places and such. Then we took a really long trip to the little store down the hill because you have to go through every aisle to see everything. Once we finally finished we returned to make banana bread from one of Kristin's recipies from home. Although we didnt have all the ingredients we hope that it will turn out all right and we can bring some to everyone at champfleuri! Dinner was very entertaining as we ate something contributed from everyone: Kaja gave us a great potatoe side, Martine the meat from the freezer--shes great at defrosting--Kristin the banana bread for dessert, and me the amazing grapes, because who doesnt want grapes with dinner! We also had a wonderful Christmas theme with some great youtube music supplied by yours truly! Told you we were a little bit tired here from all today's work! Right now we're listening to some "christmas" music supplied by Kaja thats actually country...shh dont tell her and cleaning up from dinner. Clearly I am helping soooo much! And on that note I'm going to go find us some ornaments for "our christmas tree", finish my grape fight with Kaja, and perhaps go watch the sunset with the girls.

One last note. Once we came back from the grocery store we came to the most awesome conclusion. Since the four of us girls...Kaja, Kristin, Martine, et moi are sharing the entire grand maison its like our own castle/ mansion! We have two kitchens. Three offices, way too many bedrooms too count, a bunch of dinning rooms, some living rooms, and of course some computers. It's basically an all girls slumber party all day/night long. We get to cook, clean, be a little o.c.d, watch chick flicks and no one gets mad :) (love ya sam), and of course listen to lots of girly music and talk wayyy too late into the evening! Hope ur all enjoying the end of your summers, even if u dont have ur own all girls grand maison to enjoy it in!