A morning walk to the vineyards

A special guest

This week we have had a special guest visiting in our home. Natalie was once a student at BFA and is now a junior in college. She has come to Europe to study a semester abroad in France. She stopped in to see us on the way to Grenoble where she will be immersed in French for four months.

We took Natalie to one of our favorite local resataurants.

Natalie and my small group spent some talking about college life (all six girls in my small group are seniors at BFA and will be off to college next year).

Natalie is now en route to France. Most of her train ride today is through Switzerland. She is in for a treat as she is going to see some amazing scenery on the way! Plus she gets to ride on immaculate Swiss trains! Tim and I were a little jealous when we said good-bye to her! We wish we could have gone with her.

Rugby comes to BFA!

Yesterday was our first ever rugby tournament at BFA. Our three guys dorms played against each other, and everyone miraculously survived without serious injury! I think that a new tradition has been born at our school! I expect that next fall we will see another rugby match!

Loyal cheerleaders! "MOM" stands for Men of Maugenhard. Maugenhard is the name of one of our guys' residences.


Men of Maugenhard




Maugenhard and their loyal fans.

My small group is back!

Last night my small group met for the first time this school year. Small groups don't actually start until next week but I didn't want to wait that long!
We had them for dinner and then had our first meeting. I am so glad to have them back and am looking forward to what God has for us this coming year.

Sunday afternoon in southern Germany

I took these pictures while on a bike ride on Sunday afternoon. I rode 27 kms and biked through 12 towns/villages. If I were biking the same distance where I come from in Canada, I would be lucky to encounter two 2 towns! It is very flat on the Canadian prairies, so biking in our corner of Germany, where it is very hilly, is a better work-out. It is also a little more scenic here in my opinion (sorry, Saskatchewan!) and that helps a great deal to make yet another hill more bearable!

Orchards and vineyards everywhere in our area!




I lived in this quaint village for six years.

I have done this particular bike route quite often but this past Sunday was the first time I ever saw the Swiss Alps (approximately 200 kms away) on the route. That is how clear it was!

Part of my route is on a ridge where I saw the Alps (Switzerland) on my left, the Alsace mountains (France) on my right! Amazing!

A 20 minute drive........

Basel is one of our favorite places to hang out and its very close to where we live! This past weekend Tim and I enjoyed spending several hours there, mostly sitting on a park bench on the Rhine and relaxing after a very busy first week of school!



There were a lot of people swimming in the river. If you want to go for a dip in the Rhine, you can rent these orange-colored airtight bags for putting your clothes in while you're swimming. Then after you are done your swim, you don't have to go back to where you started to collect your clothes!




The basilisk on this fountain is a legendary reptile that some cities such as Basel adopted as their guardian to ward off would-be invaders. You can find this peculiar creature in various locations throughout the city.

This little water taxi runs all day long and carries passengers from one side of the Rhine to the other. We decided to try it out! It was fun while it lasted - a total of maybe 5 minutes!