The Dyrud's Great Adventure

Today was Justice's 1st birthday! Even though we celebrated early in San Diego before we left, he still got lots of cards from grandparents and great-grandparents (as well as phone calls and singing and hugs and kisses). He also received some "Cars" sweats from Grandpa and Nana Pharr. When we got to his babysitters house this morning, they had a birthday hat (Bonne Fete is how you say "Happy Birthday" in French) and a little cake for Justice and streamers all over the house :) He enjoyed smearing the frosting everywhere and squishing the cake between his hands. We'll try and get the pictures that Dave and Brenda took and we'll post them another time. We are enjoying the fall weather here and we're looking forward to our first class field trip to an apple orchard on Friday.

We found a beautiful park about half an hour from our apartment in Sherbrooke. It had a little bit of everything from woods to a lake. For those of us from Southern California, we don't get to see the leaves change with the seasons. We had a wonderful afternoon enjoying God's creation before the snow comes :) This is our third full week of class and we are conjugating verbs and starting to make our own sentences; at least we get to practice in class before we go to the grocery store and the checker doesn't understand what we're trying to say :) At least most people here speak English and they have all been helpful once they understand that we are students who are trying to learn French. The school here is called Parole de vie Bethel, which means Word of Life Bethel. It is a Word of Life school that has a French Bible School and a French Language School on the same campus. One of the neat things that the school does is to pair a Bible School student with a Language Sc...

Justice is very excited that the Chargers won the game yesterday! Go Chargers! Well, I (Tammi) have been in bed since Thursday with strep throat, but I'm on antibiotics and I'm feeling much better, so I thought I would send out an update. The fall is coming and going here in Sherbrooke. The leaves are changing and many are already falling off the trees. We just finished two weeks of phonetics in class and now we are starting to learn about the definite and indefinite articles. Today, while we were in class, Brenda and Tabitha took Justice to an apple orchard. They said he had a wonderful time and he even came back with a pumpkin :) I was expecting him to come home with an apple...... Justice has made many new friends here and these friends are giving him all kinds of toys. Today he added Jeffery the Toys-R-Us Giraffe and a toy tractor to his very full toy basket. It is certainly a blessing to have wonderful friends here while we are away from family and friends back home. Cli...

This is Fran Derocher . He is the Regional Director of Africa for MAF -US. He was in the States for some meetings, so he came up to Sherbrooke for a day to visit us and the two other MAF families who are here learning French before we all head to Africa :) This was Justice before Daddy cut his hair....... This is Justice after Daddy cut his hair..... he doesn't look like a little boy anymore :( We had Labor Day off from school so we took Justice for a walk and found a nice little flower/vegetable garden. Justice enjoyed looking at tall, yellow sunflowers, red tomatoes, orange pumpkins and tall stalks of corn :) Here is a link to a video that we took to show you our new apartment. It's about 2 min and 30 sec. Hope you enjoy :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LztMiQnQK1w

Hello family and friends. We wanted to make you aware of a new program that we are now a part of. Attention Internet Shoppers: We are now listed at www.SendThemForHim.com where you can do your routine online purchasing and we will receive a donation for each purchase toward our ministry support. They have over 600 major merchants like eBay, Priceline, Office Depot, Walmart, Target, Amazon, ToysRUs, Dick's Sporting Goods, Bass Pro Shops, Blockbuster, Overstock, Petco, Circuit City, Cabela's, Staples, Expedia, Kohls, iTunes and many more. Just start any online shopping at this website and shop as usual, book travel, order services, etc. directly from the merchant websites. There is no markup and they do not ask you for any personal information. Just about anything you can buy on the internet, we can receive a donation. This is a year-round opportunity to support our ministry for free and you don't have to pay or do anything extra. Next time you need to make a purchase or boo...

This is the new, beardless Rodney. The school requires that men not have beards and Rodney tried a moustache, but he looks like a British Captain from WW II so he's better clean shaven if he can't have a beard. This was Rodney as I have known him for the last 5 years at least (with a nice full beard) This is one of my (Tammi) favorite pictures of Justice :) Bonjour. Comment ce va (how are you)? We are doing fine up here in Sherbrooke. Learning French is very exhausting, but our instructor is wonderful and he is still speaking to us in English sometimes, so that's helpful :) Today we received the shipment that had been mailed up to us from the US, so our house is complete. It's amazing how the arrival of a few pictures and some kitchen items can make it feel like Christmas. We are still learning our way around town and getting used to some of the differences between Quebec and the US. For example, it is against the law to spank your children and milk is sold in bags i...

Meet David, Brenda and Tabitha Marsh. David is a language school student and a Registered Nurse. Their family will be going to the Congo Republic with Global Outreach in January of 2010, but for now, Brenda will be babysitting Justice while Rodney and I are in class. Here is Justice hiding in one of the cupboards that hasn't been filled with stuff yet :) This is Justice enjoying his new room and toy bin. Just being a cute, exploring boy :) We arrived in Sherbrooke, Quebec on Monday afternoon and we've spent the week getting our apartment set up before we start school next Wednesday. I've included a link to a video of Justice walking in our apartment (I guess he decided to walk after sitting in his car seat for 8 days) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zCHx4M3XmM I can't believe that he is already 11 months old today and that next month he'll be 1 year old!