Jade, our French Canadian exchange student, made a local dish last night for us.  The dish is called Poutine.  This is a Quebec fast-food consisting of french fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy.

Toby made some burgers to accompany this delicacy.  It was a yummy dinner.

Toby and I have just completed the 14-week Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University at Ventura Baptist Church.  We really benefitted from this class in many ways.  We have begun a process of paying off our current debt, avoiding future debt, and saving for the future.  Many people helped us, many time, to take this class, most prominent were the people who watched our kids on Sunday nights during the class.

While this class was nominally presented from a Christian world-view, the lessons focused mostly on the philosophy of avoiding debt and saving for the the future.  One of the changes in our thought process that is required is delayed gratification.  This is very hard in America’s consumer driven culture.

In an effort to speed up our debt payoff, Toby and I have taken second jobs.  Our second jobs are hosting foreign exchange students for a local international language school.  We are currently hosting a French Canadian student and a Korean student.  This winter we have also hosted students from Japan and Holland.  Having 2 students is a bit like a second job, as we are expected to provide breakfast and dinner each day (and lunch on the weekends).  Toby prepares full dinners each night and I clean up each day.  Toby laments the loss of throwing tacquitos and quesadillas at the kids as we rush from baseball to Awana to dance class to Cub Scouts.  But the effort is worth it as we work towards financial peace.

For my 38th birthday, Poppa made me a Bacon Explosion:  bacon crumbles inside a layer of sausage, rolled up inside a bacon weave, smothered in bar-be-que sauce and smoked to perfection.

Toby followed up with peanut butter brownies : brownies layered with marshmallow sauce and topped with a chocolate peanut butter, rice krispy concoction,

Goodness.

From the Coast View News, Carpinteria California.  Volume 17, No. 28 : 14-20 April 2011, p. 7.

Can you see the Royal Resemblance?

Toby Theule (Carp local and wedding planner) and Lucy Theule (a homeschooled 1st grader) are looking forward to the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.  Toby’s great-grandmother was Lucille Middleton Loback.  Their family historian traced their Middleton line all the way back, and they are distant cousins of Catherine Middleton.  When the future king and queen have a child, then Toby and Lucy will be officially blood-related to a member of the royal family.  "Somehow, I still don’t think we will get an invitation to the wedding!" Toby joked.