Lights in Lyon

Monday was the festival of lights in Lyon so our team decided to go to Lyon for the day and then stay to see some of the lights at night. Here is Maribeth and I visiting the Giraffes.

This is inside the courtyard of the Mayors office in Lyon .

Saint John's church was really neat  with constantly changing colored light projections exsentuating the buildings architecture.

Deciduous trees, Christmas trees and yule logs

These little pasteries called christmas logs, a yule log type idea were a delicious festive snack that  Maribeth and I to enjoy yesterday after putting up our christmas tree

Here is Maribeth and I in front of the christmas tree after we completed decorating it.

On a less fun note we continue to rake the leaves that never cease to fall from trees around the chateau. We are hoping that perhaps next week we will rake for the last time this year!

A thanksgiving to remember

Thanksgiving this year was an interesting event. The chateau team had thought it would be enjoyable to host Thanksgiving dinner for the missionary team at the chateau on thanksgiving day and so we started making all the arrangements. What is in the US the most simple detail, the turkey, here is the most difficult

 as they are not in the habit of celbrating Thanksgiving they are rather hard to find before mid-December. I inquired at several supermarkets and at our restaurant supply store all of which were unable to come up with a whole turkey. Apparently, it is simply to early to find them. So we came up with some alternatives to the turkey in the form of chickens and quails. Having been recenlty introduced to the delectable little birds I though it was a perfect opportunity to become better aquainted with them. Well better aquainted I became, too aquainted.Thanksgiving morning we girls gathered to begin preperation for the dinner that afternoon. We were responsible for the meat, stuffing, mashed potatoes and the afternoons appetizers as the rest of the dishes were divided up amoung the attendees. The preperations though turned into a larger project then we had predecited when we oped the quails and found them a bit too intact with heads and most of their vital organs, not quite what I was hoping for. Well I am proud to say that I was not too faint of heart to try my hand at buchering, and in fact these rather distasteful jobs were completely done by the female part of the team. We like to think that we had a more traditional thanksgiving experience as the pilgrim women didn't get their game from the grocery store in its tidy packaging with all the work done but the stuffing.
Well that made things slower but we still got everything ready for the 3 o'clock arrival of our guests for

 appetizers and the dinner at 5. We were 18 for dinner which was a nice number for not feeling like we were without family but it didn't make too many quails eithor.
After dinner we had a special treat. Maribeth made a pinata for the kids and they had fun whacking at the paper turkey and the adults had fun watching as the kids would stop the hitting after each time candy fell.
It was a great thanksgiving with much to give thanks for,the friends, the fellowships, and especially the fact that hopefully that is the last time I have to gut a bird on thankgiving day!

Here is me doing the dirty deed of head removal on the quails

Our missionary family gathered around the table.

Here is part of the pre-meal spread of snacks in the Chateau's petite salon with a warm roaring fire.

Here is Addy Burgess going at the turkey pinata.

Here is the table set for everything

Here was the only turkey we found

How great's thine art?

Today we hosted an art day with various workshops in various artisic areas. Above is the home decoration workshop where they made wall decorations.

Debbie headed up the Jewelry making workshop and she had a good group of ladies.
Here are some of the ladies finished products and in the background are some pieces done in the art workshop.

Here is debbie with her ladies making necklaces.

The kids had an art workshop too where they did lots of painting and other cool projects.
Here is one of the projects that the kids made too paper mache animals that they made around ballons.

Here is me doing my cafeteria lady impression as we did lunches on platters for today's group

Don't keep reading if you are hungry

So for the last 5 days we have had a the eurpean CEF leadership meetings at the chateau and so it was 5 days in the kitchen for me. I had fun trying new recipes. The above photo is the the ingriedents for a salad with walnuts and goats cheese.

Here are our renown choclate tarts delicatly embelished by Debbie our food stylist.

Delicious Chestnut cake which lived up to it's name.

Here is the chestnut cake after it was properly embellished and ready to be eaten.

Last week our team had a pumkin carving party and here are our final creation: Jay and Debbie's on the right. Mine and Maribeth on the left.

As things fall

It is begining to look a lot like fall, the vines on the chateau are all beautuiful in red and are slowly starting to fall.
The trees however are sheding their leaves far too fast and we wish they would slow down a little. Yesterday the 4 of us on the team spent the 4 hours raking and still didn't finish everything. The only nice thing about the leaves is we throw them over a tall wall that soon becomes back filled with leaves which are fun to jump in and slide down. It is also a nice place to take a nap as Maribeth and I have found.

My job the last 2 days has been uphosting the new chateau vans panneling as there was none when we purchased it. I now have a lot of experince but little desire to do it again as it is a pain in the neck to take down and put in the panneling.

Autumn here brings us many foggy mornings which gives one a whole new perspective on ones surroundings.

"Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God."

Operation lend a hand

We had a workday at the chateau with the churches to get some projects done around the chateau. One of the projects we got done was tearing down a little house that held all the trash cans, which we have now replaced with big trash cans.
Here are our leaf carriers taking a break enjoying the view of the valley before getting rid of more leaves.

The leaf bearers in action.

Here are some of the rakers in action, we held off on raking the last few weeks so we had plenty to collect.