Visitors and vistings

For the new year's holiday my grandmother, my cousin Sarah and her fiancee came to visit and  were able to help out with the german youth group that celebrated  New Years at the chateau. Though, we were all rather disappointed that all the Germans  spoke english as we were all rather hoping to be able to use our 20 words of German... thoughI'm not sure how we would fit weinerschnitzel( a veal sausage( and washbeken( a sink) in the same sentence.

Here is my Grandma, my cousin and her fiancee at a castle called Brancion.

This week for 3 days straight we had very blatent  visits from good old Jack Frost. Everything was covered from grass  to tree branches to walls, all covered with frost that never melted. It was enjoyable as it looked like snow outside.

I walked around the village one morning and here was a barb wire fence with a few added icy spikes.

Cooking and Christmas

Suday was the chateau's open house. We had a fairly good turn out with forty-some people and 16 of those from the village. It was fun to see how many turned out and stayed through the end for our program with singing and the telling of the christmas story. It was a neat time to deepen relationships with friends from the church and the community.

This is the gingerbread house that our team made and decorated as a sample from which the kids could get ideas.

Here is the mass of kids and parents making gingerbread houses and going crazy with candy and frosting. 

Today I went to a guy from our churchs home to learn how to make christmas meat terrines. Here I am as we were assembling the terrines.

This is Michel the cook from whom I learned to make the terrines and hopefully I will be cooking with him again in the future.

Close to caroling

Sadly I miss the joy of christmas caroling at this time of year as that is not an accepted tradition here but I did enjoy singing in our churches choir at our christmas service this Sunday.

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