Spring is coming

The cherry trees are beginning to bloom and spring is coming, about time too!

At the beginning of the month Becky Johnson came for a visit and we had a lot of fun between the business of all the comings and goings going on these days.

Yesterday our team celebrated Saint Patricks day with a little team party and and irish/green dinner.

I strained my back a few weeks  ago and so I have been taking it easy,  as such I have been delegated to catching up on the last weeks laundry, which has been rather enjoyable thanks with all the sunny spring weather... well that's where I've been I didn't fall of the face of the earth yet.

Licence to bake and drive

This past weekend was another artistic day at the chateau, in the afternoon I lead a chocolate chip cookie making workshop with 8 participates it went well and everyone was very happy to take home a plate of cookies to enjoy.

My favorite thing is watching the kids paint they have so much intensity and imagination.

I was ecxited as well as I recieved in the mail today, my french drivers licence. Hurray I can now drive legally.

Too many cooks, and we didn't spoil the soup!

Saterday was the cooking workshop lead by Michele from our church. I helped him with the cooking part and others did the decorating and coordinating. Here is Michele as he was instucting the days youngest participants in how to scale, skin, and slice the salmon.

Here is the vegetable peelers getting started on all the peeling there was to do.
Here is Deborah, one of the girls skinning the fish.
Here are the ladies preparing the salmon verrines.
Here are the girls and I as we spent 2 hours mincing 10 pounds of shallots.
Here is Michele as he was teaching how to make crepe thin omlettes.
And then there was dinner...
Here is the verrines all finished.
And this is where I spent dinner time with Michele preparing the each of the 10 courses. It ended up being a wonderful time of conecting unsaved people with people from the church. Our total attendance was 27 for the dinner and we are hoping to be able to do something like this again so as to continue to have opportunites to bring the new people into the chateau.

Weekend in Lyon

This weekend as we had no group I was able to go down to Lyon for the weekend and was able to stay with Marion, the lady I lived with last year and help her as our small group was having their "christmas" party. It was fun to see everyone.

A part of the eveing was a gift exchange.

The kids were little angels amusing themsleves with toys and movies as the adults ate and talked for over 4 hours.

A midwinters night dream

Here is our current team here at the chateau, Debbie, Jay and Michael( who is here for a few weeks working on various prpjects) as we enjoyed the 50 degree weather with a BBQ.

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.