Prayer

Please pray for my brother's friend Brooke.  She is young and she just lost her mother.  This was unexpected.  Thank you for your prayers.

Kings' Cake!

I recently received an email from a friend that commented how funny it is that we are always homesick for the place where we are not currently living!

In France we often made homemade salsa and other American and Tex-Mex things. In Texas, we find ourselves making French food and celebrating French holidays!

January 6th is Epiphany. Traditionally, it is the day when the Three Wise Men met the baby Jesus. On the 6th (or the Sunday after) many families in France celebrate this holiday by eating cake! (What better was is there to celebrate anything than by eating cake!) A tiny charm (or prize or "feve") is hidden somewhere in the cake. Whoever gets the charm ends up being the King! And, no king is truly a king without a paper crown, right?!

The smallest kiddo gets under the table and picks who gets which slice of cake!

We looked for a Kings' Cake at all bakeries around here. We found plenty of "New Orleans" style Kings' Cakes. They are beautiful and colorful, and I'm sure they taste great. But, nothing compares with the flakey, French almond-goo filled Kings' Cakes. They are just SO good!

We ended up making the cake ourselves.

It was good. But, we were a little homesick for our little bakery on Rue Paradis in Marseille. But, don't worry about us, we made ourselves less homesick by eating good ol' Tex-Mex chips and salsa later!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

I know that many people may disagree, but I think that New Year’s Eve is perhaps one of the most overrated days of the year.

HOWEVER, I have always thought that New Year’s DAY was a day full of potential. Even if I didn’t have any resolutions, I always sort of thought of January 1st as a day of new beginnings.

This morning I woke up thinking “Happy New Year”! But, then I thought that God gives us this
sense of renewal EVERY DAY if we want it!

Because of the LORD’s
great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
~Lamentations 3:22-23

What amazing verses.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Ode to Box Cake

This past Saturday was Claire’s Birthday. Because it was vacation and everyone was gone we had a family birthday party. (Don’t worry we will have one with her friends soon.) So we have some box cakes that we needed to eat. You know the kind, Betty Crocker box cakes you can get at any grocery store in the States. They do not have those here. They have something like it but the taste really bad. So we used one of our box cakes for the family party. It was soooooo good. There are things that you know you miss when you live over seas and then there are the things that sneak up on you and you say “WOW! I forgot about this.” I will have to stop here and say that my wife is a top chef and has been able to make cakes from scratch that I would put up against anyone’s. But this is different. It is the taste and the texture that reminds you of home; back when you were a little kid. There is just something about that box mix that tastes different. This is not a plea to send more because goodness knows I do not need to eat any more cake. This is just a rambling thought from someone who does not get box cake very often.

New French Adventure

I (Tiffany) have decided that I need to embark on a new French learning adventure.

Strangely enough, I have participated in several conversations recently where I did not have a CLUE what to say! The problem wasn't the French language... The problem was that everyone was quoting French philosophers in otherwise perfectly normal conversations! (I suppose that quoting philosophers IS perfectly normal here...)

So, instead of trying to translate what I know of French philosophy from English into French, I am going to start actually reading these guys in FRENCH! I came to the conclusion that it was necessary when I had no clue how to say Pascal's wager in French. I was afraid it would come out like someone trying to translate the old Patrick Henry quote, "Give me liberty or give me death." I would NOT think of Patrick Henry if a French friend were to talk about "that guy during the revolution that said he would prefer to die than to live a life without freedom under British rule."

So, I am starting the great French Philosophy adventure with Pascal's Pensees! We will see how long I last!

Baseball ??

One of the funniest things happened the other day at the baseball game. If you listen closely you can hear circus music playing in the background.

It is the bottom of the fourth (there are only five innings) with two outs. There is a runner on first. The pitcher winds up for the pitch and begins his throw. The runner takes off. (Note: the pitcher is ALREADY throwing the ball so the runner is off to a late start.) The catcher gets the ball and makes his throw to Second. The ball bounces three feet in front of the bag and goes past the second baseman. Then the ball goes by the short stop who was covering the throw. Now the ball is somewhere in center field. The runner continues on his way to third. (He can do this because he had no intention of sliding and came into second base in a full upright position.) He gets to third and sees that the ball is just now getting to the shortstop, who is in shallow center field, so he heads to home. The shortstop throws it to the pitcher (because home was too far away) then the pitcher makes his throw to the catcher. The catcher catches the ball and makes a beautiful sweeping tag at home plate. He stands up with pride like a Cat who just caught a mouse and starts walking the ball to the Pitcher. While he is strutting away, the runner (who was five feet from home plate when the catcher made his sweeping tag) crosses the plate and the Ump calls him safe.

Here is a video that could have been made about our team!

Let it Snow!

Since we are awaiting the arrival of Baby Boy Kilcoyne sometime within the next month, our holiday travel was greatly restricted. However, we WERE able to travel about 2 hours up the road from Marseille, and we found SNOW!

Here are some photos from our quick trip to the Alps.

Daniel had the hardest job!

Claire had it pretty easy!

Cheese!

The snow never stopped falling!

Frozen, but still having fun!