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!

Christmas Dinner

First of all, we need to apologize for the LONG break we have taken from doing this blog. It won't happen again. (Or, rather, we probably WILL take a long break again at some point, but I hope it won't be for months and months this time!)

Now, I have to talk about the amazing French meal we participated in on Christmas day. I say "participated in" because it was a lunch that lasted for about 5 hours! Thank you, Marjorie, for inviting us to spend a wonderful day with your family. It made it a little easier to be so far away from our own families on such a special holiday.

When we celebrate Thanksgiving here in France, we have to special order the turkeys in advance because turkeys are primarily for Christmas here. Well, we had an amazing, awesome turkey on Christmas. It was served with a type of stuffing that involved liver and nuts (sounds weird, but it was yummy). But, the turkey, potatoes, stuffing, green beans, etc. were the 2nd course!

The first course started with salmon mousse and foie gras (goose-liver pate). Once again, sounds very interesting, but was oh-so-good!

The third course was the cheese course. That was good, too!

Then, we had the traditional Christmas dessert. It is a bouche de Noel. It is like a Yule Log, but you eat it! So, just picture a long, skinny, fancy cake that is made to look like a log! We had a chocolate mousse and rasberry cake.

Here in the Provence region of France, there is another traditional dessert, so we had to eat that one, too! Actually, it is called the 13 Desserts, and if you eat all 13 of them, you are supposed to have good luck for the next year. The 13 Desserts is really just 13 smaller desserts that are served together (chocolate, special Christmas candies called Papillotes, nuts, dried fruit, etc.)

Well, I just wanted to share! Thanks for drooling-- I mean READING!

First Day of School!

In France, most children start pre-school at the age of 3 years old, even though school is not mandatory until the age of 6.

Claire was no exception... she started school when she was still a baby in my eyes! But, now she is "all grown up" and in the equivalent of kindergarten. She loves it! We love the fact that she loves it!

These photos were all taken on her first day of "kindergarten"!

(Her Nana was here, so that made it extra special!)

They grow up so fast, don't they!?

Vacationing Close to Home

We had a wonderful vacation in Bavaria, Germany with some good friends and their two beautiful little girls. (Those pics will be posted soon!)

However, when we returned to Marseille, we realized that everyone else was still on vacation! Most of our French friends get 4 to 6 weeks vacation (at least) every year.

So, we decided we would take a little vacation here in Marseille. We drove 5 minutes down the road from our apartment, and we experienced Marseille like tourists!

Enjoy the pics!

What day at the beach is complete without Italian ice cream??!!

Building sandcastles is hard work!

Beautiful Marseille!

Scared of Twilight??

First of all, I have to admit that I have read all four books in the Twilight series. I usually like to read young adult literature in French (easy reading, but still good for vocab...blah, blah, blah), AND I was really curious about the big fuss being made over the books.

Last week I was reading an article in a French magazine about the release of the movie. (I was in a waiting room, so the magazines weren't exactly up-to-date!) The title was something like "Should We Be Scared of Twilight?" The article went on to say that the vampire themes were nothing that anyone should be concerned about.

What should we be scared of then?? According to this article, we should be scared of the fact that the books promote ABSTINENCE before marriage! Yep. The conclusion of the article states that Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon and she is trying to propagate her Mormon beliefs through her books. The fact that abstinence is a theme throughout the novels should frighten everyone! Once again, this is the view of the writer of the article. I am not typically scared of purity in the fiction that I read.

There are some things I will just never understand...

The Driving Test that Didn't Happen

France is a developed nation. I realize that.

I love France. I remember that.

BUT... I can't help thinking, "WHAT IN THE WORLD??" when I have a day like today.


I have been preparing to take my driving test for my French driver's license since November. France and Texas do not have interchangeable licenses. So, after months of waiting, I was finally scheduled to take the driving part of the test.

There are 39 "inspectors" in Marseille who can give the driving test. Well, only one of them was working today, and he was NOT the one that was supposed to give the exam to me.

Can you belive that? Marseille is the second largest city in France! There are over 1.6 million people here! And, they had ONE (1, un, uno) inspector giving the driving exam today. Just ONE!

We waited and waited and waited and waited. Finally, we realized that the inspector scheduled for us wasn't coming.

So, I will get to take my driving test eventually. But, I am not sure I will ever understand how things work here.

Deep Thoughts and Cute Photos

I am reading a book called Hearing God by Dallas Willard, and I finally get one little point that he makes in this sometimes-too-deep-for-me book. He says that with God, we attempt things that are impossible on our own. God allows us to "help" Him even when He could do it all by Himself so much faster and easier. But, He lets us take part in what He wants to accomplish in the world. It pleases God to partner with us.

God has to use visible, tangible, real-world examples to explain things to me. I only understand the "refiner's fire" because I watched my dad refine metals in our garage (long story). I understand the image of the vine and the branches and how the Gardener prunes the fruitful branches because I had a vineyard outside of my living room window for a year. And, I finally understand (in part) How God wants us to work with Him because I get to work with my little girl!

God's plans my be much bigger than making a really yummy chicken pot pie, but I still loved watching Claire attempt something with me that she could never dream to do on her own (at least not yet).

Nothing is impossible when we partner with God. And, He WANTS us to be his little helpers!

A Little Irony in France

In 1860, Louis Pasteur discovered germs. He created the first vaccine for rabies and he invented “Pasteurization”. What an accomplishment for the French! Here is the ironic part of Pasteur’s discoveries.

The best cheeses are still not pasteurized here in France. (In America, all cheeses must be pasteurized or they cannot be sold to the public.) But, these cheeses with all the bacteria really do have more flavor.

Raw and undercooked meats are found in the best restaurants in France. Have you ever tried raw ham with butter?

And, the reason that I am writing this post…

Claire had to go to the restroom before we left school last week. I peeked around the corner while she was washing her hands. I looked just in time to see her take a drink out of a little blue cup in the restroom. Her response when I told her that we don’t drink out of cups in public restrooms? “That’s what the cup is for. All the kids drink out of it.”

Berk! (French for “yuck”!) Talk about germs!

I was so horrified I took a picture with my camera phone!

Change of Post

I was going to post something silly about a challenging French language experience. I was going to attempt to write a halfway humourous post about life here in France. But, all I can think of right now are my friends Bryan and Olivia Brigham. They were almost able to adopt a baby girl 2 weeks ago, but she was taken back by the birth parents hours later. http://bryanbrigham.blogspot.com/

Spoiled in Marseille

I used to laugh when I heard someone from Marseille talk about how "bad" the weather was just because of a few clouds in the sky... I used to think it was silly that I could talk to 10-20 different people at different times during a day and just have ONE conversation--- how horribly unlucky we were that the weather wasn't cooperating... I never understood why people felt like the weather was something that could make decisions and conspire against you...

And, then I went to Basel, Switzerland for a conference. I was so cold that I had to get a new scarf and gloves! It was cloudy most of the time, and it was drizzly. There was actual drizzle coming out of the sky and nobody else was using their umbrellas! Why? Because they thought that it wasn't really raining! What? There was water coming out of the sky... that's rain!


On one of the mostly cloudy, freezing cold days during my trip, people were talking about how "good" the weather was. That is when I realized that sunny Marseille has spoiled me!


Then, when I came back to should-be-sunny-all-of-the-time Marseille, it was raining! It rained for 2 weeks! I found myself complaining about the weather and acting as if it were conspiring against me...


SO, when it finally got sunny, Claire and I spent ALL DAY LONG at a big park in town. We had a picnic, she rode a pony, we played, and we talked about how great the weather was!


Enjoy the pics!

Photos (First Day of School: the Sequel)

Claire started her second year of school a couple of weeks ago. She is having a wonderful time! She is playing with old friends and making new ones. Praise God, she is doing great!

Here are some pics of her first day of school, the second year:

A Tour of Scotland

Earlier this month, we took a brief trip to Scotland. It was wonderful. There are so many things I want to share, but I am going to follow the lead of a friend of mine and tell the story through photos. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? So, enjoy 10,000 words or so on why Scotland was one of the best vacations ever!

We camped (IN A TENT!) across Scotland!

But, look where we were!

And look at the views!

The Highland Games were a highlight!

We looked for Nessie (on our boat tour of Loch Ness)

But we only found this:

The Castles were all beautiful!

But, our American food fix was almost as amazing!

Kilcoyne Family at Edinburgh Castle 2008!