march 31, 2012

The CEP committee: the wonderful group of individuals who oversee the Château.

march 30, 2012

We took a bike ride with Paul and Bekah through the vineyards this afternoon; the vines are just beginning to bud out, and soon these fields will be brilliant, glowing green.

march 29, 2012

Jay returned home today---yay!!! Just in time to see the Château garden come alive with color---love this time of year so much!

march 28, 2012

I did something today that I've been wanting to do for quite a while and just haven't made the time: took a personal retreat. I went to a Christian center called Taizé, and spent the day enjoying their times of prayer, worship, and Bible study/discussion, and passed many hours alone outdoors in the mild spring sunshine, walking, reading, thinking, praying (& a bit of napping). So good.

march 27, 2012

I'm going to be making a wedding cake for a friend in June. Cakes are not something I've got tons of experience in...so I enlisted my friend, Patty, cake-maker extraordinaire, to give me a tutorial today. It turned out pretty tasty, didn't break into pieces, and stacked quite nicely...so I'm feeling a bit more confident for the big one.

march 26, 2012

First BBQ of the year!

march 25, 2012

Dessert at the Château today: chocolate cupcakes by Anna, decorated by Bekah, eaten by Debbie. We make a great team.

march 24, 2012

Aaahhhh...spring in Saint Albain.

march 23, 2012

Friday night fun in Saint Albain: pizza, puzzles, and Slumdog Millionaire. 

march 22, 2012

Out on a bike ride with Anna: signs protesting the threatened closure of a small village primary school.

march 21, 2012

A tiny treasure found in the garden while doing some spring tidying up...amazing that something so fragile survived out there all winter.

march 20, 2012

I've been spending my hours catching up on ironing Château linens and listening to The Hunger Games book 2 on my ipod. Honestly, this is one of my favorite Château chores...mostly because of the wonderful invention of audiobooks. And for the record, I'm rooting for Peeta!

march 19, 2012

Just me and Nadia left at home...Jay left for a week and a half in the States today. We're so lonely and blue without him here.

march 18, 2012

Anna made these incredible desserts: home-made toffee tuiles with caramel ice cream and rum-raisin caramel sauce. Scrumptious! 

march 17, 2012

One of the newly-finished rooms. Love it!

march 16, 2012

I love working/living here, where scenes like this are common...friends hanging out, talking, enjoying just being in this cool place.

march 15, 2012

Quite possibly my favorite photo of the year. 

march 14, 2012

 Love it when it's nice enough to hang laundry out on the line (especially when it's someone else who did the work!).

march 13, 2012

Today was the big day: the budding of our garden's first daffodils of 2012! 

march 12, 2012

We're starting off a big cooking stretch: it'll be great having three cooks in the kitchen! (If only we manage not to use up each others' ingredients! :) )

march 11, 2012

Our church jr. high youth group had a progressive dinner (3 courses in 3 different homes). This was the first course, and I just love how, even for jr. highers, the table is laid out beautifully, and decidedly "adult" food is served---here we were served a mushroom and smoked-salmon green salad. 

march 10, 2012

Bekah snapped this out the window as we drove into town this morning to do the grocery shopping for the upcoming week of Château cooking. It's so nice being up this early, I'm almost tempted to do it more often. 

march 9, 2012

Our Château cooking crew for the next few months, working through the menu plan for the next week of meals. I'm looking forward to having these two take over and work their kitchen magic while I get to sit back and just be a helper for a while. 

march 8, 2012

The tile is finished, and walls are being painted...it's lookin' good!

march 7, 2012

Is there really anything as happy as a crocus? Well, I'll probably be thinking that about each flower that comes out all year...but as these are the first, they seem extra special.

march 6, 2012

Each year it's still so amazing to me to see the perennials budding up out of the dead sticks of last year's plants. Love those everyday miracles!

march 5, 2012

My desk...favorite black ink, felt balls, paint, erasers, smudging stick for charcoal, a finger-wipe packet from eating fish bread in Istanbul (it had a cool package so I saved it...unfortunately it's out of focus), and I'm not sure why there's an ear plug in with the erasers. There's a lot more junk and clutter just outside of this picture as I'm sure you can imagine...fun stuff I would like to make use of more often!

march 4, 2012

After 12 weeks of training, we ran the Paris half-marathon. My trusty old shoes served me well, and I reached my goal of actually running the whole way! I finished in 19,158th place! The race went by amazingly quickly, and was way easier than the training...adrenaline (and listening to The Hunger Games on one's ipod) will do that for you, I guess. I was surprised by how crowded it was the entire race; I had thought that after a few kilometers it would thin out, but we were weaving and dodging the entire time. There were around 25,000 participants, which I guess explains that! Jay ran slowly to stick with me, which was really nice, and we were able to stay together with our friends Paul and Bekah the whole way, too, despite the crowds. All in all, it was a great experience; it was actually a really cool thing to do all that (sometimes miserable) training together as a couple and accomplish a challenge, frivolous as it may have been. So will I do it again? Honestly, probably not...but for the main reason that it really didn't feel all that healthy on the ol' joints to do that much running. We'll just have to stick with water aerobics, I guess. 

march 3, 2012

Sherlock Holmes II --- in a theater, in English, with popcorn! 

march 2, 2012

In Paris for the half-marathon. I want to live right here!

wanna see more of Jay's beautiful pictures from this blustery day in Paris?

march 1, 2012

Our co-worker, Lise, had us over for a wonderful German meal (complete with some beautiful French cheeses!) to celebrate the arrival of our new intern. Welcome, Anna!