30th Anniversary

     My parents celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary this month! And not just thirty years, but thirty years of loving each other, sacrificing for each other, being an example to us kids, and teaching us through their lives and their instruction how to fear and love God. I am especially thankful for my parents this Thanksgiving!

Still as much in love as ever, and I hear even more so!

 

 

 

 

  The photo is a bit blurry, but that is a Chateauneuf-du-Pape from 1989! I hear it was exquisite.

A Huguenot Tradition - Advent Breakfast

The French are not big on breakfast. Often very light like a Croissant with coffee. However there are four breakfasts in the year which are exceptionally special. There is a Huguenot tradition in France of having a special advent breakfast that my father grew up with and then did with us, and that I am now continuing. It is often not a huge breakfast, mostly because we would otherwise be late for church, but it is always very special and unique. There are a few things that always accompany it, such as a tangerine with a candle stuck in it, as well as Papilottes (which we didn't have this time since you can't get them in the states. Papilottes are a Christmas-only chocolate that is wrapped in a foil with a joke inside and sometimes a little firecracker.)

Other than those, it varies from time to time. This morning we had eggs, toast, and breakfast sausage; a donut (with coconut on top), fruit cake, a slice of pound cake, a chocolate cigar, peanut butter cups, and hot cider (and of course the orange).

Here are a couple photos of our first advent breakfast:

A Happy Announcement - December 24th, 2007

Something happened exactly one month ago, on the Eve of Christmas, which I have not blogged about due to a rather full life. But, it is most certainly worthy of note. It all started about two in the afternoon, when my favorite person, a most beautiful, wonderful, godly, cheerful, delightful, pleasant, funny, cute, adorable, intelligent, classically educated, (and did I mention beautiful?) girl came over to spend "a few hours" with me. We went four-wheeling. It was below freezing, a bit windy. We four-wheelered right onto the top of the big "wheat dunes" (now tilled, frozen, and covered in snow). The day was absolutely magnificent. The sun was shining through the clouds in long bright rays towards the South, and Moscow Mountain was looking a blue-ish, grayish colour which made it look like it was a painting rather than real life, except for the vividness of the colours. The snow was wisping over the hills all around us.

After about an hour of that, we returned onto our land. I told Lydia that we could park on the flatter part, out near Mr. Merkles old truck, and take a walk. We arrived there and got off. We started walking in the direction of our house, and I commented to Lydia, "look at that rock, I don't remember that being there..." to the side of the path in front of us lay a large, 400 lb block of solid stone. We had been talking, quite "randomly," about how nice European houses were all made of stone, and how that was nice. "Now that's the kind of stone I want for the cornerstone of my house one day," I told Lydia, trying to sound off-hand. We walked towards it, and I stopped in front of it. I was fumbling with something in my pocket. Then Lydia let go of my arm, and went and looked on the other side of the stone. She had her back to me as she did this. On the other side of the stone was written "The Cornerstone of the Future home of Daniel and Lydia Foucachon - December 2007 - Psalm 128." She looked at it a bit, and turned around. I was on one knee, and was holding a ring. She said yes!

We were out there probably about an hour, and it was really cold! But I had a provision for this. Sitting on the edge of our land, in all its glory, sat The Indefatigable, Mr. Merkles old Ford 72 pickup truck. In the truck were blankets, two candles, my camera (had to have some pictures), and hot chocolate, which we completely forgot about.

After spending some time getting warmer in the truck, we headed back in the four-wheeler. My parents were waiting for us, so we got our first round of congratulations which, thanks to Valerie filming, was filmed. It has now been a month, and a wonderful month it has been! I didn't think it possible, but I love Lydia more every day! Sorry guys, the best is taken...

Bordeaux

We just got back from Bordeaux. The ride down was gorgeous! It's amazing how much variety there is in the French countryside within so short a distance. It's kind of like all the different landscapes you have in the U.S. packed into the size of Texas. We really saw this phenomena going down to Bordeaux. The countryside is very rocky, and reminds me of pictures I've seen of Scotland. They raise a lot of sheep, and make Roquefort cheese with the milk. Roquefort and this other kind of cheese that was really good (but I forget the name), are their two specialty cheeses. Both are made from sheeps' milk. I feel tempted to go on about the cheese after reading the latest Credenda Agenda (great magazine by the way), but I guess I will stop here. :)


We arrived in Bordeaux and stayed with my Uncle and his family. My father and my uncle have several things in common besides having the same last name. They are both pastors, they both married an American wife (and speak English as well), and they are both church planters in France:) The big outing we did was to go to the "Dune du Pyla", the highest sand dune in Europe. It is 117 meters high, and is composed of soft, white, fine sand. We had a ball running up, and it was even more fun running down! On the way up, you basically had to take two steps to go the length of one real step. It was a wierd feeling! The view of the Atlantic ocean from the top was amazing, even though it was somewhat hazy. Coming down that dune was of course the most fun! It felt as though you where running down the side of a cloud, if that makes any sense.


We went on another outing as well; we drove to St. Emilion. St. Emilion is a cute, picturesque, very old town with impresive architecture. We arrived a little late in the day, but still had time to go to one of the wine shops, and taste some of their wines, and but a couple bottles. In an earlier post, I mentioned Haut Brion wine. Well, I saw the real Chateau Haut Brion wines here. The prices ranged from 350 euros (year 2000) to 1448 Euros (1961) There was also the real Chateau Margaux, year 2000 selling at 490 Euros. You wouldn't want to spill a glass of one of these wines!

A Big Surprise!

About three weeks ago we received in the mail an enigmatic letter signed "Notre Guide Mystérieux" (Our Mysterious Guide.) It was a coded message, with the instructions to send it back decrypted via email. The decoded message turned out to be an hour: 9 o'clock. Soon after replying with the answer, we received another letter. The answer to this one was a date: 11/11. After sending the response to this one, we once again received a letter, this time the answer being a place. So we now know the that this "guide mystérieux" wanted us in "Ternand," at 9 o'clock, on November 11^th.

We were clueless as to who it might be! The letter had all been in well written French, containing references to the Bible, and obviously very thought through! It took us a long time to decipher some of the messages. One part of the enigma translates well into English: It went, "I am a north-African fruit, that grows in clusters, and without seeds". The answer was a date! That's how we knew it was talking about the date of the event. We were understanding the messages, but were still clueless as to who it might be. I tried tracing the email address, but all I got was that they lived in Lyon, and used Wanadoo.fr as their ISP (The IP address led me to their mail server instead of their computer).

The day arrived, and we were a bit nervous. From something the last letter said, we suspected that it was some friends to who's house we were going to that afternoon.
We arrived at the place designated, a restaurant out in the middle of the beautiful Beaujolais region, and a man came out to us. We showed him the paper, and he said. "hmmmmm, yep, this is the place" (In French of course). He brought us inside where we found a table set for 21! Now we were completely baffled!

Daddy started wondering if it was one of those sales techniques where they get a bunch of people together, and try to sell you some kind of time-sharing condo! Then we heard a whole bunch of honking as a whole bunch of cars arrived. It turned out that Alex was our "guide mystérieux", and that it was the whole church organizing this as a goodbye and thank you party to our family! Daddy had turned the church over to Alex about a month before, so this was their goodbye to him as a pastor, also to our whole family as we will be moving to Moscow, Idaho.
It was not only a breakfast! It was-in French fashion-an all day event! They even cancelled our appointment with some friends we were going to visit that afternoon. We were completely surpised that it was they! We never dreamed it would be Alex or the church sending us these messages! After breakfast, we visited a chateau, and then went on to a Beaujolais winery, tasting some of last years "Beaujolais Nouveau," and getting to see how they make the wine! Following this, we had a long French style lunch with many courses that lasted until until 5 p.m.! By that time it was getting dark, and we finished the day by going to the medieval city of Ternand and looking at the view. Ternand is a historically catholic town. During the Huguenots Wars of the 16^th century, Ternand was attacked and defeated by Huguenots forces!