Church Christmas Fête

Soren was an angel and Kai a shepherd in the nativity program.  They both did a great job!  Jordan did a solo dance where she danced down the isle up to the stage and placed the "star" over the manger for the nativity.  She was graceful and beautiful!









Jordan and Sage sang "Jingle Bells" with their Young Women's group (Sage is in her "reindeer" attire and Jordan is in her dance attire!).

Père Noël asked all the little girls to "chante!" to get their gifts.  
Soren did as he asked and sang "Jingle Bells" in front of the congregation!
 

Jordan is holding the Stewart's baby girl.

Fête de l'Escalade

In 1602... the Duke of Savoy tried to plan a surprise attack on Geneva in the middle of the night and failed!  They tried to "scale" the walls.  The people of Geneva fought them in the night and defeated the Savoy intruders!  The story is that a woman still had a hot cauldron of stew over the fire when they attacked and she poured it on the Frenchman's heads!!!  This is why they have chocolate cauldron's for this celebration!

We started the night at Bastian's house in Geneva where we smashed the traditional chocolate cauldron.

 

Below are our "smashers".  Hosts, Bastian and Elodie, Soren and Kai

 

The tradition in Geneva is to say something like "long live Geneva!" and then smash the cauldron!  And, of course, eat the chocolate and the marzipan...which we did!  We said "Viva Geneva!"

Jordan and Harry

It was a beautiful night in Geneva!

Patchell Family

Stewart Family

The Heins and Bastian

Elodie's Little Sister

Kai and Soren got some real candle lit lanterns

CHRISTMAS TREE

This is how you take your tree home in the city....

put your four kids to work and walk!!!

Kids taking their tree home through "Saint-François" Lausanne

Up the stairs!

Taking the netting off (and who knows what Kai is doing!?)

Soren's creative shot of a good, healthy, Swiss tree!

Davis putting batteries into a little light pack

Notice, Sage got her cast off today!!!

Our "Playmobile" Nativity (Seriously, the only one I could find!)

Real Mistletoe (the Christmas tree guy made me kiss him three times on the cheek when I bought this!)

Our "Swissmas" Tree

Gingerbread Cookies!  Our tree smells so good with the pine and gingerbread!

Chocolate Ornament

Loveland's Visit to Switzerland

Our good friends, Jim and Laurie Loveland, flew in from Utah last Saturday for a couple of days layover in between business meetings in London and Amsterdam and before their final destination, Paris.  We were so excited to be on their European itinerary!!!

#2 LUC vs #1 TV Schönenwerd

Their first stop after their arrival at Geneva International Airport was Shawn's volleyball match.  Number 2 ranked LUC played TV Schönenwerd, the number 1 ranked team in our league.  Our guys played great in game 1 and 2, but couldn't pull out a win to take the number one spot!  DRATS! 

If you have a bad game, you go get delicious crêpes!  "Crêperie la Chandeleur" is a darling, little Crêperie in the old part of Lausanne with cobblestone streets.  You approach the restaurant from the dark, wet, cold night and are greeted with the warm, soft glow of French windows and enter the cozy restaurant with the aroma of tantalizing food!  We started with savory crepes of spinach, bacon, cheese, salmon, apples, eggs (not all on the same crêpe!) and finished with ice-cream topped flambéd, hazelnut, pear, etc. crêpes that were a great finale!

We took the Lovelands to church

A nice Sunday drive to visit the FIVB (Federation of International Volleyball) Headquarters in Lausanne