Picnic Potluck

Today's picnic potluck went REALLY well! It was a combined potluck at the Hendrix house with the Eglise du Christ and the Eglise Chretienne in Lyon. Everyone got along really well and it was so neat to meet members from their church. Each member brought a dish from their home country, so there was food from all over the world. A few pictures are below... a link to the web album is at the bottom of the post.

Group picture:

bread!

Click below to see slideshow:

Potluck Picnic

our address...

in case you were all wondering, as of Monday, our address will be:

Doug et Elizabeth WILLIAMS

160, rue Cuvier

69006 Lyon

FRANCE

You can see it here... it is above the coiffeur.

Our Alpine Adventure

So in words of Monk, here's what happened...

Wednesday afternoon Arlin, Doug and I took a train to Geneva. Doyle Kee picked us up and we had supper and spent the night with the Kees. Thursday morning we got up early, Doyle picked up a couple other members from the Geneva church, and we rode in the church van 3 hours to the base of the mountain, where we met the others. The team was composed of 3 from Belgium (Peter, Paul, and Larry), 5 from Geneva (Doyle, Nelly, Gordana, Jean, and Philippe), 3 from Lausanne (Brady, Stephanie, and Larry), and the 3 of us from Lyon (Arlin, Doug, me). The destination was Les Becs de Bosson, elevation 3,000 meters.

When we were parking, men were bringing cows down the mountain for winter.

This is us as we were first starting out.

Still at the beginning of the hike...
After an hour, we stopped for lunch.
Starting back up again...
Beautiful views!

Doug after lunch

Doug has GREAT pictures!
a little further up...
Almost there... only 5 minutes further...
I didn't take any pictures when we arrived at the cabin, but this picture was taken at sunset. At this cross is 3000 meters.

Mary and sunset at Les Becs de Bosson.

Doug at dawn
Beautiful sunrise
The toilets (not my favorite part of the adventure)
The gardien de la cabane

view of the cabin as we were leaving

On the way back, we could choose the low, easy route, or the more challenging high route... we picked the high route. This peak was 3026 meters.
On the way back down, we somehow got off the marked trail... this is while we were waiting for the veteran hikers in the group to decipher the map.
When we returned to Geneva, we had nearly 2 hours before our train departed, so we walked from the train station to the Reformation Wall, located inside the gardens of the University of Geneva. Doug was ECSTATIC! That was on the list of things to see.

The Lord's Prayer in Old French

The big 4... Calvin on the left. The wall was constructed in 1909 to mark the 400th anniversary of John Calvin's birth.

Arlin showing Doug some of the figures in Reformation history
And that was our adventure!

Doug's pictures are MUCH better than mine... hopefully he'll upload his soon.

Today is a slower day... I am helping Pamela with baking, Doug is helping Arlin with yard work and setting up tables. Tomorrow is a joint potluck (at the Hendrixes' house!) with the Lyon church and a former Boston-movement church located in Lyon. This is the first joint fellowship they have had. Hopefully it will go well!

Back from Suisse!

What an adventure we had! The hike was amazing! We are back in Lyon, a little sore, but doing great. Pictures and more details coming soon...

We even had a little extra time once we returned to Geneva and were able to see the Reformation Wall, which was one of Doug's to-do items for this year.

Arrived in Lyon!

(leaving the house in Nashville)

Well, after our long journey, we are finally here! We had a few bumps along the road (par exemple... airline lost 2 of our bags immediately after we checked them in and had to spend 30 minutes relocating them; water bottle spilled all over carry on bag; flight to Detroit was delayed; upon arrival in Detroit, we sat on the plane for 45 minutes for Northwest to get a jetway down to the plane; upon emerging from the jetway, we heard announcements for final boarding for the flight to Paris, so we sprinted a half mile with our bags to get to the gate; escalator was broken in Paris; we walked for 20 minutes to get to our gate in Paris; Doug was selected for a random bag check in Paris... ANYWAY, we are here now and that is what matters! It is so surreal to think that we are here... and here for so much longer this time. Tomorrow we leave for Geneva for our 2 day hiking trip!

By the way...

We love Air France. It just does not compare to other airlines. It was so nice to get on the plane after our little stressful situation in Detroit. We got on and there was peaceful music playing, we each had a tv, foot rest, adjustable head rest, etc. The food was great, we could help ourselves to drinks between meal services, etc.

Here are our suppers:

#27

Tomorrow is my birthday, but since it is also Labor Day, and also since it is the day we leave for la belle France, we have had a few birthday festivities this weekend.

First was supper at Nana's house on Friday... Nana always decorates the table very nicely.

She even made a birthday cake!

Pretty napkins :)

Cousins

Dad and Jess

Mom and Lilly

Jessi shows Nana the "Laughing Baby" YouTube video.

Next was Saturday morning surprise date with Doug.

We went to the Pfunky Griddle and had lots of pfun eating pfancakes :)

Mmmm nonstick spray

expert pancake flipper

yum!

And last was dinner with Mom and Dad at the Mad Platter. DELICIOUS!

Tonight is Ethos... and a little more packing... then probably some more packing in the morning. We leave tomorrow afternoon!

Countdown

So we are down to the final countdown... 4 full days left. It is so hard to believe that we are that close! Packing has been easy for Doug but emotionally draining for me. We have been invited on a 2 day hiking trip with Arlin and others from Belgium, Switzerland, and France 2 days after we arrive, so we have been busy getting gear for that, too, thanks to help and advice from our more "outdoorsy" friends. We will probably have jetlag, but a 2 day hike in the Alps is probably going to be a once in a lifetime thing for us. I hope we get good pictures!