Mario Andretti, MacGyver, Ballin' in Holland

Happy Labor Day, friends :] It looks like you all are going to have nice weather today; enjoy it!

Let's have a recap of the weekend...

Friday, we went back to Colruyt to get some groceries.  I think Fridays here are like Sundays in the US (I'm guessing since stores are all closed Sunday).  But that place was PACKED!  I only took a couple pictures because I didn't want people to think I was creeping on them and then I not have a way to explain why I was snapping photos.

Here's the outside.  So interesting, huh?

Sorry this is blurry; I tried to take a picture of him without him knowing (he doesn't like pictures) but he turned right when I took it! Anyways, this is the "cold room" as I call it. This is where lunch meat, cheeses, fruit, and various things that need refrigerated are kept.  Milk, however, is NOT kept in here...still the dirty ole shelf milk at this store :(

This is inside the cold room.  I think I need to bring blankets when I go to the store; I never want to hang out there too long but I always need a good amount of food from it!

This leads me to a semi-embarrassing but easily made mistake.  Tyrel thinks it's hilarious and has teased me a lot for it.  I like to compare prices and food when I shop, but this cold room really makes it hard since I'm shivering and wanting to get the heck out of there.  So Ty and I were in there and I was planning on making homemade pizza, pasta (of course), and other cheesy delicious things for dinner this week.  Well they mark things weird over here; a lot of things are sold by weight or single units so the price you see on the tag by the food may not be what the whole quantity costs.  So I'm looking for cheese and I see a big bag and for a good price.  I was pretty excited.  So we check out and our bill is a little more than we anticipated;  I figured it was from all the candy Ty got ;] I was looking at our receipt yesterday and saw something almost as expensive as the chicken we bought...so I'm deciphering the french and figured out it was that stinkin' cheese.  What I thought was like a 2 euro bag of cheese ended up almost 10 euros! In case you didn't know, that's about $14!!!!!!! Yeah...I accidentally bought an expensive bag of cheese (and it wasn't even the kind I wanted).  But, in my defense, it IS a huge bag of cheese (1 kilo) and will last us a while (hopefully).  So Ty was making fun of me and singing The 12 Days of Christmas and played the words out as "on the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a 300 euro bag of cheese".  He's so sweet :] So incase you ever go to a european grocery store, beware! haha

On Saturday, Ty had his first pre-season game in Holland.  They call them "friendly games" or something like that.  They will probably bus everywhere since most of their games are close and the actual season games are all in Belgium.  Ty said they take a charter bus; I think he needs to get a picture of it for us.  I wasn't able to attend the game so I'm sorry I can't give you a ton of details.  Ty said they won by about 20 and he had something like 10 points.  I guess there are weird rules like only the coach can call a time-out and it can only be called when on defense or something? Not too sure....I might have to look into that one a little bit more.  They didn't have very many guys to play because of recent injuries and such, so hopefully they can get it all together for this weekend.  They have a tournament of some sort and will have a game on Saturday and Sunday in Liege, which is not that far away at all.  Also, we acquired a new player Friday.  Does anyone remember Mike Singletary from Texas Tech?  He's going to be one of our new bigs.  The first time I saw Mike was when Tyrel played in the Global Games in Texas after his senior year of high school.  So hello, again, Mike!  I'm excited to see how the season pans out and see Tyrel back in action :]

Sunday, we just sort of hung around.  Ty didn't go to sleep until 3 Saturday night because it took him a while to wind down after the game.  I was asleep long before that :]  It stormed a lot and was a misty, windy day Sunday.  We drove around a little and ended up in the parking lot of the outlet mall here.  There isn't a whole lot going on there since only about 4 stores are still open.  Ty decided it was time for my first driving lesson with our car! I was nervous, but it wasn't so bad.  If only I could always just drive around parking lots and not real roads with other cars and distractions.  I killed it the first few times I was trying to get going, but Ty is really patient and a good teacher.  I finally got the hang of it a little bit, but I'm definitely not ready for the roads here!  Like I said, people drive like maniacs.  There's also this rule Ty explained to me called "priority".  This means that cars coming from a road on the right side have priority to go before you, even if you're on a main road.  For example, if I'm driving (most likely it will be Ty) and we're on a main road, we have to slow down and check if a car is coming if there is a road on the right side intersecting.  Does that make any sense?  Well I think it is a crazy rule and probably leads to more accidents than needed.  This is just one more thing I'd have to worry about along with 3 foot pedals and a shifter!  But we won't be doing a whole lot of driving around here.  You know how we complain about gas prices in the states?  We have no right to.  Gas here is sold in liters instead of gallons like it is at home.  There are about 3.785 liters to a gallon and the exchange rate is about 1 euro to $1.43 (give or take a few cents).  The price per liter is about 1.34 euros....take that by 3.785 and you get 5.07 euros; that still needs to be converted to dollars.  So basically, a gallon of gas here is about $7.25!!! Outrageous; enjoy your $3.something gas :]

One of the luxuries we have here is internet which has been a lifesaver.  We are able to contact all you guys and watch tv/movies on it.  We don't have cable but Ty brought his PS3 to be able to play video games.  For some reason, whenever he hooked his playstation up the tv, it just wasn't working.  Luckily, he's a Mr. SmartyPants and figured out that the cords connecting the PS3 to the tv needed some adjusting.  Something wasn't holding something down correctly (obviously, I wasn't too worried about the problem and still have no clue what was wrong) so he put his college degree to use and fixed it ;]

Our delightful tv that he had to do some adjustments to.

That's right; Mr. MacGyver himself rigged up a weight with a wine corkscrew we found in our drawer.  Such a handy-man I married :]

Yesterday, I was so excited I got to skype with family and see Jenn, Evan, and baby Amos!  He is just sooo incredibly cute and smooshy; I can't wait to give him a good squeeze :]  Skype has been a lifesaver.  One of the best things about yesterday was that I got to see my nieces!  Destini is 14 (almost 15...whoa!) and Natalee is almost 20 months old.  Not fair that my nieces are getting so old.  Here's a couple pictures of them that I stole from Des....now you know why I miss them and love them to pieces! :]

Best. Nieces. Ever :]

Here's a look inside of the life of a professional basketball player overseas.  Last night before we went to sleep, Tyrel and I watched Captain Planet.  Yep, you heard right.  Captain Planet, the show we watched as youngsters.  Our lives are oh so mature and glamorous :]

Hope you all have a great labor day! Enjoy the cooler weather and a day off. 

Lots of love.