Book Worries, Nervous Classes, Real Chocolate, and Memories :]

Hello, everybody!  No need to be worried about the lack of posts, I AM alive :] (and so is Tyrel, in case you were wondering).

This past week has been exciting and nerve-racking for me.  Tyrel's book "Reed All About It" came out last Friday!  It's a very strange feeling to know that people will be reading a book all about my husband's life with quotes from me in it.  It's silly to think that I'm worried what people will say about my comments and stories.  For one, I won't even know the vast majority of people reading the book! And two, does it really matter?  I am me no matter what people think of my comments or the book; still, I really hope people will enjoy reading the stories Tyrel told.  Amazon allowed people to pre-order the book online and it is also sold in many stores around Kansas including: KU Bookstores, Kansas Sampler, Dillon's, and Hoover's Thriftway.  I'm sure there are other places as well, along with Barnes and Noble online (not sure if it's in any B&N stores in Kansas).  I haven't seen the finished product, but I did go over a few things when it was still in the editing process.  I'm excited to actually see it soon!  Also, Ty will be having "diary entries" posted in some of the Kansas newspapers;  his editors contacted him and wanted him to write about his experiences over here in Belgium and what Europe is like.  The first one has already come out so keep yours eyes open for them!

Here's the cover of the book (image from Amazon)! 

Last Friday was also a really fun and interesting day for me.  When at basketball games, I frequently talk to the man that does all the announcing, Gerard.  He is very kind and knows KU basketball pretty well!  He said he loves to watch US college basketball and always watches the NCAA tournament.  Anyways, Gerard speaks really great English and goes to a school a couple days a week to further his understanding of it and perfect it.  He asked if Alec and I would like to come to his school some time and talk to the students and the teacher.  He said this would allow the students to get a chance to practice their English more without the luxury of explaining something in French when they don't know how to say it.  We both excitedly agreed and we visited his class last Friday.  I was actually pretty nervous because I didn't want to say something stupid and them have a bad experience or opinion about Americans.  At first, the class was a little shy and needed a little prompting to ask questions, but by the end of the class it was a very easy flow of conversation and they were asking if we'd come back!  I definitely would; it was a great experience and so nice to meet different people.  The class was very welcoming and their teacher is so sweet.  It was really cute because she had learned British English and when she spoke English she had a sort of British accent along with her French accent!  The combination was pretty neat.  I had asked how long the students had been learning English and one of the guys had only started learning it a year or two ago from the INTERNET and his English was very clear.  He must be very determined; he was also a huge sports fan and asked us a lot of questions about basketball and the NFL.  One of the guys in the class was a little bit disappointed to find out Alec and I were both married, but he did say at the end of the class that his new goal was to find a nice, American wife! HAHA!  One question that I asked the class was to tell me what their opinions and feelings about Americans were.  I told them not to hold back and to say both the good and the bad; whatever came to their minds!  I was astonished to hear such nice and encouraging words from all the students.  They really did have kind things to say about us as a whole and that made me feel a little better.  Usually you hear about people from other countries not liking the US and having negative feelings toward us, but it was refreshing to hear that we do have some redeeming qualities in the eyes of others!  Gerard brought the class a box of chocolates to share during the break and one of the other students brought some homemade apple juice from his sister's orchard!  Everything was delicious.

Here's a picture of the outside of the "school".  I'm not really sure if you can call it a school, but there are many language classes taught here.  It may look like an old house from the outside, but it truly looked and felt like a school on the inside.

Gerard bought Alec and I boxes of chocolates as a thank-you for coming to his class!  It was very nice of him and I thoroughly enjoyed my gift.

He really did get us a TON of chocolate.  They are all delicious and I had a hard time not eating them all at once.  We may not be able to get authentic Belgian chocolate in Kansas, but I think Andre's in Kansas City by the Plaza comes pretty close.  If you've never been there, you should check it out!  I went there 2 years in a row with my French class in high school and like to visit when I can.  You can never have too much chocolate in your life ;]

Since it's fall and the weather has definitely cooled off, I've been in baking mode (not like that ever really changes!).  And I've been REALLY wanting to make pumpkin muffins, chocolate chip pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cinnamon rolls, pumpkin, Pumpkin, PUMPKIN!  But guess what...they do not sell pumpkin puree here!  I even asked Gerard and the class and they had no clue what I was talking about!  Isn't that crazy!?  Alec and I have walked to every grocery store in town (even in the cold rain) and haven't found any.  I know, I know...I could go get a pumpkin and bake it and make my own puree, but I really don't feel like it.  Canned pumpkin is just so easy to use.  If it comes down to it and I can barely make it another day without pumpkin, I guess I'll break down and bake me a stinkin' pumpkin.  I saw a sign at the store that said "potiron" (pumpkin) was like 68 euro cents per kilo or something, so I guess that's not too bad.  

A couple weeks ago, Tyrel finally got a haircut.  I'm surprised he even went so long without one!  This guy probably got a haircut every 3-4 weeks in the States, and he had gone months over here.  But I'm not going to lie, it's probably the best haircut he's ever gotten.  We went to this little barber that all the guys go to, Tyrel showed the guy a picture from our wedding (the guy didn't speak any English), he looked at it for about 2 seconds and off he went!  It was really interesting watching him because it was different than how guys get their hair cut in the US.  He took a longer time and did it layer by layer instead of immediately cutting it to the short length at once.  It was weird seeing Ty with such short hair after it had been crazy long for a while!  But the barber was really cheap (only 6 euros) so I'm sure Tyrel will go back to him regularly.

Getting work done :]

A couple weeks ago, we got a care package from the Simiens!  It was very sweet of them to send us so much stuff!  We opened it up and layer after layer we kept finding great things!  Katie put a lot of spice packets and cooking stuff in there for me and Ty got a lot of gatorade powder mixes.  

Magazines, gatorade, baking cocoa, peanut butter, vanilla, teriyaki sauce, and vanilla chai latte.  I had never had a chai latte before, but it is SO good.  I think I may become addicted to it :]

Speaking of care packages, my mom recently sent us one and it made it to Belgium last Wednesday, but we still haven't gotten it!  The tracking number says they tried to deliver it to the office we get packages sent to but no one was there so they left a slip for them.  Well, guess what, there wasn't a slip!  You pretty much have to have the slip to go get your package because it has a barcode on it that they scan.  We're trying to figure out if we'll be able to go to the post office and talk to them (haha...if anyone speaks English!) and try to pick it up or get it re-delivered.  It's been very frustrating knowing it's here but we don't have it.  This happened to a package that was sent to us from Cole and Britt, but we were never notified it was here or to go get it, so they eventually sent it back to the US! I really hope that doesn't happen to this one.

I recently found my older camera that I brought over here just in case something happened to my new one.  I didn't realize that there were still many pictures on it that I never downloaded to my computer.  It was really exciting to see all the pictures I had forgotten about.  Here are some that I had taken over the summer:

Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting...

That would be my brother flying through the air :D haha

Natalee running to Ry

Colorado :] SOOO pretty. I miss it!

Ty getting some fishing in after our hike :]

:]

HUGE! He was so close to us.  Not gonna lie...I was a little scared, but we had an exit strategy just in case.

Old gold mine we visited

Me and Nay just hanging out

Have you ever found pictures you forgot about?  These all made me smile :]  I can't wait to see my family in less than 2 weeks!  I've been making a list of food I want my mom to make when I come home haha 

Tyrel has another away game tonight and I hope he doesn't get home too late.  The last away game they had he didn't get home until 2:30 :(  My sleeping schedule is still messed up from waiting up for him!  

Hope you all have a great week!  If you've gotten Ty's book, let me know what you think :] And be honest!  

Lots of love.

Cat Food, Calzones, Baking, Bacon, Trinkets

Another week has passed; we are another week older...we should celebrate.  I hope you all had a great weekend and that your Monday isn't too bad.

This weekend my cousin, Jared, got married!  Congrats Jared and Fallon!  I really wish I could have been there to celebrate with them as they did for my wedding.  I'll see them in November, though :]  Luckily, my grandpa (Poppie) loves to take pictures (and videos) like me, so he was able to share some with me.

Last week was pretty great for me; it's been nice to have someone to walk around with and bake with!  The boys had a team function or something last week so Alec came over and I taught her how to make homemade cinnamon rolls.  We switched it up and made THREE different kind.

Action shot of her rolling out the dough! I think she's come to realize I take pictures of EVERYTHING haha Sorry, Alec!

Probably adding more sugar to the top of them :]

TA-DA! From left to right: peanut butter & chocolate chip, cinnamon & brown sugar, and nutella & chocolate chip.  They were AMAZING.  I think the pb&c is my new favorite :] And NO, we did not eat ALL of these; we were generous and passed some around to the other guys!

I've also seen on a lot of food blogs that people will make "savory rolls" and put garlic and butter or pesto inside them.  I may do this next time I want a dinner roll to go with supper! 

Since we're on the topic of bread, carbs, delicious comas......I wanted to share a picture of the calzone I made for Tyrel last week:

This, my friends, is the world's biggest calzone! And he ate it all.

Ok, I'm really sorry, but I feel like this is totally turning into a food blog where I post pictures of stuff I cook and bake...but really...that's all I have over here!!!! Food and working out (and the occasional basketball game).  Now, I KNOW you'd rather see pictures of food I make than pictures of me red-faced and sweaty after Jillian Michaels kicks my butt....so bear with me...I'll REALLY try to come up with some more exciting news to talk about.  And while I'm thinking....here's another food picture :D

Ok, let me break this down for you...marinated chicken...stuffed with onions, mushrooms, garlic, and gouda...wrapped in bacon....WHEW. It was every bit as good as it sounds.  And I have found out chicken does NOT look pretty in pictures. But the bacon helps :]

And to cap off the week, Alec and I made chocolate chip pancakes when the guys had an away game.  I felt like a kid, again :D The boys lost their game Saturday (the first regular season game), but they have another game this Wednesday and it's at home!  I'm sure they will do really great.

The other day Alec and I waked around the town a little and explored some of the little shops.  We have had incredibly nice weather up until last week.  It has suddenly turned to 50 degrees, gloomy, and rainy....so basically, the norm for Belgium :( But we trekked it through the rain, anyways!  They have some pretty cute shoe and clothing shops here; you will find a ton of boots, scarves, and skull-decorated items! haha  But really, all everyone seems to wear around here is boots.  I like it, but Ty doesn't seem to find boots nearly as cute as I do.  Tough luck.  But we came across this shop called "Danish Spirit" and it was not at all what I expected.  For some reason I thought it'd sell Danish decorations and food...but it was kind of like a little knic-knack shop.  Here are a couple of my very treasured findings that I might have to go back and get :D

This would, in fact, be a toilet-shaped mug.  I think EVERYONE needs one of these.  Wouldn't YOU love sipping some hot cocoa or coffee out of this? ;]

Sweet drinking glasses straws!  So you put them on like glasses, have one end in your beverage, and the other end in your mouth.  I think I need to get these for Tyrel so he can sip his 1.5L soda in style.  

I told you a while ago (probably the first week or two we got here) about how Tyrel got locked out of the apartment and had to wait for someone to walk out so he could get in.  Well, it happened, again, and Mike was with him.  They had gone to the bank after practice and none of the other guys rode with them.  As they both have wives that have the keys, they had no way of getting in when they came back. I guess they waited for over 30 minutes out there!  I think Mike had gone to McDonald's to get internet to send Alec a message to let them in; well she went down there and they weren't there!  So I'm in the room cleaning stuff and I look out the window and see Tyrel standing on some stairs yelling at me.  Lucky I was there!  We have now decided that if they aren't back by 12:30, I need to go down and check to see if they are waiting outside.  Good thing it was semi-nice out and not raining! :]

When I go to the home games, I always have someone affiliated with the team come talk to me, which is really nice.  At the last home game, the team's announcer (Gerard), asked me a favor.  Gerard speaks very good English and he goes to a class a couple times a week to continue to better it (I wish I had 1/8 of the skill he had!!!).  He asked if I would ever like to come to the class and speak to some of the students.  This way they'd have a chance to improve their English with an English-speaking person and ask questions about the United States and how I like Belgium.  I think this would be a really cool opportunity for me, so I told him I would love to.  I'm really excited and hope I don't say something stupid!  He hasn't given me a date yet, but I think it'll be in November or December.  

So the other day I happened to glance out the window and saw something that made me laugh and get pretty excited.  There was a man cruising along on his little sit-down scooter with both American and Texas flags attached to it! I really wish I could have gotten a picture but he was just too quick for me.  I was jumping up and down and yelling at Tyrel to come look, but he had already seen him before.  I am going to be on the look-out from now on so that I can catch a shot of him.  It makes me wonder if he really is American or if he has family there or what his story is...I wish I could have been outside so I could have talked to him.  I get very excited when there is the prospect of another American here in Belgium.

I hope you have a great week!  Tonight Ty and I are going to stock up on groceries and end the day with some homemade pizza.  Ty picked up a Colruyt card form so that we can get a little bit of a discount when we go shopping.  It seems like it's a lot like a Dillon's card.  So here is our filled-out form and hopefully I did it correctly (since it is all in French)! 

I want to leave you with a picture of something that both made me laugh and grossed me out:

Chocolate flavored Cat Fingers! (Langues De Chat) SICK.  They are little chocolate treats for people, but the package looks like they are meant for cats.  I don't think I could eat something with pictures of cats on it so that it makes it look like cat food.  I have seen a couple stores with Langues De Chat in them, so they must be pretty popular. (BARF)

Lots of love!

Video Games, Happy Hair, Church, and Chicken

Hello, everybody.  I hope you had a great week and are enjoying your weekend!

Last week after I left a TON of pictures, I mentioned making pasta for a new recipe I was trying out.  Oh my goodness...it was delicious.

Chicken Romano with Lemon Butter Sauce

This came off of my new favorite blog (How Sweet It is).  If you love lemon-y food, you REALLY need to give this a try.  I whipped up a simple bechamel sauce to toss the pasta in before I put the lemon sauce over it (you know Tyrel has to have SOME form of cream sauce thrown in there).  Anyways...it's covered in cheese and is my new favorite meal.

Speaking of recipes, I added on the right side of the page links to some of the recipes I post on here.  I've had a few people ask me for them and this might make them more accessible.  I usually link the recipe if it's from a website, but some things (like the cinnamon rolls) aren't.  So there you have it.  

I'd like to let you know I'm not as lonely over here anymore.  Mike Singletary's wife made it to Belgium Wednesday morning.  Her name is Alec and she is incredibly nice and laid back.  It's really nice to know someone is just down the hall when the boys are gone to practice.  Of course, I had to welcome her to the country with some cinnamon rolls.  I know I wouldn't have minded some when I first got here!  I don't think the other guys here on the second floor minded getting some cinnamon rolls, neither.  (Any reason for me to bake is a good reason!)  The other morning we walked to the grocery store Ty and I always go to (Colruyt) and I helped her get some more stuff for their apartment.  I forgot to bring bags with us (because most stores do not provide bags for you over here) so we carried all her stuff back in the trashcan she bought.  I'm sure it looked funny to see a couple girls walking down the road with a random trashcan.  All well, as our new motto says, "Anything goes in Belgium".  I really feel like that's true, especially since most of the people park on sidewalks and wear short-shorts with hiking boots.  

Last night, the boys had their last friendly game and it was here.  We won...YAY!  Here are a few pictures I took during the game.  I kind of forgot to take my camera out most of the time and didn't get a whole lot of great shots.

Before the game, a couple of guys started wheeling that little divider out and we thought maybe they were just going to see if the guys could play around it ;] I guess they needed a photo-op.  You'd think they would have set them up symmetrically or in some sort of order.

And onto other games....Ty has been waiting for the video game FIFA '12 (soccer game) to come out for a while.  The other day we went to go buy it from a game store and they are not cheap over here.  I think the average price was 65 euros (we found one for 60) and that converts to 87 dollars!  Crazy.  Anyways, since he has a playstation he bought in the US and this game came from Europe, it wouldn't work when he tried to play online!  He could play against the computer, but if he wanted to be able to play his friends in the States, it wouldn't let him.  He searched online and thinks it's because playstation has different networks or something and the European one doesn't always coincide with the one the US is in (we're not really sure, but a couple of people mentioned this online).  Luckily, one of his teammates bought it from him and now we don't have to be out 60 euros!  We're pretty sure the game store wouldn't have taken it back since it had been opened, and it would not have been fun with our language barrier to try to explain to them the problem.

Anyways, we received another care package from my mom last week.  With being in customs a few days, it only took 8 days to get here!  I'm guessing because it was not nearly the size of the first one.

Some jeans, a sweatshirt, Real Simple, sriracha sauce, hoisin sauce, contact solution, GPS accessories, cookie sheet, and (not pictured) a voltage converter. 

Not going to lie, I went right ahead and used the hoisin and sriracha sauce right away that night.  Thanks, mom! :]

We've been here about 6 weeks, and the whole time we've been here I have been rocking the au natural hair look.  But, luckily, my husband bought me a new blow dryer yesterday! How sweet of him.  The blow dryer is actually the same brand as the one I bought in the US.  Babyliss is amazing....I switched my Chi straightener to this brand.  A lot of the girls I worked with at Beauty Brands did as well. 

Pretty excited because now my hair doesn't have to look like THAT anymore.

Ty and I have usually been pretty busy on Sundays because since we've gotten here, he's had either games on Sundays or he's had team functions.  We were excited that this week he had Sunday off (for the most part, he has a team thing with sponsors this evening) and we could go to church!  We thought the church we were going to go to spoke English.  Mike and Alec were going to join us since they were interested in finding a church, too.  I was looking at the church's facebook page and saw they had some pictures up; when I looked closer, I saw the powerpoints were in French.  I did some searching and found out that the sermons are actually all in French :( It says that guests may be greeted in English, but the sermon and worship is all in French.  Dang it.  Looks like we may have to watch sermons online from now on!  

By the way, Ty and I have been married for two months and have lived in Belgium for 6 weeks...we have yet to hit each other over the head with a frying pan.  Still on track! 

Hope you all have a great week!  Lots of love.