Daughter of a Farmer

On more than one occasion I have been told, "you are the smartest person I know." I find this slightly scary- 1-because I don't feel all that intelligent. I mean high school and college were easy for me but that is thanks to a very good memory and NOT anything I ever did and 2-If I am the smartest person they know I think we are all in trouble cuz there's a LOT I don't know.
My friend Janet is one of those people who has been awed and amazed by my knowledge:) on more than one occasion. So one day she asked me why I know so much(mostly about pretty random stuff) and I told her it's because my dad was a farmer. I mean farmers have to know a LOT of stuff. They have to know math-so they can run their business. They have to know all kinds of sciences so they can grow whatever it is they are growing. They have to be historians- so they know when to plant things or do certain things. I think the biggest thing though is they have to be good engineers because something is always breaking down and there isn't money to buy a new one or have someone else fix it.
I think I have inherited this last trait from my parents- this idea that if you can fix it yourself you don't throw it away-even if every other person on the planet would! Take for instance my computer. It is something I use pretty much every day for work. Not that I love the computer-it is just a necessary evil. So my computer has been having problems for about 1 1/2 years now. It is super slow and if you are impatient and hit more than one button at a time it will totally freeze up and requires trying to get it to shut down in order to wait the 10 minutes it will take to reboot! I have had Mike, my bro-in-law, wipe it clean and reinstall everything twice. Then while we were away in Macedonia it decided it had enough and died again. So I set out to make things right and did my own reinstall(luckily I had seen the writing on the wall in March and backed up all my documents!). My boss Paul- has been laughing at me for the past few weeks- telling me to let it die-to take it out back and shoot it if I need to:) But I am confident that it will last at least until I come to the states for the summer!
So the other day I noticed that my watch band was starting to crack(it is made out of this plastic stuff) and i thought- oh no! I love this watch and I don't want to have to buy a new one. Then the little strap thing that you put the band in once it is through the latch ripped off on Saturday. Now most of you would -as Paul says-let that watch die -but NOT me! I went to the hardware store and bought some electrical tape.
So I showed up at the office today with my 2 different colors of electrical tape(the packet came with 3 colors but I didn't think red would go with the orange band). And I asked Paul which color he thought would go best for fixing it-white or black. His response was- what are you using it for? And when I told him my master plan of restoring my orange watchband to mint condition with black electrical tape he just laughed and said- you are the daughter of a farmer:) and I love it-I am and I am proud of it!!

Mack-edonia!!!

Well the return from Mack-edonia has been a bit crazy- my computer had died in my absence and so I have spent the last few days just trying to get it to do certain things. I have been able to get it somewhat working minus a few things(like sound) but for now it will do. I think this is the 3rd time in the past year it has completely died-what fun!

So Macedonia-amazing, incredible, a blast!!! We left my apartment at 5am on the 11th. Drove to a students house whose parents drove us to the airport. We met everyone there and got on a plane for Sofia, Bulgaria. I pity the poor other people on the plane but we were relatively quiet for the first hour(most sleeping!). Here we are in the Sofia airport grabbing our bags.

Then we loaded a bus. We were told the driving time was between 3-4 hours but because of border crossing it could take up to 7 hours. Little did we know!! The drive was more like 7 hours PLUS boarder crossing. So it ended us taking us 10 hours! The best part was when we entered macedonia. They made us all get out of the bus with ALL of our stuff. We even had to pull our bags off from under the bus. We put them on these tables and then had to stand behind them. Then they brought the drug dogs and went in the bus and under the bus and to every bag! Fun times:) So that took another 2 hours-arrggg. But we finally got to the place we were staying at 1030PM. We slept and the next day just had a fun day. Here is my cabin-Hot Stuff '09!!

Here we are after the "snowball" fight(really stockings filled with flour)

Monday we got to work building a playground, fixing fencing, building benches and painting murals. Here is the yard before our hanywork.

Here we are installing benches. Yes that's me with the level in my hand. Oh the things I have learned to do on these trips!! Anybody want me to build their house?:)

Here we are on the finished product at the end of the week!

Oh yeah- on the 2nd day the camera guy showed up and said he had walked from another work site. There is something you should know- usually our sites are hours away from each other but apparently this year there was a work site within walking distance!! This was exciting new to me:) and not for the kindest of reasons! So this thought comes into my head- we should attack them!! So I put Paul and some of the guys on the task of recon and attack plans. Wednesday they headed over to the other site(in stealth mode of course) to see where the best points of attack were. They divided us up into teams and thursday we set out to attack with water balloons in hand. It was a blast but did get a little foiled when their site leaders freaked out a bit. Here are the girls- amo in hand.

We had translators that traveled with us and were on our site each day. Geri(on the left) was with us last year in Blugaria too so it was fun to see here again. Mikael was new but so much fun. They actually fought over who would get to come with Brussels each day:) YES -we are that much fun:)

So many stories to tell. But they will have to come another time- the sun is shining and it is calling my name!!

Happy days

Spring is upon us here in Brussels. We had a string of 8 sunny days a few weeks ago and we have had sun 6 out of the last 7 days! There is not much that is cheaper in Belgium than in the US. Flowers is the one thing I have found that is! So 2 weeks ago I treated myself to 10 euros worth of flowers(that's about $13.50) for those not up on the current exchange rates. Here is what I got! 60 roses(5 dozen!!!) 20 red, 20 white and 20 orange. I was so caught up in the thrill of getting them that I didn't realize until I was home that I didn't have any vases! So I played Magyver and used a crock that I had. I had to cut the stems somewhat to get them to fit but here they are. This was before they really opened up so you can just imagine!

Here are a few pics from recent travels. A few weeks back some ladies from Brussels went to London for a few days. Here are a few of us in front of Big Ben and the London Eye. It was such a fun weekend. All the other women had left there husbands and 3 kids(yes all 5 women have the same number of kids). It was so great to just laugh and play. We even went to see wicked and it was SO great! Go see it if you get the chance.

My friend Angie came to visit me for a week so we went to Paris for an overnight trip. Here we are taking our own picture in front of the Louvre.

After church Sunday while we were walking to go get something to eat they were having some kind of remembrance thing so they set the wooden word "l'innovation" on fire. It is always amazing the things you run into around town.

The problem with breaking your arm in Europe!

I hear people say all the time about how much they love the USA because everything is "easier." And to be honest it is-I mean drive thru's, bulk food shops, stores that are open on Sundays, stores where you can buy more than one type of thing(ie food AND clothing!!)- but to be honest up until now those have been some of the reasons i have loved living in europe. With a broken arm, however, i am missing a few of the "easy" things about the states:

1. Dishwashers- oh the joy of being able to stick those dirty dishes in that machine and let it go after the grime! I was getting so sick of my dishes on Monday that i washed them one handed-try it sometime-its not fun. it took me an hour to wash about 5 bowls, 3 plates and some silverwear. Tuesday night my awesome friend Fiona came and washed my new dirty dishes!! Love you fiona!!

2. Dryers-Haven't had one of those for over 3 years either. wouldn't it be great to throw your clean clothes into a machine and have them come out dry? No- i have been trying to hang them on the rack i have and then once they are dry i cant really fold with one hand so most of my clothes are just in little piles in my closet:) don't look!!

3. Automatic cars-most people in the states have automatic cars so that if you have a broken arm you can still drive with the other one. Not so here in europe-most cars are stick. Which means if one of your arms can't be used you can't really drive-lucky for me Paul has an automatic car so we have swapped for now!

I may add to this list but for now that is all i can handle typing one handed:)!

Garmish adventure/broken bones!!

ok so most of you know by now that while driving to Garmish, Germany to go snowboarding we were involved in a pretty serious car wreck. Thankfully most of the people involved only had very minor injuries but one of the students, Maria, broke her back and had to have surgery and i broke my wrist and had to have surgery. The whole thing was pretty surreal and i think we are all still processing through it. There were some pretty funny moments in it too-like when Paul thought I was bleeding to death cuz of a pool of "blood" by my feet. We found out later it was some fluid from the car but the look on his face was pretty priceless!! We got to meet a lot of great Germans along the way-and so many spoke english which was super! We had the accident in a little town-Fussen- and then headed to Garmish the next day. They are used to broken bones there since it is a ski resort town so i figured it was a great place to have my surgery. I went in last Sunday and they put in a t-plate and seven screws(at least that's what they told me they were going to do-i never saw the after x-rays).
This is us on the way down-before the accident- at a Burger King stop.

This is the morning after the accident. We only had about 40 miles to get to Garmish but because of traffic it took us about 6 hours!!

That same evening showing off my German cast and the facial scratches from the airbag-that thing was powerful!!

Sunday evening after the surgery. The doctors were trying to hold me captive in the hospital but my wonderful friends came and broke me out so I could go back to the hotel with them. When they did the surgery they put a tube in to drain blood-So yes- I am holding a container of blood in my hand

This is Monday morning-we dropped the rest of the group off at the slopes on the way to the hospital to get my tube taken out and cast on. Just showing off my blood again! Lizzy says-yuk!!

This is my arm today. The "cast" they gave me is just one of those wrist guards you would wear skateboaring so I can take it off which is nice when it itches.

and here's a little closer up.

so there you go. I am typing this one handed so sorry for the lack of details.

Traveled much lately?

So last weekend the middle school basketball team I help coach played in Bonn, Germany. My boss was also in town from the states so I decided to drive so that I could get back to Brussels earlier. As I was driving I was reminded of a previous road trip to Germany where we were making a joke about how all roads in Germany lead to "Ausfahrt." On that trip we had traveled about 5 hours when one of the people in the car-I won't mention names KATE- was like- yeah they really do- what's up with that? So to let you in on something - the word for EXIT in German is AUSFAHRT- so yes all roads really do lead there:)
Remember how when you were younger and you went on a road trip it was fun to stop at the state lines and get your picture taken with the state sign? You'd think it might be even more exciting to get your picture taken when entering a new country-right?!! well here is a picture of the sign that tells you that you have entered Belgium. Pretty anti-climactic!!!

SO tomorrow I am off the Germany with some students to go snowboarding in the Alps- pretty fun. Since I don't ski or board it should be pretty interesting. I will take lots of pics and try to come back with all my bones in one piece!

Time in Austria

Yes there are some percs to traveling for work:) For instance- the view out of the front of your hostel! I was in the states for Christmas and new years and then came back to Brussels for about 12 hours before heading off to Austria to help out with a regional conference. We had to be at the airport at 5AM- not nice! then flew to Rome where we had a layover and then flew to Munich where a friend picked us up and we drove the last 2 hours to Mittersill, Austria. I felt like an American tourist for the 1st time in a long time(being in 4 countries in a day!).

I was doing childcare while the region had their meetings. At night we got to hang out with friends and play games like nerts and I even learned some crazy game called the settlers of catane or something. We did have one free day while we were there and so most of us went to the ski slopes- not to skit but to sled down a 14km run! it was awesome. We took the ski lift to the top of the mountain and here's the view!

Then we got on our sleds and tried to get down without killing ourselves. We had a bit of a rough start- several accidents amongst the group-including skiiers being taken out, sleds running off without sledders, and sleds running into innocent Austrian children! But after we got the hang of it we had a blast. it took about an hour to get down the run! It is so fun a bunch of us went back up and did it again after lunch. Here are Ashley and I at the top. Ashley lost her sled the 1st time and had to ride on my sled for a bit- that's when we ran into the poor Austrian/German child who apparently proceeded to curse us out in German-go us:)

all in all a fun trip. Now i am back and settling into Brussels for a another semester at warp speed.