An attempt to describe the blur that was this week.

I like to think of myself as a realist... in my heart I know this is so false. I'm obnoxiously optimistic about most things. This is why I'm late ALL THE TIME. It's not that I'm a disrespectful person; I just have a lot more faith in myself than I should. "I can easily wake up at 8:20 and wash my face, brush my teeth, do my hair, put on makeup, eat breakfast and get coffee before 8:30. NO PROBLEM." ...What is wrong with me? For some reason, the way my mind works, the better I anticipate things to go, the better they will turn out. HA. That's the worst life lesson if I ever heard one.

That was a pretty accurate explanation of how every morning goes. One morning, Amy walked in just as I was throwing my hair into the daily ponytail, and said, "Mallory and I weren't sure if you were going to make it or not today..." They had every reason to be concerned. I had a meeting at 12:30pm on Thursday and Lydia goes, "Did you just come from watching the kids, or did you just wake up?.. You look really tired." (I had just come from watching the kids for four hours, but hadn't quite made it to makeup that morning.) I got several head turns and "you look really tired" comments that day. But hey, what can you do. 

I don't want to bore you with a daily synopsis of my life... and couldn't give one even if I tried. I'll hit the highlights the best I can and try to keep in interesting... Monday we didn't start watching the kids until 2:00 which was AMAZING. It had snowed the night before, so it was beautiful outside... I don't think I actually went outside because it was so cold, but everything looked gorgeous from the window! Tuesday, Kelsey (one of the missionaries, but same age as us!), Amy, Mallory and I headed into Leuven for the afternoon. Kelsey and Amy headed downtown for some shopping while Mallory and I headed to the bar at which we had found her favorite beer, Trappist Rochefort No. 8, a delectable, dark, "honey flavored" (in her words) beer, which is made by monks! It is definitely one of my favorites as well. That evening we had a delicious, home cooked meal from Olivia (she teaches the 4-7 year-olds). 

 

Working hard in Leuven!

Wednesday was the BAG (Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent) exercise. It is a team building exercise. The scenario we were given was that we had an afternoon to prepare for a team of 20 coming that wanted to take trips to all three while they are in Brussels. Amy and I immediately volunteered for Antwerp, the only one of the three that we had not yet been to. Little did we know that we were signing up to have an "observer" come along with us. Amy, Bonnie (one of the other interns), and I, as well as the observer, Carolyn, ended up being in charge of going to Brussels and Antwerp. Carolyn came along to report back on our teamwork skills, which she told us were fabulous. Our team won the "BAG exercise" based on how much we got done and prepared, but lost on a technicality: apparently one of the other teams had spent less money, by sending two people to Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent. Not efficient if you ask me, but I didn't even get any of the "Victory beer" that our team got because, well, everyone else got to it first.

Thursday. Work day for Mallory and I. We headed to the Bru House so I could do some design work, she some writing and we collectively brainstormed on some ideas for business cards for her which I am making! Afterwards, we headed to the grocery store where we found the Trappist beer, and let's just say I stocked up... I didn't know if we'd find it again, so we now have many a beer sitting on our window sill.

We ended the day with a much needed beer (after dealing with screaming children that we were babysitting) and a movie <3