New Belgian Blog

Hi there. Sorry for the lack of posts lately. It's been a crazy month with lots of wonderful visiting with family and friends and not as much internet access. We made it to Brussels and will be here for 8 more days until we get set up in Gent. Internet access will be intermittent now that we are in Belgium too until we are set up in our new apartment. Wish us luck with apartment hunting!

We've been struggling with jet lag but have managed to get out for a big bucket of mussels and frites and we sampled some Belgian beers last night. Mmmmm....

I wanted to request your help in naming our new Belgian blog. Some ideas so far include:

• The Belginians (a play on our Virginia, MN and C-Ville, Virginia ties)
• Robot Brew (combining what will be going on while we are here--robot building and sampling lots of Belgian brews).

Please share your ideas and thoughts. We are interested to hear them!

Food and Farewells

It should be no big surprise that the last of our time in Charlottesville is revolving a lot around food. I had to use up a gift certificate for the Charlottesville Cooking School (thanks Steve & Angie!) before we left, so I decided to invite Troy to join me for an introduction to knife skills!

We had fun learning proper techniques and tips for slicing and dicing. We actually learned that in terms of technique, we are doing okay. The key thing that surprised both of us was how often knives need to be sharpened and how sadly dull our knives have gotten. Troy used a steel to maintain his edge several times while chopping that night. We didn't use the whetstone, but the instructor recommended using it every 3 months (if you are an avid cook) to maintain sharp knives.

I was happy to know that my Wüsthof knife is recommended by professional chefs. And that good knives hold up. Our instructor has had the same German knife (not a Wüsthof) since she went to culinary school in the late eighties!

Here's Troy practicing. We made a delicious chopped salad and bruschetta.


The last of our time here has also involved a lot of visiting with friends. We are going to miss our wonderful community of Charlottesville peeps!

Peter and Jaimee had us over for dinner last week to say goodbye to them and spend some quality time with their little boy, Ian. He's such an adorable and bright child! I am so smitten by him that I gave him some of the olives off my pizza (yes, he likes olives) and Troy fed him ice cream off of his plate.

Of course, Ian enjoys Troy's crazy antics (as do most kids). We'll really miss this little cutie (and his parents too)! But Ian assured us "I'm a big Skyper." So we'll certainly stay in touch.

We also got to visit with Scott and Sarah--who are expecting their first child this week! Here's us goofing around and pointing excitedly at Sarah's very pregnant belly.

We got together this past weekend with two other couples to attend a beer dinner at the 12th Street Taphouse. It was French food paired with Belgian-inspired beers from the Montreal brewery, Unibroue.

It was great to spend time with Steve & Aurie and Alex & Vilde!

The lighting only allowed me to photograph the first (scallops in a citrus sauce with herbs, shallots, and arugula) of the five courses well, but I assure you, everything was delicious!

Casey and Cassie's Visit

Troy's brother Casey and his wife Cassie came to visit us a couple of weekends ago. We were in the midst of packing madness but still took some nice breaks to show them the places we love around Charlottesville.

We hiked in the Shenandoah National Forest...

and visited the Blue Mountain Brewery.

Steve was happy to join us for beers too.

Casey and Cassie treated us to dinner at Maya, one of our favorite restaurants. They really enjoyed their food too.


We ventured to the downtown mall, but unfortunately got there too late for gelato.


It was a fun visit and wasn't too hard to say goodbye because we know we'll be seeing them soon in Minnesota. And when we return from Belgium, we'll be excited to meet their little one, and my sister's too. We're thrilled to soon be Auntie Lissa and Uncle Troy!

Homeless!

Well, we are officially "homeless!" Lucky for us, I have an amazing coworker who offered to let us stay in her gorgeous home in Redfields while she and her family are vacationing in their summer home in Canada. This means that until the 19th of August we'll be very comfortable. It's a really welcome break after all of the craziness of moving.

We were also extremely lucky to have had a large group of friends that helped with our move this past weekend. What an amazing community we have here! Our friends came through with: packing, loading, unloading, cleaning, kitty care, food/beverages, a comfy place to sleep, storage for outlying, sensitive and robotic items, and moral support.

I didn't think it could get any worse than our previous move. But somehow, even though we got rid of a huge amount of stuff, we still had a multi-day moving saga. Troy stayed up for two days in a row (not unheard of for him) and I even stayed up all night (unheard of!) Friday packing and cleaning. We still weren't even finished until last night around 6 pm. And we still have odds and ends to deal with at the old place!

Troy and I have realized that we are probably the worst movers in the world. The next time we move, I hope that he is finally in the position to negotiate a moving budget so that we can hire movers!

Moving Madness

Sorry for the lack of posts but we are in the midst of moving out of our house right now. Things will be A LOT less stressful and busy (at least for me) after Saturday!

Fourth Funsies

I'm obviously a little behind on my posting, as this post is about the 4th of July! So much has been going on. Troy was in New York for a few days, frantically working on a project with Nataly and Jason, two architects that he has collaborated with in the past. Click here for more info on that very cool project.

Troy got back late on Wednesday night last week and started teaching on Thursday. Since U.Va. has 3 summer sessions, they pack in a lot during a class, so he has been having some very intense days.

I have been busy at work trying to tie up loose ends and have had to move my office (again). And at home we've been packing, getting rid of things and prepping for a yard sale this weekend--lots to do before our August 1 move out date. All the while we've been trying to find time to spend time with our Charlottesville friends before we leave for the next school year.

We spent the 4th at Peter and Jaimee's house. Peter grilled up some delicious burgers and served some surprisingly good old fashioneds with bacon-infused bourbon!


I tried my hand at deviled eggs for the first time. The New York Times recipe was great!


It was great to see a number of our friends at the party. Like Scott and Sarah, who will soon be parents!

And Liz and Jeff

Alli and Steve

Sarah and Nick seemed to have a lot of fun playing with Peter and Jaimee's little one, Ian.



Adorable Ian provided lots of entertainment for all of us!


And then so did Peter as he tried to imitate a firefly for us with his sparkler "tushy."





The sparklers and cupcakes were great. The late-night fireworks were even better. The boys did a timed fuse of some big ones they bought in South Carolina at a place called "Crazy Steve's." Ah, blowing up stuff...a great American past time!

Wild Ponies!

I've been wanting to make it over to Chincoteague forever to see the wild ponies, but we've just never had the chance. I was pleasantly surprised the day after our lovely foodie extravaganza in southwest Virginia when Troy told me we were close to a different park that has wild ponies.

Grayson Highlands State Park is gorgeous. First we took a hike to work off some of that food. We were rewarded with some cool temps and a spectacular view!

And then on the way to the pony-watching trail, we saw these two little cuties. No mama in sight though. :(

We weren't even sure we'd see the ponies but it didn't take long to spot a group of them right amongst a group of people. I guess they aren't really "wild." They've grown accustomed to humans. The foals were especially tame, letting little kids feed them grass and strawberries that they had picked. The kids were giggling as the ponies licked their fingers. It was pretty sweet. I was thinking of Ian and Elsa and my little niece Amelia, and how much they would have liked it.

Even though you aren't supposed to feed the ponies, people do. A random woman (who obviously thought she was being nice) shoved a handful of pretzels into Troy's hand before he could protest. When he tried to get rid a pretzel, two of the grown ponies started to get aggressive towards each other. We were only steps away so it was a little frightening. It seems important to remember that these are not domesticated animals!

We spotted a huge group later that was interspersed with what looked like a number of brand new foals. It was fun to watch them play and groom each other.

The very pregnant pony below was pretty sweet. She started staring at us and then came over after a while. Troy gave her the rest of those prized pretzels even though I was a bit afraid the other ponies would smell them and start a stampede.

Then she started following us around. She looked like she was about to give birth at any minute so it made me kind of nervous, but it was still pretty endearing.