Hometown Publicity

I revised the Logos Foundation article I wrote for Flanders Today for our hometown, local paper to include more specifics about what Troy is up to in Belgium. Kind of fun to picture what the Rangers are thinking about that crazy robot guy! Check it out.

Extension

I'm happy to report that Troy applied for and received a 1-month extension on his Fulbright grant. That means the end of our lease in Ghent will be July 31. It will be great to be here for part of the summer and especially for the Gentse Feesten, a 2-week event featuring all kinds of music, theater, food and drink. It's the largest open-air festival in Europe, bringing in 1.5 million people each year. We hated to think we would miss such a party!

It's hard to believe that we've been here now for five months, and that our time is half over. We are finally starting to meet some people and feel more settled. We met a nice American couple through a Facebook expat group who we seem to have a lot in common with. And we've been going out for drinks with a fun Romanian couple. I guess right about the time we have to leave we'll be feeling like this is home. So goes the life of an academic and trailing partner I guess. Hopefully all this change and moving around will make me a more resilient and flexible person in the long run. It certainly has been an adventure!

Tante en Oom!

Well, we are tante (aunt) Lissa and oom (uncle) Troy once again! Troy's brother Casey and his wife Cassie welcomed their son Jack Casey into the world a couple of weeks ago. Here's a very early shot of the little cutie (stolen from Casey's fb page, hope he doesn't mind).


I'm excited to report that Jack has red hair! Yay! Since some have claimed that redheads are going to be extinct before long, this brings me some comfort. We can't wait to meet him!

We can't wait to meet our niece either, she's now 8 weeks old. Here's my sister and Ethan with Ria.

Winter Walking & Writing

Sorry for my lapse in posting, I've been trying to separate my blog posts into "regular life" and "Belgian life" (which you can read about here) and our Belgian life has been much busier lately!

I mentioned a couple posts ago that I've been lucky enough to find some writing work. Right now, I'm working on the third article in a winterwandeling (winter walking) series for Flanders Today, an independent weekly newspaper. It's been fun because it's gotten us out to different, beautiful areas of Flanders that we probably would not have gone to otherwise. We've been to a couple of gorgeous nature reserves and to an amazing arboretum that has redwoods.

The Bourgoyen nature reserve - outside of Ghent

But freelance writing isn't coming that easy to me. I'm up against another deadline and am having trouble concentrating. It takes me several days to write an article and I find myself getting easily distracted and needing all sorts of breaks. At times I find myself longing for the steady, clearly defined, well-paying job that I left behind.

The plus side of all this is that I've always enjoyed writing and now I'm gaining some great experience, both in writing and photography, because they are using my pictures with the articles. And I'm loving the flexibility of working from home. It will be interesting to see how this plays out when we head back to the States--especially with the economy still in the toilet.

It's surprising to note that we are now about halfway through our time in Belgium. The time has been flying!

Hello World!

And her name is... Ria Rain!

So beautiful!

Auntie Lissa and Uncle Troy!

My sister had a baby girl yesterday! Both mom and baby are doing well. Laura and Ethan are still trying to decide on a name. They decided once seeing her that she just didn't look like any of the girl names they had been considering.

I am absolutely thrilled to be an auntie. It's really tough to be so far away from my sister at this crucial time in her life but I am thankful again for technology because we were able to Skype with her and to see the baby too! She's simply beautiful. I'll try to get my hands on a picture sometime soon so you can see for yourself.

Beautiful Belly

Most of you know that my sister Laura is pregnant. She is actually due in a few days! Troy's brother Casey's wife Cassie is also pregnant--due in January. We're both really excited to be Auntie Lissa & Uncle Troy!

It's been especially difficult for me to be so far away from my sister at this important time in her life. Thank goodness for Skype and IM! We've been keeping in touch almost daily even despite the long distance between us.

Laura had some photos taken of her pregnant belly a few weeks ago. She used the same photographer that they had at their wedding. The pictures turned out great. My sister--and her belly--are simply gorgeous! I just had to share one.