250!

HAPPY EASTER, WORLD! hope you all had a wonderful day, i know i did! yet another beautiful day in belgium...starting to feel spoiled here. such nice weather, nice people, nice things to do..hmm. this morning we (mainly i) got up a little earlier (meaning before noon..shocker eh) and we ate breakfast then went to church. i found it pretty neat to see how church works here, considering i've never seen the inside of the pretty church that's right on the market. here's a couple quick pictures i took as i was trying not to look like a tourist...

basically, a lot different looking than at home. hmmm well i must say, we had lots of tasty food today but my most favorite was by far the following..

a giant basket of chocolate...deadly. i love chocolate, but belgian chocolate is like..even better than normal chocolate. ridiculous! and look..i even got a special little chocolate chick alllll for me..adorable right? it's so difficult not to rip him apart and eat him..chocolate addiction maybe?

but as for the rest of today..it was 80 degrees again, so so beautiful! you won't believe this (but my host mom has pictures somewhere..uh oh) but i was laying outside for over an hour in a SWIMSUIT! bikini for that matter, but with all this chocolate layin around it probably wasn't so attractive. i think i'm a little tan now, maybe? i have visible tan lines, anyways. mostly from italy still..but a little from today! then i felt lazy laying there and asked if anybody wanted to go on a little bike ride with me..and my host parents said they would, but "a little bike ride" here is like...20 miles? so we compromised and did about.....6 or 7? enough to enjoy the day. afterwards i wanted to dye easter eggs still..because i bought little color tablets the other day at the grocery store. so my host mom made a couple and i made like 8. nothing compared to the 12 dozen my family in america apparently made!? but yeah..its crazy, when its such nice weather you don't even notice that it's all the sudden 8pm, haha. it really is like summer. fiiiiine for me! i'm more than happy to spend my last weeks here with warm belgian-summer weather, considering there's still snow at the lake house where my mom's at celebrating easter. ridiculous! i can't imagine it warming up that much within the next 3+ weeks for when i get there. burrrrrr! so after biking we came home and had chocolate cake for dinner. hahahhaa. that was a great sentence, but seriously! too full for dessert when we ate earlier...so just eat it for dinner. awesome. with warm weather and chocolate, whats not to love about Easter 2011 :) thanks for reading, have a great day!

249!

hello lovely reader :) hope you're enjoying your day! i know i enjoyed mine..but how could you not with 80 degree weather! skirt, tank top, sunglasses, sandals...AMAZING! i think we finished eating dinner at like..9:30pm and we were still outside not even close to cold. not normal eh! sadly next week it goes down a bit again, but still nothing like how it is at home right now. today, i actually got a lot done for my presentation. i would say i'm about half way done, and with a little more work next week then hopefully it will be good and ready to go by the 10th! i feel like everything is going so quickly, let alone when i go back to school next week then time will just fly away. so many mixed feelings, literally a feeling of everything and nothing at the same time. i don't think about it though, theres no time to think about silly things like that when i can be enjoying the beautiful weather (and working on my presentation..argh)! so since we made just so many cupcakes last night, and since it was such nice weather, my host mom and i biked to oud-turnhout to drop off a few cupcakes/pigs to my first host family! it was nice seeing them..its always nice seeing them! we sat outside for over and hour and never ran out of things to talk about, i don't think we ever will, haha. its great. but here's a couple pics from biking there, just to get the effect of biking and how warm it was today!

bike bike bike...

shall i buy a new one when i'm back in brookings? i think that would be a good idea! but thats about all i have for today folks. tomorrow is EASTER SUNDAY! we're going to church and eating with the family and stuff. i'm excited! i can't believe that its already Easter though! but like i said, no more talking about how time flies and whatnot. love you all, goodnight!

248!

top o the morning/afternoon/evening to ya, reader! today, i actually got a little bit of progress done on my presentation! but..first i woke up really late again, whoops. otherwise maybe i would have gotten a little more done, but thats life eh. i love sleeping. i could do it 24/7 if i wanted to..but theres no time for that now is there? just think how much of your life you spend sleeping. ahh, what a waste of time that is! but nonetheless i'm super tired tonight from working REALLY hard with my host sister and her cousin on some super cool cupcakes! yes, another baking day! i love it. i could never say no to fun colored edible things. so we first wanted to make rainbow cupcakes but thats too easy so check out what we made instead..

hamburger......CUPCAKES! nifty eh? sort of weird to see in a picture, but in person they look like cute little burgers...makes me want nicks hamburgers...ahhhh

and then some lil piggies!

and gulp gulp gulp....FROGS! just fun to play around, but we started around 8 and finished at midnight, so i'm tired now and i shall go to sleep. thank you SO MUCH for reading, talk to yall tomorrow :)

247!

hello all! day 247..yet ANOTHER beautiful day in belgium :) today i got up late (of course..what else is new eh?) and then had lunch and made lots of cookie dough! cookie dough..random you say, but it was because my host mom and i went to her god-childs/niece's house to make cookies/give a sort of cookie lesson. it was suuuuuper fun! i loved making cookies and speaking dutch with the kids. i think they enjoyed baking them and especially decorating them and of course eating them..yummm...

a couple things surprised me today! first, that all the kids speak perfect dutch and french..because they speak one language at home and one language at school, it was unbelievably cool! and second, how they live in such a beautiful part of belgium! i mean, i find all of belgium nice but this part had scenery (TREES! wow i've missed trees) and a different feel that made it seem like we were somewhere else. check out their view!

combine cookies, a view, and super great weather and its perfect! oh..and what more, blooming trees!

pretty eh? and last but not least..take a look at the cookies! colorful!

but thats all for tonight...afterwards we drove through Leuven and i've decided its like the Sioux Falls of Belgium. i'm also proud of myself that i didn't feel carsick driving there and back, because it was like an hour and a half to their house! tonight i skyped with a couple friends from home, and it made me feel a lot better because sometimes i think everyones forgotten about me. woo. so yes, it was a good day. thanks for reading, goodnight!

246!

hey world! happy wednesday! hopefully your day was a little more productive than mine, because i've been absolutely lazy today..but to my credit, its my first lazy day since before going to italy, so i guess it was necessary. i tried so so super super hard to work on my rotary presentation, but i find it really difficult to find the words i want to say and come across as still myself in another language! if i have to make a presentation with a powerpoint and stuff in school at home, i usually gather all the information, write an outline, make a powerpoint, then make some notecards and use them while i speak..but here i think i will be too nervous to just read off an outline and explain each slide in front of so many people! my language skills are good, i'm really confident about that..but its weird because usually i'm not a nervous person but when it comes to speaking dutch and TRYING to GIVE them the impression that i know what i'm doing instead of just doing it naturally then it troubles me. hmm. hopefully (hopefully!!) tomorrow i will get a lot more done with it. i ended up cleaning my room a little bit today instead of writing my speech like i should have been. normally its my computer and facebook that distracts me from doing something, so cleaning was actually a better alternative of procrastinating but still not good! haha. we ate lunch and dinner outside today, i'm not sure about breakfast because i slept till like..a little before noon. (hey now..its easter break). other than that i don't have much for you today! i'll leave ya with a picture my mom emailed me the other day, and one i took like an hour ago with my webcam. stupid collage, i know..its all i could find quickly on the internet eh! little american jamie and big belgian jamie..haha some things never change. love you all, thanks for reading!!