green gate plate

i found my danish plate, in beligum. sorta cheating, i know, but when i saw "greengate danmark" on the underside of our friend's china, i had to ask if they found the china in denmark. we went to denmark last year, but i was too cheap to buy a plate that entire trip. now i'm chasing down the plates from last year's trip-better a late plate than no plate, right?

luckily the danish china was bought just down the road in our favorite waterloo. so we found the teeny store flowerpot and 6 euros later we had our danish plate.

now i'm just wondering if i want to walk away without the grey lovelies below.

full greengate collection here. beware it may get you thoroughly anxious for christmas.

images here.

no time for a run...

one of the few runners i've seen in belgium.

after our first BIG hail/thunder storm last night i was anxious for the morning to come. i usually am not this way. a recent free, and really short, e-book about how to maximize your mornings found on my favorite simplemom.net has encouraged me yet again. i love the author's connection between exercise, and God and morning time. it took a few minutes to read and many things were very impressive.

if nothing else, you gotta try her five minute workout. this neat lady exercises everyday, even if it is only five minutes. i never considered five minutes adequate time to burn some calories, but when i didn't fit in a run this past week, i experimented upon her word. boy, i will no longer give up on exercise even if it is just a few minutes. spare five minutes to try this and tell me if you were not whooped.

here are her own words:

"The Habit Workout

If I wake up late, don’t have time for a shower or just don’t want to

do much, I do my 5 minute workout. It’s a simple way to get good

exercise and no matter how busy my day is, I can usually fit it in.

Here’s what it looks like:

I set my watch timer for 5 minutes. I must complete my workout

within that time. This keeps me from falling asleep on the floor after

doing my situps. Don’t laugh. I’ve done it.

As soon as the timer starts, I do 10 pushups, roll over for 30 bicycle

crunches, and stand up for 10 squats. That takes about a minute

and I do it 5 times. If I’m doing my exercises well, my arms, back,

legs and tummy are burning by the end. Then I collapse in a heap

and bask in my sense of accomplishment.

And it only took 5 minutes."

sometimes i forget i live in on a different continent

it's easy to remember this simple fact when i wanna call my mom and she's eight hours into her beauty sleep. not hard to remember when the man in the grocery line behind us jibbers politely, pointing and smiling and such, and we don't have clue what he's saying. i didn't forget when i drove the car by myself for the first time in a busy area for twenty minutes and didn't stop at one stoplight-i love you roundabouts. even though i never thought it was possible to forget how foreign this place can feel, sometimes i do. my soul must be settling right on in to this level land.

uploaded from our past bruxelles discoveries

this is our walden babe

i found out where beauty and the beast's belle keeps her horse phillipe-in the pasture next to us! i've NEVER seen a horse so massive or with such big bell-bottoms:)

call me a late bloomer but i'm just reading henry david thoreau's famous book "walden". sometimes it's nice to think that our situation is similar to throeau's, and sometimes i want anything but to live in my own walden pond... either way, i've been thinking about thoreau's insight as i trudge slowly through the book-so much insight takes my mind a while to process. without any warning last night devin said to me, "This is our walden babe." i guess out of the mouth of two witnesses...

i wholeheartedly have believed, i think since i was young, that simplicity is beautiful. but when we freely chose a simpler life by moving here, the beauty is at times hard to emphasize. easier said than done. i love my anthro. i love a good salad spinner. i love nail polish. i love having more than five pairs of shoes. i love a couch to cuddle on. i love carpet. i love a bike to ride. i love unlimited text messaging. i love a good lunch with a close lady friend, or better yet a sunday dinner with family. gratefully, words of a prophet changed my erroneous thinking that our newly chosen simple life should be a concern-free, effortless, and hearty life. he said, "(it) is simple but not easy."

despite the lack of ease at times, this is our walden and if only i could be a little more like thoreau. he soaked up life. to quote him,

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

my turn to soak up the marrow of life. I gotta love the rolling hills AND the smell of manuer. i gotta love the beautiful sound of french, AND that i don't fully understand sunday school even when everyone raises their hand but us and then they joke that we are americans:) i gotta love that i am surrounded by sweet design, AND that i live off a little suitcase of clothes. i gotta love the flat horizon sun rises AND the cloudy skies. i say gotta, because i'm trying hard to love the simplicity AND let go of the little details that prevented m

i am learning i can live, fully, with less. i am learning to appreciate the simple, even when it means sacrificing the ease. i am loving the reducing of cares, and the rush of realizing how little i need to live and how satisfying that can be. nevertheless i will i be excited to when our walden-living is up, and it's back to salad spinners and nail polish:)

beating the record

our longest record for consecutive outings has been, get ready, 3 days. today made it four. saturday=tourist brussels. sunday=church nivelle. monday=fhe waterloo. tuesday=home teaching ittre. :) i'm ever ready to stop driving, make a decent dinner, write some, and go to bed early.

for now, let the day go down in history as a dear friends birthday, complete with an achey legs run, witnessing the moon rise before the sunset, and forgetting the camera when you need it. good job tuesday, you were excellent.

here is the most recent footage of us. belgium only has hills, and this is the best view of brussels. the spectacular part about this sight is the rarity of being able to see for miles, that is if you can get past the fence and ugly building:)

belgian waffle take two

i've been visualizing, rather drooling, about what it would be like to try a real belgian waffle since the first time we saw one on the street. by real, i am talking about everything a food street vendor should be: temptingly warm, tantilizing smell, and not store bought. it does not get more touristy than vendor belgian gaufres, but even Elder Ballard specifically took time to say he tried a gaufre. we dove into the tourist pool head first. let the pictures speak for themselves.

last night we had our first guests over to our abode. two full time lds missionaries from our ward. i have never hosted missionaries all on my own. i was so excited to cook for representatives of Jesus Christ, to have representatives of Jesus Christ in my home, and to listen to the Lord's tool of carrying forth the gospel in the latter-days. i wasn't so excited to realize that i am older than a missionary... oh well. we called their families afterward and told them they were doing well. we then called our families afterward and told them we were doing well, doing well but i'm pooped. sorry for the lack of post yesterday. happy weekend.

cherished kpack fam photo july 2010 by him

as my nana used to say...

don't you think people have sayings that you remember them by? it is not something necessarily they've said, but something you just remember them by.

-my sister's is, "i never regret being a little too kind."

-nephi's was, "i will go and do the things which the lord hath commanded."

-my dance teacher's was, "excuses...stink." with a little in between there.

-devin's dad saying is "stick til the task til it sticks to you, beginners are many, enders are few."

-my favorite professor's was, "widest to the world."

-grandpa killpack's is, "if" by rudyard kipling.

-and tonight nana, my mother's grandmother, has a phrase that has been motivating me.

simple: don't go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.

i'm trying nana, i really am. i was never good at this before belgium. but having not too many dishes to use the next day, washing dishes by hand and thinking of you doing the same, and wanting to follow better in your footsteps leaves a wet, but nevertheless empty, sink overnight all in your behalf. hope you are smiling up there. i love you. i miss you. thanks for leaving a limitless effect on me.

patchwork quilt

when i showed my dad the google earth view of where we live he said, "can you say patchwork quilt?" yes i can daddy, patchwork quilt.

View Larger Map

we love that we get the chance to live in such open fields and wavy landscape. we're practically farmers:)

college town

we were tipped off that a good shopping port here in belgique was in a college town north of us. if we subconsciously missed provo, here was our shot to get a feel of the college vibe again. plus it was close, and we weren't up to making a big rendezvous this weekend. the shopping was -just a wee bit- more pricey than ptown, and nothing to write home about. but it was enlivening to be around young hip-happenin' people again, even if it meant watching a few too many people make out in the park(definitely not in provo any more) . AHH the park-this was the best part of the weekend. It was 24 degrees celsius(i'm trying to fully absorb the culture-in case you can't do math like me, thats 75 fahrenheit) clear skies, and the warmest it's been in four weeks. we napped in the park, listened to bells chime each hour, ate lunch, read books, practiced french, and oozed up every last drop of daylight. with a little bit of coconut and speculoos ice cream to top it off, i don't think we had any a single regret from the weekend...