Omaha beach roadtrip!

Hey everyone! Well it's been over a week since my last post but a lot has happened! Wes had his first preseason game at home, it was actually at their practice gym which is a lot smaller than the arena they'll play at during the regular season but it was still fun. I met some of the "superfans" of STB.. It's crazy, if you're sitting anywhere close to them, the minute your man does anything, good or bad, they're looking at you with either the happy, thumbs up, good job face or the uhh oh, that's not good, thumbs down face.. I've come to realize this so I just tend to look down if something didn't go right, lol! They did end up winning though, Wes had 15 points and 13 rebounds.. he's always shooting for over 10 rebounds a game so he was happy with that.

Wes' game was on Friday so he actually had Saturday & Sunday off! We woke up Saturday morning, got McDonald's breakfast (Wes' fave!) and headed up the Normandy Coast.. It's only a 1 1/2 hour drive to Arromanches.. that's where Omaha beach is and where D-Day took place on June 6, 1944.. It was an eerie feeling but at the same time, so beautiful! We went into the Musee du debarquement where they had tons of WWII memorabilia. They had lots of small models of how the plan of attack took place and what boats/ships were where.. It was all so interesting! After that we grabbed an expensive bite to eat (a hot dog and hamburger were 13 euros!) Way to suck those tourists dry! Haha! Then we decided to do some exploring on our own.. we walked all the way up the side of the cliff and got some breathtaking mental pictures, the actual pictures just didn't do it justice. We walked along all the beaches and collected shells, which we have done at every single beach we've been to together :) I also found an old shotgun shell which Wes said probably wasn't from the war but I'm still telling myself it is.. who finds shotgun shells washed up on the site of one of the most historic wars of all time?? Just sayin' :) After our time at the beach we wanted to go to the American cemetary, but thankfully asked a lady in one of the tourist shops how late it was open till and to our disappointment she said 5:30. It was 5:10 and the cemetary was a 25 minute drive from Arromanches.. Looking at the bright side of things, we still have something to look forward to when we have family come out. That's the first place we'll be taking them to :) We decided to head back towards Le Havre but stop in Deauville for dinner. We had never seen Deauville but every single person we've talked to here said we have to go there. Now I understand why! The town is unlike anything I've ever seen, the center is so quaint and every store is built to look almost like wooden houses.. it was so clean and everybody seemed so nice.. The people there looked pretty fancy, either it's an everyday thing or they put on their sunday's best for a night out on the town. Deauville is also home to the American Film Festival, which sadly I missed out on.. It was September 3-12th. It's not as big as the Cannes Film Festival but I guess a lot of American actors/actresses come there. We had dinner at the big casino there. I almost felt like I was back in Council Bluffs at the Horseshoe! It was super nice and was packed, lots of little old women trying their luck at the coin slots.. the only thing missing was the oxygen tank and cigarette hanging out of their mouths, ha! We ate a good meal & I had a great drink, apparently called a "monaco" which is Heineken beer, lemonade and grenadine.. yum! By the time we finished dinner we were ready to just get home.. Wes was super excited to watch the Huskers via slingbox so at approximately 1:08am we tuned in. I fell asleep after the first half but not Wes.. even if the game was ugly he still stayed up for the whole thing. We slept in pretty late on Sunday and didn't do a whole lot.. thankfully it didn't really affect us on Saturday but we're both a little sick right now, a bunch of Wes' teammates were sick last week and it looks like we now have it. So we're loading up on Vitamin C, Zicam and mucinex to help us breathe.. sore throats and coughing are no fun! I'm thinking about heading to the gym to see what I can do with limited breathing.. anything to get a piece of this sunshine outside :) Hope everyone is well and getting ready for fall! I always hate to see summertime go but I'm not gonna lie, busting out my boots, hats and scarves gets me excited!! xoxo

Happy Friday!

Hey ya'll! Ok so it's been a little while since I wrote. My blogging had to take a backseat while I'm trying to whip myself back into shape.. I started back in the gym on Monday so I've been putting in overtime there :)

Well we are still settling into Le Havre and finding the fun spots to go.. Saturday night after Le Havre won the tournament they were in, we drove home and the whole team went out to La Luna, which is supposed to be the best spot to go out.. It was fun and the music was pretty good.. one minute you'd hear R&B and then next minute you're hearing french rap, love it! Ha! We got back to our apartment around 4:30am only to get locked out of our apartment (long story) but we ended up sleeping on the concrete floor in front of the door to the parking garage waiting for someone to come home and open the door.. Thank god for drunk women who come home at 5:45 am because otherwise we might have been waiting awhile. We got into bed at 6am Sunday morning so that was a crazy first experience going out here :)

Wes had a tournament on Wednesday about 45 minutes away from here where he played Aalst, his old team. It was crazy to only see a few familiar faces but otherwise it was a whole new team. Le Havre won but it was a close game the entire time. Wes plays again tomorrow at the same place so we're hoping for another win.. I really can't wait for the regular season to start, It's going to be so fun to see new teams and new players.. Not that I don't love the Belgian league but after four years there it gets a little monotonous.

Ok sorry to cut this post short, especially since I've been slackin' all week but I need to catch up with the fam now :) Hoping to have internet by next week, WHOO HOO!!!

OHD...

Hey everyone! Well today is an "OHD" which I made up but means Official Homesick Day.. It's crazy, sometimes they're few and far between, some you can see coming and some just hit you like a brick wall. It all started with waking up from a bad dream this morning.. those can always put a damper on your morning but in this case the sad vibes followed me into the day. Poor Wes had to try extra hard to cheer me up.. love him for that :) It's crazy because we have almost everything we want now, but when you don't have internet or means of communicating with the people you love without walking to a McDonald's everyday it starts to wear on you. Not that I don't love walking here and ordering my cappucino or Coke light, but I miss the long phone conversations with my mom, dad and brother and my webcam sessions with my sister, Pierce and Paige. I miss having those never ending chains of back and forth emails with all of Wes' sisters :( Ok enough, you guys get it, i'm a little homesick.

We tried to get our internet set up yesterday, along with our new French bank account, and let me tell you, nothing is really easy. After sitting at the bank for what felt like eternity, we walked to the internet shop where they told us that because we live up in the hills of Le Havre that our connection would probably be very slow.. Wes had to leave to practice so I met up with the secretary of the team, Sarah.. (who is amazing by the way!) She worked overtime and took me to another internet place and we tried again.. turns out we need to know the name of the previous person who lived in our apartment because they can't activate anything without knowing that....why? No idea. So now we are on a wild goose chase to find out more details.. hopefully we'll get it figured out, and once we do, supposedly it will only take 10 days to get someone to come hook it up. Sounds like a long time but we've learned never to expect anything fast.

On a happy note, Wes has another tournament (preseason is full of 'em) this weekend but it's only 40 minutes away in Rouen France, which means I can go to both games! :) That makes me so excited, I feel like i'm in basketball withdrawl.. I've seen one game since Wes played in summer ball. So this weekend will be good! I also found out yesterday that soon they will be playing Aalst, which is the first Belgian team that Wes played for his rookie year. That should be fun to see a familiar face or two..

Well, I should probably get to the grocery store to grab a few things for dinner.. I brought my new recipe box to France full of all the yummy recipes my family and friends gave me.. Being able to cook has been awesome! :) I told Wes it's going to be awhile before I want to go out to a restaurant again. Unless it's for a date night! I love those!! :)

Hope everyone is doing good! Talk to ya'll soon! XO

First weekend in our new place!

Ok so I have a lot to write about today :) First off I'll start with the good stuff.. we finally got into our new apartment on Friday, the water and electricity got turned on and then our furniture and appliances got delivered, which were all brand new & awesome! I love that the team let us pick everything out.. It's amazing what just asking can do :) So we are now officially in a sweet apartment up in the hills and now having a functioning toilet! Ha!

We already had our first house guests, Rebecca and Kathleen who drove all the way from Holland! Rebecca is an old friend from Lexington and I just met her friend Kathleen.. they arrived at about midnight on Friday night.. Wes left early Saturday morning to make the long 7 1/2 hour roadtrip to a tournament so it was just us girls.. While they went sightseeing for a few hours around Le Havre I decided to go to Ikea since we had no plates/silverware or even bedsheets... We all met back up and walked to the center where we found an amazing Fondue restaurant, I'd never had fondue before and I was super impressed! It was SO good! After that we walked to an Irish pub close by and had a blast talking & drinking with the locals.. after a few more drinks we got a cab back home around 2am.. fun night! So today the girls took off back to Holland so it's just me until Wes gets back tonight.. Here's the downer, today I got in a heated argument with a woman that lives an apartment building away from us.. as I was walking the dogs back to our building she was watching me from her balcony.. She started telling me, in french of course to get my dogs off the grass.. Normally I would try to avoid her and play the "I don't speak french" card but the little pistol in me opened my mouth and told her to find something better to do.. that apparently upset her because she darted back inside and was down standing in front of me within 30 seconds.. I proceeded to let my "pistol" side (as Wes calls it) take over.. I decided to let the dogs off the leashes right in front of her, where they made a beeline to the grass.. Now she's super mad and yelling louder and louder, speaking faster and faster... I told her she couldn't tell me what to do, laughed in her face and walked away.. I went back up to my apartment and looked out the window to see her venting to another woman, who i'm guessing is the apartment manager, judging by all the keys she had on her keyring.. ?? So i might be in trouble, but REALLY is it so bad to let my dogs on the grass.. I pick up after them and they aren't hurting anything so it's annoying to me when some people have nothing better to do with their time than patrol what everyone else is doing.. Ohhhhk, I'm done venting now..lol! So that's the not so good stuff I had to write about... Wes is going to be impressed when he gets home to find out i'm already fueding with the neighbors.. haha.

Now I'm going to head back home and finish putting our place together with all my fun stuff from Ikea :) Can't wait! Maybe it will take my mind off of being homesick for a little while.. It's hard not to get homesick when you're all of the sudden by yourself AND you have to read everyone's posts on how fun the first HUSKER game was!!!! So jealous! Although my parents are awesome and recorded the game on our dvr so once we have internet we can watch it via slingbox! Even if we know the outcome it will still be fun to watch :) Hope everyone had a great weekend! Cross your fingers for us that we get internet soon..I'm sure the McDonalds employees are sick of seeing my mug around here! ;)

Happy Tuesday :)

Hey heyy! Well I made the long drive to Belgium and Wes had his first tournament with STB Le Havre :) The pups and I left early Saturday morning and it ended up being almost a 5 hour drive with a stop for Stella and Bentley to do their thing and get some gas, and going through 3 toll booths! France doesn't mess around with their tolls! I paid almost 25 euros between the 3 of them...then I got into Belgium and didn't have a single toll.. crazy. I met up with Charlotte and Claudia and we went to our favorite restaurant in Aalst called Ichiban for some awesome sushi :) Wes had his first game on Friday night, they won by 5.. On Saturday they played at 5, so I decided that I'd head up to Charleroi to grab some of our things, say hello to the Riddick's and hurry up to Lille (Carvin France) for Wes' game.. He played great, and had over 20 points..not for sure of the exact number because I was kind of chatting the whole game too..Two of Wes' "superfans" drove up from Belgium to watch him..now that's dedication! Haha! The drive home was fun because Wes' coach let him ride home with me :) So the 3 hour drive from there seemed super short.. Yesterday Wes didn't have practice till 4:30 so we had high hopes that we'd finally get moved into the new apartment.. FYI, a couple new problems arose while we were gone and the toilet no longer flushes. Soooo, we thought that was enough to get us moved in fast, but sadly, No. They are now saying that it probably won't be until Thursday so we're trying to be patient. They said that the toilet isn't an emergency so we must wait.. I'd like to see them live without a toilet for a week. Enough said. We'll be patient and get in when we get in. Well I think that's all I have for now.. hoping for good news the next time I write :) Love ya guys! XO

Ps..I'm reading the book Eat Pray Love... has anyone seen the movie yet? Or is it out in the States yet? I'm just wondering if the book is better than the movie..???

Rain Rain Rain...

Ok so the walk here today wasn't as pleasant as the past few days.. first order of business when I arrived was to buy a new "parapluie" or umbrella... I got POURED on! haha! I'm sure I looked awesome in my cute boots/new sweater and sopping wet hair.. Why why why did i choose today to wear the boots?!? Owell, doesn't matter cause I'm drying off and in my cozy corner once again... On a happy note, as I was ordering my cappucino here in McDonalds I just happened to look up and see "bacon & egg muffin" ... this is unusual because I've only seen 2 McDonalds here in Europe that have anything relating to breakfast.. so I ordered one and it was delicious! ;) Wes will be pretty pumped when I tell him!

Yesterday was rainy all day so I decided to have Wes drop me off at "The Docks" since it's about 30 seconds away his practice gym.. Just a recap, The Docks is the big mall that also has the gym where he'll be playing his games.. I was there for 2 1/2 hours and managed to find out that it has a lot more than just shops, it has an entire grocery store too, basically a super walmart.. it was crazy because you walk into this store thinking it's just another random store with random stuff in it, then I came to a door that led me into a big grocery area.. funny that i get excited about that but with us sharing one car, anything that makes things more convenient for us is much appreciated :) After practice Wes met me back at The Docks and we tried out this awesome Italian restaurant there... so far we are 3 for 3 with the restaurants there. I don't like eating out so much but we don't really have a choice right now without a stove or oven.. I'm dying to just cook! I told Wes that once we're in our new apartment he's inviting the entire team over for a good meal :) This is the other thing... I might be one of the only girls here with this team... so far i'm the only one here. They told Wes that they're still looking for a couple american players so i'm praying they'll have a girlfriend or wife come with them. It's going to be a big adjustment going from a team with all wives/gf's and becoming so close with them.. to just me. It'll all work out though, I've met one of Wes' teammates, a rookie named Dom & he said he has a girlfriend who will be coming over for a couple weeks at a time but his best friend from back home is going to move here to live with him. Looks like he'll be my game buddy ;) Haha..

I'm leaving for Belgium tomorrow morning & I need to update my Itunes so I have some good playlists for the 4 hour drive :) I'll write again soon! XOXO

We found one!!!

Hey ya'll, so here I am again, sitting in my little corner in Mickey D's "borrowing" the wifi and having a super strong coffee...what i wouldn't do for a grande, non fat, no whip white mocha from Starbucks right now but I'll make do with what I have ;) haha...

So GREAT news!! We found our new apartment yesterday! 8th one's the charm! :) We are so happy and we LOVE it! It's up in the hills of Le Havre.. just to give you an idea, a big part of the city is set lower, like the port, the city center and all of that...and if you look up from there you see a lot of houses in the hills...which is really beautiful, and that's where our apartment is. Here is the best part...... there is a lift about 150 meters from our apartment that takes you literally through the hill and drops you out at the bottom, which just happens to be right where I am right now.. The huge mall called "Coty" :) So we are approximately 5-10 minutes away from Coty and the city center! Love it! I will never be bored! haha! Our apartment is really nice, and one of the only ones that is a neutral color.. Almost all of the other ones were painted or wallpapered every color of the rainbow. Another awesome advantage is outside.. it's almost like a park surrounds us, which is great for our pups! :) We don't move in until next week though so it looks like we won't have internet for awhile still.. which is ok because Wes has a preseason tournament this weekend somewhere here in northern France so I've decided I'm going to make the 4 hour drive up to Belgium to see all my friends there and maybe pick up some of our things that we kept at one of our friends house. I can't wait, ROADTRIP! Although it's just going to be the dogs and I in our little Citroen, I'm still excited! :) I'm going to stay with my bestie Charlotte and I can't wait to see her new house! Hope she has my bedroom all ready for me, lol! Well I think that's all I have for now.. It feels good to blog and tell our story because I'd love to tell each and every one of you about what's going on and this is just the best way to do it :) Love you all! XOXO

Our new home in Le Havre France

So this is the first communication I've had with anyone in 4 1/2 days since we arrived in France. With no internet or TV, and barely even a phone I've been forcing myself out of the apartment each day whether it be to walk the dogs, explore, or today I walked from our apartment in the city center to this huge mall where i'm having a "Coke light" & mooching free wifi from the McDonald's :) I can't even explain how much I LOVE this city!!! Le Havre France is beautiful! It's so interesting to live in a different country, and everyday is a new experience with new questions, so far today i've got "are you British?" and "how are your teeth so white?" Haha! I love it, they are just as interested in me as I am in them :)

Our first day of arrival we landed at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris where the general manager of Wes' new team, Bertrand or "B" was waiting for us.. he drove us the long 3 hour drive home, which is normally a lot shorter but turns out it's prime vacation time for the people here in France so the highways were really busy! We were dropped off at our new apartment and found out it was not so "new".. and although we're not particularly picky people, we had to call B back to let him know that our apartment situation wasn't going to work.. I'm not going to go into extreme detail but being put in this position makes me appreciate the small things in life.. such as a washer/dryer, stove/oven , electricity and cleanliness :) Needless to say, we've been working with a realtor for the past 2 days to find a new apartment.. we looked at 5 yesterday and there is another 6 that we'll be checking out today in about an hour.. It's bittersweet because right now we have the best location, right in the city center which has a ton of shops, restaurants and a beautiful park a half a block away that we take Bentley and Stella to everyday.. but I guess there has to be some give and take.

After sleeping in until 3:30 pm on Sunday Wes and I decided to explore, which normally wouldn't be the best day for it because everything is typically closed but we found that a lot of places here actually aren't closed on Sunday.. We went to "The Docks" which is a huge building right on the water that has a full mall, lots of good restaurants (including a SUBWAY!), and also the gym that all of Wes' home games will be in.. That could also be a bad thing that his gym is in a mall! ;)

I would say Monday was my hardest day of all.. Wes started practice at 10am and with all the medical testing and conditioning I knew I was going to be by myself most of the day.. First I tried sleeping...didn't work, I wasn't tired (probably from the excessive amount of sleep I got on Sunday).. jetlag works in mysterious ways. So then I decided I was going to walk the dogs and explore.. In the past I was always a little leary to go out on my own without any direction or protection (my mase, lol) but this city is different, it just feels safe.. everyone that i've come into contact with is so nice, and although they might not speak english, they still smile :) I actually ended up spending a good portion of the day just walking around.. We ended up trying out a delicious Wok restaurant that night and thought we'd go to bed early since Wes was exhausted from his long day, but NOPE, jetlag again! We layed in bed and talked till almost 4am..which probably made getting up for practice not fun for Wes, but what do you do when your internal clock isn't ready for bed? :)

Yesterday consisted of more dog walking, window shopping and looking at apartments.. it went by pretty fast.. I'm so ready to just have our apartment, internet, slingbox and vonage set up so we can communicate with the outside world.. I'm just glad that this city is so amazing that I can actually get out and keep myself busy instead of sitting inside and moping over our apartment situation , haa! Well, I just got the call that Wes is on his way to pick me up to go look at more apartments =) So I better wrap this up quick, but I'm sure I'll be back at Mickey D's to mooch some more internet soon! Love you guys!! XOXO