Week 24

Week 24! If you are counting months, I guess that makes me about 6 months. However, when you become pregnant, you discover there are so many ways of counting how far along you are. Personally, I like to still count in weeks...it seems like I'm not as far along and that I still have some more time to prepare! I'm feeling really good. I do get tired easily and talking tends to make me huff and puff. I think that I grew this past week. I've been really hungry and my belly has really been itching. The little one is still kicking like crazy and it's fun to watch my stomach shake when he pulls a roundhouse. Other than that, we are now just getting ourselves in planning mode. We intend to do some shopping this weekend while I am still truly mobile and feel like doing it. If we can just stop ourselves from buying cute stuffed animals and toys and focus on essentials, we may just make some headway. Don't forget you can click on my "Bump" photo link to compare the different weeks. It's on the left side panel.

7 Years!

Yesterday marked Edgar and I's 7th wedding anniversary. We celebrated by dining at a swanky little restaurant in Kew called The Glasshouse. The food is always delicious and the service impeccable. It's the type of place where, when you get up to use the toilet or whatever, they refold your napkin into a fancy design and put it back on the table instead of in wherever you left it. We had so much fun reminiscing on the past 7 years (or the 9 that we've been together) and how next year's anniversary will be a little different for us.

So...Happy Anniversary, Babe. You've made the past 7 years magical and adventurous. I can't wait to see what the next year brings and share in all the new memories with you. You are a husband I thought only existed in my dreams and I feel so lucky to have you, your support, and and your love every single day. love you...L&LB

Week 23

20 Week Ultrasound

I did it! The video actually uploaded! I hope you enjoy our little boy! Notice at the very beginning how he is doing the bicycle with his legs. I think that he has been taking Spin classes in there lately...and kickboxing.

If you can't see the video above, just click here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj4rXSyS96I

Summer is Here!

Well, we've waited for a very long time to say that summer has arrived here in London. It came yesterday, and, according to the weather people, it's leaving today. Two glorious days of hot (90F). Although I think it was hotter back in the beginning of June. Oh well, we take what we can get, and, quite frankly, I'm quite happy to not be lugging my pregnant self around in extreme heat.

Life has been a little slow for us lately. We are mostly hanging out around the house and visiting with friends. Our baby gear research and shopping is beginning to unfold. For some reason, even though I am obviously pregnant, I feel like an outsider when I visit these baby stores. It's as if I feel like people just look, laugh, and say "What do they think they are doing in here?" And most of the time, we walk around with a deer in headlights look on our faces. We are trying to keep it simple and not be the parents who buy a bunch of un-needed stuff. Since we will be moving back to the US, we'll wait to stock up at that time. For the first six weeks, we're just concentrating on the basic essentials. When you live in a small space and really think about it, it's amazing what you realize you can do without!

This past weekend, we had lunch with our good friends Larren, Deena, and their adorable 8 month old daughter, Keira. They gave us some good advice and Keira is so good and sweet, that we weren't totally scared of our impending parenthood journey.

Sorry there isn't more to report! I'm trying to upload my 20 week ultrasound video to youtube so you can see our little one. I don't know if it will work, but I guess we'll all find out!

Week 22

Roujan, France and Barcelona, Spain

I've been really bad about updating the blog with our trips. We've taken several major trips that I have yet to report on. I thought I would fill you in on our latest trip while it's still fresh on my mind and then I'll get caught up on everything I've been missing.

August 2-8, 2009

I don't know if you would call our last trip a "Babymoon" or not, but it was probably our last major trip until the baby is born. It has become increasingly uncomfortable for me to fly, especially on these discount airlines where there is absolutely no leg room. I was so happy our latest trip was only a couple of hours on the plane, because I don't think I could have lasted much longer. The up side is that Easyjet makes all pregnant ladies sign a release form that states how many weeks you are and we got to board with the "people with children and those needing assistance" group, thereby avoiding the cattle call that is Easyjet boarding.

We arrived in Montpellier, France on Sunday and had decided to do some of our trip "Lilly and Aron style". Lilly and Aron are the friends from Oxford that we traveled with (they are now back in Houston :( ). In all of our trips, I plan EVERYTHING-flights, car rental, where to stay, train times/tickets, etc. We were spontaneous on restaurants and sometimes on what we did when we were at our destination, depending on our destination. But for the most part, I planned for months and everything always went off like clockwork with no stress at all. Lilly and Aron were a little more freestyle in their travel, sometimes not even knowing where they would spend the night. So we decided to take inspiration from them and *GASP* not pre-book our rental car! I know, it's hard to believe, but we did it. We started going from desk to desk in the airport and every single one of them said "Sorry, it's a very busy time, we have no cars available". So I begin to panic a little because a car is literally the only way we can get to our ultimate destination of Roujan. At the last desk, we hit the jackpot with a VW Golf for a reasonable price. I was relieved. And to top off our "Lilly and Aron style", we *HUGE GASP* did NOT get a GPS system. We are so crazy, I know...next thing you know, we'll move back to Texas with a 6-week old...oh wait, we are already going to do that!

We arrived in Roujan with no problems. It seems we can still read a map and road signs. We were warmly and graciously welcomed by our friends, Lizzie and Ali, at Le Couvent. We always said that we would never visit any of our previous travel destinations twice, with the exception of Le Couvent. It's like visiting old friends and we could not leave Europe without seeing them one more time. Within a half hour of arriving, we were greeted also with the sounds of a trumpet and the beginning of the Roujan Fete. This is an annual celebration in Roujan that consists of many activities, such as a parade, carnival and wine tasting from the region. I loved the parade. It's the kind where after the last float passes you, you follow along, so by the end of the parade, everyone in the entire village is following this parade and they all wind up down at the carnival grounds. We both had fun watching the musical entertainment and Edgar had fun tasting the different wines and fresh oysters. Dinner that night was at a local restaurant with the entire house of guests from Le Couvent. It was great to get to know everyone we would be seeing for the next few days. Our second day consisted of sleeping very late and getting a very late start. But it's OK, the purpose of this trip was not "travel", but "vacation", and we promised ourselves we would just relax and basically do nothing but enjoy each other and the sunshine. We drove over to Pezenas the second day for some lunch and a little shopping and then on to Neffies, a nearby village, for a delicious French dinner at Les Goutailles. The highlight of our third day was sitting by the pool at Le Couvent all day long, and capping our day with homemade vanilla ice cream courtesy of Lizzie. And because I'm the pregnant lady, I got to finish off the canister, and I did...I don't think they even had to wash the thing. We had dinner that night at another nearby village, Servian, at a restaurant called Le Vesuvio. We decided that on our last full day, we should probably do a little road trip. We love driving through the little French villages, and this would probably be our last chance for a while. We wound up in Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert, a beautiful medieval village and considered one of the most beautiful in France. We meandered along the narrow passageways and up and down the hills popping into unique shops and stopping for a cool drink every now and then. Needless to say, it was a very active day, and when we returned to the car to head home, we were both sufficiently exhausted, and hot. We capped our last night with an aperitif and games at Le Couvent before heading back to Neffies for dinner.

This is where things got interesting, because we were supposed to go to Barcelona on Thursday for the remainder of our vacation. And in keeping with our "wing it" philosophy, we did not reserve train tickets. I mean, Barcelona is only 3 hours away, how hard can it be to get a train ticket? Well, apparently, everyone wants to go to Barcelona in August and no matter what we did, the train website kept saying there were no tickets available. We had alot of fun at breakfast Thursday morning with everyone trying to help us out. We had suggestions of hot air balloons, finding a fishing boat and working our way across the Mediterranean, and hiring the local taxi driver who is also the local mortician (and hopefully no none would need his services while we were away). In the end, we just drove to the train station, crossed our fingers and hoped for the best, which happened. There were tickets available, just not the direct kind. We had to change trains in Spain, which wasn't too bad, except the train we had been on in France was built for long distance travel and was very nice. The train in Spain was more of a commuter train and you can imagine hot, sweaty, stinky people getting on and off after a day at the beach. It was probably the stinkiest train I've ever been on. No offense to any Spaniards, and I can say this because Edgar is of Spanish descent, but please take a shower and wear some deodorant (don't worry, he does)!

We arrived in Barcelona, a little later than anticipated, but we at least got there. The very cheap taxi (they are plentiful and cheap in Barcelona) dropped us in front of our hotel, the Grand Hotel Central. We grabbed some delicious tapas close by and then retired to our room to scrub the train stink off of us and get some sleep. We spent our day and a half in Barcelona walking Las Ramblas, touring some Gaudi sites like the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell, and bascially just enjoying the beauty of the city. We have both decided that it is now our #2 favorite city we have visited behind Rome. The buildings are beautiful, the people nice and the food really, really good. It was the perfect combination of modern cosmopolitan and old world.

This was a great last trip for us. And it is so appropriate that our first and last big trip to Europe included Le Couvent. We have made so many life long friends during our time over here and we are so thankful to have had the experiences we have had. We both realize we are living a dream and it's hard to believe it is winding down for us. We've hit the snooze button as many times as possible, but now we know we will have to wake up eventually. Thanks to everyone for supporting us and being interested in what we are doing over here. It's made it that much more enjoyable for us.

21 Weeks

We were in France/Barcelona on the "birthday" of 21 weeks. This picture was taken in Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, France. It's a beautiful medieval village about an hour's drive from Roujan. Sorry I don't have on my usual long-sleeve pink shirt. It was over 100 degrees outside.

A Little Late, but the End of Mom & Dad's Visit...

This is a bit late in posting, but I wanted to do a conclusion to Mom and Dad's visit so we could have a record of all they did while they were here....

Saturday, July 25, 2009

(On top of the overlook with the White Cliffs behind)

(Dover Castle)

(The English Channel and all the ferries to France behind us)

We loaded up the car for a little road trip to Dover. Our intention was to see Dover Castle and tour the tunnels used during WWII. The Castle was closed, but it actually worked out for the best, because we were able to spend more time touring the grounds, which were open. There is an overlook located at the front of the grounds that was used to keep an eye on the sky and sea during the wars. The top of the overlook is now a great place to get a good view of the ferry harbor and the White Cliffs of Dover. The overlook, which is actually underground, is a series of bunkers, a communications system and a room with a full wall of windows that was used to view any enemies coming towards the coast. Keep in mind that we chose this day randomly, having no idea of what events may have been going on in the actual town. As we were standing in the overlook, looking out the same windows used by soldiers many years ago, we heard a rumble, looked up and saw a huge WWII airplane flying at eye level to us. We really couldn't believe our eyes! Come to find out, Dover was hosting their annual Dover 2009 event, which is an airshow showcasing everything from vintage planes to modern coast guard helicopters. Dad was beyond himself and I've never seen him move faster than when he climbed the staircase back to the top of the overlook to get a closer look at the plane and take some photos. We admired the airshow for a while before heading down to do the tunnels tour.

I had already taken the tour a few years back, so I hung out in the little cafe while Mom, Dad, and Edgar learned how they were used during the war for everything from communications, to a hospital, to housing. I think they thoroughly enjoyed the tour and learned alot about the Dunkirk retreat, which was a massive operation to move retreating Allied soldiers from France back to the UK. The operation was expected to save maybe 5,000 soldiers, but wound up saving close to 400,000. Pretty amazing.

It was a long day, but it could not have been more perfect. We all headed back to Richmond with smiles on our faces and just a few aching feet.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Tuesday was their last official day as tourists as they were leaving on Wednesday. We finished it with a bang...Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and a tour through the National Gallery. Unless you get to the Palace 2 hours before the changing begins, you can't expect to get prime views. We thought we had a great outpost, but we wound up not being able to see much of anything happening in the courtyard behind the gates. We at least got to see everyone march in and out and here the band play a few songs.

We headed down the road towards the Texas Embassy for a much deserved lunch of mediocre TexMex. It's pretty good for London, but they would get laughed out of town in Texas.

We then did a quick, whirlwind tour of the National Gallery, where Mom and Dad saw paintings by artists such as Raphael, Van Gough, and Monet. I think they were pleasantly surprised by the art and enjoyed it!

(On the front entrance to the National Gallery with St. Martin in the Fields Church in the background. We had coffee and hot chocolate to fuel us for the ride back home to Richmond.)