Cam it Up

Today we all headed to Cambridge (Kevin too) to show the girls the colleges and to go punting on the Cam. Interestingly enough we had to take two cars to take along all our our guests...a little precursor of what things will be like when Baby Boy Dea comes along and we have guests. Since we had figured out where to go when mom and dad where her in February, it was a little easier to get the girls around the city. We went to a Park and Ride station just outside of Cambridge which was great because you can park a little easier and its a quick bus ride into the city...dealing with parking in England is not a favorite activity of mine. We got to enjoy their first fish and chips at the Anchor pub located on the Cam next to the punting shop. As you can see, Addison is learning all sorts of new tricks. Auntie Crystal let her crawl on the table at home and now she's trying her new skill in new places. It was interesting going through the tour for the second time...it seems that each guide has their own take on legends and stories. Kevin and I had to fill in the holes of some stories since we thought our first guide was a bit better, but this chap did end up redeeming himself by creating a little drama. He evidently got his poll stuck and the boat kept going without him. He got it free but then had to run along the brick wall and under a low tree to hop back on our punt....jolly good fun!After a long day we headed home and the girls got to witness some of the neighborhood fun that we have. The kids started up a cricket game along with water fight. Evidently our house is a perfect target for cricket balls and streaming water.

Market to Market We Go

Today we headed out to the Stamford market. I thought this would be a great place to get the girls with one of my favorite activities in England. The Stamford market has loads of different things to buy from fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats to clothes to handbags to carpeting to jewelry and so much more. Crystal had been upset that her wedding ring didn't fit since she had started that wonderful "swelling" period of her pregnancy so we helped her pick out a beautiful "English" style ring that will be a great keepsake for her...I should have gotten one myself...maybe next time. Crystal also enjoyed some English hospitality when one of the local meat vendors posed with her...some English tummy rubbing for luck.

For lunch, I brought them to Prezzo, one of my favorite Italian places. They loved the food, especially the desserts - sticky toffee pudding and toffee cheesecake. Funny thing happened...we started out being the only people at the restaurant and then walked in my friend Jenny with her boys and her brother and his family who was visiting...how funny!!!

Best Surprise Ever

Today I received the greatest surprise ever. Addison and I drove down to Heathrow to pick up my grandma and great aunt from the airport...this was my first time driving this far by myself in England so I was hoping everything would be okay.  I was very excited to have visitors and not many of my friends can say that their grandma and great aunt could make the trip over. Addison and I anxiously awaited for them and as they walked out I noticed they didn't have any luggage and I got pretty concerned...lost luggage...uggh. As I walked up to them, they didn't say anything, but they parted ways and there stood my 32 week pregnant sister. I instantly started screaming and my screaming turned into tears and then Addison started crying because she got scared, but I couldn't stop hugging my sister. She planned out this whole surprise and was actually able to keep this huge secret from me...she didn't even tell Kevin so it was a great surprise for him as well. It was a lucky thing though that Kevin didn't come with me to the airport because we wouldn't have had enough room in the car. Also it was a good thing that I decided to back out of going along to Barcelona with my grandma and aunt because Crystal would have been home alone for 3 days. Another funny thing was that Crystal's plans almost got cancelled because her doctor didn't clear her to fly until the morning that they left...how crazy.

Words honestly can't explain how excited I was to see my sister. Ever since I found out she was pregnant I was psyched up to be there for her because her due date fell just around our yearly home leave. Then I found out I was pregnant and due just 3 weeks later, so that foiled all my plans to be with her and her with me.  God certainly works in mysterious and joyous ways!  I do have to thank Heath, my sister's husband, for letting her come over especially in her fragile state....thanks bro!!!

Crusin' Greek Style

Six cities in three countries in seven days while riding in-style on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship....ahhh...living in Europe is AWESOME!!! For our first cruise ever, I have to say that we got to see some amazing places, had some wonderful experiences, and we really enjoyed our whirlwind tour of the eastern Mediterranean. This holiday was our combination relaxation and adventure, but we found that there's not much time to relax when you are trying to entertain a 15 month old on a big boat.

We really enjoyed cruising with Royal Caribbean because we got to enjoy an international crew with an American twist - American classic tunes playing on the deck, breakfast and lunch buffets with loads of food, real lemonade (not the fizzy stuff that tastes like 7-up), paying for drinks in US dollars. Addison had a great time smiling and waving at everyone - the staff seemed to adore her and I think everyone on the ship knew who she was by the end of the cruise. It's nice when people help entertain your child to a point, but it's also hard to tell people to leave her alone so she will actually eat something.

Our boat ported out of Venice, Italy and we spent our first full day cruising so we enjoyed life pool side and catching up on sleep from our early morning flight. Our first stop was in Athens, Greece where we made our way to the top of the Acropolis and got a great view of Athens while walking around the Parthenon. It was pretty cool to finally see the actual structure that I tried to reconstruct out of cardboard as a grade school project when we studied Greek mythology.

Tuesday we tendered just off the coast of Mykonos. We did some shopping around Mykonos town and made our way to Ornos Beach where Addie had a blast playing in the sand (more like very tiny pebbles, but she loved it). We also got to see our first "Bourne" site as the windmills on Mykonos island are featured at the end of The Bourne Identity when Jason Bourne walks into Marie's shop and says "Is this your shop?" Pretty sweet!!!

Next we ported in Katakolon, Greece which allowed us to do a quick trip into ancient Olympia to see the site of the first Olympic games. We were told that in the first games that men competed in the nude...that had to be pretty interesting.

Corfu Island was our next stop and the port was beautiful. We really enjoyed the shopping in the markets of Corfu town, but it decided to start raining on us half way through the morning. It turned into a torrential downpour as we ate lunch and we got pretty bummed out because we were packed up to head to the beach after shopping. Also by now we lost both of Addison's passies and we were in desperate search to find some replacements. Kevin searched out three pharmacies and we actually found the same silicon Nuks that she likes (it was a long shot finding one because I've only seen them in the States). We decided to walk back to the boat thinking the rain would let up, but it didn't and we got soaked. On the bright side I stubbled across our missing passy laying on the ground where Addie dropped it on our way into town. I know I should wean her off the whole passy thing but it has been a life saver when we get in some pretty sticky situations.

Our final port was Split, Croatia which is a beautiful city. We stumbled upon a fresh fish market, a crazy-busy food market, and everything-else market...it was insane on how busy they all were. We attempted to find a beach to hang out for the rest of the day but the city beach was a little shady and we didn't feel like stranding ourselves on a beach 20 km away with only a few hours left before our ship left.

We got back into Venice early Saturday morning and wanted to make the most of our last few hours our holiday. We hopped on a water bus and continued with our trend of whirlwind tours into Venice city centre. We got to spend about 1 1/2 hours seeing some sites. We got pretty scared waiting for the next bus to show up because you feel a bit helpless when your only mode of transportation between two points is a small boat. We did end up making it to our "land" bus with about 5 minutes to spare.

When we made it home, we were very glad that we had two days over the May Bank Holiday to recover because we were pretty tired. It was a great trip and we look forward to doing it again...next time with two kids we'll look at bringing along our babysitter to help us out. (By the way...I had a really awesome mini-movie put together to show you all more pictures but it must have been so good of a production that Google wouldn't post it because they thought it was copyright infringed.)

Mother's Day

It is so exciting to celebrate my 2nd Mother's Day being a mom of one with another on the way. I do have to say that I have a very sweet little girl and wonderful husband who treated me like a queen on Sunday. We woke up to a glorious day and made pancakes for breakfast. Then we went on nice walk and took some pictures by one of the close by canola fields. The walk sure reminded me of how pregnant I am...Kevin usually has to ask me to slow down and this time I had to ask him to slow down for me. We then went into Peterborough city centre and had a wonderful lunch sitting outside at Pizza Express (one of my most favorite brick oven pizza places). Then Kevin and Addison brought me to the mall and had me pick out something special...and I choose a beautiful sterling silver bracelet. When we got home we Skyped our moms to wish them well. My mom was pretty jealous of our super nice weather since it was about 35F and rainy in Iowa. That evening we were invited to the Wong's for an Asian BBQ which consisted of grilling out sausages, burgers, ribs, satay chicken and beef, fried noodles, fried rice and lots of other goodies. It was awesome...kind of funny that we had an American BBQ, a traditional English roast and and Asian BBQ all in the same week.

Not Quite OSHA Approved

Ever since we've moved into our house, we've noticed that our back hedges were way out of control and needed trimmed. Several months ago Kevin bought an electric hedge trimmers and managed to shave down the sides of the hedges, but our trusty ladder wasn't tall enough to get the tops hacked off. One option was that we could go buy a really tall step ladder but with the lack of a larger vehicle to haul it home we haven't bought one yet. So for a more resourceful solution we took our patio table, loaded it up with some boards and topped it off with our trusty ladder. Kevin armed himself with the electric trimmers, the hedge clippers, the hand shears and extend-o shears that our neighbor lent us, while I steadied the ladder. The whole endeavor took about 3 1/2 hours since we had to break a few times to feed and play with Addie. We had a few friendly visitors to share their concern about how crazy we were with our set up but it worked out pretty good and the hedges look a heck of a lot better.

It's Getting Warmer

The weather in England has been amazing the past several days...mid to upper 70's all week and no clouds in the sky. Addie loves to be outside, so much that she has been throwing pretty bad fits if she doesn't get to go out. We do get out a lot but I have to load her up with sunscreen when we stay out for too long.   She loves playing in her little car or riding on her tricycle when mom and dad go on walks.  She as also become very fond of the game of golf at least she likes to drag her clubs around.  And yes folks she does have a diaper on....we're not in Iowa....and yes, for those of you not from Iowa, it's something we do in the summer time...run around naked to keep cool on those steaming hot, humid days. 

A Picnic in London

It's kind of funny to say, "Hey, let's go to London for the day", but we've done it a couple times now. Even though it is starting to sound normal, we find a new adventure each time we make the trip. This past Saturday we decided to have a picnic in Kensington Gardens. We packed a few bits to bring with us like a small blanket, fruit and goodies for Addie, but for our main lunch we planned on Subway sandwiches. In order to fullfill this craving I searched out Subway locations in London on their website...did you know that there are 107 Subway stores in London? I happened to find one not to far from the park and our Tube stop. The park was packed so we walked around a bit but then found a perfect spot next to the Round Pond just east of Kensington Palace. Addie loved watching the swans and ducks in the pond and she got to play "football" with daddy. Kevin and I even tried tossing a frisbee, but it wasn't a very good one and it was a little breezy. Plus it's pretty funny I'm sure for observers to see a pregnant chic chasing after a "flying disc." After lunch we circled the grounds of Kensington Palace and I fell in love with the Sunken Garden. Kevin's got high hopes that I can re-create such beauty when we return to Illinois. We stumbled upon the Albert Memorial which was absolutely amazing. Queen Victoria built this memorial in honor of her husband...sorry Kevin, I don't think I can afford something this extravagant for you any day soon. We continued on to Hyde Park where Addie and I shed our socks and shoes, and we dipped our toes in the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. We ended up our day with a stroll through Green Park where Kevin and I got ice cream cones and a big New York Style Hotdog...it's those crazy pregnancy cravings I tell you. The city was so busy and there were people everywhere, but the sun was shining and it was an absolutely perfect day. Again Kevin and I had to pinch ourselves to make sure we weren't dreaming and we thanked God again for giving us this wonderful opportunity to be here.

A Visit From Diana

After getting back from our trip to Germany we got a wonderful visit from our friend, Diana Hopkins. It is so amazing to see a familiar face from home sitting in your own living room and carrying on a conversation like we were sitting back in Washington, Illinois. Diana was actually over on business to attend a dealer conference in Peterborough...ahh, it's pretty cool to have some of your greatest friends work for the same company because somehow they all get connected even if it's half way around the world. Not only was it great to see Diana, but she also came bearing gifts...9 containers of Crystal Light packets. They looked so great when I put them up on our pantry shelf. Thanks again Diana!!! It was great seeing you.

It's Pretty Easy Being Green

Since we've moved to the UK we've noticed that their is a pretty strong push to conserve energy and to follow the three R's - reduce, reuse and recycle. So we have decided to take on some new habits that hopefully we can have a good influence on our kids.

Reuse - All the grocery stores offer their own reusable bags and often give you credit for bringing in your own bags. I picked up the Small Green Bag from Tesco the other day. I now keep a few other plastic bags inside and bring them along now when I go grocery shopping. To tell you the truth it's a lot easier using used bags to pack your own groceries than mess with trying to open up new bags...especially when you've got a 15 month old trying to climb out of the trolley these days.

Recycle - Also we do a lot of recycling...half of our rubbish actually gets thrown in our recycle bin. We have three large bins out back...one for garbage, one for recycling and one for yard waste. We had to start putting the recycling bin up off the ground once Addie started walking because she would play with the pop cans...I have horrible fears of her cutting her fingers. You've also heard me talk about some of our trips to the local waste facility...there are tons of huge containers that are marked for separating out your junk so that it can be recycled accordingly. You park your car and start chucking things in the right bin...pretty cool, but watch out for bees...ask Addie!

Reduce - Most recently we've decided to help reduce the amount of rubbish we see around us. We've started taking a grocery sack with us as we go on family walks and pick up rubbish along the side of the road. Yesterday we picked up a whole sack full. It's seems like there are some places in the UK that there isn't much concern over littering so we thought we'd at least clean up our little part of the world. We met a new neighbor while doing this and he actually thanked us. We felt pretty good about representing some values we picked up in the US.

Also we're trying to reduce the amount of fuel we use...when we came to the UK we bought diesel vehicles because of the fuel economy. The price of diesel these days in the UK is now 1.18 GBP per liter (used to be 96 pence when we moved here). There are 3.85 liters to a US gallon so that equates to about $8.90US/gallon of fuel....so all of you in the US complaining about $4.15 diesel...stop it!!! We both get about 35 miles/US gallon and with Kevin being so much closer to work he only fills his tank once every three weeks...lots better than filling that monster 4 door pickup truck we used to own.

Our Holiday in Munich, Germany

To sum things up, Germany was amazing!!! The food, the people, the sights, the good times spent together as a family. On Friday, we got up around 3:30AM so we could make it to the airport by 6AM. It was only an hour and 20 minute flight to Munich and we flew AirBerlin so it was interesting having all the announcements in German then in English. We took the S-Bahn train to our hotel, The Exquisit, which was located just 10 minutes walk from Marianplatz, the big central square in Munich. We started out our day by hopping on the U-Bahn train up to Olympic Park where the 1972 Olympic games were held. The grounds were awesome and it was a beautiful day. We walked to the top of this huge hill so we could get a scenic view of the park and overlooking the city of Munich. We checked out the Aquatic center, the stadium, Olympic Hall, the Olympia Beirgarten (beer garden) and had a beer and bratwurst at another beer garden. The BMW factory is right next to the park so we walked through their "show room" and Kevin said he could have spent hours in there marveling over the cars and the engineering displays they had set up. I thought the coolest part was the cars they were bringing up in elevators for people to either test drive or they were new cars that just came off the factory floor that people had purchased and were picking up. Next we headed to the English Garden where in part of the river the are huge waves created by an underground tunnel so people can actual surf in the river. I believe its the only the place in the world you can river surf.

Saturday morning we woke up to rain which was kind of a downer but it set the mood for our visit to the Dachau Concentration camp. Dachau was definitely an eye opening experience and one I'm glad we did so that someday when Addison sees the pictures we can share what we learned with her. We had a tour guide that walked us through the camp and explained a lot of background on how the camps came about and some of the unknown stories not told in the history books. We walked all over the grounds and through the main work building, the prison baracks, the roll call yard, and the crematorium where they actually used gas chambers to execute people. It was very sobering to be there, but what made it really real to me was the conversation I had with Jewish woman on our bus ride back whose grandparents were sent to Auschwitz. The rest of the day we spent tracking around Munich and checking out Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), Viktualienmarkt (city market), Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall), Neues Rathaus, (New Town Hall), Neuhauserstrasse (main pedestrian street that leads to Marianplatz). We also got to see the Glockenspiel at work that evening where figurines dance around at the top of the Altes Rathus under the clock.

Sunday we took a 2 hour train ride to Fussen, Germany to visit the Schloss Neuschwanstein castle. It's sometimes nicknamed the Cinderella castle because Walt Disney modeled the castle at Disney World around this place. King Ludwig II built many of these stately homes all around Germany and spent the family billions and put them in millions in debt when he died at the age of 40. It was an amazingly beautiful day and we could see the foothills of Germany lead into the Alps in Austria. To get to the castle you could take a bus of the fiercely steep hill or you could walk it...well of course we decided to walk...yes we were crazy, but we love a challenge. We walked 1 1/2 miles uphill pushing a stroller with a 25 pound baby in it while either carrying a 20 pound backpack (Kev) or me being 5 1/2 months pregnant. It was all worth it because the view was amazing. The castle has 80 rooms but only 20 of them are finished because construction stopped after Ludwig died and after going through what was finished you could see why they ran out of money...the rooms where very elaborate. This is a definite must see for everyone, but I would recommend taking the bus.

Monday we headed to Salzburg, Austria for the day. It definitely isn't enough time by any means, but we got a sneak peak. I'm a huge Sound of Music fan so we did get to see some sights from the famous movie - the park you see here is where they sang the "Do, Re, Mi" song. We saw the fountain where Maria splashed the horse when singing "I Have Confidence in Me," and we saw the cemetery where it was depicted that the family hid from the Nazi's at the end (but really those scenes where shot in Hollywood). Salzburg is also the home of Mozart so we saw his birth place and boyhood home. We rode a tram up to the Salzburg Fortress (Hohensalzburg) and got to see some amazing views down on the city and the mountains even though it was a pretty hazy day. One fun thing on this day was that on the train, Addison befriended a group of Greek highschool students. We ran into them again at the fortress so we had to get a picture of them while they sang, "If You're Happy and You Know It" in Greek. Since we only had a few hours in the city we didn't get to see all the Sound of Music sites, nor did we get to spend much quality time at any one place so we will have to go back for sure. We took some time to pick up some souvenirs...Kevin picked out a beer stein, we got a set of porcelain dolls in traditional dress for Addie, and I picked out a charm and Christmas ornament...all things we are going to be collecting from each country we visit. By accident we came across a game store which we popped in to see if they had a cribbage board (we've been searching everywhere for one), but I remembered that our friends the Westphalen's had picked up a fun German card game called Bohnanza (we affectionally call it the "Bean Game")...we asked about it and sure enough they had it. I was elated to find it and now while we are away from our friends Mark and Amity we can still practice our mad trading skills for when we move back to the States and drum up the fierce competition once again.
On our final day we finished up seeing some sites in Munich that we hadn't gotten to. We started out at Odenplatz Square which is famous for the Feldherrnhalle - Field Marshal's Hall where Bavarian police fought off Nazi protesters lead by Hitler. After Hitler took rule, he made people salute him as they passed in front of this hall. To avoid doing this people would walk on the street behind the hall and is nicknamed "Dodger's Alley". Next door is the Residenz Palace was the official home of Bavaria’s monarchs. Out front are bronze lions with bright shiney noses. People who supported the monarchy during the take over of Hilter would walk by these lion's and rub their noses...this practice is still done today as we saw many passers-by do the same. We ate lunch at the world famous HofBräuhaus (Royal Brewery) and Kevin drank a 1 liter beer. Afterwards he wanted to pull an old college trick of taking the mug with you but I wouldn't let him. We headed out to get some more souvenirs and almost ended up with an unwanted one. We were looking through a very small shop and as we were leaving the stroller caught a small table and things went tumbling...including a glass vase that didn't break, but also a very ugly painted tin tree thing. The shop people claimed that we damaged it and it was looking like we were going to be buying a 128 Euro ($200US) ugly painted tree. To our luck they didn't want to deal with calling the "Chief" and they let us leave...it's totally one of those moments that just make you sick to your stomach. We found another doll for Addie, a Germany/Munich beer stein for Kevin, and I found a Bavarian cookbook to take home.

Munich is a wonderful place. The city is clean and people are very friendly. I was very nervous for our trip at first beacuse I haven't been to a country where English wasn't the main language. Funny thing is that pretty much everyone we met spoke English...they start out in German but then after we apologize for only knowing English they switch tongues and speak perfect English. I feel so ignorant only knowing one language...but I feel it just isn't emphasized in our US education system to be more worldly. I'm sure Addison enjoyed the morning cartoons in German...familiar ones like Mickey's Playhouse and Cailou. Kevin and I would watch poker or snooker in the evenings...it was all in German but you didn't need to understand what they were saying. Overall Germany has to be one of the top trips I've been on...I think what made it most special was experiencing it with my family.

Germany or Bust

Tomorrow morning we are headed to Munich for 5 days of German culture. We are planning on touring Munich obviously, but we are doing day trips to Neuschwanstein Castle, Dachau Concentration Camp, and Salzburg, Austria. I can't wait to eat some really good bratwaurst and see all the great sites...I watched the Sound of Music today so I could be ready for Salzburg. We'll have some great pictures and stories to tell you when we get home on Tuesday!

If You Can't Buy It, Make It

One of the frustrating things about living abroad is not being able to find those trivial little things that you could run to any Kroger or Walmart and pick up to make your favorite recipe. Well I was really wanting to make that fruit dip that you mix a jar of Kraft marshmallow cream with a container of cream cheese. One would thing that was a very simple recipe, but if you can't purchase the marshmallow cream anywhere you have to explore other options. Today was a day that I am glad that God let Al Gore think he invented the internet, because I hopped online and googled "homemade marshmallow cream." To my wonderful surprise I the first recipe that popped up proclaimed it was the best homemade substitute for the Kraft marshmallow cream. Very simple ingredients that I happened to have in the house...it did call for light corn syrup which is another thing you can't buy in the UK, but it had a link from it that told you to mix 2 tablespoons of water with 1/2 cup of sugar instead. Well sure enough I had doubts, but it turned out perfect. I didn't believe that you would actually have to beat it for a whole 10 minutes but it did. I just stood there with my American hand mixer plugged into our big converter in the kitchen and bopped away to some music I had playing. Like other things I've found that I used to be able to conveniently buy and now have found a homemade way of doing it I think I may stick with the homemade versions because I actually know what's in it.

Here's the recipe for homemade marshmallow cream if you find yourself in such a predicament:
3/4 egg white
1/2 cup white corn syrup (1/2 sugar + 2 Tbsp of water)
1/8 tsp of salt
1/2 icing sugar (powdered sugar)
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
Combine egg white, corn syrup, and salt. Beat with mixer on high for 10 minutes or until thick. Add icing sugar and beat on low until blended. Beat in vanilla until blended. Use in any recipe that calls for marshmallow cream. This recipe yields 2 cups and the cream can be frozen if you don't need all that you make up.

Enjoy!!!

Who Took the Cookies From the Cookie Jar?

"Addie took the cookies from the cookie jar..." I was working on baking some treats for my Pampered Chef party. Addison had just learned how to climb up on her little kitchen that we use to block her from getting in the refrigerator and she was pretty determined to get herself an afternoon snack. It was so cute that I had to take pictures, but I quickly helped her down so we didn't have an accident. For the next two days all she wanted was cookies...yikes!!!

Spring Projects

I do say that it is great to have a spouse who gets into the "spring" as much as I do. Maybe it's because we're both a couple of farm kids transplanted into the city, but we have learned to love doing lots of spring projects over the years. We spent three years adding trees, shrubs, and flowers around our house in Washington and leaving all of that was the hardest part about selling our house. Well to feel "normal" this spring we decided to tackle a few things around our new house. In our back garden was a mis-shapened patio with missing pavers and it looked hideous and depressing. Somehow Kevin discovered a little walkway behind our garage that lead to a 10ft x 10ft empty space full of dead plants and yuck, but he found the 5 missing pavers needed to finish our patio. Now that we found the pavers, we had to find out how to get them laid. Kevin instantly got frustrated because to "do it right" he would have tilled up the dirt, laid rock then a 2 inch layer of sand to set the pavers right. Well we didn't have any of the tools to do that and I didn't want to spend that much time on it. So a frustrated Kevin dug up the old pavers and cut away the sod. I sent him off to B&Q (England's Home Depot) to get some sand, because he needed to leave me to get the dirt leveled out and to let himself cool off. By the time he got back I had done my best to make it look pretty. We used three bags of sand to get all the pavers set and leveled out, he even thought to buy some extra rock to put up against the house. It took us 3 hours from start to finish and for the limited resources we were pretty happy with the results. Actually so excited about the results that we have caught ourselves looking outside at it for the past week and just smiling. Here is a picture of what it looked like before...I had to go all the way back to pictures from our house hunting trips to find one.
Now here is Addison showing you how much fun it is to play on her new patio.

I also had the bug to get some new containers to plant flowers and a few plants in to add a little color and character to our home and garden. I had a great time planning things out and shopping for plants at the various garden centers around. I especially loved getting to use my new gardening gloves to plant everything. I felt so in my element again and have been on cloud 9 ever since. It's so fun to look outside and see our new "pretties". I love spring!!!! Here's the front of our house with our new planters out front.

We're Going to Have a Baby Boy!!!

Well it's a pretty funny story how this all came about. Kevin and I were pretty sure we were not going to find out what the sex of our baby was since we enjoyed the surprise with Addison. Even as we went in today for my 20 week scan, we were pretty sure that we would just wait... but we thought it sure would be nice to know if we would need to buy boy clothes or could do with Addie's hand-me-downs and if we needed to order boy bedding from the States.

The day started out interesting...Kevin had to pull himself out of an important meeting to go to my appointment, we were in the middle of prime Addison nap time so she was dog tired, and we were struggling to find a parking space at the hospital. So I guess once the technician started doing the ultrasound and the baby was in perfect position to show the family jewels, we couldn't help but verify our suspicions. I wasn't sure at first, but the more times she kept rolling the wand over that area, I said out loud..."That sure looks like a little boy to me!" Kevin had a huge grin on his face as I looked at him and he asked the tech if she knew what it was...she said she didn't know. We didn't know how she couldn't notice, but then she asked if we wanted to find out what the sex was. We were pretty sure we thought we knew already, but we gave in and had her check it out again. Sure enough we found out that the little one is a little boy! Kevin was so excited. He would have been overjoyed with another little girl but he is super excited to have a son.

I'm still in shock that I'm having a boy...I'm getting so used to a girl, but I think it will be great to have one of each. It's nice now to say to Addison that her little brother is kicking mommy instead of saying brother slash sister. The rest of the scan went pretty well...they took measurements on the head, two parts of the brain, the torso and looked at the heart and his leg length. I never did find out how long he was or what his heart beat was. I guess I should have known to ask those questions, but in the States they just tell you that. We called our immediate family first to let them know they were having a grandson or nephew and they were pretty excited - grandmas are ready to go shopping!

Spring Lambs

Today Addison and I went to my friend Holli's house as we do every other Wednesday, but today was a little extra special. Just behind Holli's house are some public footpaths that go right through a field full of sheep and spring lambs. Since the kids are out of school for spring holiday, we made it a great adventure today to check them out. All the kids put on their "wellies" (rain boots) except for me and Addie...I haven't made the effort to get her a pair yet. We then had to be very careful not to step on any "black pudding" left by the sheepies in the field, so I carried Addison most of the time. We had a lovely afternoon!

Pregnancy in the UK - 2nd Midwife Visit

I haven't written about the pregnancy in a while...well, I guess it's because there hasn't been much going on. It seems like in the States that we are constantly visiting the doctor, getting blood tests done, glucose tests, etc...you can't forget that you are pregnant. Well I just had my second midwife visit and I'm almost 5 months along. I think my appointment lasted a whole 20 minutes and 15 minutes of it was my midwife filling out paperwork. The hospital forgot to tell me that I needed to get blood work done above and beyond the triple marker test that I didn't want to do. So my midwife asked me what I wanted to get tested for...well, I wasn't sure. I didn't feel anemic, I'm pretty sure I don't have HIV, and I know my blood type already, but we are going to go ahead and test for all of this. Next she felt my stomach for about 2 seconds and then asked me if I wanted to hear the baby's heart beat...I thought it was weird that she had to ask. Didn't she want to make record of what the rate was? Nope, just did it to appease me. She did have a tough time finding the heartbeat though because my little one was squirming all over the place. It has been fun to feel the little wiggles lately. Next week I go in for my 20 week scan which should be pretty cool. I heard they do spend a lot more time on this ultrasound and do lots more measurements than in the States. Also they have just started letting people find out the sex of their babies in Peterborough (they hadn't done that before), but we are not going to find out...we like surprises!!!

Spring Cleaning...and Bees!!!!

Today was a beautiful day and we felt motivated to get do some spring cleaning. We hadn't cleaned up our garage since we moved in so we thought it was time to sift through the boxes and random bits that have built up so far. We pulled everything out and lined it up on the driveway...kind of looked like we were having a yard sale. Many times we would pick something up and ask ourselves "Why did we bring this with us?" and other times we were asking "How could we forgotten to pack that?" Needless to say we actually have room in the garage now that we could park a car in there, but nobody does that here so we'll just leave it open and spacious.

We made a trip to the local waste/recycling center thinking we'd drop off some cardboard and chipboard quick. Well as we pulled up the queue of cars was winding all the way out to the entrance...guess everyone one else felt it was a good day for spring cleaning as well. We decided to enjoy the weather by rolling down the windows and turning up some tunes while we waited. Kevin kept getting a kick out of the guy in front of us who kept turning off his car every time the line of cars stopped. He said he wanted to hop out and let the guy know that he was wasting so much fuel...he was cracking me up. All of a sudden we heard Addie start to freak out...I looked back and there was this huge bee on her face. She was screaming and I couldn't tell if she had been stung or not. Kevin popped out of the car to get her out of her car seat and kill the bee. She was in such hysterics that I got out of the driver's seat and went to hold her on the passenger side. We don't think she got stung but was pretty scared...we were too. We let her ride in the front with us as we wound around the line...it took about 20 minutes for us to get up to the unloading zone. She loved leaning out the window to look at herself in the side mirrors, then the vanity mirrors, and then she played with the radio and finally dad let her sit at the steering wheel. I know this is all totally illegal and we were pulling a "Britney Spears", but I felt so bad for her and she had a blast.

That night we got to grill out since Kevin had worked the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the grill. It's amazing how big the propane containers are over here...they are huge and heavy. We made chicken kabobs and there were awesome. I had spent the afternoon sanding the patio furniture we got from some other ISE's because we are going to re-stain all the pieces. I had my palm sander from home plugged into our huge converter and I was getting completely messy and dusty...I loved it!!! Addison played with her golf set in the back garden and we had the iPod playing in the conservatory. It felt like we were back into our old swing of things...it was a great day!!!

Discovering the Library

Today we decided to visit the Peterborough library for a mini family excursion. I thought that it would be good for us to take up some other activities like reading in the evenings other than watching old re-runs of Law and Order and Crossing Jordan every night. As I mentioned earlier I'm not a huge book reader, but I love anything with pictures and books with topics that I can use the information right away. The library ended up having a huge section of travel books and gardening...two of my favorite activities. I grabbed a couple of books on Munich, Germany since we are going there in a few weeks and a book on Ireland since we are going their with my in-laws at the end of June. I've also been itching to plant some flowers and dig in the dirt since the weather has been getting nicer, so I grabbed a few books on container gardening...something I haven't been good at in the past. I figured that if I was going to try it again because we need some color around our back garden. I also figured that this way I could get some nice new pots and such that I could bring back home with me. Kevin found himself a book on his favorite tycoon...Warren Buffet. He was pretty excited and started in on it right away when we got home. Addison did get to join in the fun by getting her own library card. She's still in the stage of wanting to tear up her own books and I didn't fee like buying any books from the library this time around. Also Kevin and I took turns reading to her in the children's library as the other went to look for books. Funny thing is that while I went to look for books, I didn't get too far before I started to hear a little voice call out "ma ma ma" and little feet pattering away. Yes...my little one got loose and was in search of her mommy. During her search she got soooo excited to see all the books at her disposal that she started pulling random books off the shelves. I guess she was a good way to keep me from picking out too many books, since I didn't want her to end up bothering the other people with my very, very expressive and joyfully loud daughter.