It's a.....

So we weren't going to find out if we were having a boy or a girl this time. But I might as well share the story of how we did find out and hopefully no one can blame me! :) It was awful. But a few months ago I went into the ER with complications. After not being able to find a fetal heartbeat with the doppler scope (the lady tried for a good 30 minutes), I had to wait 3 depressing and heartwrenching hours in the ER alone starting to go through the greiving process of losing another pregnancy. It was very sad. I heard the nurses talking outside my room about the "pregnant 30 year old female in room 24 with no fetal signs of life". That was really bad, as if the cloth they pull across the door is sound proof. But luckily as soon as they placed the ultrasound scope on me I saw my healthy baby! Not only that but I immediately saw that it was a boy!!! When you've had a few ultrasounds, you can pretty much understand what you're looking at. Needless to say there were more tears and prayers of thanks this time. We are so excited. Everything since then has been great, the baby is moving around like crazy and I pray that things continue to be safe. I only have 3 more months to go! Any name suggestions will be appreciated. We got nothing!

Family Pictures

I am so happy with these family pictures that my good friend Heather Carr took- they turned out beautiful! I love the ones of my kids! My sister said that the one of E was a "E Cullen" shot! So true.

Halloween

We carved pumpkins and set them out before we left, the kids were getting antsy.

Here are the kiddos on Halloween. I've never enjoyed Halloween as a parent as much as I did this year. This year Rose wanted to be a heart for months in advance, so I knew it had to be awesome. I made two huge pillow-like hearts and tied them around her. She loved it! Doesn't that look hilarious! She bounced from house to house keeping up with her brother and sister, sometimes beating them to the door! She yelled "Trick or Treat" the loudest and after each house she would run into my arms and yell whatever candy she got, like "Reeses!" or "lollipop!!" It was the best. Lils was super pretty as a cowgirl, though she wanted to put wheels on her large horse and take it around, until I explained it would slow her down. Ebay was very happy and excited, but his sense of direction is lacking. He kept going back to houses we'd already got to. Wrong way, buddy! After we went around the block, Rose and I stayed in to pass out candy- Rose would run up to the door and pass it out exuberantly. Dave took the older 2 out for more. They were so exhausted! E kept laying on the sidewalk between houses, Dave said it was so funny how tired they got!

London- Day 7, Last Day

The Tower of London

Last day in London-

My last day was a major highlight of the trip! Steph and I awoke to a beautiful room service and took our time getting ready and being lazy… but we had also been going full steam ahead (train joke) the day before and were exhausted. But Jeff, on the other hand was so chipper and fun and he’d gotten no more than 3 hours sleep every night we’d been there with all of the work and studying he had to do. Scrunch! He had gone out of his way that morning to get us day-of tickets to “Les Miserables”. He ended up buying “music seats” so named for the lack of stage view- they were supposedly blind to 30 % of the stage. (but for 15 pounds- you couldn’t beat the price and it turned out the seats were fantastic).

Anyways- that morning Steph and I headed to the Tower of London! An incredibly entertaining tour. The beefeaters were so named because they ate the food before the King to make sure it wasn’t poisoned, so they were privileged enough to eat beef. Holy cow! We loved our tour guide! He had the driest sense of humor and kept making fun of Americans and people from Putney. He was all dressed up in the beefeater guard garb (try saying that 3 times fast), and would spin the tales of executions and beheading in a thrilling, humorous and gross way! He looked like a “handsomer William Shatner” according to himself. J It was fascinating.

Our Beefeater tour guide

The Tower of London started out as the oldest castle in England, called the White Towers. Subsequent kings would build more and more outer walls and motes to add to the security and magnificence of the place. This was also a place of dungeons, prisons, torture devices (like the rack) and famous beheadings of royalty that got on the wrong side of the king. He told of how they had a mote there for 500 years, the water from the Thames would wash through with the tide twice a day. Those times it would also wash in raw sewage, filth and garbage. The filth would settle on the ground while the rest of the water flushed through, leaving super nastiness behind- which I guess is a pretty good defense! Nobody could stand the smell!

The beefeater told crazy stories, (warning: graphic) like of Anne Boelyn, the infamous “whore” and wife of King Henry the 8^th. She wanted to be beheaded in the manner of the French with a 2 handed sword. So they brought in a French swordsman for the job. She was so startled and unaware of the man actually beheading her that as the executioner held up her head by the hair to show all of the peasants gathered to witness and said, “Behold! The head of a traitor! So die all traitors! Long live the King!”. Her eyes were still swerving looking around in their sockets and her mouth was still moving in silent prayer for 30 seconds after!!!! AAAGGGHHH!!!!

He told the sad story of Lady Gray, the 16 yr old who was queen for 9 days and a puppet in her family’s thirst for power. She was a Protestant and the “powers that be” were NOT happy with a Protestant on the throne. She was in prison for over 130 days, in a prison opposite the building of her young 18 year old husband. Her sister-in-law (newly instated Queen) tried to pardon her, but eventually had to sign their death warrants. She first had to watch her poor husband get killed and then went up to the chopping block. She told the executioner to “dispatch me quickly”. Then she was blind folded. Wanting to make the job as easy on the executioner, she groped around for the block calling out in a trembling voice, “where is it? Where is it?” The priest helped her to it and she was killed. So sad! She was so worried about suffering a painful death because it had a happened a few times where the executioners had missed! I won’t go into detail, but once it took 8 strokes to finally hit the mark, the large 60 lb ax was clumsy and many of the executioners were drunkards.

A happy story involved a large, burly, red-bearded Scottish Lord. He was brought to the prison there and sentenced to die. His wife and her ladies drove through the worst snowstorm in recorded history 360 plus miles to get there. Halfway through the journey the carriage wheels broke and they continued on horseback to the Tower. She went in with her ladies to see her husband who was then somehow disguised as a woman while one of the lady’s got the guards outside drunk. The husband walked out crying with the ladies while the wife led on a convincing 2 way conversation for over a ½ hour of her talking to her husband until she knew the women and her husband were safely away. Then she left telling the guards not to disturb her husband that night because he was deep in his prayers. They escaped and lived the rest of their lives in marital bliss. He died in his sleep at 85 and she followed 2 days later of a broken heart. That’s a nicer story, right?!

So, after the carnage and entertainment, we went to see the crown jewels! They were incredible (and I don’t care too much about diamonds and stuff). The Queen’s coronations robes were immaculate. There were diamonds from old Punjab leaders who were conquered in the Queens crown. We saw the biggest diamond in the world in the shape and size of an egg in a scepter. It was pretty unbelievable.

Then we took the tube to meet with Marc’s sister, Alyssa, for dinner. We had to be quick because we both had plays at 7:30. We walked around her cute town of Richmond, UK and then ate at an Asian fusion restaurant called “Wagamamas”. It was delicious and we had a great time talking about life. After dinner we got back on the tube and headed for “Les Mis”. I am still singing the music in my head. Lorel, you know that song you sang in Elementary school about “little people know, when little people fight, we might be small, but we’ve got some bite!”- that’s from Les Mis! I had a laugh, but mostly cried like a prego-head the whole time. Thank goodness Steph had tissues! Jeff was hiding his misty eyes. J The music and story are so powerful and the quality of the singing and acting was pristine. These guys are the big-time. It’s like the Broadway of London. This was amazing and beautiful.

The next day I took a taxi to the airport, flew home for 12 + hours and am SO happy to be back with my family!!!

Paris- Day 6

We woke up at 9:30 and had a breakfast of eggs, baguettes, hot Coco and Jelly at the café next to the metro station. We also had all of our baggage with us which was very cumbersome and annoying! Luckily we brought small bags in our large suitcases to London so we could have smaller ones on our jaunt to France. Bit they were still ‘nnoying! We took the metro to a RER station (train station) after some last minute Paris shopping. At the station, we were waiting for a bus and I just thought to ask this girl if we were waiting for the right one. She said, “No! That’s the train to Versailles!” against our better judgment, we just jumped right on the train she said to and it started rolling right away! Thank goodness it was the right one! The train took 30 minutes to get to Versailles. When we got there, we got our tickets and lugged our baggage up what seemed like a mile of beautiful grounds! Luckily there was a baggage check there and we were happy. 50 pounds lighter, we were ready!

Versailles

We walked around the palace and were just blown away by the architecture and beauty, but we also kept making fun of King Louis because of his large, frothy, massive, Cher-hair that Steph said looked like it had been parted by Moses. This guy was full of himself! He was super flamboyant, and everything was so over the top and gaudy but amazing at the same time. After Versailles, we took a train to see Marie Antoinette’s “Petite Trianon.” King Louis had given her land to build her own house and getaway area, and this girl had taste! She built her own village “hamlet” with about 12 buildings surrounding a pond.

First – her own house was a small Palace and ornate, but not as gaudy as Versailles. Then we walked about a third of a mile through beautiful gardens and grounds and it reminded me of the East Coast (fall colors, grass). Her “Hamlet” was tucked in through that beautiful walk and they were little thatch-roofed houses. It looked like something out of a fairytale! It was the most spectacular place I have ever seen! (and I’ve been to some pretty beautiful place in my life). I felt like Elizabeth Bennett when she saw Mr. Darcy’s house for the first time. I’d never seen a place more happily situated. The village of thatched roof, country buildings produced things for her convenience. There was a mill, a dress maker, a dairy, farm, and other places that served her and Versailles. The lake was filled with fat ugly fish that these rude French boys were chucking rocks at! (That made me mad and I almost had to smack them down… but this time resisted. Boys will be boys) The place looked like my idea of heaven. I never knew until that time what my dream world looked like, that was it. So, yeh, we liked it… a lot! I will definitely be sending pictures of that.

By then it was time to go, we collected our largish bags and were off to the train station. We went from train to metro to another metro to another. The last transfer was ridiculous!! It was like we were trying to get in to a Michael Jackson concert! It was dangerous, there were so many people cramming to get on the tram. I thought someone would push me over into the tracks. The tram i/*s going over 100 miles per hour and stopping for less than a minute, 3 or 4 people get off and then 5 more try to cram on! We were at the front row for 3 trams and still couldn’t get on. Finally, some people took pity on us with our bags and my pregnancy and helped us push through to get inside. I was so squished in that thing, I could’ve lifted up both of my legs off of the ground and stay exactly put. I started getting dizzy and having a hard time breathing and my poor baby tummy was really being pressed. The worst was that the doors wouldn’t close on one of the cars and so the tram took 20 minutes before it actually started moving! Steph was in some ballerina pose the whole time with an arched back and seriously this black dude behind her kept grabbing her butt!!! I would’ve too, if given the chance- but ew! There was a nice French guy that I talked to about life while we were smooshed together with thankfully my bag between us. He looked and talked just like the “River Monsters” guy on Animal Planet. We were so glad we left with more than enough time to get to our train, we thought we’d be a couple hours early, but between the metro and getting bootys grabbed, we got there right as they were boarding! 3 1/2 hours! When it should have been an hour at most. Oh well, I am grateful I live in a place where I can have my own big car and go where I jolly well choose, but you can't beat the beauty of Paris at night!

We were relieved to get on our Eurostar train where we had nice seats, sit and read a bit. (I am reading the “House of Glass” series now) Steph started reading “Hunger Games”. We took a taxi back and we were SO happy to be back in London in that nice hotel! Steph was so glad to see Jeff again and we went nite nite.

Paris- Day 5

Today was our favorite day in Paris and for the whole trip so far. We woke up at 11:30. ‘Nuff said. The scrunchin’ housekeeping lady woke us up! Seriously they sound exactly the same in every country, “housekeeping!”- just like on “Tommy Boy”. The doors to our room were extremely hard to open. The lock was weird and there was a stationary knob in the middle of the door you have to somehow pull up towards you and out as you are unlocking the lock! It took us 5 or 6 minutes of loud banging and lifting to try and open the door.

So after getting ready we headed down to our neighborhood café across from the hotel. They only had French menus, but the waiter was super nice and told us everything they had. We skipped breakfast altogether and had lunch. I had the greatest meal of my life (up to that point). Pasta with 3 frommages (cheeses)- that’s a word we learned and used frequently! :) The penne pasta was cooked to perfection and the cheese was soft and supple in the middle. We would take the cheese and spread it on the baguettes and it was tasty!!!

We then strolled over to the metro, we went to see the Orsay Museum that has our favorite paintings in it, from Van Gogh to Picasso but it was closed due to a strike. (lame!) So we decided to go shopping! We bought some Paris stuff for the kids, and then we saw this bakery!!! I bought the most INCREDIBLE chocolate éclair in the world!!! Steph got a Raspberry tart covered in juicy raspberries. When she ordered it, the boy was confused…he tried to pronounce the word “Raspberry”. He had never heard it before in his life! We had a good laugh. As he handed it to Steph the manager made the boy say it in English. He tripped over the word a few times! We all had a good laugh.

We took a bus to Notre Dame and luckily a nice Frenchman helped us find the right bus to get on. It was crazy confusing! The sky was very cloudy – we were worried that Steph’s one umbrella wasn’t going to be enough. We walked down an old, beautiful street to Notre Dame, saw it for 2 seconds, and then the rain CAME WITH A VENGENCE!! Steph put up her umbrella, and is really bad at sharing. She held it off to the side and only my belly was covered. J I made fun of her the rest of the trip for her sharing skills.

We ran over to the nearest café yelling and paughing and the Frenchman (who had helped earlier) was there, cigarette in hand, laughing at us! Since we were there we figured we might as well buy a hot chocolate, and we ate our éclair and tart. Twenty minutes later, the rain had stopped and we walked over to Notre Dame!

The railings on the bridge leading to Notre Dame were covered with padlocks and ribbons with initials on them. We asked someone what that meant and she responded in her broken English that it was a romantic bridge were lovers wrote their initials on padlocks to show they would be together forever. At that moment we missed our hubbies and thought it was sweet.

We went into Notre Dame and it was massive and ornate! We walked around for free and enjoyed listening to the Organ music.

After Notre Dame we went to a street that had a bunch of specialty shops. One shop was a formmagery where they made incredible specialty cheeses. We ask a guy to help us chose the best ones and we sampled a few. They were SO good! Next store was a specialty bakery, so we grabbed a large baguette that was perfectly crispy on the outside, and soft and delicious on the inside. We stuffed the cheese and baguettes in our bag for later. Then came the greatest dinner of my life in a café down the street from Notre Dame. I ordered the duck after the waiter suggested it and because it sounded good, and it was absolutely AMAZING in every way!! Steph ordered Salmon served between two crusty pie-like thingy ma-gigs.

It was getting dark so we headed to one last look at the Eiffel Tower at night. We were expecting it to be closed but it was actually open! By the way, the Metro and the Bus took 1 ½ hours to even get there! It was super busy, we took the wrong bus and it was on the other side of town. It started sparkling right when we got there! It sparkles 5 minutes to the hour at night. It was still open so we got to go up all 900 feet! We also happened to get in a group of all Asians on our elevator up, complete with Asian tour-guide. Only in Paris can you learn about France in Chinese. Steph was freaking out on the way up and was really nervous; she doesn’t like heights. But, she was super relieved when she discovered it was all enclosed. It was absolutely beautiful up there, and just a wonderful end to a perfect day in Paris. We skipped public transportation on the way home and paid for a Taxi. We ended our night with the Baguette and Cheese in our room while watching “Merlin” in French (you thought it was good in English!!) Versailles tomorrow!

Paris- Day 4

The grounds of the Louvre

We woke up at 5 am and jumped in our taxi by 5:30. When we arrived at the train station St. Pancris (not Spleen), we were blown away by how beautiful it was! So clean and nice. The brick was up in columns and everything was very orderly. We were early enough to get breakfast at a little cafe while we waited to board. Again, the best hot chocolate and muffin! The train took us mostly underwater to Paris, but we got a few glimpses of the countryside and I fell asleep.

When we got off of the train it was like we were in some crazy foreign country! Which we were. Everything was old, kind of dirty, people were everywhere, loud, and speaking all different languages. Everything was in French and we were so overwhelmed. We tried to get some euros for cash and then find out which train to take into Paris. But it was all so loud, busy and confusing, we looked for a taxi. Finally we found where the taxis were and got in a huge line to wait. As we waited, the line was moving slowly. I paused for literally 2 seconds to take a picture and the girl who was behind just took our spot in line! I was flustered and thinking to just chill out, but I couldn't, maybe b/c I'm pregnant! :) So I said, "So, I pause for a few seconds and you take my place in line?" She said,"Oh, yes, well, I was going to ask if you wanted to go ahead and move back up." Steph was mortified! It was awkward and Steph asked if I thought the girl was offended. I said, "I don't care, I was!" :) That was awesome. Total smackdown.

So we got in the taxi and asked the driver the very line we asked about a million times in the next 3 days, "par le voux anglais?" (do you speak english?) Everyone said a “only a little”, but it was always helpful! Their English was way better than our French! We basically showed our taxi driver the address of the hotel and we were off! There was building to building traffic! He took us around through these crazy side streets fast and expertly. Talking in broken English about Paris. And then we saw it. The Eifel Tower!!! We were so giddy and excited ! He drove right by it on the way to the hotel. We were surprised by how gigantic it is! It was a beautiful clear day. We drove through the round-a-bout around the Arc de Triumphe (made by Napolean) which was amazing. We’ve seen so many dang marble statues.

Our hotel was called the “Ideal Hotel”, nice. We got up to our tiny Pa risian hotel room- what a change from the incredible 5 star hotel Jeff’s school is paying for! We dropped off our stuff, got our day bags together and tromped off to the nearest metro. The info lady helped us buy our tickets. The metro is France is dirter than London, but there always seems to be fun entertainment. Whether it’s some French black dude singing (VERY badly) these African sounding songs and then spouting off political views about the system that we didn’t understand. Or a fun band of 2 guys on guitars singing Micheal Jacksons, “Smooth Criminal” and “The Greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return”. Those were amazing and Steph thre w some money in their guitar case. She was excited to be supporting the arts! J The metro was easy to learn by trial and error and asking friendly Parisians for help. Everyone was always kind and pointed us in the right direction.

The Louvre! Our first real stop! It was incredible and mind blowing. We ended up eating a beautiful jabon (ham) and cheese baguettes to break your teeth off on and Diet Coke right on the grounds over looking the Louvre, statues and gardens everywhere. By that point it was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen (that changed on the last day of Paris). We thought we were there, but it was seriously like a mile of gardens and parks before we actually reached the pyramid. Then we waited in line, which went smoothly, but was lame after all we had been through to get there. We wanted to get the Museum Pass so we wouldn’t have to wait in line anymore at any other museums, so after 45 minutes to get through security, we asked where to get the museum pass. Steph led us on the way a lady had told her, right through the other security line to get in!!!! My heart sank. The police lady said we’d have to go to the end of that line! NOOO!!! We had already waited for so long, I was not about to go through that again! So, I talked to another rent-a-cop security dude and said that we went through by mistake and he luckily let us back in! UGH! So I had to lay another super-prego smackdown.

We saw so many masterpieces, but kept it quick and thorough and to only what we wanted to see. You could spend days there. The coolest thing was seeing the Mona Lisa. I don’t really understand why it’s such a big deal. But we saw it, it was beautiful, and we pushed our way up through the hordes of people to see it. After we saw the Mona Lisa painted by none other than Da Vinci himself, we felt a sense of , “ok, we saw the Mona Lisa, now we can relax and enjoy everything else”. We slowed our pace and enjoyed the sculptures and paintings that were all beautiful. Not only that, but the room and ceilings sometimes outshone the art!

After the Louvre, we were hungry again, so we went to our first Parisian café! The waiter was busy and nice and ever gave us an English menu. I got a beautiful quiche, Steph got lasagna Bolognese and we also bought a $5 water. Dang. It was pretty expensive to eat there, but SO delicious! We enjoyed every bite, took in our surroundings and relaxed.

Then it was getting dark. We walked through the Louvre grounds again. No wonder they call Paris the city of lights. At night, everything is all lit up and breath taking. The fountains and towers were gleaming. We got a gelato and ate that while sitting by a large circular duck pond. Then we followed our guide book that has a tour of France at night in it. It’s in English and French. You pass it to a taxi driver and they can take you on this route around Paris to all of these spots. We finally found a taxi place (you can’t just flag them down) and got our taxi. He took us the Notre Dame (massive and lit up magically), over the Seine River which runs through Paris, past Napoleon’s Tomb, past the Arc De Triumphe, and of course the Eifel Tower. At each place we would ask to get out for a quick minute for photos. He was very kind and seemed to enjoy telling us about the different things in Paris. Most of it we had a hard time understanding. The Eifel Tower sparkles every 5 minutes to the hour, so we happened to leave it right when it started sparkling! So pretty! And SO French!

The taxi drove by some fun shopping, so we just stopped there, got out, and shopped. Most of the stores were way too expensive. But we loved walking around, people watching, window shopping, and taking in the night life in Paris. The street was beautiful with sparkly sequence hanging from the trees- so French. After that, it was late, we took the metro back to our hotel. Everywhere we went was full of people and we felt safe. On the quick jaunt from the metro to the hotel, not too many people were out. But I had a firm grip on my mace as we walked up to our room. A busy, wild, day in Paris. The next would be our favorite day of the trip!