Week 15

I'm at week 15 now. Many of you have asked for a picture of the 12 week ultrasound. Here's the precious little one:

Now little one is a bit bigger, as am I. We'll find out the gender during the 20 week scan if we're lucky and it's facing the right way. I'm feeling much better now. But still not great. I'm nauseous from time to time throughout the day, VERY tired, and dizzy due to my low blood pressure. But, I'll live.

The other weekend, N, the kids and I went to see the London Marathon. N's brother Tim was running in it. Our camera packed up just before Tim ran passed, but we did get a picture of this wonderful fun runner!

He's meant to look like Borat. (BTW, the actor of Borat (who exposes the gross prejudices that humans hold in a very teenage boy way) went to my school once upon a time ago.)

I also saw the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey. To whom which I screamed, "GORDON!!!!" like a love-sick school girl. Me??? I honestly have no idea where that came from. Maybe the pregnancy hormones. (This is not my photo but it is from the same race.)


Tim was very excited to see us, and we were excited to see him. We managed to see him on two different spots of the course and then we battled the tube ride home.

I haven't shown a pix of N for a while, so here he is on his bike the day after the awful tube ride. Down on poorly managed public transport!

Long Time no Type

So Marc and Kylie (long-time friends of mine) came to visit Nick and I. Marc gave me flack for not blogging often enough and for blogging too long. Then, a facebook message from my cousin Shannon said the same thing! So, my April's resolution is to blog less more!

I thought I would start with some big news. I'M PREGNANT!!! Oh my goodness. Due Oct 19th. We're very excited but I must admit that I'm really really scared.

This is what I looked like when we found out at 5 weeks: (I can only pray that God blesses me with a flat stomach like this someday again!)



Then a little larger at 10 weeks:


















And now... I'm fat at 13 weeks and wearing maternity clothes! (Or very tight trousers) I try to suck it in as much as I can during the day, but by the evening.... so this is me relaxed. And, I'm sure the picture looks stretched???

As they'd say in England, "who ate all the pies?" The problem is, I have been too ill to eat anything other than crackers. I can only wish it was peacan pie followed by Oma's cheesecake followed by... only wish...

Those that are in awe at the almost-nude pictures... chill. Things are A LOT more carefree in England/Europe and this is nothing compared to what's in the newspapers! And, when in Rome...

So, Nick and I do have to apologize to Marc and Kylie. When they were visiting Nick was bed-bound with an awful flu. And I was all-day sick (I refuse to call it "morning" sick), nauseous all day all night all week all month... Morning my arse! I could barely bring myself to eat crackers never mind cook a meal and sightsee. So, for the record, we are not lazy or boring and we do eat when we're 'normal'. It was lovely to have you and we look forward to seeing you again when we're not at our worst.

A memory of the two of you (taken on the day we kicked you out of the house and sent you to the London Science Museum).

Christmas in the Alps

Skiing in the Italian Alps was great! The kids were in Ski School from 9 -11 in the morning while N and I skied some harder runs. We then all skied the nursery sloops or explored Livigno for the rest of the day.


Ski School made for a very early start. We had to leave our apartment with all our equipment by 8:30 every morning to walk to the bus stop, to catch a bus, to walk to the ski school. We were all exhausted by noon. I have never walked on skis so much in my life! There wasn’t really a central area that all the lifts filtered into. They all just came down the mountain into the valley and there was a bus service that took you from lift to lift. Not ideal, but I’m not complaining.

(On this map, blue is easy, red is intermediate and black is difficult)

The sun shone bright every day which made it easier to get up each early morning.

It was the first time the kids had seen so much snow (well, Christie did when she was a baby in German… but that was a while ago) so Christie was amazed at her frozen hair,

we were sure to play with icicles (Jack wanted to bring one back on the plane), jump in piles of snow, scope out the Christmas Igloos that the locals made,












make snow angels





























and toboggan. The tobogganing we did was awesome! One of the ski lifts had these toboggan’s that hooked up to a button lift (like a t-bar but it’s a round disk not a T). It took you half way up a ski run and then down you came! So much fun!

Here is a video of J's 'no fear' attempt at tobogganing... Look out C!!


Christmas was great. We missed spending it with family, but since I spend every Christmas away from my family it seemed to be easier this year as I kept myself busy with skiing. It was the first Christmas (and pray the last) that we were up dressed and out the door by 8:30 (Ski School) and waited to open all our gifts until the afternoon. The kids didn't seem to mind. They were so excited to ski that Santa seemed a distant thing.

We brought as many gifts as we could pack, opened some before we left and opened some when we returned. Santa was good as he gave mostly ski stuff and things for the 5 hour bus ride.






And now, thanks to D and C, N has a new monkey... he's called Sock Monkey.


On the last day the kids had learned enough to do an easy run off of the bunny slopes. We took them up to the top of the mountain and skied all the way down; stopping for lunch at the lodge half way down. They did great! C took it nice and easy practising her skills. She was exhausted by the time she got to the bottom, but she learned more and more with each turn. J took the brave route and tucked most of the way down. This landed him in the trees a few times, but we couldn't wipe the smile off his face!




Here is a video of me taking J and C slowly down a part of the mountain that was scary for a first time skier.



We had a great time and would love to have stayed for another week. Happy New Year, Merry Christmas and... CHEERS!