Our first child shall be a masculine child!

This is Jared by the way, guest posting on Robin's blog. I'm not sure if that is against blog etiquette or not so forgive me. Anyways, we found out today at our 20 weeks scan that it's a boy!

We are very excited, and the scan was a pretty amazing experience. They were able to clearly show us the skull, kidneys, bladder, feet, arms, hands, spine, ribs, nose, lips, eye sockets, and we could even see each of the 4 chambers of his heart firing. And yes, at the end, the sonogram technician pointed out his naughty bits, which Robin and I thought we had spotted when she was measuring his legs earlier in the scan.

On a side note, we recently discovered that orange juice in the UK does not come in the usual forms of "with pulp" or "without pulp". Instead you can choose between "no bits" and "juicy bits".

We also got to tour the birthing center at St. Mary's where we will most likely be having the baby. It was a great facility, more like a really nice house than a hospital. All the rooms had a tub, birthing table, queen size bed, and a plasma screen. We also got to meet one of the midwives who was really nice and put Robin at ease about the whole process. And yes, in case of emergency all of the necessary comforts like doctors and epidurals are just upstairs if needed.

We finished up the day watching the match at our local pub, me with a Young's Double Chocolate Stout in hand, Robin with an orange juice (without naughty, I mean juicy bits)

Cheers!

Oh ya, that silver metal thing!

Today I woke up and was finally feeling a little better. I still have allergies and snot, but at least I don't feel like I can't get stuff done during the day.

I actually have been able to enjoy some of the things I haven't had time for/haven't felt up to doing. One of these activities would be playing my flute. I didn't know quite how to handle being in a new city where I don't know any musicians, have no one to perform/play with, and don't have any lesson students. In LA, I finally felt like things were picking up and I was having a great time playing and teaching. I didn't realize how much I would miss it when I got out here. I guess I wasn't thinking about it, really. My flute has been picked up a few times since we got out here and I have enjoyed listening to my fair share of classical music during the day, but I hadn't set any goals for myself yet. It is tough bc the baby is coming right after the school year starts here so I can't really get any teaching jobs bc I would have to take a break right after I started (not really fair to an employer or lesson students). Summer is also a hard time to meet other musicians to perform/play with bc normally I would start at the colleges to see if anyone is interested in playing, and they are all gone for the summer. When they get back, it will also be right before the baby comes, too.

So...my predicament is that I need to set a schedule for myself and goals to meet while we are out here before the baby comes, and then try to figure out what it will look like once we have a little one running around! :)

I did pick up that hunk of metal for the first time in a while today and realized how much I had missed playing it! I am thankful that I didn't sound too out of shape! My first goal is to learn all of the pieces in the French book that I haven't done before. I can play along to some recordings I have with piano when I get them sounding decent. I love me some French music that's for sure!

Thanks for reading my ramblings!

Can't believe it is almost time!

So a week from today (Saturday 26th June) we will be finding out if we are having a boy or a girl! It is still so crazy to me that this is all happening! I will also be 20 weeks (half way for those of you who were like me pre-pregnancy and didn't know how to count in weeks). I can't wait to share with you all what the outcome is. I am also having the anomaly scan as well which will tell us if all the organs are working properly. Please pray!

BTW, if you were wondering, I finally caught what Jared has...lame-o. BUT, I think since I can just chill in the house and rest I will recover faster than him. We are both pretty pitiful right now sitting on the bed staring at each other, but hopefully we will get well soon. I am soooo ready to get out of the house and be normal!

<3

Worst night sleep ever!

So I think we officially had the worst night of sleep we have ever had last night! Jared came home last night not feeling well and I have had allergies for the past week or so. There are a ton of new things in the air to get used to, and I pray that we will get used to them bc it is driving me crazy! I can barely go outside for 20 min without sneezing my head off and my nose running like a faucet! Jared was sick with a cold last week, and this weekend we decided to rest so he could get better. He was on the up and up until he went back to work Mon. He had a small fever but it went away after he got home. All last night, he was tossing and turning, and SNORING! There is one thing I can not sleep through, and that is snoring! I kept waking up every time he started snoring, so I think I never actually went to sleep until 8:00 am when he left for work. I even tried listening to my ipod and fell asleep a couple times, but the snoring woke me back up. I also think I had WAY too much caffeine yesterday (one latte, and one coke...which is a lot for me right now bc I usually only have a cup of tea each day). Anyway, Jared went to work this morning, but came home at lunch bc he was not feeling great. He is asleep in the other room and I am trying to stay awake until tonight so I can actually sleep (even though I am super tired!). I am praying that I will not get sick, too bc that would suck on top of these allergies! We are a mess, but hopefully we will get used to the germs on the tube, the mold growing everywhere, and the cotton floating in the air! As we speak, the sun is baking the newly wet ground from the rain yesterday, so hopefully more mold is growing, jk!

On a different note, I finally got an appointment letter mailed to me with details about my first midwife appointment Friday! This appointment will just be introductory and getting to know you, and then hopefully I can schedule my anomaly scan for next week...and if they will let me, find out if it is a boy or girl. The pamphlet that they gave me in the mail said that they do not offer this service, but maybe if I am nice, they will tell me! Here's hoping!

On to Spain

We are very excited to welcome our first London guest, Spencer, in just about a month! We booked our tickets to go to Barcelona with him today and are very excited! If anyone has any suggestions of fun things to do there, please let us know! We are mostly planning to relax on the beach, eat amazing food, and see a few sights!

Definitely excited about seeing this, though:

Bonjour!

Paris was a really fun trip! I think we definitely packed in everything we wanted to see, and more! We had the Paris museum pass for 2 days which let us in unlimited museums for 30 euros per person. That was a great deal and I highly recommend it! Here is a little tour of our tour in Paris!

Side note: Paris Metro gets a HUGE thumbs down compared to the London Underground. I am so thankful that I am here using the public transit and not there! Multiple people pushed through the turnstile behind me on my ticket! That would never happen here bc there are employees at the turnstiles. Also, it was extremely dirty and smelled like pee and had graffiti everywhere! Epic fail Paris! It still got us from point A to B, although I think we must have walked close to 12 miles this weekend!

Day 1 we checked in to our hotel and walked all the way down the Champs Elysees to get some dinner and see the Arc du Triomphe!
Beautiful!
After dinner we walked all the way down to the Arc on the Champs Elysees

Walking to the cruise!
Jared looking handsome before we "set sail" with 500 other people on our romantic cruise! Including the middle school tour group from England...haha!
Sunset on the cruise to end Day 1!
Day 2 started out at Versailles. It was great to see once, but I will never go again! Too many people!
I can't believe someone actually painted all these ceilings!
As you can see, it was jam packed with people. Not the most fun experience. Esp bc many people did not understand that you needed to KEEP WALKING! Also, it must be an American thing to not touch things at art museums or landmarks. Esp. at the Louvre! People were leaning up against ancient Hellenistic statues to take pictures. What the heck people! I almost yelled at someone so Jared thought it was best that we leave! Haha!
Gardens...I think we walked a total of 5 miles just at Versailles that day!
Next we went to the Orsay Museum. It used to be a train station in the 1800s. Amazing impressionistic art inside! One of our favorite museums. They also had a very interesting exhibit called Crime and Punishment. No pictures allowed inside, so you don't get to see any of the art!
We finished Day 2 with the Pompidou Modern Art Museum and then got some dinner at a great French restaurant in the Latin Quarter.
One of Jared's favorites at the Pompidou. Deflated drums! Now that's my kind of drum set! JK!
My favorite at the Pompidou Center! I wanted to take it home with me!
Day 3 started out with the Louvre (we only made it through about 1/3 of the museum and it took 3 hours!)
Jared outside the Louvre
Outside the Louvre in the Place du Concorde
After the Louvre we walked through the Tulieries Gardens (we had some delicious savory crepes for lunch while it rained, and then it stopped right after we were done!)
Next stop, the Orangerie Museum housed 8 wall length Water Lily paintings by Monet. This was absolutely breathtaking!

Me in front of the Paris Opera! It was amazing for me to see this, considering the composer I just finished my thesis on last year was the conductor of the Paris Opera for a short time! Wow! An incredible building as well!

We went to Notre Dame and made it right before closing time (we also got to see the crypts which had ruins from a previous city that was found underneath the island)
Rose Window (Beautiful!)
We got to spend our last night in Paris with this view!

Bye Bye Paris!

The funniest part for me was going "home" to London after our trip. Our flights were great except I realized that German is a scary language. Both our flights were on Lufthansa which gave us a layover in Cologne. I don't know any German, so it was a little weird to try and communicate with some people in the airport that didn't know English. Maybe I should have learned a few German phrases. Oh well! It was hard enough to figure out some French...maybe before a trip to Germany, though! Stefani, I needed your help!

The best part of the trip may have been La Duree. It is a French tea room and restaurant. Very fancy and the best pastries/desserts, etc. I have ever had. We immediately looked it up when we got home, and they have one in London! We are super excited! If you come to visit, we will definitely take you there!