Winter wonderland

It's been snowing off and on in London for the past few days... starting on the day that we came home from the hospital with James. And it's staying cold enough that there's still a little on the ground and in the trees. I haven't been outside, but it looks really nice through the window! I also heard from my parents that it's snowing like crazy in Charlottesville. There was almost a foot by last night and they were calling for it to continue into today. It certainly makes things extra cozy...

However, it wasn't a welcome sight to the 2,000 people who got stuck in the Chunnel last night due to the snow in France. I can't imagine how much fun this would have been: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6962492.ece

Ric and James and I are all doing well and getting settled into our new routine. It's a lot of eating and sleeping, and not much else. Other than the nappy changes of course. It's hard to believe he's only been around for a few days... he's not even a week old yet but it already feels like he's been in our lives forever. This time last week I was outside doing manual labor... picking weeds on Lutton Terrace, cleaning off the back porch, pulling up dead flowers... I think that's probably what threw me over the edge!

Pics are up on Flickr and it sounds like a lot of you have been able to see them. If you haven't and would like to, let me know. You just have to add me as a friend (my username is "ryarmey") and when I accept you you'll be able to see them.

Hope everyone has a happy, relaxing, snow filled weekend!

James is home!

Ric here, just wanted to let everyone know that James is now home. He seems to be getting adjusted to his new surroundings quite well. We'll pass along many more photos soon but just wanted to pass along a good one in the meantime. As usual, we're going to post them to Flickr although there is going to be one slight change. We're going to make all of those photos private which will require you to establish a user id and password for Flickr. There is no cost to you but it will ensure that the pictures are a bit more private.

James sends his best from snowy London!

Christmas Grab Bag

Just a few miscellaneous Christmas-related items...

We went to a wonderful Christmas carol concert last night at the historic St. George's church in Hanover Square, close to where I worked in Mayfair when we first moved to London. It was a great mix of the choir singing carols and the audience joining in on some songs (like Hark the Harold Angels and O Come All Ye Faithful). I definitely teared up a few times - I'm a total sucker for Christmas carols. These concerts happen all over London during the holidays, we went to one in Royal Albert Hall a few years ago, and it's such a great way to get into the Christmas spirit. Ric and I were wondering whether this is something that happens in other cities? Or is it just a London thing?

Here's a pic from inside the church:



In other news, we had two Christmas trees delivered over the past two days, without ordering either one. We were surprised after the first one showed up on our doorstep and doubley surprised when the second one arrived. We had been looking at a site called christmastreeman.co.uk, which will send you a live tree (which you're supposed to keep alive) that they pick up after Christmas and replant. It's a pretty cool idea, but we never made it all the way through the order/payment process. That, however, didn't seem to phase the Christmas Tree Man, who decided to send us two tress - one on Sunday and one on Monday. Now we're waiting for them to come back and pick one up. And still aren't quite sure how this whole thing happened without us paying for either tree.

Christmas lights are up all over town, and for the first time, the lights on Oxford Street have a corporate sponsor... Disney's A Christmas Carol Movie paid for the display and London was hoping it would help draw additional tourist traffic over the holidays. Not sure if that worked or not, but here's a pic of Oxford's sponsored Christmas lights:

Please mind the bumps...

Paula's last day in the office before maternity leave was on Friday, so we took the opportunity to get a few final pictures of our dueling bumps....

Just a little something...

It's a cold, rainy day in London but we managed to take a pretty long walk through the Heath and end up at our new favorite Sunday Roast spot - a pub called The Stag. The one nice thing about the rain is that it clears out the Heath and we had it almost completely to ourselves. And the yummy roast was a perfect reward, as was eating it in the cozy, warm pub. Plus, The Stag is one of the only places around that serves non-alcoholic beer (yay for me!)...

Here's a picture of the roast chicken for two... just something small :)

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

Forgot to write a holiday themed post yesterday, so thought I would check in on Black Friday and wish everyone a happy day after Thanksgiving. I hope you all ate WAY too much, got to spend time with friends and/or family, took a nap on the couch in a turkey-induced coma, watched football, and had Christmas music on in the background at some point during the day.

We shared Thanksgiving dinner with about 25 other Americans at our friend's apartment in Hampstead. There was a TON of food, including a bacon-wrapped turkey, and lots of giving thanks. I made two sweet potato casseroles (Aunt Barb's recipe), which were a big hit and totally gone about halfway through the feast. Thanksgiving isn't quite the same when you have to work on Thursday and Friday, but it was still nice to take a little time out to celebrate.

Next up, Christmas!

Misc Pics

A couple of the bump... it's getting pretty big as you can tell





The reindeer they brought in (from the North Pole?) for the Hampstead Christmas Fair



The Fairy Store on Flask Walk had a snow machine running, which is a little hard to see in this pic but was delighting all the kids who walked by

36 weeks

For lack of anything more interesting to blog about, I thought I'd give a quick preggers update. I'm officially 36 weeks as of today, which (if the babe were to come on time) would mean that I have four weeks to go. Hard to believe that I'm in the home stretch, but I'm still 100% convinced he's going to be dramatically late (like 2 or 3 weeks), so trying not to get too antsy. I'm also kind of enjoying these last few weeks of freedom and don't want them to go by too quickly.

We've also been doing our birth classes (through the NCT or National Childcare Trust) for the past week. After 6 hours on Sunday, 2 hours on Monday evening and 2 hours on Wednesday evening, we've only got one more class to go. It's been all talk about labor and birth, so somewhat helpful, although I'm much more interested in what the heck to do once the baby actually arrives! I guess that will be covered on Monday... Lots of the information they give is focused on how to deal with the NHS and educating women on what their rights are. It sounds like the doctors and midwives have their own agendas (like getting you out of there as quickly as possible with the least amount of effort) and it's really important for you to know what your real options are so you don't get pushed into something that you don't want. All in all, it's made me even happier than before that we're able to go through a private doctor/hospital.

We head back to the doc on Tuesday and start weekly appointments from there on out. Stroller (pram) and crib (cot) are being delivered next week. I guess this is really happening!

Fall in the Heath

A few pictures from our wanderings through the Heath this weekend

Check it out!

Very excited that I figured out how to do this... just added a little widget to the blog (it's over there on the left side of the page) that keeps track of the books I've read and what I thought of them. It's from a site called GoodReads, where you can create a virtual bookshelf, see what you're friends are reading, and get suggestions on other books you might like. Now, whenever Ric and I add new books to our GoodReads accounts, they'll show up on our "bookshelves" here on the blog.

London baby shower

Baby showers aren't very common in the UK (I think they're very typically American) but my friend Sayula very kindly offered to host one for me to celebrate the imminent arrival of Baby Bremer with my London friends. We had a lovely afternoon filled with tea, cakes, scones, and cupcakes. And lots of baby talk :)

Yummy homemade goodies



Lexa Remmes who just had a little baby boy four weeks ago!



London friends





Opening presents

Misc

Yummy cake from my birthday dinner at Theo Randall



Fall on Flask Walk

NFL in London

Ric and I had GREAT tickets to the NFL game that was played at Wembley Stadium in London on Sunday (thanks Kell!!!). 35 yard line, 26 rows back... it was closer than I've ever sat at a football game and something I could definitely get used to!

We were worried that it would be a complete blow out, and after the Pats intercepted the Bucs in the first few minutes of the game for a touchdown, expected the worst. But it actually ended up being pretty entertaining. Not sure if New England wasn't trying its hardest or if the Bucs thrived off the London atmosphere, but we saw some great plays, a good amount of scoring, and lots of excitement. The opening of the game was really cool too... fireworks, music, American and British flags, both national anthems, and shooting flames when the Bucs ran out. Becuase the Bucs were the home team, they also put flags under everyone's seats which got waved frequently.

Wembley Stadium



The crowd - lots of Brits and Americans, and NFL jerseys from almost every team imaginable







Inside the stadium - it's partly covered with a roof that can be closed if necessary



Music before kickoff





One beer, one water...



Baby's first NFL game!





Tampa Bay takes the field





Fireworks shoot out from both sides of the roof, very exciting!



I look huge in this picture...



British and American flags







Kickoff



Flag waving

It slices AND it dices...

After months of debate, research, and informal polling (of friends and strangers), we finally made the all important stroller decision over the weekend. The first step was actually learning to call it a buggy, instead of a stroller, and then we had to sort through the seemingly endless options. I know this is cliche, but it really is like buying a car. We actually kicked the tires and talked about the resale value, in addition to its off road capabilities.

We're both happy with the one we settled on - the Mountain Buggy Urban, in navy... it will work as a running buggy, is rugged enough for strolls through the Heath, and is comparatively lightweight and easy to fold.

I think Ric's been more excited about this than any other part of the baby process so far. Can't wait for it to be delivered!

30th bday

Ric threw a very nice little dinner party to celebrate my big 3-0... We had some delicious chicken parm and a beautiful pink tinkerbell cake! Here are some pics...

The birthday bump:





The chef hard at work (on the chicken parm assembly line)



Lots of wine, most of which didn't get drunk. We really are getting old!



Getting ready for dinner



A Tinkerbell birthday