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....