Here are a few from this week:
Fun on the swings
At the library
At home, and really excited about something. Not sure what...
Friday, October 29, 2010
Little munchkin
Happy Friday and Happy early Halloween! Hope people have fun trick or treating plans. Ric and I will be at the 49ers game in London (thanks Kell!) so not sure yet whether James will be subjected to a baby costume. If he is, we'll post pictures of course.
Here are a few from this week:
Fun on the swings
At the library
At home, and really excited about something. Not sure what...
Here are a few from this week:
Fun on the swings
At the library
At home, and really excited about something. Not sure what...
Monday, October 25, 2010
Get out the vote!
Spark has been nominated for a TechCrunch Europa award... these are organized every year by the online tech blog, TechCrunch. We are competing for the esteemed title of "Best Service Provider to Startups" and we need YOUR vote to win! Please help us out by clicking here: http://bit.ly/bgIWyV
The winners will be announced on November 19 at an awards event in London. Thanks everyone!
The winners will be announced on November 19 at an awards event in London. Thanks everyone!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
20 years later
When we walked home from lunch today there was an older couple standing outside of our house taking pictures... Now, we love our house, but it's not necessarily most the most picture-worthy thing from the outside so we weren't sure why a mini photo shoot was happening. The mystery was solved when the man introduced himself and said that he lived at 4 Lutton Terrace 20 years ago. He was American, living in Boston now, and came back with his wife to see the old homestead. He talked about how special this place is and how it's a time in his life that he has never forgotten. We invited them in and showed them around. It sounds like the downstairs changed quite a bit - with the kitchen flipping from one side to the other. You could tell he was loving his walk down memory lane. And it was pretty neat to see how fondly he remembered this little house and the neighborhood... I think we'll probably feel the same way 20 years from now when we're dragging James back to Lutton Terrace to show him where he was born.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Ummm.... Paris?
This pretty much sums up how we all felt about our trip to Paris:
We learned a lot, that's for sure... Like going for a weekend in Paris with a 10 month old baby (who isn't a fan of sitting still) probably isn't the best idea!! To give James credit... he was pretty well behaved overall. On the train ride home he sat in our laps for 2+ hours reading his books, playing with his new toys, looking out of the window, and eating his lunch. He was a model passenger.
He also did okay when we ate out at restaurants... we brought a travel high chair, which was great because none of the restaurants had baby seats. And a friend of ours recommended the squeezable baby food from Ella's, which worked like a charm! You just squeeze right onto the spoon from the package, no need to heat it up and no mess! James loved them, they're all organic, and the ingredients only include "real" things... potatoes, squash, chicken, corn, milk, thyme, rosemary, etc. We would use these every day but they were perfect for traveling or if you ever need to do a quick meal on the go. While we ate our meals, we fed James, gave him some bread pieces to eat, and gave him sips of water from our "grown up cups" - all of which kept him more than entertained.
We also stayed at a great hotel - it had a kitchen, bedroom and living room, so James's cot could be in a separate room from where we slept. This was really convenient not only at night, but also when he was napping during the day (we could be awake and not worry about disturbing him). The biggest challenges or "lessons learned" where that a weekend is just too short for a trip like this. After all the packing and travel time, we really only had one full day in Paris. We also stayed in a neighborhood that before James was perfect - St. Germain is bustling, has small little cobblestone streets, lots of cafes, etc. But with a baby and a stroller the crowds weren't quite as charming and the narrow sidewalks proved difficult to maneuver.
Because we hadn't traveled with James in a while, we weren't sure what to expect, so we ended up not planning anything at all. As a result, we wandered around the same few streets and felt like we didn't really see anything new or different... now that we know what it's like, we can hopefully do a better job of planning activities and meals in advance so that we're able to take better advantage of the city that we've traveled to. I also think that when his naps are shorter and he only does one a day, we'll have more time to explore our destination. On this trip we'd pop out for a quick walk or lunch, then have to be back for his nap time.
Next time we go to Paris, we'll definitely stay for much longer (a week minimum I think!), we'll rent an apartment from a site like this: http://www.chezvous.com (which aren't any more expensive than the hotel we stayed in) and we'll find a quieter neighborhood with a few shops, markets and restaurants that we can easily walk to. Or, we'll just go back to Italy where they love babies so much that it doesn't matter when and where you take them!
One side note... for anyone traveling with babies/kids, this site has some good recommendations. It's a little bit geared towards older kids, but worth a read: http://www.deliciousbaby.com/
We learned a lot, that's for sure... Like going for a weekend in Paris with a 10 month old baby (who isn't a fan of sitting still) probably isn't the best idea!! To give James credit... he was pretty well behaved overall. On the train ride home he sat in our laps for 2+ hours reading his books, playing with his new toys, looking out of the window, and eating his lunch. He was a model passenger.
He also did okay when we ate out at restaurants... we brought a travel high chair, which was great because none of the restaurants had baby seats. And a friend of ours recommended the squeezable baby food from Ella's, which worked like a charm! You just squeeze right onto the spoon from the package, no need to heat it up and no mess! James loved them, they're all organic, and the ingredients only include "real" things... potatoes, squash, chicken, corn, milk, thyme, rosemary, etc. We would use these every day but they were perfect for traveling or if you ever need to do a quick meal on the go. While we ate our meals, we fed James, gave him some bread pieces to eat, and gave him sips of water from our "grown up cups" - all of which kept him more than entertained.
We also stayed at a great hotel - it had a kitchen, bedroom and living room, so James's cot could be in a separate room from where we slept. This was really convenient not only at night, but also when he was napping during the day (we could be awake and not worry about disturbing him). The biggest challenges or "lessons learned" where that a weekend is just too short for a trip like this. After all the packing and travel time, we really only had one full day in Paris. We also stayed in a neighborhood that before James was perfect - St. Germain is bustling, has small little cobblestone streets, lots of cafes, etc. But with a baby and a stroller the crowds weren't quite as charming and the narrow sidewalks proved difficult to maneuver.
Because we hadn't traveled with James in a while, we weren't sure what to expect, so we ended up not planning anything at all. As a result, we wandered around the same few streets and felt like we didn't really see anything new or different... now that we know what it's like, we can hopefully do a better job of planning activities and meals in advance so that we're able to take better advantage of the city that we've traveled to. I also think that when his naps are shorter and he only does one a day, we'll have more time to explore our destination. On this trip we'd pop out for a quick walk or lunch, then have to be back for his nap time.
Next time we go to Paris, we'll definitely stay for much longer (a week minimum I think!), we'll rent an apartment from a site like this: http://www.chezvous.com (which aren't any more expensive than the hotel we stayed in) and we'll find a quieter neighborhood with a few shops, markets and restaurants that we can easily walk to. Or, we'll just go back to Italy where they love babies so much that it doesn't matter when and where you take them!
One side note... for anyone traveling with babies/kids, this site has some good recommendations. It's a little bit geared towards older kids, but worth a read: http://www.deliciousbaby.com/
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Packing list for Paris
I think this does a pretty good job of illustrating the packing hierarchy in the family... It's fairly obvious who takes priority :) It also shows how planning for a quick "weekend getaway" has changed since the little man arrived on the scene!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Fall in the Heath
We got a few good pics of James in the heath this weekend... he loved the fall leaves!
What's up?
It's been a while since my last post, so I thought I would check in and say hello. The truth is, not much has been happening at number 4 Lutton Terrace... time is chugging along, days are passing, and summer has quickly turned into fall (then to winter, then back to fall). Here are a few updates for our lovely Bremer Blog readers...
1. We found out that we're getting kicked out of our house in June 2011. Our landlady's son has been dying to move in ever since he saw how nice the place looks with all our stuff in it (the last tenant was a bachelor who had no furniture and hung tapestries on the wall). She put him off for as long as possible, but in the end "son" trumps "renters." Even if we have been good ones. So the countdown begins. We have mixed feelings about this... on one hand it's nice that we have some time and don't have to rush into a place that we don't love. On the other hand, nothing we've seen so far even comes close to our house in terms of location, size, and "niceness." I'm a little worried that what we've become used to just doesn't exist in our budget anymore. But we'll give it to the end of the year and if we then have to talk about compromising (on location most likely) we will.
2. James has had a rough few weeks - he seems to have gotten one bug right after another. First he had bad diarrhea for a few days (sorry, but this is what you talk about when you have a baby), then he got a cold/cough (from his dad, but I'm not pointing any fingers...), then he got a stomach bug, which I think is a hold over from the first sickness mentioned above that didn't completely go away. Two nights in a row he had the worst throw up I've ever seen - from a baby or adult. He's on the mend now, after switching to lactose-free milk and eating very bland foods for a couple days, and I just hope that he can stay healthy for a while. I guess once you've gotten one thing and your immune system is weak, you're more likely to catch something else. And between Ric and Ana and me being sick pretty much constantly, James is bound to take the brunt of that.
3. Work has been really busy. Not much else to say there.
4. We've got some trips planned - yay! We go to Paris this weekend for a couple nights and James is coming along. Although we haven't quite figured out how it's going to work. We decided to just try and figure things out as we go. And to recover from that trip, Ric and I are hoping to go to Florence in November without James. Haven't booked tickets yet, but it's on the calendar so hopefully we'll be able to make it happen.
5. Christmas really isn't that far away - which is hard to believe, but I'm already getting excited about our trip back to the US to see LOTS of family and friends. We have a very aggressive schedule planned... Charlottesville (for Christmas), Raleigh (for New Year's), Charlotte (just me and James), then Atlanta (still just me and James). Who knows how this is going to work, but if we pull it off it should be loads of fun. Can't wait to see all of you who are going to be in one of those stops along the way. And James will be ONE by then! I am also scheduled to be in the Bay Area at the end of January for work.
1. We found out that we're getting kicked out of our house in June 2011. Our landlady's son has been dying to move in ever since he saw how nice the place looks with all our stuff in it (the last tenant was a bachelor who had no furniture and hung tapestries on the wall). She put him off for as long as possible, but in the end "son" trumps "renters." Even if we have been good ones. So the countdown begins. We have mixed feelings about this... on one hand it's nice that we have some time and don't have to rush into a place that we don't love. On the other hand, nothing we've seen so far even comes close to our house in terms of location, size, and "niceness." I'm a little worried that what we've become used to just doesn't exist in our budget anymore. But we'll give it to the end of the year and if we then have to talk about compromising (on location most likely) we will.
2. James has had a rough few weeks - he seems to have gotten one bug right after another. First he had bad diarrhea for a few days (sorry, but this is what you talk about when you have a baby), then he got a cold/cough (from his dad, but I'm not pointing any fingers...), then he got a stomach bug, which I think is a hold over from the first sickness mentioned above that didn't completely go away. Two nights in a row he had the worst throw up I've ever seen - from a baby or adult. He's on the mend now, after switching to lactose-free milk and eating very bland foods for a couple days, and I just hope that he can stay healthy for a while. I guess once you've gotten one thing and your immune system is weak, you're more likely to catch something else. And between Ric and Ana and me being sick pretty much constantly, James is bound to take the brunt of that.
3. Work has been really busy. Not much else to say there.
4. We've got some trips planned - yay! We go to Paris this weekend for a couple nights and James is coming along. Although we haven't quite figured out how it's going to work. We decided to just try and figure things out as we go. And to recover from that trip, Ric and I are hoping to go to Florence in November without James. Haven't booked tickets yet, but it's on the calendar so hopefully we'll be able to make it happen.
5. Christmas really isn't that far away - which is hard to believe, but I'm already getting excited about our trip back to the US to see LOTS of family and friends. We have a very aggressive schedule planned... Charlottesville (for Christmas), Raleigh (for New Year's), Charlotte (just me and James), then Atlanta (still just me and James). Who knows how this is going to work, but if we pull it off it should be loads of fun. Can't wait to see all of you who are going to be in one of those stops along the way. And James will be ONE by then! I am also scheduled to be in the Bay Area at the end of January for work.
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