The Excitement is Building

I am just around the corner from 27 weeks and I just can't believe it! I mean time is really flying right now. I felt that the 1st trimester just dragged, but this 2nd trimester is moving right along. This is probably helped by the fact that I feel great and have loads of energy. I understand that this will be soon coming to an end, so I am trying to take as much advantage of it as possible. Here's a little photo collage that Allan put together of my bebe belly.

Amazing how quickly it has grown! (It's even bigger now)

A couple of weekends ago my Uncle Mike and Aunt Judy came to London for a nice little visit in celebration of 37 years of marriage. We were lucky enough to get to spend a full day with them and it was a blast! We got to do things that I hadn't done while living here in London which was really nice. They also brought loads of goodies from the states including food and a gorgeous quilt made by Judy and a cute little framed poem. Here are a few photos from that day.

A cool line of trees close to Kensington Gardens

London Aquarium

Mike and Judy at Kensington Palace

Allan and Me

Royal Albert Memorial

Last Saturday Nicole and I met up and had a crafty Saturday at the Tooting Tram and Social. This was the second craft class that I had participated in with Nicole. Last time we made tea towels which was a lot of fun! But I have to say that this class was super cool and I would totally take making shrinky jewellery as a hobby.  Here's a little shot of my favourite piece that I made. :-)

Isn't he cute?!?

Yesterday we got an absolutely stunning care package from Shelly and John in Texas for little Charles. I can't even begin to describe how sweet the items were that they sent us! Here's just a snippet of the items: cute lil' onesies, a little Texas State Bobcat tee, stuffed animal with adorable blanket, another amazingly soft blankie, dungarees!, an adorable outfit and little Air Jordan booties!!! Auntie Shell and Uncle John are spoiling him already! 

A Very Overdue Post

This post is beyond overdue. I don't know what has taken me so long to come back here. I've been meaning to update this blog but then I just get sidetracked or maybe a bit lazy. Anywho, I am back and posting...I will try harder going forward.

Where do I begin? I guess I start with the big news that Allan and I are expecting our first baby in mid August. We just recently found out that we are having a boy! Which is very exciting and also a little bit of a surprise for me as I thought I had it all figured out and that it would be a girl. I was convinced for the most part. I think there may have been a small seed of doubt that it about it being a girl but not a lot. Here's a pic of our sweet baby boy.

Strangely enough I can already see a lot of Allan in the profile. I think he has my nose and everything else is Allan.

I think that maybe I waited to update the blog because I didn't announce my pregnancy to everyone until 20 weeks after we had the ultrasound. A lot of that had to do with my first ultrasound at 12 weeks and the results from my NT scan/ down syndrome screening. Basically, they look for different soft markers in that u/s and take your blood and give you a ratio of your chances of the baby being born with DS. There are a bunch of things they use to calculate this number. We were given a 1 in 50 chance of having a baby with down syndrome because of my age, my blood work and they found an abnormal flow of fluid across the baby's heart (this is called Tricuspid Regurgitation). In everyday life if you had a 98% chance of something working out you would say that's pretty frickin' good! But in this case the news was delivered to us in a very dooms day way and we were immediately offered a CVS test which is an invasive genetic test and if we declined that we would still be able to have an amnio (another invasive test) at a later date. It was super stressful and upsetting but we declined these tests because no matter what we would love our baby. I think because of this stress and news I felt really uneasy and had a hard time relaxing and enjoying my pregnancy to its fullest.

Now we are at 21.5 weeks and everything is moving along fantastically! The heart thing worked itself out and our baby boy is doing great and growing well. I feel him kicking me everyday which is a really weird sensation I must say. It is like having a little alien in you. hehe... I am feeling great and confident about things, which I am so grateful for! I am also so thankful that I have a few friends that are literally a week ahead of me in their pregnancies and it's been so awesome to have them to share things with and compare notes.

Outside of pregnancy there's not a whole lot going on. We went to California and Texas in November. Came back and found out we were pregnant. Had a lovely Christmas with Allan's family. Then I was horribly sick all of the time during my first trimester. Week 13 brought relief finally. Then I got a sinus infection at week 15. Since then all has been really good. We went down to Brighton a couple of Saturdays ago which was nice, had a good wander around. Then had last week off from work which was much needed for both of us. Saw friends and family during that time and just relaxed. This week we are back to reality with work.

I will try my damndest to keep this blog up to date. Bye for now! x

Oh My Goodness...

Oh my, how have I let almost 3 months pass since my last post?!? That's just no good! I don't even know where to begin because it's been a busy and fun past few months. I think it's best just to dive right into our trip to the States that we just had.

Well, what a trip! It was 3 weeks of amazing family, friends, food and places! I can't even begin to describe what a great time Allan and I had. We headed to Los Angeles on November 12th for 5 days to visit my cousin Jen and her awesome husband Jim. From the moment we got to their house we were treated to loads of laughter, food, fun and love. It was so good to see the two of them and get to spend some quality time with them. We played loads of XBox kinnect bowling, went wine tasting at SIP and Malibu Wines, experienced all of Disneyland, had an amazing meal at Cafe Firenze in Moorpark, drove down Mulholland Drive, saw Christine and Chris and their adorable little boy Benjamin, did some sightseeing in Beverly Hills, and just had some really nice chill time.

Allan and I were driving to LAX to drop off our rental car the night before heading to Texas and I took a different freeway than before so when I exited for Century Blvd I didn't realise quite how far we were from the airport. I was just thinking that we need to fill up the tank with gas before getting to the rental car place, so I mentioned it to Allan not really paying attention to our surroundings. He turns to me and was basically like, 'You're kidding, right?' And then I looked around and saw what he meant, there were tons of sketchy looking characters hanging around the gas station and no cars were in sight getting gas. Oops! We were definitely in the hood, Inglewood/Westmont area. Umm it was scary at night and I won't be going that way to the airport again.

We arrived in Texas on Thursday November 17th, we drove straight from the airport in Austin to Shelly and John's in San Marcos. Since we had a super early morning flight we were able to get there at lunch time. We went to good ol' Mamacita's for a chimichanga and a margarita. After lunch it hit us just how tired we were and we decided to take a nap at around 5pm and what should have been an hour turned into 9 hours of sleep. We woke up at 2am and were up for a couple of hours and then went back to bed until 8 the next morning. Apparently our bodies were exhausted. After that we were all set with energy and ready to go. We had a lovely stay with Shelly and John and did a lot of fun stuff! I got to see Jen and her family over the weekend which was soooo lovely!  Her girls are absolutely fabulous! We also got to visit with close family friends, Rhea and Jeff, that was lovely and they got BBQ from Fuschak's for us. We went to San Antonio on Monday with Shelly and John to see the Alamo, we had plans to walk around the riverwalk and see the market place but didn't get that far as it was so hot and humid that it was so uncomfortable to be outside. We all had sweaty backs and sweat moustaches from being outside for 15 minutes! We decided the best cure for the heat was to head to Chuy's to chow down on some delish Tex-Mex.

On Tuesday the 22nd of November Shane arrived from MN, we picked him up from the airport and headed to Hut's Hamburgers on West 6th Street. Seriously one of the best burgers ever! We all hung out that day and night which was awesome. It was fantastic to see Shane!!! On Wednesday a group of us went bowling at Sunset Lanes in San Marcos...there was a pretty awesome lunch + bowling deal. Yummy. I think you are getting the drift that we did a lot of eating. Oh and how can I forget the amazing breakfast tacos from the Palm Cafe...delish (I think that was on the first Friday we were in San Marvelous).  Thursday the 24th was Thanksgiving, so Allan, Shane and I headed over to Jen's parents house for their amazing lunch. After lunch we headed up to the Fort Worth area to see my family.

Going up to Fort Worth and Possum Kingdom Lake was really great. It was so fun to see the family including my Dad, Grandpa, Aunt Joy, Uncle Russell, Uncle Mike and Aunt Judy. Loads of cousins and their families. It had been too long since I had seen everyone, especially everyone together. We definitely need to make sure to spend more time on our next visit up there.

I believe that I am going to stop here for today because this is really long and I should not bore you to death in one post. I will write more tomorrow...pics will follow shortly.

Birthday Celebrations...

Allan's birthday celebrations that is....I meant for it to be plural because he had one heck of a birthday this year, as he should cause he's such an awesome guy. It all started with dinner at Jenny and Brad's a couple of weeks before his actual birthday. They made a lovely meal of steak and potatoes and other deliciousness. Then we went to Bruges for a little getaway as you saw by the previous post and pics, we celebrated with some more steak and potatoes and other loveliness. From there we had his actual birthday celebration back in London with a wonderful group of friends, this time for dinner we had, yep you guessed it! Steak! Noticing a theme here? He loves steak! Hehe. Then the final birthday dinner was done at his parent's house and it was a yummy roast pork dinner. I was kind of happy that it wasn't steak as I think I had had my fill of it. Here are some pics from his birthday dinner with friends. Hope everyone is well! x

Birthday boy with one of his many cakes with a candle.

The only pic of me from the night as I was behind the camera. :-)

Part of the gang.

More fun.

Kylie and David

One of the birthday cupcakes I made for the night.

Rene and Ben

A nice trip to Bruges

This past weekend Allan and I had a lovely little trip to Bruges. We went last year so went with the idea in mind that we would just relax. Relax we did and it was awesome! It was one of those trips that where everything just fell into place and was meant to be. We were able to go Business Premier to and from Bruges on Eurostar thanks to Allan's uncle, then we got upgraded to an even better room at our hotel and the cherry on top was getting to see Lauren and Justin on Sunday. Absolute great trip even if it did rain the majority of the time.

Finished the 28 day Challenge!

As the title states I did just that! Finished the 28 day challenge! It was hard but the results were worth it. I lost 10lbs and 19 inches! Now I am moving into phase 2 of my workout/diet/health plan and will be starting a different workout regime and tweaking my diet plan a little.  I just don't want my body to get used to the same thing and I hit a plateau. I've got a goal and I am getting closer to it. This summer I've managed to lose a total of 20lbs. I've got a ways to go but I am still really motivated and want to hit my goal.

I really encourage any of my friends and family that are considering starting a workout regiment or diet change to just take the plunge. Starting is the hardest part, believe me I know. I put off doing this for ages, I always had an excuse. Now that I have really been following through it's not as hard as the beginning was. It's my normal routine now. I know how hard starting or staying motivated can be, but just know that you can do it and find someone that will be your support through it, who won't let you stop.

xx

Halfway Through...I can do it!

Well, yesterday marked my halfway point in the 28 day challenge that I am taking part in and I am happy to report that all is going well! After the first week I weighed and measured myself and was disappointed with the measurement results cause I thought that there would be a change. There was a slight change in the weight which was reassuring. I kind of felt frustrated but realised that maybe I was expecting too much too soon. I stepped back on the scale and did my measurements on Saturday and I was shocked! A good kind of shocked...I have lost some more weight but the biggest surprise was the amount of inches that I lost in less than 2 weeks. A whopping 10.5 inches are gone! I mean that is just amazing. That means I am that much closer to my goal. I've got a ways to go but I am feeling really motivated and am just so happy to have an amazing husband, friends and family that are supporting me on this journey. It makes all of the difference.

I am absolutely convinced that these workouts have made more improvement to my body than anything else that I have tried. Maybe I am just more committed to both the eating side and the working out side. Either way I am really excited and happy with the results thus far. I know that this program only lasts 2 more weeks which is why I've created another plan for next month using a workout DVD that I've always wanted to complete but never got around to. It's a 30 day program and I think that the strides that I've made will help me tremendously with completing that one. So that is the plan for September and then for October I am going to repeat the exercises from the 28 day challenge.

Keep cheering for me guys with this cause I need all of the support I can get! One more thing before I change subjects - yesterday I had to do 500 lunges for my exercise...I did them! but I can't walk very well today. hehe

On another note we had a really nice relaxing weekend, didn't do a whole lot. Our neighbours organised a block party BBQ in the garden which was really nice. We got to meet our neighbours which was cool...sad that it took us almost 3 years to get to this point. Just so happy that we had the get together. Everyone is so lovely!

Don't have much news right now. Will keep you updated. Here's a couple of the stinker being his cute self.

What a cute sleeper! hehe