Tripin on Trips

Waterfalls in Croatia
Plitvica National Park

Boleslawiec, Poland

But let's be honest. This is what I will mostly be gazing at.

Lake Bled, Slovenia


Utah

All within 2 months, I will be able to go a Croatia waterfall National Park, Poland, Lake Bled Slovenia, and then off to Utah! We wanted to squeeze in a few trips before I leave, so B has been VERY flexible and encouraging for some fun trips. One will be with a family that we have become great friends with while here, one will be an all-girls trip, and one will be a relaxing family vacation. I will be leaving to go to Utah by myself with the three kiddos, but I found out that I might be able to go business class!! So that helps out... a little. It almost gets me excited to fly by myself. Almost. I do feel slightly sorry for those in business class with us. We can be quite the party.

Spring Sick

I HEART Spring. It's just awesome!

This morning is slightly breezy and is blowing some of the white blossoms off the trees and Maleia runs to the window and yells: "Mom!! It's snowing... AGAIN!!" When I told her they were blossoms she replies, "Oh. So what do you call that then? Do blossoms melt?" and points to a wet puddle from the gardener watering the plants.

Dylan wants to get down from his high chair (without finishing his breakfast) so he tells me, "I'm car sick. I need to get down." (He's trying everything.) I reply that he's not even in a car, so he responds, "Well, then I'm Spring Sick and need to go outside."

ME too buddy. Me too.

I like the Sprite in you

I like the way you make me laugh... I like the funny things you do... I like the Sprite in you!

Remember this commercial? If not look here: SPRITE It's a classic. I have decided that this past week I would laugh more. It was per a past Conference talk that I adored and have decided that this week I will write down something that made me laugh every day.

I love writing down the funny things my kiddos say. I hope someday they read back and love it as much as we do. :) Okay, at least their wives or husbands might enjoy it...

4-5-10
It was a wonderful General Conference on Saturday and Sunday and we just listened to one of
President Monson's talks as a family tonight for Family Home Evening. Maleia fell asleep, Dylan didn't like that B and I were emotional during the talk and was trying to get us to stop crying by yelling, "Stop crying right now!" at us, and Haley was counting down the minutes for it to be over. Literally. She counted to 60, 20 times. Needless to say, it was a very spiritual experience. :) Gotta love those kids!

4-6-10
B: Our computer just crashed!!
Haley: Into what?
B: Huh?
Haley: Or did something crash into it?

LATER... Dylan: Chick Hicks isn't nice. He makes cars crash. Maybe he crashed our computer??

4-7-10
Our family went to a Roma Concert of a famous folk group at Haley's school and Haley was chosen to dance with them at the end.
Maleia exclaimed: Haley is Roman??!!
Me: They are Roma, not Roman.
Maleia: Haley is Roma??!! :)
I think she was just a little confused as why Haley was dancing with them, let alone what Roma actually is. Ya think?

4-8-10
We had a GREAT conversation all about how we got our belly buttons after this conversation with my sweet daughter.---> Maleia: (while painting) So when you eat, do you have to chew more to get the pieces small enough for the baby to eat? Does he just open his mouth and it goes in like this? (shows me her mouth open like a baby bird.) What if he doesn't like it? Can he just spit it out? Does it go in your poop?

4-9-10
We have been talking a lot about Volcanoes and why/how we have them and Maleia tripped in the parking lot and exclaimed through tears, "I tripped on the black lava! I don't like volcanoes." And then Dylan says, "Lava is NOT good for our bodies! Let's get out of here so we don't get stuck too!" (Two families that visited us were stranded here because of the volcanic eruption in Iceland this week and so we kept telling people they were stuck.)

London (part three)

Okay, so I wasn't able to find my red rain boots or red rain jacket in London, though it rained a ton while we were there. What gives? I saw red jackets, but they weren't waterproof. Really? I found one rain jacket that I loved, but it was 650 pounds. Seriously? I am not spending $1000 dollars on a coat. B was a good shopper with me as we ended up buying more for him than first anticipated, but when do we get to go shopping together without kids in tow? Close to never, so we took advantage of the super high priced stores. Yikes! The pound is just too strong for our taste. So we mustered a little restraint, but according to our credit card company, they red flagged our cards the day after we returned. I didn't think we bought that much!! I'm afraid to look... (and FYI, when I returned home, I looked online and bought both the boots and the jacket at (gasp!) Target of all places. $50 for both including tax, shipping, and a gift card I found while moving... from our wedding. Score!)

I did gain a few pounds while in London. I found the decadent waffles sold by street vendors to be rather addicting. Great for me, since I can use a few pounds, I mean kilos, but eating those delicious, sweet waffles around town was blissful. I'm not even sure how many I ate... and I don't care. :) Have you smelled sweet waffles among the scent of fresh rain? I seriously couldn't get enough and B even humored me and went on a mission to find them one day because I was craving them. Finally a nice lady escorted us to a waffle guy. Escorted. I must have looked desperate. It was worth it.

And then there was our show that we bought tickets beforehand online. We went to go see Wicked the night of our appointment because we figured: A. We would either need something to keep our mind off of the bad news or B. We would need somewhere to celebrate and C. That was the only one we could agree on. Thankfully, it was a celebration! We had tremendous seats and were even second guessing if we were in the right ones. We were pleasantly surprised with the show, though we were both worried after the first scene. I remember looking at B and saying, "Can you gag me with all this cheese please?" But then the singing and story (luckily) took off and, though it paused a few places for me to throw up a little in my mouth (figuratively), it ended up fantastic.

We saw Buckingham Palace and the parks in all the surrounding areas. They were beautiful! We thought it was a little strange that the guards were taking pictures with tourists, but it wasn't my family they were protecting, so shoot away. (photos, that is.) My sore aching feet can vouch for some serious walking.

I decided that living in London would be fun for a few reasons:

1. You get to drive on the other side of the road. (I was firmly corrected that it wasn't the "wrong" side of the road, but just the "other" side.) Note to self: Don't tick off the Taxi driver while he is trying to maneuver in traffic.

2. The waffles. Yes, they were that good. And the walking around everywhere just sheds off those waffle kilos.

3. How fun would it be to live in a place ruled by a queen? Doesn't it seem more like a fairytale? ... A place where real princesses live and don't have terrorists as brothers. Sounds kinda magical.

4. The people are very helpful and kind. We really felt that the English people are quite lovely and simply fab.

5. The language barrier is minimal. It is quite odd that, though they are speaking "English," I sometimes had to ask them to repeat themselves. They have a whole new vocabulary!! For example: trousers=pants, pants=underwear, boot=trunk of a car, chips=fries, crisps=chips, dummy=pacifier, cooker=stove, garden=yard, mad=crazy, pram=stroller, nappy=diaper, queue=line, and sweetie=candy. The best one was: rubber=eraser because when I asked for some "rubber boots" I got some snickers from the sales people. To them, I asked for a 'trunk eraser,' but what I thought that they thought I was referring to, after the snickers, were condoms (since I knew some people call them rubbers). She then explained herself to tell me that she actually thought I meant some sort of an eraser, and I felt even more dumb. They apparently call them "gumshoes." Nice one Monique. I can always embarrass myself, no matter what language I think I am speaking.

Lucky me

I have been feeling really lucky today!

1. Baby is great despite my low growth hormone.

2. Won a blu-ray DVD player at our International Festival.

3. Duke WON the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

Life. Is. Good.

London - returned and relieved

When we initially got the results from the doctors from the many tests that they did, we were cautiously optimistic. We heard stories, some horror and some positive. Mostly negative. We chose to rely on the positive outcome, but decided to prepare ourselves for what might happen. The doctor told me that he has personally had only two other women that have had a growth hormone count as low as mine go full term, (many abort when they find this out) and he said that one baby died 6 days after birth, and the other one was perfectly fine. But, they could tell by the 20 week ultrasound either way. I don't want to know what happened to those babies who had a low growth hormone and chose not to go full term. . . But when we got the results, I didn't want to get an amniocentesis because I knew we would keep the baby either way. Why risk the 1 in 100 chance of another miscarriage that the amnio causes?? So we decided to just wait until this ultrasound to find out. If there were markers for issues, then we would do an amnio to know for sure.

And it went AWESOMELY AWESOME!

The tech showed us:

• the 2 lobes of the brain (they were separated!!)
• the 4 chambers of the heart (fully functioning)
• Great kidneys and bowel
• Normal nose
• No cysts or growths
• Spinal cord intact
• No abnormalities
  
• Normal measurements overall
  

We have done our research and know that there can be lots of issues that CAN happen and since we have miscarried 3 times, the doctors were also concerned since most miscarriages are from Chromosomal disorders.

Bottom line: My almost nonexistent growth hormones are NOT effecting the baby and we are in the low percentile of success!!! I do like beating the odds every once in a while... though I am still perplexed about why my growth hormone is so low and what it IS effecting. Crazy! It must be all those Cadbury creme eggs and Ice cream I am eating...

We are so blessed to have friends and family who have prayed and fasted for us. It's hard to explain, but I felt it and I know God was watching out for us. The comfort that we felt was overwhelming, though the prayer right before taking the 2 block walk to the office in London was a little teary eyed. The power of prayer and fasting is awesome and is a blessing for us all.

Oh, and we are having a BOY!!! woohoo!! I even had the gall to ask, "Are you sure?" to one of the best ultrasound techs in Europe. It just came out. I thought it was my turn to be right. I guess I am fine being 0-4 for being right about guessing what our baby is and B is 4-0. I figure it has nothing to do with Women's Intuition anyway since the gender is HIS contribution anyway. riiiight?? That's my excuse and I'm ticking to it.