The Pitter-Patter of a little Lindsey or Brett

Well first of all, Brett and I have now been married for four years! Can you believe it? I certainly can't. Time really does fly by. Before we got married, I honestly didn't know exactly what to expect (does anyone really?). My mom made sure to let me know that marriage was not always easy, but I still didn't know how hard it could sometimes be. Fortunately along with all the struggles and difficult times come wonderful, fun, and amazing times. I am so grateful to be married to Brett. He never ceases to amaze me with how smart, funny, and sweet he is. It's also nice that he is so willing to put up with me. We've seen a lot together over these four years and we've grown so close. I can't imagine my life without him.

Now, as you may have heard or guessed by the title of this blog, we recently discovered I'm pregnant. I had been feeling sick since we got back from London and I had missed my period (sorry for the personal detail), which actually isn't that uncommon, but I just had a feeling that something was different this time. So I went and got a pregnancy test (without telling Brett). The test that I got was all in German and it was a digital test that said Schwanger (pregnant) or Nicht Schwanger (not pregnant) instead of the little +/- or whatever. After I waited that ridiculously long 3 minutes, it said schwanger and I had a momentary freak out by myself in the bathroom before I came into the bedroom to tell Brett. When I first walked in, I just stared at him not knowing exactly what to say. Then he said, "what? what's going on?" I replied, "I'm schwanger!" Of course he didn't know what I meant, so I said, "I'm pregnant." He didn't believe me at first and kept saying "no you're not." Actually, here's a better representation of his reaction to the news:


So I brought in the test to show it to him.


(This picture is actually from the second test that Brett wanted me to take, and as you'll notice it says that I'm at least 3+ weeks along)

Then we both freaked out for a while. We're excited, but we were also caught off guard as we were not planning this at all. We just found a doctor so I have an appointment in about a week, so I'll be able to get a better idea of all those questions that people want to know, like "how far along are you?" and "when are you due?" I did one of those online things that is supposed to calculate your due date and it said Dec. 12, but I don't know about that.... so we'll see. I feel sick pretty much all day long, but I haven't thrown up yet, so I guess that's good. One thing that is super annoying is that I keep craving foods from restaurants that don't exist here. I get so hungry, but I only want certain things... things that I can't have. Oh well. I'll try not to think about Cafe Rio, Chipotle, the Euro Cafe, Joe's Real BBQ or the Mint Thai. Dang it.

In conclusion, I bought some Popsicles the other day only to discover that one of them came with a complimentary wood shard. Talk about a lawsuit waiting to happen! What a tasty lawsuit though.

Merry Old London

Lindsey here. Brett said he's done with his blogging duties for a while. So I guess you'll have to live with my less-funny, probably less frequent blogs from here on out. Sorry.

Here in Europe they actually take time off from work to celebrate Easter. So Brett had a Friday and Monday off of work, so obviously we decided he should also take the Wednesday and Thursday before that off so that we could go to London. The cheapest flights we found were out of Bratislava, if you're unfamiliar with the place, see our previous post. The airline is called Ryanair and it comes complete with no seating arrangements and some of the classiest Europeans you'll find. You know the types... just imagine that Europe had Wal Mart, that's where you'd find all of these people. You know they type... They're not intimidated by lines, because they don't stand in them. And they are not afraid to run or push you out of the way for a better deal, or in this case a better seat or to be one step ahead of you getting off the plane.

After a long and gross day of buses, planes, and "tubes" as they call them in London, we finally arrived at our hotel in London. After we got settled in, we went to check out the City and grab something to eat. We were fortunate to arrive on a very sunny day and this was literally the first thing we saw once we got into the city via Westminster station:



Then we went in search of food. London is a little pricy and we didn't know where anything was so we ended up eating at McDonald's. Before that, I honestly can't remember the last time I ate at a McDonald's. For some reason I think that a lot of American's who opt to not eat at McDonald's in the states end up eating it in foreign countries though, so whatever.

We covered a lot of ground that first day. Here are some pictures:


That night the wireless internet at our hotel wasn't working and I had a deadline and Brett had to get a hold of his friend (we were supposed to be meeting up with her the next day). So we took our little laptop and set out in search of an internet cafe. Now, first let me say that we were staying on the outskirts of town (much cheaper that way) and secondly, London is not as big on internet cafe's apparently. So after much searching and walking, we ended up at McDonald's for a second time. Who ever would have guessed we'd eat there twice in one day? Well, they were the only place with wireless internet, so we were grateful.

The next day we wandered around the city some more and then met up with Brett's friend, Nicola, for lunch. She's a Londoner who was attending the Monterey Institute and who also spent last summer in Syria. So this was actually the third country we've seen her in. After lunch we wandered around some more and checked out some shops. That was pretty much that day.

The next day we decided we were going to do our "Hop on/Hop off" tour. Basically they are these buses that drive around and make stops at all the popular tourist spots. So you can get on and off at any time. It's a pretty sweet deal. A favorite on this day was the Tower of London. It's a castle on the shores of the Thames. It's more famous as the place where greats like Ann Boleyn and William Wallace were executed. Speaking of that Boleyn girl, they had a Henry VIII exhibit going on at the time. Henry the 8th was an all around gross person. Here's a taste of the tower he once occupied:


While we were there, one of our objectives was for Brett to eat bangers and mash and fish & chips. Well, we at least accomplished half of that objective by getting him the fish & chips. And I ate all the salt & vinegar chips I could handle.

This blog is starting to get long, so I'll try to wrap things up...
Basically we saw all we could including Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery (complete with some actual Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Picasso paintings), the London Eye, the Imperial War Museum, Abbey Road, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, some of the beautiful parks, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some other things... But we walked till our feet hurt every day and I even talked Brett into seeing a show. Our last night there we went and saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was actually really awesome and I think Brett even liked it. :)

You can a better feel for the whole experience by checking out our 150+ pictures here.

We left Sunday morning ridiculously early and took Monday to recuperate from the trip. In conclusion, it was awesome and I highly suggest going.