Red, White and BLUE

Over the last three years, Brett and I have had some pretty un-American 4th of July's. Three years ago, Brett and I were thousand's of miles apart, but both equally sweatty and miserable. Brett was in Middlebury, Vermont having a conversation with an FBI agent and anxiously waiting for the power to come back on, while I was in Arizona with my parents attempting to watch the fireworks but being forced to leave early because of my younger brother. This was probably the worst of the last three. (Oh and just in case you didn't know, Brett wasn't being interrogated or interviewed by the FBI agent or anything, he was just talking to a fellow student in the intensive summer Arabic program at Middlebury College.)


Last year, we were together, but we were also in Jordan. We actually did get to see some fireworks that night, but only because you can pretty much count on a fireworks show every night due to the ridiculously high amount of weddings in Jordan. We did manage to make the evening somewhat American with a rousing game of BANG! with some other Americans, but we were also getting over some food poisoning which makes life much less exciting.

This year, we tried again to make things as American as possible, starting our 4th of July with some "I'm Proud to be an American" and any other pro-America songs we could find. That night we went to TGI Friday's and ate some delicious hamburgers.

I love that they have this saying painted on the wall:


After the burgers, we walked down to the Rathaus (City Hall) to see what they were playing for the summer film festival. They really only play ballet's and opera's (it is Vienna after all) and I thought it would be nice to see a ballet, but it was a really weird one, and Brett can only handle so much anyway (he once took me to the Nutcracker for Christmas and could hardly stop giggling at the men in tights...) So after about a half hour, we went home.



On Sunday I decided to make a flag cake. According to my cake there were only 7 original colonies and 20 states, but that's ok, right?



The thing that makes this holiday even more difficult is hearing from family and friends about all the fun stuff that they are doing. Brett's family all headed up to Utah to get out of the heat and just hang out as a family. It broke our little American hearts every time we talked to them and saw how much fun they were having together. So hopefully next year we will be with family and friends in the good old USA. I always knew that I loved America, but living outside of the US has made me appreciate it even more.

As for why the blue in the title is capitalized... we found out on Wednesday that we are having a little boy. :) He was quite the little showman about it too. My mom not-so-secretly hoped I would have a girl first and Brett's mom and Caraline also thought I would have a girl, but I think everyone is happy either way. He's healthy and growing along like a champ. I already have a little bump and I can also already feel him moving around. Even the doctor was surprised that I could feel him moving already. She's also been surprised at his activity level the last two visits. Once when she was trying to get a clear picture of him for us to take home she said, "oh my goodness! He's dancing!" (She actually said "it's dancing" because this was before we knew it was a boy.) At any rate, he's very lively. I hope that he will settle down once he makes his debut into the world... To all the moms out there, do you think there is a correlation between a baby's activity level in the womb and their temperment once they are born?

I think that's about all the news I have for now. Sorry I haven't put up any pictures from the ultrasound's, but you all know what those look like, right? We're just happy that he's healthy and all is well. We also have some other things that we are looking forward to....
Harry Potter, anyone?

(This is my "over the moon" face)
After Harry, we're heading to Paris and then we're coming home, so all-in-all, things are good.