A New Season

Justin and I are so excited to officially announce on the blog that we have a baby on the way! We are expecting our little one to arrive on or around March 6.

When Justin's parents were in town back in August, we took them to a Rangers game and conveniently invited my parents to come along. Surprisingly, the parents didn't suspect that anything was up - they were happy to go to the game together and didn't think anything of it! It's good to have family that gets along well. :)

Justin and I had wrapped up a couple of adorable little Rangers onesies for our parents to open at the game to tell them we were expecting. It took some energy and patience to get them all in the same place at the same time, but it was well worth it. You can be the judge of how they felt about getting a new grandbaby!

Just before we told them

Opening the gifts

My parents finding a onesie inside

The "Are you serious?" faces

David and Cindy finding out they are going to be grandparents!

Justin having a good laugh at the parents 

Excited Grampa

Happy parents-to-be

We have had fun sharing the news with all of our loved ones and feel so incredibly blessed that our little one will grow up surrounded by such supportive people, and that he or she is already so loved even before being born. 

We will hopefully find out tomorrow if we are having a little boy or a little girl! We would be thrilled with either but can't wait to find out!  What is your guess??

I will leave you with this picture from the arboretum yesterday...

Please join us in praying that our baby will be healthy and most importantly, that he or she will have a deep love for the Lord!  Be looking for the big gender reveal later this week! :)

Home Again

We wanted to wake up early the following morning to pack and give ourselves plenty of time to travel to the airport to catch our flight home. This turned out to not be a problem, because we forgot to change our alarm clock to London time and ended up waking up at the ridiculous hour of 4am. We didn't realize the mistake until we were already completely packed and just about ready to walk out the door. Needless to say, we didn't have any trouble making our flight.

We had to take a few trains to get to the airport, but really didn't have any trouble doing so. We had a good flight to Atlanta, a good-enough flight to Dallas, and were greeted at the airport by our kind friend Savannah.

We were exhausted by this point, but had one more stop to make. My aunt was watching Beau, and we met her for dinner to pick the little guy up. We slept very well that night and it felt so good to be home.

We have been home for several weeks now and I have had some time to look back on what I learned during our travels. Here are some of the things I learned during those wonderful 3 weeks:

1. God is incredibly creative. We saw so many different kinds of beauty during our travels, and not one bit of it strained God in any way to create. And to think this is what it looks like after we have come along and messed it up!

2. My sweet husband loves to talk to everyone he sees in other countries too, and doesn't let language barriers of any kind stop him!

3. Packing light is worth it when you are going to be changing hotels every few days, and really is doable even for the longer trips!

4. The exception to #3 is when it is raining. We decided you really just can't have enough clothes with you when they are constantly getting wet.

5. Having friends and family who will take care of your house and your beloved pets while you are away is a huge blessing!

6. Taking extra memory cards was a good idea. We are still sorting through the 6,000+ pictures from our trip. :-O

7. Planning ahead is so worth the time. Overall, our trip went really smoothly. I can't imagine if we had tried to figure everything out when we got there! Having some kind of plan, and at least knowing where you are going to stay, frees up so much time for you to explore the place you have worked so hard to get to.

8. Just because everywhere you are visiting is surrounded by beautiful bodies of water does not mean they are swimming-friendly. Justin was pretty bummed about this one.

9.  I have an incredibly sweet and very fun husband. He is a great travel companion!

10. Coming home from a vacation you have dreamed about for years is hard. But getting to see all of your friends and family, sleeping in your own bed, and clean clothes sure make it easier!

Thanks to everyone who followed along our journey with us. We are happy to be home and are looking forward to the next adventure!

London

Justin and I woke up very early the following morning and walked to the train station to catch the Eurostar to London. We arrived in London by 8:00am and set out to conquer the day. We would be flying home the following morning so this was our only day to see London, and we were determined to see it all! Or at least as much as two people possibly can in a day.

The train station in London

We began the day in Hyde Park, which is an Olympic venue for the marathon swimming and triathlon. We enjoyed walking around the park and enjoying the beautiful paths and gardens while watching the intense construction for the Games. This was the first of many sightings of Olympics-inspired cleaning, construction, and detours. The entire city already seemed to be in a craze getting ready for the onslaught of thousands of visitors from around the world in just a few weeks. While it was really neat to be there to feel the anticipation of the coming games, we couldn't help but be glad we would miss the madness that is surely there now.

Hyde Park

Baby swans

Construction for the Olympics

Pretty gardens

After enjoying Hyde Park, we made our way to the British Museum, home of the Rosetta Stone, a set of the Olympic medals, and a full range of both ancient and modern treasures. We enjoyed walking around for a while, but then remembered that we had a lot to see and scurried on out to our next stop. We were planning to see a show that night and stopped by the box office to get our tickets on our way to lunch at Pret a Manger, a delicious sandwich shop on every corner of the city. 

The British Museum

Olympic medals

After being refueled by a yummy lunch, we continued on to Trafalgar Square, The National Portrait Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, and a bunch of other places that I quite honestly just can't remember right now. :) 

Countdown to the Olympics!

National Portrait Gallery, which has an extensive collection including Monet, Van Gogh, and da Vinci

Trafalgar Square

The Texas Embassy

Buckingham Palace

Westminster Abbey

We walked and walked and walked, enjoying being in London and determined to make the most of our last full day in Europe. In contrast to our time in England a few weeks before, the weather was beautiful.

We ate a delicious dinner before heading to our show, The Sunshine Boys, at the Savoy Theatre for our evening treat.

This last day in Europe was fast and furious, but it was a great way to end our trip and we loved it all!  We stumbled into bed late that night to get a few hours of sleep before leaving for our final destination: home.

Paris!

We flew into Paris in the late afternoon and got to play the always fun "find the hotel" game to drop off our bags. Our room was very pink - the bedspread, pillows, and even the toilet paper was pink - but a decent enough place to sleep. We walked around the city for the remainder of the evening enjoying the first of several delicious nutella crepes, walking around the grounds of the Louvre, and waiting for the sun to go down so that we could see the Eiffel Tower light up. 

Justin has a friend from ACU who lives in Paris, and he and his fiance picked us up at our hotel Saturday morning for breakfast. They took us to a fantastic restaurant, began ordering away in French, and soon pastries, croissants, jams, coffee, hot chocolate, and all kinds of breakfast goodies began to arrrive. It was quite the spread! We really enjoyed breakfast with them and were glad we got to see them during our visit.

After breakfast, they dropped us off at the Eiffel Tower where we were to begin a bike tour. After meeting up with the guide, walking back to their shop to get situated on our bikes, and brief instructions on "dominating" the road, we set out on a really fun tour. We had a good guide and enjoyed riding around to different spots, including Napoleon's Tomb, the Tuileries Gardens, and the Musee D'Orsay, hearing some of the history of the places as we went. We had perfect weather and really enjoyed ourselves. 

After the bike tour, we walked over to the Eiffel Tower but decided not to spend the beautiful day waiting in line to go up. We wandered around some of the big sites, walked down the Champs-Elysees, strolled past the street vendors' treasures, and just enjoyed being in Paris. 

That evening, we treated ourselves to some coffee and sat in a garden watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle in the night sky.

Sunday morning we got up early to visit the Eiffel Tower and enjoyed the quietness of the morning. We passed through the Louvre and were amazed at how few people were out and about given the swarms of people who seemed to be forever there. 

By the time we arrived at the tower, the sky was beginning to sprinkle on us. We waiting in line and then climbed the damp stairs up to the second floor (we were champs at climbing stairs by this point in our trip) and then took the elevator up to the top. It was fun to see the city from such a high vantage point, but the jostling crowds were a bit much for us and we were relieved to head back down after a little while. 

Leaving the tower behind us, we stumbled upon some gardens and spent some time sitting and enjoying not having people on every side of us for a few moments. The morning sprinkles had turned into a light rain, and we decided to look for something indoors. Not surprisingly, the rest of Paris had the same inclination, and while there weren't as many people out on the streets, the lines for the museums were very quickly increasing. We made our way all the way to Notre Dame Cathedral and waited to enter in the now pouring rain. Notre Dame is beautiful and we enjoyed taking in the attention to detail and the stunning architecture.

Notre Dame happens to be very close to a gelato place that I remembered from my previous trip to Paris, and Justin and I managed to find it fairly easily. We stood in the rain eating the most wonderful flower-shaped gelato and then opted to head back to our hotel to dry off while we decided what we wanted to do for the remainder of the day. During our long walk back, the heavy rain became a downpour and by the time we finally arrived at our hotel, we were drenched and freezing. Don't ask me why we didn't use some of the wonderful public transportation available, because I just don't know.

Soon after, the rain began to let up and we dared to venture out again for some dinner. We enjoyed walking around Paris one last evening before heading home to pack for our final day in Europe.