Here's to you Utrecht

A year ago we left Utrecht. We had dinner at Chez Willy's on the Oudegracht and dessert at Venecia.

For this toast, we are proud to announce that we have perfect the Bitter Lemon Recipe, this was one of our favorite drinks in Utrecht:

Bitter Lemon
Lemon Syrup
1 part sugar
1 part water
dissolve in sauce pan over medium heat. When sugar is completely dissolved add
1 part lemon juice
chill completely

Mix
1 part lemon syrup
3 parts chilled tonic water

Serve over ice (with Scottish whiskey is also a nice touch and an Utrecht favorite)

So it was one year ago today that we wrote our last post in our old blog, wegodutch.blogspot.com. I cried when I wrote that entry. It's been a hard year. Harder than we thought to come back. We miss a great deal about Utrecht. We miss walking and biking everywhere. We miss our apartment along the canal. We miss our trips all over Europe. We miss the pace of life. Of course, there are good things about being back in the US....we are closer to family. We are in the same time zone for phone calls. We have a real oven again. But something about that year and a half in Utrecht has really seeped into our souls. Do you know that we still listen to the CD of the Dom bells on Sunday mornings?



So...Here's to you Utrecht. The rattle of bikes over the cobblestones, the voices echoing down the narrow alleys, the coffee's in the sun, the beers by oudegracht, the cows along the train lines, the windmills watching silently over everything, the evening walks for roomijs, the morning walks for fresh appelflappen, the little stores that had plenty to buy, the flowers in the park, the bouquets that filled our rooms every day, the wonderful cheese, and the cathedral bells echoing over the canals.
Cheers.

chris cross applesauce

You know what I love about 4 year olds - they discover that their velcro shoes can do this:

And are just so pleased with themselves.

(and Jake calls these her 'calvin and hobbes shoes' because they look the like little sneakers Calvin always wore).

A great and grand visit

This past week we've had some very special guests...my grandparents, Elena's great-grandparents: Grammy and Grandpa. They flew in from Oregon on Wednesday and we had a wonderful week of sharing our lives with them. We ate tapas outside, grilled, went to the Friday night concert, hiked, painted with the new art kit, went to the park, visited school, ate tasty dinners out.
Basically we had a great time. Elena really enjoyed her great-grandparent play time.

Holiday

Elena has taken to wanting dancing music. So Jake, always looking for an excuse to highlight his 80's music collection, has her started on Madonna. So it's Madonna's 'Holiday' that was the driving music for this trip.

We took off on a short as close to Euro-style holiday as we could get. We went some place that looked interesting with a moderate amount of internet research, stayed in the most interesting place we could find, and were within striking distance of the beach. We headed to the Albermarle region of North Carolina - just below the Virginia boarder. Now, we were a big worried that our vacation was also planned within striking distance of the Great Dismal Swamp - but we've always known how to have a good time.

We stayed in the Beechwood Inn - which is a collection of little restored houses from the pre Civil War. They also make reproduction furniture - so they are furnished authentically. Kids were welcome (they even put a tub of legos in the house!) and it was a nice choice.

We spent three full days exploring the region. The first day we just drove to the Outerbanks to go to the beach. Elena demanded it and when you see how happy she is covered in sunscreen and sand by the ocean, we'll you'd drive there too. I swear, the child will either live or work or both by the ocean because she never seems happier or more at peace and joyful than when she is playing on the beach. One our drive back we swung through a little town on Roanoke Island and found some great icecream. The next day we headed up to a state park, rented a canoe and went in search of turtles, birds, alligators (elena was extremely disappointed not to see one), and other wild life. It was really wonderful to canoe among the cyprus trees. We had lunch in the canoe and stopped for icecream in a drug store soda fountain on the way home. The next morning it was back to Roanoke Island to visit the interpretive museum and boat then back to the beach for a little more sunning. That night we stopped for pizza and ice cream on the way home. Basically, the theme of the trip was icecream!

We really enjoyed the country and thought the area was beautiful.

Half baked?!?!

How could this be? About two weeks ago we had our 'big' ultrasound. Elena came along to check out the baby. We'd watched youtube videos of ultrasounds, so she knew what to expect. Before hand she 'wrote' down her list of questions (she has learned the morning of my appointments I scribble down a few questions).

First of all, Dos looks great. All the parts are there and functioning. We saw everything from all chambers and valves of the heart to the umbilical cord. Dr. Bradford was a lot of fun because she explained everything much better than the ultrasound tech we had with Elena. We got tons of pictures, I just have to find time to scan a few in for you. No good profiles, because the hands and the feet were up by the head. Elena loved that part, 'the baby has his toes in his ears, just like me!' The heart rate was steady at ~160-170...fast, just like Elena's. Now before you go placing your money on the boy horse, Dr. Bradford says that the 'fast/slow' heart rate thing is only accurate 60% of the time...that's pretty close to 50/50 for this scientist. Elena's heart beat was always that fast, so it remains to be seen if I just have babies with fast beats. But if it's another girl, you are out of luck for your sample size, because we are only having two! The baby was measuring right at ~21 weeks for everything and was estimated to weigh about 12 oz. Froggie legs has some serious poundage to put on. As for my poundage - doing good...gained back my early loss from being so sick (and all of the illness after Chile). I'm up about 7 lbs from my first appointment, which means I'm up about 2 lbs over all. (two weeks in the desert while pregnant is excellent weight control, but a regime I cannot recommend for wide spread use). The baby was moving around a little bit and since then has gotten much more active. Still being a tricky little one and the moment Jake puts his hand on my belly, movement stops. Elena has been really wanting to feel the baby move. Maybe I'll have to try to half a coke while sitting down trick for her soon.

Everything else is pretty much on target (except buying or building furniture for the house and unpacking...don't ask about those). We found a good doula, her name is Michal, who we like a lot and have had our first meeting. This is very important to me especially, because I don't know which doctor will be delivering (though I really hope it is Dr. Bradford, when she asks 'any more questions' at the appointments half the time I'm tempted to say 'will you be my friend? can we hang out?' - you know you are getting old when your doctors become your own age!). But being the control freak that I am, I like to know who will be there to support me. Last time Jake and I certainly needed the support of our doula Terri, whom I give a great deal of credit for my wonderful birth experience and Elena's safe arrival. We are also going to get Elena enrolled in a 'sibling' class at the hospital. We are still figuring out what will happen with Elena when the baby comes. Turns out that Blacksburg is still far away from our pit crew - even on emergency standby.

I'll finish up with some pictures from about 22 weeks.

Where is the belly?


Ahhh, there it is...


Never one to be topped, Elena also frequently has a 'baby Haga' in her belly. Haga is the name of her imaginary little brother who gets into a lot of trouble...

Mimosa the Magnificent!

When Elena was just a wee babe, she had this magnificent nanny who swooped in several times a week to whisk her away to amazing destinations such as unlimited shuttle bus rides around campus and the theater workshop. Then the wonderfully nanny graduated and went away...and Elena moved on to school time. Her days with Mimosa have always been treasured. We've moved all over the world and Mimosa has traveled all over the world. But last week, Mimosa, on a road trip with her friend from CT to CA stopped in for a visit.

Oh was Elena excited!





And so were we to see Mimosa.

It's a good thing that her friend Casey was here to supervise...Jake was busy planning a Nanny-Napping for Baby Dos.

Harry and Hermione reporting for duty

Here's a couple photos of Jake and I all spiffed up to graduate the VT seniors and PhD & masters candidates a couple weeks ago.




Gotta love that UC blue and banana slug yellow (take that Berkeley)

Has anyone seen my wand?