Frankie Says Relax
*sigh* My body is finally rebelling against the pace we've kept for the last week. I just realized that today is the first day in seven that we haven't done ANYTHING!!! I woke up this morning with a little bit of a cold--the first one I've had since before I got pregnant with Adriana! So I guess now that I'm sick, it's time to go home :-) I think it's getting to Adri too. She refuses to drink more than one bottle a day (in the morning), but eats solid food like a mad woman the rest of the day. She went through more food just today than she normally goes trough in TWO!!!! I hope she does okay on the plane Monday. I keep checking my flight reservations, and so far there's no on in the seat next to me so Adri can havae her own seat (kind of) on the long flight back to the states. The flight from Minneapolis to Denver is pretty much a sardine can, but that's only an hour and a half flight.
Okay, so on to the "diary" of the last week. Obviously I've taken more pictures than I'll post here (otherwise it's going to take me forever and I'll just give up). All my photos (not yet with explinations) can be found at our
Flickr site.
Saturday - Monday: Westcliff to Leeds; Leeds to Edinburgh
Monday - Wednesday: Edinburgh to Stratford-upon-Avon; Stratford-upon-Avon to Westcliff
Thursday: London
Friday: Coach tour of Leeds Castle, White Cliffs of Dover, Canterbury, Grenwich, and a cruise down the River Thames.
We were pretty excited to actually be able to go to Leeds and Edinburgh, because as you may have read earlier, Adri and Kim had both been sick in the days before. Everyone was feeling better Saturday morning, so we went ahead with our plans. We drove about 3 hours north of Westcliff to the town of Leeds where Kim's frind Mark and his family live. They were kind enough to let us stay over night with them. When we got there, Adri, of course commanded the attention of everyone in the room. She's gotten a bit cheeky as of late. Anyway, that evening we took everyone out for bowling and Chineese to thank them for letting us disrupt their lives for 14 hours. It was a lot of fun, but we were glad to get back on the road to our destination. Four or five hours later, we found Edinburgh. Finding our hotel was a totally different story. I think we probably drove around for a good half hour before calling the place for directions. Adri was exhausted and Kim and I were both pretty testy. So we parked the car, walked everything two blocks down and then lugged everything up the stairs to our room. It was a very nice little suite with a kitchen AND a washing machine!!!
As you can see from the picture, Adri was facinated with the front-loading washer.
Monday morning we got up and headed down into town to do our sight seeing. First stop was Edinburgh Castle. Let me tell you--walking up to that castle is NOT for the faint of leg. Of course if we had gone up the RIGHT way, it would have been a lot easier.
And just a little known fact--did you know that King James I, the patron of the King James Bible (1611 AV) was born in Edinburgh Castle, nd that his mother was Mary Queen of Scots??
I'll p ublish this much, but I'll have to finish the rest tomorrow. My body is now on automatic shutdown, and if I don't get it into bed, I'll be sleeping on the keyboard tonight.
Um...I've turned into a cow. Can I go home?
That's a line from "The Emperor's New Groove". I'm really enjoying my time and all the things we're seeing, but I think I'm ready to go home now.
I'll post more later (and I promise--pictures are coming!), but so far we've seen Edinburgh Scotland (and lots of sheep and shaggy cows), Stratford-upon-Avon and Downtown London--and all the lovely sites that go with them. Tomorrow is our last major event--a coach/riverboat tour of Leeds Castle, the Cliffs of Dover and it ends with an evening cruise down the Thames River. I'm looking forward to it, but I'll be glad when we can stay closer to home. And then we leave on Monday to come back to the States!! I'm definitely looking forward to that. Two weeks is WAAAAAY too long to be this far away from the love of your life! TTFN!
Next Stop: Edinburgh, Scotland!!
Okay, so it's technically Leeds--but it's half way there, and Scotland IS where we're going to end up. Plans were a little sketchy for a while since BOTH Kim and Adri were sick, but all seems to be going better so far. So this will probably be my last post until Wednesday when we return to Southend and I have internet access again. Pray for safety (because Kim is letting me drive!!!) and settled tummies all around.
I Hate Jet Lag...
Actually, I voluntarily stayed up this late so I could talk to Ben for a while. He left for a business trip to Washington DC the same day we left for London, so I haven't talked to him since Monday. I've never not talked to him for that long!!! I know it sounds a bit cheesy (and a little morbid, I guess), but we're one of those couples who wants to die together because we'd never be able to stand life without the other. We COULD do it, but we don't want to. Have you ever seen the end of "
The Notebook"? That's how we want to go. I cried my ever-lovin' eyes out!! I can't say as I'd recommend it to my more conservative friends, because it gets a little racy. But oh my gosh what a love story!!!!
Today was pretty laid back. I'm trying to figure out what exactly Adri wants to eat. She won't touch a bottle of formula or juice, but she'll drink the sugar water Bridget suggested I give her to keep her hydrated. She also had some blueberries and pears for dinner. We went to an open house at Kim's school and I met a number of her coworkers. I'm beginning to get a big head with everyone telling me how beautiful my daughter is!! They all commented either about her smile or her eyes. She's definitely still turning heads everywhere she goes.
I also got to wash and style my hair today. What a difference that makes!!! I actually feel HUMAN! The humidity seemed to be a bit milder today as well. We're going to the
Southend-on-sea pier tomorrow night (or now it's tonight I guess...) At 1.33 miles long, it's the longest entertainment pier in the world. Then Saturday morning we'll head up to Leeds and stay the night there (and sight-see) and then head to Edinburgh, Scotland on Sunday. Then on the way back home to Southend, we'll head to Stratford-upon-avon and stay over night at a B&B there. Hopefully that means more pictures to come!!
I'm headed off to bed. Hopefully I won't wake up again at 2:30--since it's 1:45 now. That would suck.
Okay, So It's Not *ALL* Perfect...
Yes, it's 2:30 in the morning again. I seem to be on a funky schedule...a lot of it is just my insanely screwed up thyroid.
Adriana spent most of the day today throwing up EVERYTHING. Poor little dear. Our laundry is a little worse for wear, but she seems to be doing better. She's finally taking little sips of juice/water after pushing everything away for the last 12 hours. Thanks to Kim being able to make VOIP calls for free from her computer, I was able to call my sister Bridget back in the states and get some advice since I don't have a lot of my things from home. I know the UK isn't a third world country, and I can get the equivalent of a number of things here, but Adri's little tummy needs to be American a bit longer. Just incase it's the water, for some reason, I'll see if boiling it helps any. Her tummy might not have liked the yogurt she had for breakfast either...I dunno. We'll see how things go today. The picture above is of Kim bathing Adri in her sink. We had already gone through four changes of clothes--two of mine, two of Adri's--before Kim got home from work. And we had been in the bath twice too. We're talking PROJECTILE vomiting--Kim's poor carpet will never be the same again. Luckily she has a washer, but no dryer, so all of her radiators are covered in clothes and blankets :-) We're supposed to go to an open house tonight at Kim's school, so hopefully Adri will be feeling up to it. I'm looking forward to getting out and meeting some of Kim's friends that she talks about all the time.
Speaking of friends she talks about...Russ evidently texted her and said that he would try to pop by on Friday. He wanted to drop off two tins of Pear Drops for me!!! I'm not one for hard candy, but these things are yummy!!! They're pear flavored, but they have a touch of mint or eucalyptus or something, because the flavor--excuse me--the flavoUr (that's for Russ) just seems to radiate in your mouth. We looked for them at Tesco the other night but couldn't find them. What a sweetie he is!!
And before I sign off for the night...or...uh...day...I'm still confused as to what day it is--I wanted to post a picture that I took of a fox in the garden next door to Kim's flat. He was SO adorable! The look on its face reminded me of (and make me homesick for)
Rosie. We sometimes call her "little fox" because sometimes when she lays down, she'll curl her tail around her body. And with the little white tip on the end of her red tail, she looks just like a little fox!
Cheers mates!! (or "laters maters" as Kim likes to say...)
It's 2 a.m. Do You Know Where Your Daughter Is?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. She's in my bed sleeping soundly. The only problem is that she should be in HER bed sleeping soundly. I don't know if her little blow-up mattress is too hard or what, but she woke up about 1:30 crying. I held her for a bit until she went back to sleep and put her back in her bed. She slept just long enough for me to get back to sleep and then woke up crying again. So I went against all the rules (safely, of course) and put her in bed with me. And now it seems that I've been kicked out. That's okay...I'd rather have myself a little sleep deprived than her. I'm just glad she doesn't seem to be affected by jet lag!! So I guess now is as good a time as any to give details of our trip.
Like I said earlier, I couldn't have asked for a better flight!! She played most of the way from Denver to Mineapolis. The lady next to me fell in love with her and played with her some of the time. And if the cabin pressure changes bothered her, she never showed it. We landed in Mineapolis at about 5pm and our next flight was supposed to leave at 7pm. Evidently there was a miscommunication between the ground crew doing maintanence on the plane and the flight crew, because the flight crew ARRIVED at 7pm!! I guess the ground crew finished early and failed to tell the flight crew.... At any rate, Adri was just a tad tired by then. We spent our layover getting her changed into her PJ's in the bathroom (and forgetting to take her diaper bag off the back of the stroller before I took her out. It pulled the stroller over backwards, dumping my pop all over the bathroom floor. No one helped...just stared. Thanks guys....). By this time, between the humidity and the effects of some medication that I've been on (my life has been one big hot flash for the last month), I was DRENCHED with sweat. I managed to get everything back on the stroller and back out to the now overflowing waiting area. A nice (and kind of boisterous) lady came over and sat beside me and started asking about Adri. She is an American married to a British citizen, and was going home after a wedding. She showed me pictures of her 4 month old twin girls and her two year old daughter. She said if I needed any help on the flight just to ask. Her breath seemed to have a distinct alcohol odor, so I just kinda smiled and nodded. She did, however, suggest that I see if I could be assigned a bulk head seat so that we would have more room since Adri was a lap ticket. When I went up to inquire, I found out that the seat next to me was empty--score!!! So we just kept our original assignment and went back to sit down. By this time they had begun boarding first class and a number of other passengers. WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO PREBOARDING THOSE WHO NEED ASSISTANCE?!?!?! Evidently they don't do that anymore--or at least Northwest doesn't. But at one point the flight attendant made a very quiet announcement that if you needed extra time or assistance you could board too. So I looked at this lady and said, "I've never done this before. Do I just get in line?" She grabbed me by the hand and said, "Come with me, dearie. I'll get you up there" and proceeded to announce to the entire airport that I had a baby and needed to get through to the front of the line. I was apologizing to them as fast as she could clear them out of the way! The other thing that surprised me was that NO ONE helped me on board!!! Not any staff, anyway. When and older British lady (very proper, I might add) commented that it was barbaric of them not to help me on with my bags and such, a nice young man in a Dr Pepper shirt turned and said, "I'll take your bags for you. Just tell me where you're sitting." So I dropped the stroller at the gate and followed him into the plane where he set down his bags and lifted mine (which were pretty heavy) into the overhead bin. I never saw any of them again to thank them, so thank you so much tipsy 30-something lady and Dr Pepper guy!! You saved my life!!!
By the time the plane actually took off, Adri was fast asleep on my lap. She slept right through take-off!! I even laid her down on a pillow on the empty seat next to me, and she never woke up until about three hours into the flight. At that point she sat on my lap and played for about thirty minutes until a nice old British man (whose beard looked a lot like Daddy's) came over and, after talking my ear off about his whirlwind trip through the US National Parks, he offered to get my bag down for me so I could get her a bottle. She drank her bottle dry and went back to sleep until about an hour before we landed. And even then I had to wake her so that I could feed her before we got on the ground!! We landed about an hour later than scheduled, and it took me about 45 minutes to get through immigration, baggage, and customs. I was SO glad I didn't have any problems!!! And I found Russ right away too. Russ (who works for the Essex County Police force) is Kim's friend who graciously picked me up from the airport for little more than the cost of gas money and a jar of American peanut butter. Evidently British peanut butter is pretty bad. So about an hour later we arrived at Kim's flat in Westcliff-on-sea. You can see the ocean from her bedroom window!!!!! Russ got all of our luggage up and even played with Adri for a while so I could call my family and Ben (who was in DC at the time) to let them know that I had arrived safely. Then he showed me where everything was, showed me how to work the tea kettle (oh how I wish I could take one back with me!!!) and got me a glass of water before he went home. I then fixed Adri a bottle and we promptly fell asleep on Kim's bed for about two hours until she came home from work. We chatted for a couple of hours, headed out to Tesco (it's like a cross between Walmart and Target...and Geico...evidently you can purchase just about anything from Tesco if you know where to look!!) to get a few things, picked up some Indian food on the way home and came back and crashed.
And so now I'm back at where I started...my daughter still in my bed sleeping soundly. I think I'll just sleep on the couch :-)
Cheers, mates!
We Are Here!!
No pictures yet, but only because I've yet to find the camera...or the card adapter. Plus I'm still trying to keep Adri from getting into everything in Kim's living room. I'll have to write more tomorrow and tell all about our flights (which went amazingly well!). We're all pretty tired, and Adriana desperately needs a bath.
BUT! Before I go....
Do you know how hard it is to fit all my stuff, all of Adri's stuff (which includes a deflated inflatable travel bed) plus three jars of peanut butter, six packages of Oreos, seven packages of purple G2 gel pens, and six bottles of lotion from Victoria's Secret in a suitcase??? I even have one of those expandable ones where you unzip around the top and it pops up a few more inches. Yeesh... Kim, this is how much I love you, my friend.
Crossing the Pond
Forty-eight hours from now Adriana and I will be in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex England!! Or at least on our way there. Who knows how long it's going to take to get through immigration and customs and such. I still have so much to do before we leave tomorrow!! My friend Kim and I have a few touristy things planned. We'll stop by Leeds Castle on our way north to Edinburgh, Scotland later in the week. And of course we'll be taking our pilgrimage to Stratford-Upon-Avon, birthplace of William Shakespeare. How could two English majors NOT pay homage to ole' Billy's home????? Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to post updates and pictures while I'm over there, so keep checking back!!
We'd really appreciate your prayers, too, for our trip over.
1. Pray that Adri will do well with the plane trip and that she'll adjust well to the time change. She is a WONDERFUL little traveler, so I don't think I'll have much of a problem with her. I've also read that there can be some problems with infants going from high altitudes to sea level and back to high altitudes, so you could pray for that too.
2. Pray for a smooth transition from the airport to where we're staying. Kim's friend Russ is picking us up from Gatwick and taking us to Kim's place until she gets off work (she's an English teacher in the London school system).
3. Pray for safety for the two weeks we're over there. I'm a little apprehensive about flying with all the terrorist plots being uncovered lately--especially those dealing with US flights in and out of the UK! But I've prayed a lot about it and still have peace about going. We'll also be traveling around the country quite a bit, so you can pray for safety there too.
4. Pray for Ben--he's going to miss his girls terribly!! He'll be on a business trip to Washington DC for the first three days we're gone, but after that, he won't have anything but work to keep him occupied for the next 12 days.
My PCOS Rant
I hate this. PCOS SUCKS!!!!!!! Adiana is 10 months old, and I have YET to have a normal cycle since I got pregnant with her. The first doctor put me on the wrong dose of progesterone to get me to end two months of non-stop bleeding. So I stopped for about two weeks and then started up again...for another month. This, by the way, is the doctor (supposedly a PCOS expert) who took blood tests at the wrong time in my cycle and then when he got the results back, he said that he didn't see anything wrong with my results and so I obviously didn't have PCOS. He suggested that I go on a good low-carb diet for six months, lose some weight and he bet I'd be able to conceive on my own.
YOU'RE KIDDING!!!! [slapping forehead] IS THAT ALL I HAVE TO DO?!?!?!?!?!? I NEVER EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT!!!!!! [rolling eyes] Sheesh... idiot...
Anyway, after that, Dr Vecc put me on another round of progesterone. This right dose this time. And since we wanted to start trying to get pregnant again, Dr Weary started me on Clomid. About three days into the five day course, I turned into a...well, let's just say I wasn't very fun to be around. Now I'm just an emotional wreck, but I had to deal with hot flashes from hell for over a week. I'm now on day 20 of my cycle. I have a 21 day progesterone blood test tomorow afternoon, and to the best of my knowledge, I haven't ovulated. I still could, but from what I've read eggs released after day 21 aren't usually very good for fertilizing. So I put myself and my poor husband through 10 days of sheere hell, and we won't even get pregnant!! So after I get back from London, I'll make another appointment with Dr Weary. He'll do an ultrasound to make sure that my ovaries didn't get hyperstimulated. Then if everything is okay there, he'll up my Clomid to 100 mg. I'll wait for my body to decide it's not going to ovulate and start another cycle, and I'll put my family through twice as much hell as I did this time (I was only on 50 mg this time).
I don't want this. I didn't ask for this. I'm tired of looking at food and gaining 10 pounds. I'm tired of not being able to lose any more than four pounds without restricting myself to 1000 calories per day. I'd like to be surprised with an unexpeced positive pregnancy test rather than planning every every unromantic step of it. And just once I'd like a doctor to look at my weight as a symptom of a problem instead of a sign of an undisciplined lifestyle. Just once...
As you can see from the picture, Adri was facinated with the front-loading washer. 
Monday morning we got up and headed down into town to do our sight seeing. First stop was Edinburgh Castle. Let me tell you--walking up to that castle is NOT for the faint of leg. Of course if we had gone up the RIGHT way, it would have been a lot easier. 
