London

To celebrate our 5 year anniversary and double as our babymoon, we booked a trip to London and Paris for New Years. We have been saving up our United miles and finally earned enough to book the trip earlier in the fall. I'll post about London and Paris separately. We have been using miles for all of our trips this year to San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, and now London and Paris. For this trip after using miles, we paid just under $200 total for our round trip. HOORAY FOR MILES!

We arrived in London on New Years Eve and bought tickets to the firework show at the London Eye that night. In previous years, the event was just open to the public, but this was the first year they required a purchased ticket to sort of minimize the crowd, and make a ton of money. It was still packed and the line just to get in, with a ticket, was over 3 blocks long. We arrived in London late that morning, our room wasn't ready yet, so we wandered around near Spitalfields for a bit and had lunch. When our room was finally ready, we were able to catch up on some sleep before spending hours outside waiting for the countdown to the new year. After finally finding a spot within the crowd, we passed the time by listening to Serial (thoughts on that later!). It was fun to people watch (although I am tired of these selfie sticks everywhere!!) and be a part of the crowd as the countdown started and the big firework show went on.

The next day, we went to a QPR soccer match. I wasn't really interested in going to a game, but Ryan really wanted to go. I'm actually glad we did because it was fun. The fans and their chants are hilarious. QPR had scored a goal and looked like they were going to win. During the 3 minutes of extra time after the game, the other team scored and the game ended in a tie. We browsed around Harrods that afternoon and had a snack at their ice cream parlor. After that, it was off towards Hyde Park for a magic show. The magician's name was Sonic, and the show was in a small room off the lobby of an old hotel for about 30 people. Ryan's wedding ring was stuffed inside a walnut, which was inside of an orange that started off as just loose rice. I don't know. It was a fun show and Sonic even came up to guests afterwards and did some up close card tricks for each person. We found some late night Moroccan food for dinner that night after the show but Ryan regretted it later since it made him a little sick. No more Moroccan food he says.

Our third day there, we got up early to hop on a tour to visit Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and the Roman Baths in the the town of Bath. If you'd like to take a similar tour, we'd recommend only doing two things and not three. Although we got to see most of everything, we still felt a bit rushed and the group was so large. The town of Bath was very quaint and I wish we had more time there. I'd love to go back and spend a night there and explore it. Windsor was ok, Stonehenge was very cool to see and learn about, and the Roman baths were cool to see too. Long day.. we ended the night with ramen from Ippudo, brief stop at King's Cross station to take our HP Platform 9 3/4 pic, and then much needed sleep.

More sightseeing the next day even though it was a pretty gloomy and rainy day. We toured the Tower of London, rode across the Tower bridge, rode a ferry to Greenwich, stood along the Prime Meridian, wandered around Borough's Market, and toured Shakespeare Globe theater. Love his outdoor theater and how they took the time to reconstruct it. I think that night we had late reservations for St. Johns and enjoyed a nice dinner.

Our last full day in London, we hit all the main tourist attractions. We rode the London Eye, took pics at Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace from afar, Picadilly Circus, Covent Garden's market, and had afternoon tea.

Before we left London the next morning, we had a quick breakfast at the Duck & Waffle before checking out and headed to the train station. We took the train from London to Paris and listened to some more Serial on the way. We had a great time in London, there is a lot to do there, but it was just like a big city to us and not one we're dying to return to. Getting around was very easy since we got an oyster card and rode the underground most of the time. Thank you Kim for getting me a "baby on board" pin. I had it on my purse and lots of people offered their seat to me on the train if it was crowded. Getting a sim card was also really easy in London. We stopped by an O2 store our first day there and was able to text, call, or use the internet to look up things if we needed to. Ryan and I are usually more late night people instead of early morning. We did stay in more of a business type area of town so we expected our area to shut down kind of early, but we found that most areas of London we traveled to also shut down really early and things were sort of dead. We gave up a night or two and just ordered room service. I'm very glad we went and got to see all that we did, but I was very ready to move on to Paris.

Paris

Off to Paris! The train ride was ok for the most part. Even though I took a Dramamine, I still had motion sickness after we arrived. We took the subway/train to our hotel which was about a block from a station. We stayed at a small, quaint hotel that had a small elevator that stopped in between floors. Only one person and one luggage fit at a time. I thought I could handle the stairs on the way down, but I was wrong and was not ready to handle that circular motion yet. I had to sleep off the motion sickness so we rested most of this day. Later that night, we had crepes for dinner from a street nearby our hotel that was full of creperie options, and just walked around our area.

The next day, we spent time exploring the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées, the Arc de triomphe, and a boat tour of the Seine River. We made our way back to the Eiffel Tower later that evening to watch it light up. The tower is magical at night time. I loved watching it sparkle. Later that night, we had dinner at a bistro on our block and loved every bite. This was probably Ryan's favorite restaurant we went to out of our entire trip. I'll have to ask him for the name and to explain this meal later.

On our third/second full day, we took a train out to Versailles. Ryan booked their private tour which they offer only twice a day. He originally wanted to book a different tour through some outside group, but we tried booking too late and couldn't get tickets. Luckily though, the tour we booked through the Palace of Versailles ended up being great. The Palace is beautiful and was full of history. We were given a private tour through other state apartments that general admission did not have access to and a guide to explain things to us. The best part of our tour was how it ended in the opera house. The various King Louies had only used that opera 17 times and then used another amphitheater in attempt to save money (but ended up costing more). After our tour, we were lead back to the beginning where you could go through with the general admission to see everything else. Again, everything is so beautiful here and we know why people say you can spend days visiting Versailles. It was gloomy and raining/drizzling on and off that day, so we didn't spend much time in the gardens. I know they are suppose to be beautiful, but some things were covered due to the weather, the big fountain was under construction, and you couldn't see very far to get a big picture of how wonderful the gardens really are.

I don't know if this will work, but I tried to take a 360 photo of the Opera house there.. hopefully you can see it.


After Versailles, we grabbed a quick lunch and then visited St. Chapelle and Notre Dame. Both churches were beautiful as well. We lit a candle for my mom at Notre Dame and spent some time there just taking it all in. While we were visiting these churches, we were also near a police station and heard car after car go out. We knew something was going on, but we had no idea until we got back to our hotel later that afternoon about the terrorist attacks at Charlie Hebdo, about 2-3 miles from where we were at the time. We weren't sure what to do at that point, but we rested and then decided to venture out. We honestly didn't notice much of a difference while getting around in Paris at the time, except our hotel had now locked their doors before letting people in and out and maybe additional armed men at the stations. We walked around the Louvre that evening since it was open late and got to see the Mona Lisa. Yet another beautiful place where you can spend a lot of time exploring. Too bad I was exhausted and my feet were killing me. We left the Louvre and made our way to Ponte de Arts bridge where lots of people have put locks on the gates of the bridge and then threw the keys into the Seine. I have read about this before going and said they aren't encouraging people to do this anymore because the locks have become so heavy, parts are falling off into the river. Sure enough, they had the sides of the bridge boarded up but it didn't stop people from putting locks on the gates near the bridge. We didn't add to the bridge, but just took some pictures. We finally made it back to our area of Paris, found a place for a late dinner, and then crashed.

We did too much that day. The next day, it was rainy but we made our way towards the Montmarte area to see what we could from the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. This basilica was of course beautiful as well. We walked a little bit around the Montmarte area and bought our souvenirs, checked out the Moulin Rouge, made our way to the Latin Quarter and stopped for lunch. We took a stroll through Luxembourg gardens before making our way back to the hotel. We were pretty exhausted by this point of our trip. We walked around another area of Paris and grabbed some hot chocolate, aka barely melted solid chocolate, from Angelina before headed back to our hotel to rest some more. As much as we loved how beautiful Paris was, we were ready to go home and wanted the comfort of being home. Ryan found a Vietnamese place with good reviews so we decided to give it a try and had some pretty good Pho that night for dinner. It was strange to be spoken to in French, yet I responded in Vietnamese, Ryan in English, and then to have the restaurant respond back to us in English. After dinner, we just went back to the hotel to repack and get ready to head to the airport the next morning.

We had no idea when we arrived at the airport that the two terrorist brothers were just spotted about 8 miles from there, that the airport shut down two runways due to the proximity to the activity at the moment, or that the killing of the policewoman the day before was again about 2-3 miles from us. There were a few extra screenings as we went through the airport and more searches of carry on luggage, but other than that, we didn't notice any crazy precautions that made us feel more on alert or know that anything was going on. It wasn't until we landed in D.C. for our layover and turned our phones off airplane mode that we finally found out. Our phones kept going off with everyone making sure we got out and if we were ok. After getting through customs, missing our connecting flight (even though the plane was just sitting there at the gate waiting for some extra service or something), and booking the next flight home, we were finally about to catch up on what happened in Paris while we were in the air. Definitely a memorable trip...

To end this long post on a lighter note, we loved Paris. We had a great long trip in Europe and got to explore places we had never been before. Great anniversary and babymoon trip even though it included some scary parts(we bought a newspaper to remember it and the front of the newspaper said "The French September 11th"). We even bought this for our little one.

No other trips booked at this point. Only trip to plan for now is parenthood and not-Dallas in July for Eric & Kaitlyn's wedding!

Baby Update - Half way through

I can't believe we're already half way into this pregnancy and with how fast January seems to be going, May will come faster than I think it will. Our spare bedroom isn't even cleared out yet. We started finding other places for all the junk we threw in there, but no furniture or room for baby stuff yet. Counting on him staying safe with me until close to his due date, so lets hope that is what happens so we have some time.

I hit 20 weeks while we were in Paris and am starting to wear some maternity clothes now. Over the trip, my belly decided to pop out. Ryan said it just happened. I guess it was hard for me to tell what was going on in my belly, I would feel something going on, but I didn't exactly know if that was the baby moving or what. After seeing the ultrasound and how much he was squirming around, I now know all those little feelings are due to him.

We had one ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy and haven't had another one until now, for the anatomy scan. They confirmed it was a boy, and we got to see all sorts of angles around him. From the bones of his fingers, to his jaw/mouth opening and closing, the four chambers of his heart pumping, how the blood flows from his umbilical cord, his spine, etc. It was so fun to see, especially since the last time we saw him, he was just a, for lack of a better word, blob. They said he is healthy and everything checked out great.

In addition to checking on what's going on with him, they found that I had three fibroids. There is no known cause on why fibroids develop. We don't know if they were there before or if they formed during the pregnancy. They aren't hurting me or him at this point, so they will just have to continue to monitor them and their growth.

Ryan's grandparents got me a snoogle for Christmas, and I love it. I feel like I get into a little cocoon and it helps me sleep on my side at night. I can sleep through most of the night, but sometimes get up once to pee and am able to fall back asleep. I haven't been taking naps, but we both did while on our trip to London and Paris. At first I thought it was just me, but anytime I slept, Ryan was passed out too.

Baby and I did well on the trip. I tried to keep up with everything, but probably did not stay as hydrated as I should have, which is probably why my belly would sometimes tighten up and I'd get out of breath easily. We learned to take breaks, buy water, and when rest outweighed sight seeing. Sometimes, it felt dumb because we made it all the way over there and should be out exploring, but had to rest when we needed to.

No big cravings since my donut phase. While on vacation, I missed eating more fresh veggies and fruit. We ended up buying some fruit from a stand and stocked up when we got home. *Update* Right after I posted this and I got up to get a Halo (clementine). I am not sure this is a craving, but I do really enjoy eating these and have been for the past few months. Anytime families around us were eating oranges or clementines on the trip, I found myself slightly staring at them because I wanted one. We did get some from a fruit stand, and I remember eating 3-4 of them as a midnight snack in addition to some of a fresh baguette from a bakery on our block.

The house looks a little sad now that I put all the Christmas decorations away. I got tired from packing all of that up and probably shouldn't have been standing on chairs/bar stools to reach things, but I got it done. I probably also shouldn't have been moving a bookshelf by myself (it was empty), but I felt like it needed to move. I did realize I shouldn't be moving furniture after that one and didn't move the second one with it, yet.

Slowly working on prepping things for his arrival. We purchased a rocker the other day. Now on to looking up the schedule for a hospital tour and newborn, breastfeeding, childbirth classes, and taking it easy.

Christmas

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. We celebrated many things this holiday season. My dad officially retired this year and had a very nice retirement party at work that Ryan and I were able to attend. He even received a plaque from the Mayor that declared January 1st as his day! We told him the fireworks were now for him and not the New Year. At work, his nickname was "Tiger." One man a long time ago when he first started working there decided to call him "Tiger" and it just stuck. There was "Tiger" all over his retirement party. His co-workers had such great things to say about him and it was nice to share that moment with him.

Ryan and I had our 5 year anniversary this month. We invited our family and some friends to dinner to celebrate together. We ended up getting last minute tickets to the Houston Texans game that weekend and had a great time. I am not a big sports person at all, and this was my first NFL game to attend. Ryan and I booked a trip to London & Paris over New Years as part of our anniversary and Christmas present. Since we have been married, we have traveled almost every winter and summer.

2009: (married in Winter) Disney World & Vegas
2010: Cancun, Orange County/Anaheim, and NYC
2011: Venice, Florence, and Rome, Italy and Washington, D.C.
2012: Denver, Montreal, Niagara Falls, road trip through the Adirondacks, and Lake Champlain, Vermont
2013: Princess cruise to Playa Del Carmen, Roatan, and Belize City
2014: San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, London, and Paris

We have been so fortunate to travel to all these places together and make so many fun memories. We probably won't be traveling as often once baby boy arrives, but I'm sure this next "trip" in our lives will be the most memorable.

We spent Christmas Eve with Ryan's family for a bacon wrapped Christmas... so. much. bacon. I'm not sure I ever want to see that much bacon again. We spent Christmas at my dad's with my family. We buy gifts for the kids and then have a white elephant exchange with everyone else. I ended up with a potato clock. It was wrapped really well and the potatoes were included. Unwrapping those potatoes was hilarious. Of course no one stole that from me. Good job Thomas!

I met up with Kim and Marisa at Benihana another night to celebrate our CYP christmas. I couldn't believe Marisa had never been there before! We enjoyed a nice show with dinner and exchanged small gifts with each other.

New Years/Europe and baby updates to come.