Singing girl again

http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/rachelmonkey/?action=view&current=MOV00584.flv

The Big 30!!

So yesterday was the big 30! It was a great day, my wonderful husband made us french toast for breakfast. He and Rachel gave me a Kenwood Chef and we put it to good use straight away and made a carrot cake. Very yummy!

Jenni came over and took some preggy photos for me. I think they came out well seeing as we had no fancy studio and we have no idea how to change the backgrounds in Photoshop - although Jen is going to ask a friend for help.






Look Mommy swallowed a beach ball!






'One little lick'

Dimity then came around and the 3 of us set about making a belly cast, it was hilarious and I had to try hard not to laugh and crack the plaster. Gavin was very pleased that I got them to help as I think he would have been hard pushed to find the enthusiasm to make a belly cast, he did though under great duress come and take some pictures of the giggling girls.

The finished product. I think I am going to get some powder plaster and smooth and sand it over so you can't see the bandage line and then I will have to think of how to decorate it.

We had a curry take out for super which was really nice and then some of a fancy berry tart that Dimity brought from a French patisserie. Oh and of course some wibbly wobbly jelly which Rachel made for the occasion.

Dimity then went home to finish her assignment and my wonderful sister did a butterfly henna belly for me. She was great and spoiled me the whole day doing all the things I knew there was no way that I would get Gavin to do. It was such a fun day and I felt so special.

Gavin goes back off shore on 6 June and is then not back until 20 June so we now have all the things we needed for our home water birth so basically baby needs to come now before the 6th so that his dad can be around. It has been wonderful to have Gavin home, he has put up desks, bookcases, and moved all the heavy stuff I could not so now we have what looks like a home and not just chaos. We still have way too much stuff for this small house but it looks so much better and I feel more ready to have a baby here than before.

Gardening and Tea Parties

Today Rachel's bad cough has left her Hoarse and with very little voice so we decided to just stay at home and relax. I have been trying to amuse her and not feel like a rubbish mom because I have no magic want to make it 'All Better'

We planted her sunflower that she brought from school

And had a tea party

If i thought Wednesday was bad...

it had nothing on the joys that Thursday brought with it.

I decided to take Rachel to the moms and tots play group at a church in St Albans that Aunty Grace had told me about. In true UK style the church of course has no parking on site and suggests that you park in a parking garage in town and walk. So i use the trusty SatNav that Gav bought me to get to said parking lot, as i pull into the parking lot i wonder if i am in the right place as the road is not the same as the one suggested on the church website so i reverse, first lesson in reversing 101 LOOK behind you, needless to say this thought did not enter my pregnant porridge brain so I reversed straight into a van trying to come into the parking lot behind me!

I only cracked his licence plate and slightly scratched my bumper ( I am sure Gavin will tell me it is actually MAJOR damage but for the moment with everything else I am just ignoring it) Van driver takes pity on pregnant slightly hysterical SA woman and says 'Not to worry Luv'.

So we park and get our raincoats on as it has been raining all week, but it was only supposed to be a 200m walk. We set off and land up on the main high street and I have no idea where to go so I think of well i will just use the Sat Nav that is in my bag - note to self 'SatNav great for car, rubbish for walking' so we go round and round in circles as this thing tries to tell us where to go but the arrow keeps spinning and I get totally confused. I think we were just moving too slow for it to know what was happening. We are now drenched, Rachel insisted on wearing her open Teva sandals with socks ( eye roll) so her feet are drenched, she has water running off her nose as it drips from her Dora the explorer raincoat, her trousers below the raincoat are soaked and I am similarly wet. She is singing the whole way about going to play group.

Eventually when i find us back at the car park over an hour later i tell her we have to give up because i have no idea where to go. Shame she was a little disappointed but took it well saying we will have to ask Daddy ( the fixer and remedier of everything in Rachel's eye) So we head into the car park down a rather steep slope and I slip and do the semi splits. OUCH, my already very sore pelvic bones feel like they are being torn apart and I want to cry. I hobble to the car, try hard not to sob and drive us home.

At home walking is next to impossible, i get Rachel down for a nap, try to sleep myself but am in too much pain. Try to walk down stairs and find that the pain is significantly exacerbated and burst into tears, at this point i have no idea how I am going to cope looking after Rachel for the next 6 days until Gavin gets home when i can literally not walk.

Prayer -'Okay pain I can handle pain but I HAVE to be able to walk and move for the next few days, please help'

By Friday morning the pain is better and only slightly worse than it has been for weeks anyway. So that means worse on movement or anything that involved taking weight off one foot ( dressing, climbing into bath, climbing stairs, rolling over in bed and to a degree walking) but it is not total agony.

Please tell me...

that I am not the only idiot that has also done all their shopping before only to discover they have no purse at the till? What a pain, I had to get Rachel in the car, race home and then all the way back to the shop to pay. I swear my brain is being slowly erroded.

Unpacking saga

So Gavin left to go back off shore on Wednesday last week. Rachel and I are opening a new taxi company that operates at 4:30am to Luton airport. I am not so sure how the addition to the family will affect this service. The problem with finding a replacement service is that we now do not have a 'Nanny' or 'Bumpa' to trade airport trips with, and the bus service from here does not start in time for Gavin to get the first flight.

Being moms taxi suddenly got a LOT better, Gavin bought me a SatNav computer for the car. I know it sounds like an expensive gimmic, but if you knew how many times Rachel and I got lost when he was away on his first trip you would realize that it is actually a sanity saver. It will also help make sure some sort of swear words are not included in my childrens vocabulary ( who knows what they may pick up with a frustrated mother trying to drive, read a map and battle with her zero sense of direction) I landed up going about 15mins in totally the opposite direction to were we needed to go one day and the next it took me and hour to go somewhere that should have taken 15mins! Poor Rachel now asks are we lost every few minutes in the car! BUT no more, THE Lady now tells us where to go. I even managed to get to Jenni the most direct way on Sunday ( we have been there 4 times already, each time getting lost a different way) for the first time.

So back to Wednesday, gavin left at 4:30am care of R&S taxi and all the goods that we shipped from South Africa arrived at about 8am. This is sort of what my lounge looked like after they left.

Having an extra passanger along for a free ride makes unpacking quite difficult. Adding a 2 year old into this equations means that so far most of what we have done amounts to creating piles of mess and chaos all over. Jenni has been a star and came to help on Thursday night after school and also took Rachel for the day yesterday so i could get a bit done. A few pictures of her at Aunty Jenni - they get on like a house on fire which is wonderful, especially since she is really missing the rest of the family in South Africa.

We are still falling over stuff, the biggest problem is the lack of cupboard and storage space that one typically finds in UK house and of course the mountian of stuff that we send over. One of the good things is that we have unpacked Rachel's books and toys and this has helped keep her happy, the problem is that most of the time she wants Mommy to play with her and not unpack. This is her in one of her dressing up outfits that she found.

Otherwise we are fine, we went to ballet today which she really likes, i forgot to get a picture, she looks so sweet in her little ballet clothes. Can't believe we only have a month to when no2 makes his apperance.

To end with here are some cute pics Jenni took yesterday of Rachel hugging and kissing the baby.

My singing girl

I am not sure if i can be clever enough to add a video but Gavin got a clip of Rachel singing twinkle twinkle little star.

http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/rachelmonkey/?action=view&current=MOV00506.flv

The beginning

So I decided to make a blog so people at home could see what we were up to without clogging up their emails with pictures. I don't imagine many people besides my parents will actually read this but even if only for you Mom and Dad, here goes.

So we moved to the UK on 23 March 2007 after long and agonizing decisions. It has not been easy but we are finding our feet. Gavin has been on his firts off shore rotation the day after we moved into our rented house in St Albans. Rachel and I have managed quite well to get settled in and find a GP, school ( one morning a week) swim and ballet class.

These are some pictures of our house. it has 3 berooms and quite a nic garden so as you can see we were able to get her a trampoline again, which she loves.