End of Day 1...

A tired crew in front of the Duomo
beautiful paintings on random street corners
interesting animals in the Arno River

PBJ's and oranges on the hotel room floor

Rough start to an Incredible Trip

Saturday, April 5th we headed by train from Oxford to London (switched train stations by taxi), then from London to Paris (switched train stations by another taxi), then here we are on the 12 hours and 45 minutes overnight train from Paris to Florence. The blurriness of these pictures is unintentional but it well represents the unsteadiness I felt and the constant motion of the boys in this tiny, little room.
This "couch" converts into the bottom bunk and a top bunk folded down from the wall. Caleb and I were on the bottom, and Luke and Chris on the top.

It was a rough start in that, within the first 3 hours of the trip, we realized we hadn't eaten dinner yet and there was nothing for us to eat on the train (we boarded the train around 7 PM so we were all pretty hungry too). I had packed snacks, but pretzels, pistachios (called moustachios by Luke), bananas, and apples just weren't cutting it for us. Long story short, on hour number 3 I began vomitting, Luke was out of control hyper, and Caleb was so tired all he could do is scream. Thankfully, Chris managed to pull it all together.....and after there was nothing in my stomach anymore and we all laid down, we all fell asleep. We woke up the next morning and were very close to Florence.

We hopped off the train, got into an elevator to get down to the main floor where we were to exit the station.....and we got stuck in the elevator. Thankfully, it was glass so we could see out....and thankfully, we were rescued within about 20 minutes.....and thankfully, Luke managed not to wet himself until the moment after we were out and standing just outside the station on the sidewalk.

Again, a rough start, but thankfully....things got (much!!) better.

IT"S A........

(click on the picture to enlarge and read the sign) Here we are outside of the JR Hospital after the 20-week scan. We are thrilled to have gotten good news of a healthy little baby. I guess this goes to show that the majority is not always right (see predictions in the entry before this one). I must hand it to my husband----he has predicted correctly all 3 times. What a happy day for our family! :)

Baby's Gender Predictions.....

We have our 20-week ultrasound this coming Wednesday (and will hopefully be able to find out the baby's gender) so anyone wanting to make predictions, now is your chance. If right, you get bragging rights for the rest of this child's life! :)

Here are the ones I know for now, but you may change your mind up until Tuesday....

BOY: Chris, Pops, Ray, A/G Pat,

GIRL: Stacy, Luke, Sweetie, Clark, Abbey, Allison, Scott, Christa, Catherine, Boston Mary, Meg

(I should add, by the way----just for those of you who may give me some mother's intuition credit----I thought Luke and Caleb were both girls but Chris was right both times!)

Maralyn is born!!

Here are Scott and Liz on Easter Sunday looking wonderfully pregnant.
And here's little Maralyn today on her birthday!
Congratulations, Liz & Scott!! We can't wait to meet "Neice #9!!"

Easter

Sunday morning we woke up to snow. It didn't stick, but the boys were fascinated watching it fall.
The Easter bunny brought Mama, Daddy, and the new baby some gum; and Luke and Caleb each got new shirts, a rosary, and a chocolate sucker.


We went to Mass, came home for lunch and naps, then went to dinner at some friends' house. Here we are at Regents Park watching Luke, the egg-finding master, find yet another.

We are Catholic

After about 5 years of talking about it, and 7 months of attending "classes," we converted to Catholicism at the Easter Vigil at St. Gregory and Augustine Church. It was a beautiful night service and was a happy beginning to a new life of discovering what the Catholic Church is all about. We have been under the INCREDIBLE guidance of a wonderful priest, Father John Saward, and I know we will miss him when we move back to the US. But, he has given us a great start and his enthusiasm has been contagious. I feel humbled and welcomed and grateful to be part of a church that has such history that ties itself all the way back to St. Peter, such strong beliefs about how we are to live our lives and practice what we say we believe, such multi-cultural members, such a worldly presence, and a church that places such importance on the physical---be that the Eucharist, the acts of confession and penance, or missions projects.

I don't have any pictures of the Easter Vigil service, but I will be getting some pictures of the church soon.