Oh, No They Didn't! :-o

The past few weeks The Boy and I have been nervously watching the weather at home as first Hurricane Gustav hit my folks in Mississippi, then Hurricane Hanna skimmed his peeps in North Carolina, and now Hurricane Ike is wreaking havoc on downtown Houston, where The Boy spent a few years working for Corporate America. Today he clicked on the local CBS affiliate KHOU's website and this is what he saw...

If you look closely at the lower right hand corner, you'll see this :

That's right. In the middle of Hurricane Ike, you can win tickets to a Tina Turner concert.

Sunny Spain: A Picture Extravaganza

A few weeks ago, The Boy found himself in Madrid on business that wrapped up on Friday afternoon and so we decided that, rather than him flying back to London, I would fly to Madrid and we would take a micro break in Spain. To be honest I've always been kind of eh about Spain. Chalk it up to a heavily pro Anglo-Saxon public education, I guess. If it doesn't have to do with English history, a Monty Python sketch, or a Mel Brooks movie, I just don't know that much about it. So I had the kind of expectations that come with not knowing a whole lot about a new place, which is to say they were neither big nor small. I was open to anything.

I have to say, they don't call it Sunny Spain for nothing. It was lovely and warm and quite a change from the chilly damp of England we'd left behind. Things actually moved at the slow, laid back pace I'd always thought of as a myth. They really DO take siestas, which seemed perfectly natural in the heat of the afternoon. Around 8 or 9 in the evening the city squares started to fill up with people sitting at sidewalk cafes eating yummy tapas and sipping sangria until the wee hours of the morning.

Plaza Mayor.
The carvings around the base of the lamp posts (the pic on the right) tell its epic history.

Street Scenes
I love the sheep and pig signs for the butcher. Sadly, they don't eat a lot of cow.
Sorry, Daddy Belle.

The Botanical Gardens.
I'm looking up at a giant tomato plant.

Pretty dahlias in the Botanic Garden

There were amazing buildings everywhere, most of them churches.
1) San Jeronimo el Real 2) Almudena Cathedral
3) The Post Office 4) A Church we stumbled across
5) A really big statue on top of a really big building.
6) The Royal Palace

All in all, I'd have to say that our day in Spain was amazing and we will definitely be going back. Maybe next time we'll try Barcelona.

Surprise!

Big happenings at home always remind me of how very far away we are from everyone. Shortly after I arrived in London there was big news from the homefront when Lil' Sis Belle made the unexpected announcement that she was expecting. I was and am extremely happy and excited to welcome this new little one into our family, but, I'm sorry to say, I reacted to the news in a weird way. For a while I was also a little ... sad. I mean, as far as happenings go, having a baby is HUGE and while she's preparing for a new little one, I'm all the way over here in England. I was lucky enough to met her first two shortly after they made their appearance on Planet Earth. I spent as much time as I could with them before I moved abroad. When I go home I make sure they get quality time with NeeNee. (That's me.) I get a huge kick out of seeing them experience things for the first time. I took them to see their first play. I was with them the first time they saw the ocean. It's amazing to see how awesome everything is to them. I'm not going to get to meet this new little one until it's almost one year old! ONE! I'll miss so much and quite honestly it's been bummin' me out. He/She will be up and about and talking its baby talk that only the people who are around a lot can understand and I will just be some stranger who talks funny. *sigh* Such is life. The Boy and I made a choice to live in far off lands. I do love it and I have no regrets but still, I've never missed home more than I do right now.

Now, normally my sister is super secretive about everything concerning Baby. She didn't want to know the sex of the first two and mum was the word on the names she and The Brother In Law had picked out. I mean, she wouldn't even tell us the names they weren't going with. So imagine my surprise this time when she not only gave up a name but she also told us that they were going to find out what they were having. I don't know if it's because the novelty of surprise has worn off or if it's because her sister-in-law, who is also pregnant, went ahead and found out what she was having or what. But whatever the reason is, I'm glad she did.

So, without further ado, here are my adorable little nephews, letting the world know if they will be getting a brother or a sister. Enjoy.