I need opinions!

It's time to buy new glasses. I've discovered a web site that sells frames online, which is meant to be a bit cheaper than in-stores, which may or may not be the case, depending on which frames you end up with. But I've discovered that the best thing they do is "home trials." You select up to four frames you want to try and they mail them to you to try out for a week. And once they receive them back, you can ask for four more, and so on, as many times you want. Postage is all paid for, and you only have to pay a one-time fee of £5, regardless of how many times you end up getting sets of four sent to you. And if you end up buying your glasses from them, you get your £5 back. It's great - I really don't know why more places do this for lazy people like me who don't want to schlep around a bunch of stores trying stuff on.

And it means it's easier taking photographs to share with people far and near, so we thought we'd open up the options to everyone, to see what people think.

You can see that I pretty consistently pick the same kind of frames; I tend not to go too "wacky." They also do a "buy one, get one free" deal, so I need to have two pairs that I like. I'm leaning toward a pair of black and/or tortoiseshell, in terms of the color, just since it's the black frames that I have currently that are worn out.

Of the options below - which two do you like best?

Option A

Option B

Option C

Option D

Option E

Seventh anniversary overnight trip: Exmoor.

This year, Mark and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. Because there's some other stuff going on, we wanted to take a least a little bit of time for just the two of us. But we didn't want to go far, so we ended up on an overnight stay in Exmoor.

It's only a couple of hours from Bristol, and since one of the traditional 'themes' for year seven is wool, we thought it was an appropriate destination:


We visited Tarr Steps, which is a medieval (or earlier) stone bridge.





There's a nice walk along the river, along both sides, and there are some other, smaller stone bridges along the way. We stopped and took a picture which ends up showing how round I'm becoming:



After the walk, we stopped at a hotel/cafe overlooking the steps.



There we had the joy of a cream tea, a tradition in both Devon and Cornwall (scones, jam, clotted cream, tea) - the main difference between the two types of cream tea apparently being what order you apply the jam and clotted cream. But whichever order, it's really good, so I of course was pleased.


We stayed overnight at the Exmoor Forest Inn in Simonsbath, inland from The Hunter's Inn, which is where we usually stay when we go to Devon/Exmoor (which Mom and Dad have also experienced). It was OK - the food wasn't as good as all the reviewers suggested, but it wasn't bad and the room was comfortable. (And they had satellite TV - woo woo - which we don't have at home).

The next day we visited Lynmouth - again, which Mom and Dad should recognize!



The weather was pretty bad, with a lot of rain, so we didn't hang around too much. It really felt more like autumn than the end of summer. It was still nice to visit, though, especially since Lynmouth was one of the places Mark took me on our first visit to England, when we were both still living in Slovakia.

Here's to a great seven years and looking forward to the next!

Vallentiny update number two: 20 weeks (aka alien dinosaur baby)

So it seems like Vallentiny had a bit of a growth spurt recently because, to me at least, the bump is looking a bit bigger.



On Wednesday I had my 20 week ultrasound. It went really well - brain, heart, kidneys, bladder, spine, hands, legs, stomach and everything else all looked good. We were very, very pleased, despite the fact that of course we couldn't really "see" much of anything our very nice ultrasound lady (nurse? doctor? technician?) was pointing out. We could see/understand the brain and heart (it was pretty cool to see the four chambers clearly), and of course the skeletal structure. Everything else was blobs and grey patches. She did a color overlay at a couple of angles to look at blood flow; to me it just looked like some kind of 70s experimental film. But she was pleased with what she saw, which is the important thing. She was really pleased with Vallentiny's feet. So get the baby sandals ready, people.

At the end, we did find out the gender, but we've decided to keep that information to ourselves. Our plan is to use both pronouns interchangeably, so if I refer to Vallentiny as "he" or "she," know that it's all part of the plan to try to keep that bit a surprise for everyone. I'll probably also keep using "it" for a time as well - "it" just still kind of fits. Especially while Vallentiny still looks like an alien.








I'm next booked in for an ultrasound at 32 weeks, on November 16th. We may still do one of those "4D" scans - we haven't really talked about it - but I guess that's typically done around 28-30 weeks.

I'm still not feeling any movement (that I can distinguish) and the ultrasound lady explained why. Apparently, the placenta is at the back, which means that it's in-between Vallentiny and my tummy, which of course is where you start to feel any movement. So Vallentiny's going to need to be a bit bigger (or really rambunctious) before I really start to feel anything. I wasn't concerned about it, but it was interesting to hear the explanation.

All's well with Team Vallentine!

Vallentiny update number one: 15-17 weeks.

So I'm going to just go ahead and play the pregnancy tiredness card right up front, which is the main reason why this is so late...

Everything's going well, though. I do have some energy back now that I'm into the second trimester, but definitely still feel run down, especially by the afternoon and definitely by the time I get home from work. I am showing a bit more, though it doesn't seem to show up on the picture very well.

A couple of weeks ago I had a visit with the consultant, who was just checking in but mainly to talk through Meniere's and pregnancy. We decided that I would come off the furosemide, which is relatively safe, but she recommended that if I could do with out it that it would be better. Since my Meniere's isn't that bad, I decided to stop taking it. I'm a bit dizzy a bit more often, I get the 'fullness' feeling from time to time, and my tinnitus is louder - but some of that could just be due to the pregnancy itself, rather than being off the medication. So all in all, everything's fine.

I've also had another appointment with my midwife since getting back. This time I met with a different midwife since "my" midwife (Louise) was on vacation, but the new lady (Joy? I think I've already forgotten) was super nice. We talked about travelling (in case Mark and I want to go away "one last time"), and going past the due date. Over here, they induce once you go 12 days over. So obviously the days of Mark's mum when they let you go practically a month are over (phew).

We also listened to Vallentiny's heartbeat. She said it's not always possible to hear on her equipment and this early on, but she found it, and we heard a kick as well. So it's all sounding good.

The other main thing we talked about was the variance in my due dates - the dating ultrasound I had over here originally put my date at January 14, but then my misremembering and the ultrasound I had in the States put my date at January 12. But she said to go with the January 14 date, so that's what we'll do.

But the thing I need to alert you all to is that my "new" due date is two days after the date you all (Hornucopia attendees) used for your predictions. So the big question is: do you want me to shift your predicted delivery date two days into the future, or keep it where it is?

Besides all that, nothing else exciting is going on. My next ultrasound is the 20 week scan on August 24th. I haven't felt any movement yet. A couple people I know start to feel some movement around this time, but the midwife and other sources tell me that kicks and things usually aren't felt until some time between 20 to 24 weeks.

Until then, I'll just keep eating and sleeping!

Hornucopia 2011 - the draft schedule.

Thanks to Mom for pulling together a draft schedule now that we have a few things that need to happen on specific days. I'm pasting it here for easy reference. I've also updated the lists to the right, and separated out the food. Let me know if there's any food I'm missing.

sat - pennas arrive at bedtime /vallentines here/smiths at the colony day events - anyone welcome.....

sun - odd and end items as everyone settle ins - jenny church coming over later - local japanese steak house kid friendly

mon - fireworks - bbq - group pictures in shirts and maybe with g dad

tues - spa time in afternoon for julie jessica and mom while chris takes nap - dinner for group - mexican

wed. - brazilan steakhouse - 6 pm + ????????? during the day

thurs - rock climbing 3-6pm

fri - downtown dallas - butterfly gardens (indoors AC) plus other possibilities and lunch (via van or train)

sat - gdad's party at noon - at his place - dickey's brought in - ice cream and cake and balloons etc. group picture with g dad

sun - pennas leave - church and rest

mon - free for last minute vallentine stuff

tues - vallentines leave

misc activities as needed: water balloons, CARS 2, wii competition and awards, penny ceremony, bowling

Hornucopia 2011 - the planning continues.

I've added all the latest activities Julie has come up with - not sure if I'm missing anything?

Do we need to separate out the eating activies from the activity activities?

Hornucopia 2011 - look to the right.

Hooray - the countdown to Hornucopia 2011 begins! We're now just over a month away so I think we're all agreed that it's a good time to starting thinking about what we want to do. I've created a list over on the righthand side of the blog based on the various suggestions people have made. What else do I need to add?

Also - do we want to revive the Hornucopia Yahoo group?