I put up a few photos from our time with Janeen & Jason in Lesotho. Check them out.

More to come. You will find them here.

We went back to the doctor yesterday to check in on our little alien and got another picture:

Looks more or less like I'm growing a small fish inside of me, but the doc promises that pic will be better quality next month- this was the low-tech ultrasound.The other exciting news is that we found out that the baby is in fact not an it, but a he. Andy was very proud that he was able to see both the penis AND testicles on the ultrasound. I guess that's something I'll never understand. But either way, it's great to know, and makes the whole thing seem a whole lot more real- weird to think it was a boy all along but to us it's like he just became one!

We spent a wonderful Hannukah weekend in Los Alamos with the family and nephew Jake was a fabulous puppy sitter. On Saturday morning Jake woke up early with Manu and Webster and created the following comic strip to depict his view of their life:

Manu: This is the chance.

Webster: We're catchin' something cool!

Manu: Eh, just shut up.

Webster: Well, let's just get the cat.

Manu: Okay.

[Webster and Manu growling]

Cat: Ahhh!

Webster: Manu...

Manu: Yes Webster?

Webster: We can make our own alphabet.

Manu: Good idea!

"A"

Webster: Perfect!

Manu: What's the funniest thing about that "A"?

Webster: I'll show you!

[Webster makes SCARY face]

"A": Ahhh!

THE END.

I have officially hit the point, in the past week, where I am "too big" to fit into my old clothes. Mainly what this means is that all of a sudden my belly popped out a little bit and while I'm not really that much larger than I was last week, I cannot button my pants shut any more. I'm also surprised that the main issue is that it's REALLY uncomfortable to have anything pushing in on my belly- so any pants I do wear are either slung low, under Tahini, and at risk of falling off, or hiked up a la Steve Urkel. (I find having an elastic waistband 6 inches above my belly button almost as uncomfortable as having something push on my belly, so instead I opt to walk around on the cuffs of my pants all day- this does create some issues with the dogs who like to step on the ends of my pants as well, and have tripped me numerous times.) I think this means that we finally have to suck it up and take a trip to the mall to look for some baby-friendly shaped clothing. Good thing I just got a raise- TNTP must have known!

Monday was our 3 month check-up to see how things are progressing with Tahini (and me, the oven). Hopefully it also means that the fun sickness I've been experiencing since September will begin to wind to a halt in the foreseeable future (this is my subtle way of pointing out that it hasn't yet, for those who claimed that at 13 weeks and 1 day you are supposed to *poof* feel better).

We didn't get to see the baby again but we did get to hear it's heart beating with a special little stethoscope that can hear through my belly. What was really amazing was that we could hear my heart beating as well- at a steady (actually high for me-blame the baby) 70 beats per minute. And then overlaid on that was this intense 150 beat per minute thump, which reminded both Andy and I a whole lot of the Paul Van Dyk music we used to listen to in college. (Actually, Andy still listens. Apparently I've gotten over thumping techno base in my old age.)

It suddenly made me feel VERY old and slow to hear my body pace matched up against this frenzied little tornado of energy inside me- and it's only about 3 inches long! All kinds of images of what we have in store for us down the road... It also gave me a good sense of why, perhaps, I've been feeling so lousy- after all, I have had a non-stop rave party in my gut for the past few months.

We asked when I might start to look pregnant rather than just like I ate one too many pies at dinner last night and the doctor said it could be a couple more months before someone who didn't know me would be able to tell I was pregnant. I've gained a few pounds just in the past 2 weeks but mainly I think my body has just been working to reorganize its shape because even when I was my pre-pregnancy weight, my belly was starting to stick out a little. But I guess for now I have to be satisfied with eating a lot in the evening and then pretending the food is really the baby

We go back again the week before we leave for Africa and will hopefully get another picture then and MAYBE even find out the gender- depends if Tahini feels like cooperating. If not we'll probably know that sometime in early winter. In the meantime, since we don't know yet, we'll continue to let Jake call it "Jon," the name he spontaneously invented and INSISTS we mentioned on the blog- which of course now I have, further adding fuel to his fire. (Mom was very adamant that if we were going to let our nephew pretend our baby's name was Jon, we at least spell it without an H- a much more sophisticated fake name for our future child.) Stay tuned...

I went and found a calendar online that had some day-to-day facts about being pregnant and what to expect. And, being the nerd that I am, had to convert it immediately to Google Calendar. Here is the calendar. We will update it from time to time with doctors appointments and general goings on with the pregnancy. Hope you all find it at least amusing, possibly educational, or maybe even useful.

Click on the entries to see more detail. I had to scale it down so that it would fit.

Last night Webster officially graduated from his Beginner Education doggie training course! We are incredibly proud because, honestly, we weren't 100% sure he would actually be able to perform the required feats of strength (laying down in front of a room full of cats, sit staying for 30 SECONDS, and successfully maneuvering through an obstacle course of tantalyzing treats and squeaky toys without touching any of them, amongst other things). Most importantly, he got to wear this goofy looking graduation cap! (Pardon the graininess of the photo- it's a scanned printout that his teacher gave us.)

Now that both Webster and Manu have completed their elementary educations, Andy and I have lofty goals to put them through junior high school TOGETHER this winter (are we crazy or what?), since a huge part of their inability to control themselves seems to be related to the age-old children's excuse "But heeeee's doing it, why can't Iiiiiii?" I've decided I don't have the stamina to approach such a task until my first trimester and hopefully all of this lovely nausea has passed, so they're both on an early christmas vacation from school for the time being.

In anticipation of having a small peanut move in 7 months from now with a slightly lower tolerance for abundant 50 pound canines, however, we figure doggie boot camp is in full session- those of you who know our dogs well (or know us well, more to the point) will probably be shocked to know that we're implementing a full-fledged offensive to reclaim our couch and officially mark the territory as a dog-free zone! (I know, it's like a complete reversal of our whole philosophy of dogs as equivalent members of the pack.) Rest assured, they're still allowed to get in bed and snuggle in the evenings, so long as they don't take up too much of Andy's space

Mari and I have very exciting news. We have discovered that Mari is pregnant! We took a home pregnancy test about a month ago that turned up positive, and had the results confirmed by a doctor at that time. We started calling the baby Tahini because we read on the Internet that at that time it was about the size of a sesame seed. Now it's a whopping 20mm from crown to rump.

Today we went for our first ultrasound. The doctor reports that the baby and mom are normal and healthy. Here are the first pictures of our little Tahini.





We will keep everyone posted with progress and news as it comes in.

The last stop on our trip was Sevilla. We were supposed to spend our very last day in Madrid, but my body screamed "stop dragging me all over the place already!" so we decided we would add an extra night to Sevilla and head home from there on Sunday. This proved to be an excellent decision since that day that we were supposed to spend touring Madrid entailed mostly my being sick and very little in the way of any other activity, so, just as well...

The first three days in Sevilla, however, I felt reasonably well and we had a great time touring the town. Both Andy and I agreed that of all of the cities we have been to on this trip, this was our favorite- it was the perfect mix of a city with interesting and beautiful historic and cultural interests, but not crazy busy, loud, smelly, etc like large cities tend to feel (Barcelona, while the home of SPECTACULAR sites, was a very overwhelming city in this way).

We got to visit the massive cathedral which is renowned as the final resting place of Christopher Columbus' remains (this is somewhat of a misnomer, however, since the only Columbus remains visible on premise were a tomb of his SON's remains- while this is, in technicality, his remains in some genetic way, it was not exactly what we were assuming they meant).



We also saw the old royal palace fortress, the Alcazar, after waiting in about an hour line to get in- I was expecting an exciting Disneyland ride by the time we made it to the front, but we got fancy Arabic tile work instead.



And of course, since we were in the Flamenco AND bullfighting capitals of Spain and the world over, we felt it was our duty to witness both in full form. Yes, I actually sat through a 3 hour bullfighting match. It was by far one of the most interesting cultural experiences I have ever witnessed and definitely less than appetizing. Both Andy and I felt a bit queasy during the fight with the first bull and weren't sure we were going to be able to last (a standard event involves the killing of 6 bulls). We quickly learned to focus on the crowd and their very discerning cheers and jeers regarding the execution of the appropriate artistic movements of the matador, and to turn away when the deed was done, and we managed to last it out. Definitely something I can check off my life list and never do again, but a very interesting experience.



We also saw a fantastic Flamenco show that blew our minds- we purchased and brought home a pair of castanets so we can practice and become great masters: American Idol, here we come!

Hello! We have meant to post more pictures but haven´t been staying anywhere long enough to do so- promise we will put them up when we get back. In the past week we went to Ibiza, in the Ballearic Islands off the east coast of Spain, where we stayed in a 14th century tower inside an old walled city.



We then flew back to Valencia, where we visited the best botanical garden, and rented a car and drove south along the coast.



We stopped for a night in a small beach town called Fuengirola where it was apparently some sort of celebration- we were treated to a half hour fireworks spectacular, it was just like 4th of July!



Then we hopped on a boat and crossed the Mediterranean to spend a couple of nights in Tangier, Morocco. It was a CRAZY city where complete strangers whisk you off your feet and take you all over and then somehow convince you to buy rugs from them when you thought you were just walking down the street- an amazing experience.



We are now staying in the kitesurfing capitol of the world, Tarifa, on the south coast. Tomorrow we drive up to Sevilla where we stay for the next 3 days before beginning our journey home. I´m definitely missing "familiar" American food these days and every time we see a dog we get misty eyed for our children (I´m sure they´ve hardly noticed we´re missing). It´s been really great and interesting and exciting. Sadly, Andy has a sore throat and runny nose so he´s in bed trying to recover so he can enjoy the remainder of our time here. Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!

Greetings from Barcelona (we´re on our way out this morning but are technically still "here"). We spent three days exploring the city and recovering from jet-lag (with a heavy emphasis on the latter). For Andy´s birthday I bought us tickets to go see a Spanish Futbol game- my first professional soccer game ever! It was held in the olympic stadium and very cool- plus, we won! Go FC Espanyol!



We then spent the next couple of days wandering around the old Barrio Gotic where we visited the old jewish quarter and multiple catholic churches. In the evening we walked along the harbor and saw some interesting sculptures:



We also took in a number of *expensive* Gaudi sights, including a house meant to look like an underwater palace, the famous Parque Guell (you know, the decopage lizard...) and the most impressive but VERY under construction Iglesia de la Sagrada Familia, Gaudi´s last work that is set to be completed MAYBE in 2020- if they can get a roof on it by then! Here´s us in front of the church, which from this angle actually looks quite finished- what you can´t tell is that these are only meant to be the side spires that will eventually be dwarfed by the main event.




Today we´re off to Ibiza, in the Ballearic Islands, where we will be staying in a converted 14th century tower. More later!

Just to let everyone know. Our next couple posts might be from Spain.


This is what Spain looks like. (The purple line is our itinerary)


We will also be posting pictures.

He was very sweet. We had a smashing 49 hours together.

He almost drowned in our grass. He did pee in Webster's food dish. Multiple times. I think Manu accidentally ate him at one point. Memories...

I gave him to the cleaning lady. Told her he's very expensive. This seemed to make her quite happy (maybe her goal is to sell him on the Chihuahua black market).

Thus ends the reign of Weenis El Matador...

At about 10:00 this morning the dogs started making a ruckus out front and after yelling unsuccessfully from the back room (aka my office) for about 10 minutes, I went out to see what was up. I saw a little peanut of a dog trotting around in our front yard by himself. I went out to see what was going on but after following him down the block (fortunately my longer legs triumphed over the 4 inch chopsticks he walks on) I caught up with him and there was no one around. I proceeded to knock on everyone on our block's door to see if he was theirs but people were either not home or gave me the "I-don't-speak-English-and-don't-really-want-to-talk-anyways-
so-just-go-away-crazy-white-lady" shoulder shrug. So I came in and introduced him to Manu and Webster who think he's just about the best toy I could ever have purchased for them. I've put posters up around the block but so far no one has come to claim him. At the moment he's happily napping on my notebook after an exciting morning of peeing on anything he could reach and trying to jump up high enough to smell Manu's butt. Anyone want a chihuahua?

Last weekend the Lansford clan journeyed up to Los Alamos to engage in a showdown of sorts. About a month ago we were sitting in the front yard looking up at the 30 foot-high branches of the walnut tree and Andy and my dad developed a difference of opinion regarding the feasibility of accurately throwing an object with limited opportunity over said limb.

This quickly turned into a bet where my dad was convinced of Andy's inaccuracy with enough confidence to give 2 to 1 odds that Andy could NOT get a rope over the branch in 3 tries, and 4 to 1 odds that he couldn't do it on the first try. Andy was completely confident to the contrary (note that I say Andy- I must admit that while I love my husband and certainly hoped that he wasn't betting away something we cannot afford, I was a little less than sure of his prowess... I have seen him throw and have never considered it to be his strongest skill).

We came home and he quickly got to work drilling holes in tennis balls and devising all kinds of intricate tricks. Lo and behold, on Saturday morning, Andy picks up his tennis ball and throws it straight over the branch- first try! He then used the leader string to hoist a couple of heavy duty climbing ropes over the branch and even managed to attach a tire swing to the bottom that, albeit a little more nauseating than preferable, is quite fun.

After spending all afternoon trying to reason with Jake why we didn't WANT to go on the swing again because we all felt BARFY, my mom decided they would look into purchasing a hammock swing instead. So we're very excited to go up next weekend to try it out. In the meantime, we're going to enjoy our four bottles of incredibly hard-earned wine

VICTORY:

WORK:

REWARD: