"What will it bee"

IT'S A BOY!!!!

So by now those of you who actually read our blog anyway will know the big gender news!

I assume that Americans just wanted another excuse to celebrate with friends and so therefore instituted the"Gender Reveal Party". I hadn't heard of one until our friends had their little guy last year. It was actually quite funny because when we called Stan (Erics dad) and told him "we were excited for our gender reveal party" this sunday...he said: "What!!?? What part of your gender are you planning to reveal at a party?". That was great. We are pretty sure that in the context he knew what we meant...but he wasn't gonna let that oppurtunity slide.

So that sunday, one week after our Ultra sound, we got to share the big news with our Cambridge friends in a unique and fun way. My girlfriend Candice was the host and the only one who got to know the news ahead of time. It was a wonderful little gathering with great little details. (Side note: I love that even though all of us Cambridge folk are temporary and the "resources" we have are minimal, all our parties still seem to have a little spark to them!) I must give credit to Candice on this day because she got out her crafty hands: from the spray painted flower pots that got rained on while drying to the hand decorated bee sugar cookies to go with our "what will it Bee" theme.

We started off with a little baby jeopardy. Girls against Boys. Girls won by flying colors.

The focus of the day was having our friends guess what they thought were having. So they could either choose to wear a bow if they thought we were having a girl...or they could choose to wear a mustache if they thought we were having a boy. I personally wanted everyone to guess we were having a boy just so we could get a photo with everyone wearing a mustache.

I think the girls still wear it pretty well!

So to unveil the big surprise...Eric and I cut the cake (brought us back to wedding day with everyone watching) and inside was either blue or pink food coloring. This of course was working under the assumption that people would associate the color blue with Boy and yes, everyone got it=) So, therefore, was the Big Gender Reveal.

Thank you Candice & Collin (pictured here with their little guy, Asher) for hosting such a sweet celebration.

All of our friends contributed and we had wonderful food and a great atmosphere. May I take this moment to say thank you to our bunch of friends who care about making celebrations for each other special.

5 Months Preggers

The photo of Eric above is pretty heart warming. It's an amazing thought to picture Eric with our own little boy in less than 4 months time. Exciting times!

telling our families

Thanks to Jeffrey (Eric's best friend) for hosting his wedding in early November, we had an awesome reason to be going home. Had we not had this opportunity to tell our families our new baby news in person, I am sure we would have spilled the baby-beans to them much sooner. But fortunately we got to fly home to CA and make this a special occasion. Eric spent some time creating these awesome t-Shirts which we snuck on right before we were going to see our families for the first time. We got great reactions from all of them which Eric and I will cherish on video for years to come.

Here is the initial design.

See how quickly you would have figured out "our riddle". The back was specially done to commemorate our conception story (read previous post). Congratulations to my mom for having responded the quickest once we flashed our "news T-shirts".

And here is the final product in use. We have just included the video of our parents though telling all of our family was special and fun.

Beard to Moustache

I decided to have some fun with cutting down my beard after my ski trip this year with my research group.

It's time to post the news!!

For 21 weeks now we have had a great secret, that most of you know, but we have yet to post our excitement about.

Somewhere in the middle of September God gave us an incredibly awesome gift! And the conditions under which our little gift was conceived couldn't have been more funny.

If you read our blog posts, then you will know that we got to travel with Erics parents and sister to Spain in September. Cyndi always plans superb trips and Eric and I are always so spoiled with the travel style. Well, if you read around the time when we hit up Santiago then this is where the beginning our next nine months got its start.

For those of you who are in the camp of "oops and surprise, we are pregnant" then our story is quite the opposite. For those of you who have been trying for some time, then you will know (at least the women) that you get to know your body "really" well. Eric and I had made a plan to cover all bases of the month and make sure our vacation time was "well spent". The Appel Sr's are always so generous with Eric and I when we travel with them and spoil us with our own beautiful hotel room. This certainly helped with "our plan". Being the woman, I knew that about one week into our journey would be our "prime time". Thats when we decided we'd "miss no opportunity". (Is this too much information??)

ALSO about one week into our journey, we left Barcelona and landed in Santiago. There we started our road trip journey as a family and headed to our first accommodation- an incredibly awesome old spanish stable converted into a Bed and breakfast. We got our bags out of the car and all headed for our space...a large family style room with a bed for Me, Jenny, and Eric to share and then The Appel sr's to be in their double just behind us. Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic room...but my mind went else where.

As we put our bags down and headed the 15 yards across the courtyard for dinner, I managed to whisper to Eric that we might have to unleash our "plan" to the Appels. We tried to be tactful and let them know "this was prime time" and were wondering if we could have some time alone=) They were all great and said they'd just plan for an extra long meal and send us on our way half way through. So, 15 yards away we all went to dinner, enjoyed a large bottle of wine...and then the Appels, tactfully themselves, said "Well, you two better get off". Eric and I blushed and smiled and said "alright, we'll be back in an hour"!

It was a great moment, but I do admit coming BACK to dinner was just slightly awkward. But the Appels were great and we all just laughed.

The next day as Eric and I came back from a run, we found the Appels outside chilling. They very casually mentioned to us that they would probably be hanging out in the garden for "about an hour" if we wanted to go "get cleaned up". By then, we certainly did have an understanding. So thanks to the Appels as this success certainly became a family effort!

Now fast forward, two weeks later... I just came home from a night shift. I did my normal routine of the last few months where I pee on a stick, get in the shower, ignore the stick (months of practice taught me to ignore it), eat my breakfast, then head to bed for the day. As I stepped out of the shower, i was shocked to see the stick was missing the word "NOT" like I had become so familiar in seeing for many months. It only said "pregnant"! I cautiously said Erics name as he was getting out of bed...though he said my voice sounded dreadful rather than surprised...Not my intention, I just was not expecting this surprise. It was awesome.

Needless to say, I took three tests a day for the next three days to make sure my eyes weren't fooling me. But in fact it was true. And the Lord has blessed us with a growing baby now 21 weeks in my belly!

This is our little one at 8 weeks gestation and the day we decided to go out for a proper celebration, celebrating with a fancy dinner at our favorite nice restaurant. It happened to coincide with the first night that I felt sick. Poor timing but a great evening nonetheless. 

Walk around the town

We had a great walk around town on Sunday this week. It was chilly, but not freezing and the sun was out. You may notice that we have an umbrella. During this time of year you must always have a 'brolly' with you, just in case.

Cambridge is a really pretty place. Nicki is a really pretty lady. That is King's College Chapel in the background. One of the highlights in the Cambridge skyline and architecture in general. It always makes a good background for photos.

Visiting the Fitzwilliam Museum

Nicki and I had a nice day out and about today around Cambridge. On our travels we decided to stop into the Fitzwilliam Museum because I hadn't been there before (Nicki had been through it once when her friend Emily visited from the US). We were both taken aback by a beautiful yet haunting piece of art from Italy.

Salvator Rosa's L'Umana Fragilita (Human Frailty)

It is always interesting how much more powerful a piece of art is when you see it in person. This one blew me away. Even the title of 'human frailty' is haunting with the image of the dark angel giving the infant the paper to sign their life away.

Vreeland Wedding and trip home

I late October we made a trip home because Eric's best friend, Jeff, was getting married. We took the opportunity to stop by Boston/Cambridge MA (the other Cambridge) on the way home. We were very lucky that some old friends, the Schellingers, from our time in Palo Alto are living in Boston and gave us a place to stay and the opportunity to catch up. They have a very cute little girl who dressed up as a little lady bug for Halloween while we were there. We also got to meet up with the Fogals, who made the trip up from NYC for a day so that we could see them, catch up, and meet their new little boy. It was wonderful to see the two couples and their little ones. We also got to give them our big news and celebrate with them.

The main reason to go there on the way home was so that Eric could have a couple of interviews for potential post-doc research positions while we were there. We were hoping to use the trip to find our next place of residence after we are finished up here in England.

After a long weekend there we headed home and spent a couple of hours with the Appels before heading down to the Couch's place. Eric spent a day with all the family hanging out before heading off to meet up with all the boys in the wedding for the Stag do (bachelor party) trip. Nicki spent the couple of days with the family, loving the opportunity to meet Levi, the newest addition to the Acosta fam.

The boys spent a couple of nights at Oak Flat Lookout, which is a great US Forestry Service cabin in the mountains just outside of Bakersfield. Nicki made me shave before heading home because my beard was getting a bit out of control, but I ended up having the weakest beard of all the men in the wedding. It was funny because Nate (the best man) had a beard so great that you couldn't actually see his bow-tie. They did a pretty good job with the outfits as we all looked pretty good. The wedding was at the Virginia Country Club and being a nice place, there were all kinds of goodies in the men's locker room, including pomade (old school hair jelly). So we all have super slicked hair and moustaches. It was really great. The wedding was great.

The Appels and the Vreelands (freshly married).

At the end of the trip, Nicki made a girlie trip with some of her friends from Cal Poly. She loves the girlie time to chat and catch up.