London 2012 Part I

Dear Shantel,

I miss you very much. Right now you are sleeping because it is the middle of the night. But, not in Kazakstan where I am, it is still just afternoon. For the 2nd straight year, I am in Kazakhstan working on the audit for Caspian Services, Inc. They are a publicly traded US company that has operations in Kazakhstan. However, this means I have to be on the opposite side of the world from you. But, while you are sleeping I figured I would fill you in on the trip so far.

This year our travel itinerary took us on a 4 hour flight to New York, then an 8 hour flight to London and finally another 8 hour flight to Almaty. We had about an 8 hour layover and London which was awesome since that gave us time to do some sightseeing in London. We got through customs and then took the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station (more on this later) which puts you pretty close to Hyde Park. We walked through Hyde park, which was beautiful. It was cloudy and drizzled a bit, but really the weather was perfect. Then we got to see a bunch of the famous London sights.

Buckingham Palace 

Had to stop and use the telephone. They had a whole row of these red telephone booths.

Big Ben 

The river Thames

Here you can see the back of Big Ben with the river, which is very ornate building.  

 Westminster Cathedral (Where royal weddings etc. take place)

More of the Cathedral with some of my coworkers (Rob Summers on the left and Steve Avis on the right). Brian Butler was our camera man. 

 Eventually we got hungry and went looking for a place to eat at Piccadilly Circus. We took a few back alley's (This really was a cool little Alley, with some little shops and restaurants) and found this awesome English restaurant.

The Richoux

In business since 1909, it was the perfect English restaurant. We got there around tea time and just barely got a seat in the back. I had the Richoux Club which was incredibly delicious. Per the menu, "Our classic chicken, bacon, avacado, egg, lettuce, tomato sandwich with crisps.

Pretty soon we realized that it was probably time to get back to the airport, but the walk from Paddington Station, through Hyde Park, to Parlimentary Square and then back up to Piccadilly Circus left us pretty tired and we figured we would grab a cab. We called this cab and had a really nice English chap take us back to the train station. He was in his 50's, and was wearing a sweater (imagine your ideal image of an Englishman).

Here I am in front of Paddington Station. As I mentioned earlier we decided to take the high speed train from the airport to downtown.

Here is the Heathrow Express, a high speed train that speeds straight from the airport to Paddington Station in Central London and then back to the airport at an impressive 100 miles per hour. I had a really great time in London. I have always wanted to see London and it was really cool. 

Just remember Shantel that I love you and that I am thinking of you. Look for another update from Kazakhstan in a couple days. Sleep well!

Lydia's First Solid Food

It's taken me a while to put this post together. I'm not sure why. I guess maybe it's the fact that I can't believe my baby is so grown up. We waited until Lydia's six month birthday to start feeding her solid food, because my pediatrician recommended it. Also, because she was getting plenty to eat (she is a fantastic nurser) and just barely started sitting up, I wasn't worried about waiting. I guess most other babies start sooner - but as for now I am glad that we waited. Exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months was perfect for us. And i'm a little sad to be giving up so much freedom. (I could pretty much go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, because Lydia is a great go-er and we could just stop and nurse anytime she got hungry.) But it's definitely time for solids!

Before the feeding frenzy began, we had to take some pictures to document the occasion. (Of course.)

We found a high chair that we absolutely love. We thought a lot about what kind of high chair to get, but decided that we didn't want a plastic fold-up one, because we are going to have babies in a high chair for a long time. Rather, we decided that we would get a statement piece that will look great in our kitchen and will blend in with our decor, as well as being really functional. We found this Eddie Bauer high chair and were getting ready to shell out the $130 for it at Target, but I decided to check KSL first. Luckily for us, this high chair had just been posted the day before! I set up a time to pick it up and we got it for half the price. I'm so happy. It's in great condition and it's super beautiful. Lydia seems to enjoy sitting up in it. (She doesn't like sitting on the ground unless i'm down with her, but she seems to like to be higher where she can see everything that is going on.  

We started her out with a rice cereal. The box says to mix the rice cereal with breastmilk or formula. We had a can of formula that we got in the mail, so we opened that up to use because (this may be TMI, so feel free to skip to the next paragraph) I have a really hard time expressing any breastmilk. I have an electric pump and everything, but I don't have a very strong let-down reflex and so can't pump anything. I'm really blessed that I don't have to be away from Lydia very often and that she is a great eater. She doesn't have a problem nursing even though my let-down is pretty weak, and on the occasions when I have to be gone longer than 3 hours she has been great to take a little bottle of formula. I was pretty upset about having to use formula at first (both when I was away and in the rice cereal) but I've since come to terms with it. The only other thing I have to say about that is that I do NOT like the way that formula smells. Even in the rice cereal it about makes me gag. I'm probably going to just start using water to mix up the cereal because I can't take the formula smell. 

Moving on, Lydia did great! She didn't eat very much - but she was very interested in what was going on. She would reach for the spoon to bring in to her mouth and then we would laugh and laugh at the faces she made when she realized that there was cereal in her mouth.

The whole affair was a success, and even relatively clean. The only even minor mess was when David was feeding her. Lydia grabbed the spoon and quickly let go, resulting in a flying mass of rice cereal that landed on her head.

We invited David's mom down to participate in the fun. Lydia had about enough of the high chair, so we moved her to her little bouncer for the rest of her food. 

Later that week, Melis came up for dinner and she helped us feed Lydia again. Her facebook status later that night read: "Attempting to feed this sweet thing was not as successful as I had hoped!" She is so funny. But even a few days in, more cereal was on her face than ever made it into Lydias mouth. 

Now it's been over a week. Lydia has had rice cereal and bananas. Today she is going to start sweet potatoes, or green beans, or peas. She's going to start something new. She really liked the bananas and is getting used to the texture and the whole getting the food to the back of her mouth to swallow thing. I'm so happy that she has been so good and that the transition has gone so well. She is such a sweet little thing. Now I'm excited for her to start eating little pieces of banana and cheerios and things. 

Friday Five

Happy Friday everyone! Here are some things that we've been up to this week-

#1- Progress on our house is coming along nicely. This week the foundation went from this...

...to this!

In case it doesn't look any different, they finally filled in the bottom and the garage floor with cement. Yay! Hopefully they will start framing soon. (p.s. Look at that view of our backyard. It looks over the Thanksgiving Point golf course and it is beautiful.

#2- November 6, 2012 - Also known as Decision Twenty Twelve. David and I exercised our right to vote. I won't go into our political views at this point, but I will say that I am grateful to live in a country with a democratic process in place to ensure that the voice of the people is heard. Sometimes it's hard when the voice of the majority doesn't align with what "I" want - but I am grateful that it's not just one persons voice. Although the presidential race was intense and exciting - I firmly believe that casting an educated vote for local leaders is just as important (if not more important).

(Our "I Voted" stickers.)

#3- David's mom came to visit. It was really fun. Lydia also got to spend time with my parents (pictures to come). Lydia is lucky to have such great grandparents!

#4- Lydia started solid food (rice cereal). She wasn't sure what to think about it - but she was a good sport through the whole thing. She is such a happy baby! (I believe that this deserves a full post, so it will be coming shortly.)

#5- I love to watch David and Lydia play with each other. I love to listen to Lydia laugh. I must be the luckiest girl in the whole world to be surrounded by these two.