Brighton

This past weekend was a busy one. Saturday night Mark and I had our niece Holly and nephew Max over for a sleepover. It was only last week that Calum and I spent the night at their house but Calum was equally (if not more) excited to have them on his own turf and play with them on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Sunday my friend Jeanne arrived from Seattle for a short stay. Jeanne and I spent 9 months of being the "single" girls together in Seattle before I moved to London and she shares the same passion for travel that I do. I think this is the 4th time she's been here since I moved (which is coming up on 4 years in June!) and since she's done pretty much all the London touristy stuff I thought we should go on a little road trip so we headed to Brighton which is just about my favourite place in the U.K.

Brighton is about an hour south of us on the south coast, it's an artsy town with some great shopping, restaurants and night life and was a perfect place for a weekend away with Mark pre-Calum. It's also featured in one of my top 3 "English" movies, Wimbledon (which comes after 1. Match Point and 2. Love Actually). Unfortunately the weather wasn't amazing but we did have fun walking around, checking out the boardwalk and had an amazing lunch at one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants (followed up by homemade donuts on the pier-so much for my diet!). It was great to have Jeanne here, even if just for a little while, we got to really catch up which is so hard to do when we are home for our usual short, whirwind visits.

Now if only more of you would come visit! Honestly, before I moved I really didn't see the appeal of coming all the way to Europe to come to London, but it is a great stopping over point and you will always have a free place to stay! Wish us luck this week with the move-it only just occured to me last night that we're pretty far behind-as in, haven't packed a box and we move in 9 days (and we seem to have accumulated a lot of crap in the year or so since we last moved). I've got so much to get rid of and go through and we have to somehow squeeze in painting Calum's room back to neutral-AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Neglected blog...

So it used to be that I would try to post at least once a week, maybe twice but since we've been home from Cyprus time is moving at light speed. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that I'm working again-for those of you who don't know, I've started up my own recruitment company called Thoughtbox Recruitment (www.thoughtboxrecruitment.com). It's been a bit of a slow start but now I'm full steam ahead and finally getting back into it. I have to say, having a year off I've suffered a bit of a lack of confidence which isn't ideal when you are working in a mostly telephone sales based role. Luckily in that year I missed what was a massive blow to the recruitment industry what with the recession and all, and have joined back in what seems to be an upturn. I've got a couple of new clients on board and love that I have the flexibility to choose when I work and to work from home, although it can be tough sometimes. Mark's Mum, Pat, has also agreed to watch Calum for us so I haven't had to go through the dreaded task of taking him to nursery and I know that he's with he's happy with his Nana whilst I'm working.

We're also getting ready for our move. I managed to off load all remaining glass furniture (so not practical with a baby!) on eBay and the boxes came yesterday from the moving company so we're ready to get packing. Can't believe we're almost there, it's been a process which started back in November and I'm just so ready to get moved in and enjoy the summer in our new house. I'm also looking forward to all of the new furniture we've ordered including our "Super King" bed! BTW, we now officially have not one, but two guest rooms (until baby #2 comes along, anyway!) so no more excuses for not visiting!

Otherwise Calum is keeping us busy as usual. This week he got some sort of a viral infection so Mark had to take him to Kids A&E yesterday to get a blood test done which didn't sound too pleasant. Along with his viral infection Calum has broke out in a little spotty rash, but despite it all he's still as loud and rambunctious as ever as you can see in the video below. We saw the physio therapist last week (3 MONTHS after we were referred, thanks NHS!) about his tip-toe standing (which has massively improved) and she has said it's not a problem and strongly recommend I not use the Bounce a Roo ever again. Calum hasn't really shown any desire to walk which could be because he's perfected the crawl-today I watched him push his walker around on his knees which was pretty funny.

Oh, and did I mention I'm an Auntie again? Mark's little sister Tracey had her baby, Rhys, on April 23rd at 33 weeks. Unfortunately we were in Cyprus and things were a little touch and go at first due to what sounds like misuse of the forceps, however just 2 weeks after he was born he was released from the SBCU and is at home with Tracey and her boyfriend Richard. Rhys was a whopping 6 lbs, can't even imagine what he would have weighed full term! Has been lovely to see Tracey settle into motherhood, she's a natural. Having Rhys around has already made me broody and I have yet to hold him; as soon as I have those thoughts though I am reminded of those late night feeds and those first few weeks home which were a literal blur so we will happily wait for awhile and enjoy what we've been blessed with. Have a great week!

Baby Rhys

Cyprus

Hard to believe a week ago today we were basking in the sun with not a care in the world. As I look out the window the wind blows and today I was forced to pull a sweater out from the bottom of the drawer. Boo hoo.

Our week in Cyprus was great, more then I would have ever hoped it would be. To be honest, I didn't have huge expectations as Cyprus was never on the top of my list of places to go. Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean just south of Turkey and not too far from Israel. It's history dates back to the 10th millennium B.C. (!); until 1970 it was part of the British Commonwealth. In 1974 there was a civil war of sorts between the Turkish and the Greek communities that make up the island which resulted in the island being split in two (and divided down the middle by barbed wire and UN outposts!), the north is the Turkish side and the south is the Greek side. We stayed on the south side in a town called Larnaka where Mark's business partner/best man/best friend owns a house and was generous enough to let us stay there.

George's place in Cyprus, perfect!

It was the perfect situation really, Calum settled straight into his routine which gave Mark and I 2-3 hours of pool side time to ourselves everyday! With the time difference it worked out perfectly for us to go out for a late meal in the evenings as the Cypriots do and when we did go out, the food was amazing. Think mezes, Greek salads, grilled meats and fresh fish. The people there were amazingly friendly and loved kids, Calum was treated like a king everywhere we went. We took a couple of road trips to the capital city Nicosia for some shopping and to Pafos where we stopped at Aphrodite's Rock on the way to the zoo.

At the zoo
Beach at Aphrodite's Rock

On this night the waiter brought Calum a plate of strawberries that he loved but also got all over his new outfit!

Calum's first birthday was spent relaxing, during the day we went to this restaurant/bar on the beach to watch Mark's beloved Tottenham play Manchester Utd. and in the evening we went to a nice dinner and came back to a little cake and candle for Calum. The next day we took him to the zoo which was probably more for me then him as he seemed more interested in Daddy than any of the animals or birds although the playground was a highlight. He was an absolute star on the 4.5 hr plane ride there and back so let's hope it continues for our trip in July to Seattle & L.A.

Loving his new baby pool, birthday pressie from Mom & Dad
Opening one of his little gifts we brought on his birthday
With Mom at birthday dinner
Calum's birthday cake (not sure who ate more, Calum or Dad!)