Some of you may have noticed my lack of posting here lately (or maybe not, as I was sporadic to begin with!).  The main reason for this change is that I started a new family blog that you can find at http://thehalberts.spaces.live.com and the reason that I started this particular blog is that I am pregnant :-)  With some of our family overseas, we wanted a place that we could post ongoing updates on how things were progressing, but we weren't yet ready to announce to the world the biggest change in our lives.

I am now in my 26th week - only a few weeks away from entering my third trimester.  I am due on March 20th, but have been given dates ranging from March 15-24rh, so who knows!  If you want to catch up and keep up with what we have been up to, feel free to read the other blog and check back weekly, as I try to always post the baby's development stage each week with a little recap on what is going on in our lives.  Enjoy!

What a relaxing and enjoyable weekend!  I ended up working all day Saturday (since I postponed my work day from Friday to Saturday), but it was extremely productive!  You can't beat the view from the porch and the weather was perfect.

Saturday night Donna, Steve, Jeremy and I headed into town - there was a sale on Kestrel Wines and we bought a case and picked up a case for Mary.  We then headed to Visconti's for dinner - was the first time we have been there since our wedding.  We did family style so that we could share all the dishes each of us picked out and it was excellent.

Mary and I walked to The Midway for a latte with the dogs this morning - the walk was lovely, though the mosquitos are still out in full force.  Even though we both sprayed repellent, they were still buzzing around us like crazy.

And now I am sitting on the porch, enjoying the view as I work for the afternoon.  I needed to get some things done today and instead of rushing out of here, it seemed like it would be more enjoyable to work on the porch.  Plus the cleaners came Thursday, so all I have to do is water and do laundry when we get home!

Played hookey from work yesterday to go out on Lake Wenatchee with Jeremy and his parents.  Had grand plans to go out on the Ski Doo all day long, enjoying the sunshine and playing in the water.  When we arrived, the wind was up and there were white caps all over the lake!  Poor Donna got completely soaked from the ride from the launch to beaching it by where we were sitting.  When we staked out a place on the beach, there was a gigantic log down the we put our stuff behind and it worked fabulously to block the wind so we didn't freeze.

Jeremy went on a three hour dirt bike trail that pushed him to try stuff that he hasn't done before.  He came back grinning ear to ear on the whole thing.  Meanwhile, Steve, Donna & I enjoyed our time being lazy on the beach, chatting and reading.  Steve took the Ski Doo out and came back soaked to the bone, so that pretty much ruled out playing on the water for me!

And now I am enjoying the morning on the porch, catching up on my missed work from yesterday and enjoying the lovely view of the lake!

The last few weeks have been insane since I have returned from New York.  Jeremy's buddy from college, Maynard, and his girlfriend Aubrey, were here visiting for the week.  We went to the races (Emerald Downs) for Ian's birthday, had dinner at Red Hook Brewery the next night, then the crew headed to the cabin for a few days, while I stayed home (just got home, why would I leave??)

When everyone got home, we hit Trivia on Thursday, then saw the Mariners play on the 4th & headed out on my parents boat to watch fireworks across from the Marina that night.  I curled up at home Saturday while everyone hit a Brew Festival (couldn't handle more drinking...) and then Sunday Maynard and Aubrey left.  They were lovely people - so glad I got the chance to know them and am looking forward to all the fun in the coming years!  Sunday night, we had the Federico's and Hagg's over for dinner - kids running around and lots of fun :-)

And now I am up at the cabin with Jeremy and Todd for the weekend.  The boys rode their bikes up (sounded like an amazing ride that they both thoroughly enjoyed).  And tomorrow I am "WFC" or "Working From Cabin" and will be able to start my weekend already here!  Looking forward to some dirt bike riding on Saturday & I think we may head into town so that we all can ride together!  More later :)

I have to say that my trip was entirely made when I got to ditch my current digs in favor of the 5-star accommodations at Hotel L ;-)  Was beyond lovely to spend time with B and Mo.  Nothing like just wine, chips, & salsa for dinner the first night with B and then the Mexican food & margarita's with the Loew's last night at Blu Moon.  Not to mention the spirited conversation with Mo as we discussed the more subtle nuances (or not) of how to communicate to the press. ;-)

And of course, it was all topped off by SYTYCD and re-watching our favorite 4 routines at the end of the show.  This year it will be hard to pick!

And now I am heading home - HOORAYYY!  Can wait to sleep in my own bed and actually spend more than 2 days in a row with my husband!  Plus I hear we are actually going to have summer weather this weekend!

So I am staying at the Hudson hotel in NY ... not my favorite place.  It smells funny, the toilet is running constantly in my room and there is no tv.  HULLO?!?!  Thankfully I crashed last night, literally slept for 11 hours - I was beyond exhausted.

This morning I received the best invite ever - "Would you like to stay at 'Hotel L'"? asks B.  Of course I jump at the chance!  Mo is out of town tonight, so it is a girls slumber party with margaritas and mexican food, not to mention plenty of catching up.  Tomorrow night will be lovely to catch up with Mr. L ... it's been awhile since I have spent time with him as well!  And B and I can watch SYTYCD together while we fend off wise-cracks from Mo.

How wonderful is it that you can go from something so dreadful to the most fantastic opportunity?!?  I can't wait, this day is DRAGGING on!

I had a nice and lazy weekend in between trips.  I literally sat on the swing outside in the backyard and read for most of one day, then ran errands, cleaned out the pantry .... all the stuff that I can now get to since we have a cleaning service come in every other week!  It's great!

Friday was lovely weather, it was sunny and warm - my garden is finally starting to dry out, which is much needed after the torrential downpours we seemed to be having there for awhile.  I am so worried that my jasmine is not going to make it due to root rot. Fingers are crossed on that one.

I got to spend a few hours with Megan while she was home from college - it was nice to chat and have someone to run errands with.  She is starting to get to the nervous-excited state about graduating in the next year.  Possibilities are endless for her and it sounds like she has several options, all of which are great.

Brad came over for a "color consult" on Sunday and I now know how we are going to paint the interior of our home.  First we need to put hardwoods in, then granite counters, then replace our fridge & dishwasher, french doors to the patio, ahhh the list is endless.  Once you start looking at what you REALLY want to do, it goes on and on.  I have promised to not do anything until the fall though - Jeremy is keen on taking the summer to relax and do as little as possible.  Can't say that I blame him, we honestly haven't had much downtime here lately!

And now I am on my way to New York for my last leg of my travels.  I am very excited to catch up with B while I am out there.  We have a girls night set aside and it can't get here fast enough ... that is really the one thing I am looking forward to!  Not to mention I will have my stylish Kate Spade bag to carry throughout the city! ;-)

Normally I show a degree of control & self restraint when it comes to purchasing accessories.  Given my lack of sleep lately, and I have FINALLY found a few purses that I LOVED, I threw caution to the wind and spent more on my credit card that I ever would have at the online Kate Spade Sample sale.  My darling husband chose silence (more or less) as the response while I tried to justify spending that much money...  They should arrive after I get home from Chicago, prior to heading to NY - VERY excited!

I am trying to fight off a cold now though - got into the hotel last night, ordered room service, and crashed.  I am afraid I may be getting sick, so I switched my flight to 8am tomorrow - I am ready to be home!

It was a fast couple of days in San Fran - pretty much in and out of the city.  I met up with Stacey for manicures and pedicures on Monday evening after arriving, then Jay and I headed out to dinner at Rose Pistola, a wonderful little Italian restaurant.  Food was superb - we started with Ahi Tuna Tartare appetizers, I had the gnocchi with Lamb & shared some roasted asparagus, and we ended it sharing Warm Toffee Budino with Crème Fraîche Gelato & Poached D’Anjou Pear Puree (I had to look that one up!).  De-lic-ous! :-)

Wednesday was meetings all morning, then time with clients in the afternoon.  We had drinks and apps with all our customers in the Lark Creek Steakhouse. From there, a crew of 6 of us headed to this lovely little organic restaurant called Universal Cafe that was tucked into almost a residential area.  Again, food was amazing - we order a few bottles of wine and enjoyed the company as we wound down to travel again today.

Now I have meetings all morning, have to quickly pack, and then am off again!

This last week was a blur - I thought I would have some time to keep up with what I was doing, but things got so busy!  I am trying to do a quick update prior to heading out to San Fran this morning, so here goes...

Wednesday night was lovely - after work Kelly, Brian, and I caught up with KVK for dinner at a gastro-pub.  Apparently they are the latest kind of restaurant to open up.  Food was fantastic, atmosphere fun, company the best :-)  From there we went to a members-only Jazz club that KVK belongs to and met up with Noah and two folks that they just recently met.  It was entertaining to watch the two new people - he was probably 20-30 years older than the woman & offering "recruiting" services to get her a job and she was likely not paying him money for the help...  They were very nice people, but those are the types of stories you hear about, not actually meet!

Thursday was a whirlwind at work, lots of meetings & productive conversations.  Kelly and I headed to the Globe Theater afterwards to watch King Lear.  The play was wonderful, the setting beyond lovely.  The Globe is an open-air theater that was used to perform Shakespeare plays in Shakespeare's time.  It seems they have tried to keep it as authentic as possible, as there were small wooden benches that Kelly and I were sitting on.  Not sure how we lucked out, but we had center stage seats that were only two rows up.  There was standing room in front of us that the stage jutted onto - it was fantastic.  The play was amazing & the death scenes were so well done (at one point someone's eyes were gauged out).  I am so glad that we went!

Friday we were with clients pretty much all day - got to hear the feedback on our lack of share (it is so much worse in Europe) and the tools that are not meeting their needs.  Sessions were informative and there is definitely a need to get back over here and make sure that we are doing everything we can to set folks up for success. (Ok...enough work stuff!)

Friday night we had a lovely dinner with a magic-type performance included.  A gentleman was basically guessing what people were thinking (either a number or from a book) - I think it was all narrowing probability in order for him to guess correctly.  The table I sat at was so much fun - I was placed with two French customers and one English one, who was from Paris.  They helped me try to convince my manager that a trip to Paris was imperative for business success.  We shall see how that works out for me.... After dinner we headed out to a night club for the rest of the evening.  It was tons of fun - and we were out WAY too late and the beginning of my morning was painful...

Highlight of my trip was on Saturday though - John and Betty came into the city to meet me for lunch and to catch up!  We had fish and chips for lunch and then headed to Hyde park to sit with a latte and chat.  While we were there, the Royal Air Force did a large fly-by with all their aircraft that spanned the years.  It was magnificent & John was able to identify a bunch of them.  Then the horses that were used for the celebration came trotting two feet from us on the park bench!  I need to upload photos today so that you can see how close they were.  But catching up with John and Betty was absolutely delightful - we were able to pick up where we left off and I enjoyed it SO much.  I am hoping to convince them to come to Seattle and I definitely want to come back with Jeremy to see them both in Oxford!

And of course - the last thing that I left London seeing (after waving goodbye to John & Betty on the coach) was the World Naked Bike Ride.  Yes, that is right.  Naked bike riding.  I was going to take some photos of it, but then I felt like a voyeur and just couldn't bring myself to do it!  THANKFULLY I only got side views of folks ... it just hurts to think about.

This last bit of news is very sad for me.  On Sunday, we wished Chip & the kids a last goodbye before they head off to India.  I am thankful that we were able to spend so much time with them in the last month prior to their departure and to have most of the day with them Sunday.  Both Jeremy and I struggled with the finality of it - I know that we will see them before we know it (they are planning a trip back in 3 years and we are going to try to work something out to see them in between that), but that feels like such a long time when you are at the beginning of it.  With choked back tears and lots of hugs - we wish them well on this new journey in their lives.

So the fire alarm went off at 3:30am in the hotel corridor last night.  I was awake from 3:30 to 7:00am - head going a hundred miles an hour.  Kelly and I didn't set a time to meet up, so I FINALLY fall asleep at 7, get up again at 8:30.  Poor Kelly didn't sleep at all and was later in waking than I was.

So our day started out a bit later in getting to the office than we originally had hoped, but as dumb luck would have it, we got to see something most people in their lifetime will not.

Our walk to the office includes passing in front of Buckingham Palace.  As we approach, there are a TON of people out front, police everywhere, and we wondered what the heck was going on??  So we head in front, look around for a minute, and then all of the sudden about 15 feet from us, a car drives by and THE QUEEN is in the backseat, waving at everyone!  It was surreal, and we waved back (with a ton of other people).

Dumb luck.  Serious dumb luck - we learned that people who have lived here their entire life had never seen her!

After working for several hours at the hotel, Kelly pinged me to head out for a late breakfast.  We headed to the Sheppard's Market, which was only several streets away and found a cute little cafe called Cafe In.  It felt so European to sit in this lovely spot that had a bright yellow and green decor, with the windows thrown open, sipping a latte, and catching up.  The weather was warm, started out cloudy, but was gorgeous by the end of the day!

We both decided to take some time to walk around the city together today - Kelly lived in London for several months in college, so it was fun wandering with someone who knew where they were heading :)

We started up Piccadilly, went thru the Covent Gardens which is this open market piazza, stopped in London's Transport Museum area, then walked past the Somerset House courtyard.  We headed to the Temple (which was closed) - I believe this was the very one that is the Knights Templar and where DaVinci code was filmed.  From the Temple, we headed up Fleet Street to St. Paul Cathedral.  Kelly was telling me that for a very long time, St. Pauls was the tallest building in London so that people could look up & gain their bearings for where they are.  The dome is magnificent and can be seen from a long ways away.

From St. Pauls, we walked to the Business/Banking district to check out a new modern building called the Gerkin.  It is shaped like a bullet, all glass, very different.  Then we had to go past Lloyd's of London, which is a famous insurance company and in a crazy looking industrial building.  I will post pictures of this as well ... words really can't describe it.  We headed across the London Bridge and saw a canon being shot off to the side of the Tower Bridge.  Apparently the Queens Birthday celebration is on Saturday, so maybe they were practicing something?

After crossing the River Thames, we headed past the Clink Prison museum (have to love that name) to have lunch at a little spot outside.  We sat next to some men from Holland - one didn't speak English, so it was amusing to hear them navigate.  The one that did speak English chatted me up for a little while, asking where we were from, if we had been to London before.

After lunch, we went to the Globe Theater to see what was playing and if we could get any tickets to a play and we ended up being able to get tickets to King Lear on Thursday!  We are both so excited to go - after all the studying of Shakespeare that I have done over the years, to be actually able to sit in the Globe and watch a performance is unreal!

From the Globe, we wandered past the London Eye and down across Westminster Bridge, past Big Ben, the Westminster Hall & Houses of Parliament, and then over to Westminster Abby.  From there we headed over to Buckingham Palace, & waved to the guards.  I think that I did actually see the changing of the guards the other day (unknown to me) since they were marching around.  Today, they were still as could be, but with the zoom lens, I caught one of them slightly swaying...couldn't blame the guy.  That has to be hard to stay still like that!  Finally, we headed back through The Green Park to our hotel.

For dinner, I tagged along with Kelly to meet up with her friend from college, Buffy, who now lives in London and is about 7 weeks away from having a baby.  We took the Tube to the Canary Wharf (which is apparently the new financial district) to meet up with Buffy near her flat.  There were so many people enjoying cocktails outside along the River Thames after work - there was this long boardwalk-like area that had restaurants lining it and gobs and gobs of people just standing there, chatting, drinking their wine or beer.  Dinner was a ton of fun, Buffy was great - all in all, it was a lovely day!

Today Kelly and I are heading into the office for meetings all afternoon and then we are meeting up with KVK for dinner tonight!  Should be a lot of fun!  I will post pictures soon too :-)

Traveling to London in business class is the only way to go!  That was the first time that I have ever taken business class on a flight and with overnight flights like that, it made it so much more comfortable.  You could pretty much recline all the way in your seat, the food was decent, the amenities great, and the best bonus was that no one was sitting next to me, so I could totally sprawl!

I was able to stay awake until about 3:30am PST and then woke up about 3.5 hours later - customs was painless and quick and then I followed Dave & Jeanie (co-workers) on the train for Paddington Station and then transferred to the Tube to Victoria Station.  From Victoria station, I was on my own to walk to my hotel on Piccadilly, across the street from The Green Park.  I am staying at the Park Lane Hotel and when I came through the front, I passed all sorts of gentleman in black tie having cocktails.

Wellington Arch is just a little bit down the street and that borders Hyde Park.  On my walk to the hotel, I passed in front of Buckingham Palace and saw the Royal Guard marching out front (just the 4 that man the posts, not a bunch of them).  I didn't take any photos, because I was exhausted, hot & sweaty from walking (it was 80 here yesterday), and could only think of a shower at that point.  I figured I would get out and about to explore today.

I held out sleeping until about 9pm last night and woke up bright and early at 6am this morning.  So far I am feeling MUCH better and I think that I my plan to acclimate to the new time zone may have worked!

And my crazy three weeks of business travel begins.  I just made it through the security, ticketing, and to my gate in record time.  Glad that things are easily moving along after my passport debacle.

We have about 3 days worth of meetings scheduled with the UK office and our French counterparts.  Though the days seem to be jam packed, I brought my camera in hopes to see at least a little bit.

I will try to keep things updated daily so that you can follow along with my adventures, and most importantly, know that I am still alive ;-)  My dad just realized he should have given me his SPOT so that I could send an okay signal to my mom so she knew I was okay.  Too bad for them.  And on to my 10 hours of working and trying to stay awake...

So far this weekend has been fantastic - Chip, Sandy, and the kids arrived late on Friday night, where we had dinner prepared for them when they made it.  Saturday was nice and lazy - lots of reading, game playing, and chats together.  Jeremy & Chip went out on the bikes - I made it out for a run, and then they boys played a long round of Airsoft in the woods (basically trying to nail each other with Airsoft guns ... boys.).

Today Jeremy and I took the bikes out, where after some struggling I came to a realization.  I loved the road riding, even the dirt roads that wind you through the mountains.  But the trail riding I am just not so good at.

See there is this thing ... with riding a motorcycle.  You have to basically keep the inertia so that the bike doesn't fall over, which means that speed is your friend.  Well, when I tend to be in a situation (skiing ... dirt bike riding) where I feel that I may be losing control over what I am doing, my immediate reaction is to slow down to regain that control.  Given the physics of riding ... I don't do so well with the deep off road dirt/hills because slowing down is exactly what NOT to do.  I finally figured this out after dumping my bike when trying to slow down too much to make a corner.  It was a lot of fun being out there though and Chip was WAY more adventurous than I was, so at least Jeremy had a really good time with him :-)

Chase and I tool the mountain bikes in the afternoon to the trail behind the cabin and road to the Midway for some treats for he and the girls.  I haven't been bicycle riding in a LONG time, so that was a lot of fun too.  Chase was fun to follow - like most boys, he was constantly scanning to see what he could jump.  I, however, was content to just follow along behind him, knowing that if I dumped this bike, I could actually pick it back up!

Two books down already!  I enjoyed the screened porch this afternoon once the mosquitos started to emerge in the late afternoon.  The porch is a lovely spot and we all hung out there until dinner time.  It has been a relaxing few days and what's better is we still have two more to go!  More later! xoxo

We got up at 5am this morning to head to the cabin for the long weekend.  Figured that we would miss the traffic if we got an early start.  The drive was lovely - a low fog hanging over the river as we wound our way through the mountains.  There still is a bit of snow up on the summit and we saw four deer - unfortunately only two of them were alive.

The Highlander was such a comfortable ride - I enjoyed the quiet (amazing how much quieter it is than the jeep!) and the scenery.  We made great time, given there was no traffic on the road.  And now I am "WFC" today (working from cabin), as we await the arrival of Chip, Sandy, and the kids!

I have been avoiding writing an update, because I still cannot believe that this happened.  We rescinded the offer on the house when we learned that low-income housing (duplexes) were going in adjacent to our homes.  Obviously this is not the investment that we thought we were making when we purchased the house.  We are now working with legal council to address the issue, which is why I have not posted anything to date.

Needless to say, we were taken aback when we learned that the neighborhood was planned the way it was and are very disappointed and sad that we are no longer getting the house.  As we still do not have resolution, I will likely not post anything else on this subject.

On a lighter note - we are heading to the cabin for a long weekend.  Jeremy bought a dual sport, so we will likely take in some rides while we are there!  Should be a lot of fun :-)

The flurry of activity should begin this week - we went by our house and the floor is now down!  That means the framing has started and we have approximately 120 days until completion, which puts us at August 20th.  Worst case scenario it will be ready at the beginning of August, best case scenario is mid-September ... that is until we sell our house anyway.

I figure I will head out there every night this week to do pictures so that we can see the progress of it being built, especially since this is the time that the changes are so incredibly apparent.  I will do a slide show at the end of the week to show each day's progress.

We took Jeremy's parents and my parents out there with us today - it was snowing like crazy (yes, it is April 20th & Happy Birthday Mom!).  There is a photo of Mark and Kim's house with the snow coming down around it, as well as our floor :-)

Our Napa trip was amazing - I will post some photos later this week on that one.

I drove by the new house yesterday and the forms had been removed.  Next step is to backfill the dirt up to the concrete, then framing can begin!  Given Mark and Kim's timing, I assume that framing won't likely start for another two weeks, but they are cruising on houses now, so who knows?  Mark & Kim's place already has the second story more or less done, by the time I get home from my trip, I bet that they have a roof!  SCARY!

We worked all weekend long on our current house, getting it cleaned and prepped for a realtor's open house today.  Kelly called at 1:15 and we have had 12 folks through already, which is great!  Feedback has been minimal (need to take the last leaf out of the dining table and pull out the chairs ... backyard needs to be cleaned up a bit more ... stupid weather).  Nothing major, which is a relief!  Biggest issue is that there just aren't enough buyers out there right now.

Tomorrow I head to Napa, CA for a work event & we are staying at the  Carneros Inn.  Should be fun - Jeremy is meeting me for the weekend out there and we are going to finally take a break from the craziness.  Best part - it will be in the mid-80s all weekend long! :-)  SO READY for nice weather, this Spring has been miserable.

Today is a very good day - went up to the house and they have started on our foundation!  There are a bunch of photos posted to the right to show the progress ... when we were up there, they had about a half dozen guys working on our lot, getting the first layer of foundation poured.

They started framing Mark and Kim's place too ... 120 more days until they are complete!  Scary when you think about it in those terms.

We will keep taking pictures throughout the week & posting them, so check back often!