Visuals

I tried to keep the photo posting to a minimum but I couldn't help but share all of these. Our trip was perfect. Paris and Ghent were more wonderful than we ever could have hoped. At the conference Greg's research paper was one of six nominated for the best paper award; it ended up taking second place and I am so proud! He even got an offer for a job in Paris (if a bottle of water there didn't cost $4 we maybe could entertain the idea)! It's good to be back with our sweet Bella (who did very well for her babysitters Rae and Grandma), and it's good to dream of future traveling that we hope will half as great as this little vacation turned out to be.

My favorite place in Paris - the beautiful cemetery in Montmarte.

Cemetery, Paris

Cemetery, Paris

Holding hands high up above all of Paris.

Me on the Eiffel Tower.

Us on the top level of the Eiffel Tower, Paris!

View from the hotel room in Ghent at night.

View from hotel room window in Ghent by day, and with a friendly visitor.

Castle of the Counts, Ghent

View from the parapet in the Castle of the Counts, Ghent

Castle of the Counts, Ghent

Greg in the Castle of the Counts

Ghent, Belgium

Ghent, Belgium

City center of Ghent as seen from the St. Michael's bridge.

Ghent, Belgium

The beautiful Ghent University. This particular building (where Greg's conference was held) was built in 1228 to serve as a Dominican monestary, and has had a very rich life since then being used and modified by various peoples before becoming a part of the University.

Notre Dame from the rear, Paris

Along the River Siene, Paris

In front of the Louvre, Paris

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Also

I did forget to mention that despite the greatness that is Ghent, it is bloody cold here and I am not enjoying the chill at all! Greg, however, keeps going on about how much he likes it and misses it from Boston. Also we have been mistaken twice to be British, and both times even after we had been talking! One nice couple we met (we stopped them in the street to ask where there was a nearby restaurant, and ended up going out with them for the evening!) even admitted they thought we were Italian at first. I am so relieved to say that no one has seemed to think ill of us for being Americans and I truthfully had been really worried about that. So nice to be here. . .

Faraway lands

I am posting from Belgium! Greg and I have discovered the most magical and wonderful city in all of Europe. We walk along the streets trying to take it all in and cannot seem to smile or laugh or squeeze hands enough to let out our joy at being in this beautiful, inspiring place. It has been an amazing trip so far with a busy but nice time in Paris at the start, and now these glorious days in Ghent, and then we will end up with a bit more time in France over the weekend. We keep reminding ourselves how lucky we are to be able to do this and to do it so well. It is definite now based on this, our third voyage to lands far away, that we make an ideal traveling pair which is good to know since we have enough plans for future trips to last a lifetime. It feels like such a treasure to both feel the same energy and excitement and desire to see new places.

Time for me to return to little chocolates shaped like monkeys and rabbits, gorgeous lights strung up above the streets, hot sweet waffles bought from friendly street vendors, live Christmas trees hanging over shop doors, and the best fries we have ever tasted!

Monster Mania

Ever since I saw the post on Craftser about how to make felt critters and started making my own I have discovered that the internet is being overun with the cutest monsters and I was in the dark about it! I swear I'd never seen nor heard of them until the tutorial on craftser (which I also just discovered in the past few months), but it seems as though I'm the last one on earth to notice.

Here are a few:
Ugly Dolls
Stupid Creatures
Dolls by Rhya (thanks Elie)
Odd Babies (thanks Hillary)

Please let me know of others (I know there must be tons more), I love to see everyone's take on the little guys.

(What in the world am I doing up at 1:30am when I have a hundred things left to do before we leave the country tomorrow?!)

Cutest moment today

Visiting the neighbor's next door who have the twin boys, now 4 months old, and leaving Greg in the living room making faces at one of them who was happily lying in his bucket seat thing on the floor. Cutest moment: Walking back in the room two minutes later to find the baby in Greg's lap gurgling and smiling while Greg bounces him up and down on his knee. And then when he looks up and sees our faces he says, "I had to pick him up, he was starting to fuss. No I mean it, really he was starting to cry so I had to do something. . . "!

See Spot Run

We are like cartoon people this weekend, running to and fro so fast that you can't even see us, just lots of white swirly marks to indicate our quickness! Our flight doesn't leave until late afternoon tomorrow, but there is just so much to do. This trip is coinciding with our good friends moving away, crunch time at Greg's work (yes, meaning he had to go into the office all day yesterday, and has to go back today if you can believe it), and lots of other smaller things. Every spare 5 minutes I get I find myself sitting down at my crafts table and doing a little something to help calm my nerves and get ready for the next thing on my to-do list. The highlight of the weekend so far was the fondue restaurant we went to last night with Josh and Stacy. We followed up two kinds of delicious cheese and one tomato-y fondue with chocolate fondue for dessert complete with marshmallows that we roasted over fire and then dipped in the heavenly goodness. I couldn't move on the way home but it was so worth it.

My to-do list beckons. . .

Felt critters in progress. I'm getting ready to stuff a bunch of these guys, but I can't show you the finished ones yet as some of them are gifts.

Blurry pic of another pair of earrings I just made. Found the cute ceramic glazed beads the craft store yesterday while buying more felt for my critters.

Tonight I'm trying to make heating pads. I'm hoping to experiment with fabrics and covers (so you can wash them) and various fillings (this tiny one has oatmeal in it). About to start on one shaped for your neck.

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Baby

Tonight we're having dinner with Josh and Stacy and little Karina (ok, so we've been having dinner with them almost every night for the past few weeks, but tonight is special). They leave a week from tomorrow for the east coast and we are so sad about them moving after we've just gotten close to them. Greg and I were trying to finalize our plans to kidnap Karina before they take off, but the timing is bad with our planning to be away next week in Europe. If it weren't for that though, we'd have ourselves a kid! They wouldn't mind too much, turns out they have another one on the way! They had a doctor's visit this morning to check on the baby and find out the sex which we've all been anxiously waiting to hear (and making lots of bets on - for the record, Greg and Josh think it's a girl, and Stacy and I think it's a boy). The plan was for Josh to tell Greg as soon as he got to work, and for Greg to call me on my cell right away. But instead Josh told Greg that they had the doctor write the sex on a piece of paper, and that they're planning to wait until dinner tonight to read it so that we can all be surprised together and celebrate. How incredibly adorable is that? Just makes me want to cry already that they're leaving. So today I made two little packages, each with a poem and a little babydoll for Karina (to go with the little felt family I made and gave her a few weeks ago), one for a baby boy and one for a baby girl. I'll bring them both to dinner and hand over whichever one the good news calls for.

We made our first homemade pizza yesterday using the pizza stone we got as a recent wedding gift (thanks Mike, we love it!). Greg opened the oven to check on the pie and saw this - mozzerella gone mad! It was puffed up like 5 inches high and we laughed when we took it out and watched the steam hiss out and the cheese slowly deflate. Wasn't pretty, but it sure tasted yummy.

My dog treat business/arts'n'crafts hutch.

Beading

I made these earrings this morning. I like the simple black and turquoise bead ones, but not the others. I like the idea of the top ones, one earring clasp that allows you to switch the beaded pins to pick whatever color suits your mood or outfit, but I didn't have any good beads to make them nice.

Volunteering

I finally got around to finishing the requirements needed to start volunteering at a local Wildlife Center, and had my first shift yesterday morning. Hooray for wildlife! I've missed working at the WC down in Monterey so much, and often think of the animals and how happy I was to be able to help them make their way back into the wild. Of course this WC is different so it'll take some getting used to, but I think it'll be a good experience again. The majority of the work is done by volunteers and on my first day I was able to directly work with some of the animals which is great. Specifically an injured red-shouldered hawk, and a group of crazy adolescent squirrels! The girls I work with know that this means all I will do on Mondays is chatter all day about the animals I got to see and help during my Friday shift. I'm thinking I may try to do another shift somewhere else in the area where I can work with marine animals because I also miss my Monterey Bay Aquarium penguins dearly!

Started working on a few new felt friends tonight. I was in a critter mood after finishing the wee one.

A Wee Tutorial

We're really going!

After days of endless online searching and finally making the decision that Greg was going to Europe alone, we happened to stumble upon affordable tickets by changing our dates around a bit, and so now we both can go! We leave Monday the 22nd and return the following Monday. We're spending half the time in Paris, and the other half in Ghent, Belgium. Many, many thanks go out to our friend Rae and my mom! They will be taking care of our little zoo while we're gone and we wouldn't ever have the luxury of traveling if it weren't for all their help. So now Greg and I just have to work on our list of a hundred things to do before we go. . .

The Accessorised Elephant

Below is my entry for the A Month of Softies project! I just finished her a minute ago. She comes complete with leg and trunk warmers! So you can see I'm still on my sewing kick. It's doubtful whether or not I'm getting any better with each new critter, but I'm definitely having more and more fun.

Ta-da

My elephant and her accessories.

Poor Greg

So despite how much better Greg's knee has been feeling lately it turns out that he tore his ACL (not sure what that is exactly, but I understand it's an injury that ruins thousands of pro-sports careers) and also some other tissue in the knee. His options are surgery or physical therapy (which might lead to surgery if it doesn't help before his next appointment with the doc in 6 weeks). Needless to say Greg is really bummed about this, as it means no soccer or hockey for quite a while, and if he ends up having surgery the recovery period is over 6 months. Crap news. He starts PT on Monday so let's all hope it works and Greg can keep his dreams of being the oldest hockey player ever accepted into the NHL.

A happy note on a sad, sad day

A new line of products for the home that are chemical-free, not tested on animals, wonderfully scented with natural oils, beautifully packaged, and available for cheap at Target. Too good to be true? Check it out. . .

http://www.methodhome.com/pad.html

These products were reviewed at www.treehugger.com - a website devoted to helping people live a green lifestyle in the modern world - and deemed more than worthy of cleaning your kitchen counters and moisturizing your hands. All chemical-free! I cannot wait to stop by Target after work. Who knew cleaning products would help cheer me up on such a depressing day, but with scents like grapefruit mandarin and magnolia they just sound so refreshing.

Yes!

We're going to Europe (I think)! In less than 3 weeks! Woohoo!

Greg just got word (finally) from a professor down in Monterey at NPS that they will provide the funding for Greg to attend the International AI Conference this year! It's the same conference we went to last year in London, though they are holding it in Belgium this year. Greg sent in a paper for review and they not only accpeted it, but they accepted it as a full length paper for publication and presentation (the majority of the papers are accepted as only 4 page briefs). So go Greg!! Flights seem to be outrageously expensive though, so we're going to look online tonight and hopefully find a better deal on airfare and hotel. He will have enough money to cover the conference fee, his flight, and part of the remaining expenses, but with how high the airfare looks to be it could turn out to be too much money for me to go as well with the hotel and daily expenses adding up. So we'll see but it's great news!