Halloween weekend

Our Halloween weekend probably started Thursday night when we watched the Gerard Butler movie version of Phantom of the Opera. Jacob had never seen it, and he needed to be up on the plot in advance of our Saturday plans... Anyway, Phantom is definitely a creepy, Halloween-appropriate selection.

Friday night we attended the Halloween activity at church for which we made and decorated these cupcakes. We think they're pretty great. :) Also at the activity we handed out goodies to trick-or-treaters from our car. Jacob was ultra-embarrassed that I decided to hand out juice boxes (100% juice) rather than contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic by giving candy. He assures me our house will get egged if I do that when we get back to the USA.

Saturday we went to London with Becky & Mike. (You'll likely remember Mike from this post, but we've done lots of fun things with them that have featured on the blog.) We saw the brand-new West End sequel to Phantom, which is called Love Never Dies, also written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It opened in March of this year, and it was definitely Halloween weekend-appropriate. It takes place on Coney Island about 10 years after the events of Phantom of the Opera. The show was incredible, and the guy who plays the Phantom (Ramin Karimloo) is super-talented. We also loved the special effects, and some of the songs really featured Webber's genius.

[The show was at the Adelphi Theatre, which you might remember we've visited before (in 2008) to see a West End show. ]

You can see from the above photo that we didn't dress up for Halloween. We ate yummy Mexican food (below) before calling it a day. It was a great day, for sure.

"...I want some more"

Saturday we went to London, but we didn't really take any pictures. Here's what we did: ate yummy Brazilian food for lunch, watched Oliver in the West End, then ate yummy Mexican food.

Here's a video from the fabulous production of Oliver. Watching the video will make you feel like you saw the whole thing. :)
[This is the same Oliver production I saw in January, but it was just as good the second time!]

Autumn in the kitchen

With Jacob's return home over the weekend, there's reason again to spend time in the kitchen. (Cooking for 1=depressing.) And with the onset of cold(ish) weather, Jacob and I are both huge fans of a steaming pot of soup or stew made from scratch. This week was my first interaction with fresh leeks, even though I've long loved leek & potato soup. Mine turned out super-delicious, and we both look forward to having it again soon!

And as I'm typing this post, the house is overflowing with the unmistakable, incredible aroma of split-pea soup. I've been cleaning out the freezer so we can freeze a few meals before Baby comes, and there was a ham bone from a few months ago that was just begging for split-pea soup. So delicious!

Other than the return of soup, our favorite autumnal thing in the kitchen is pumpkin. Last week when I saw this post about pumpkin cinnamon rolls (with a brown sugar glaze), I nearly made them immediately. But I'm glad I waited until today when Jacob was home to enjoy them too.
Hungry, anyone?

Sign seeking

We've seen some great signs lately. The above was at Ephesus in Turkey. We did go into the shop to investigate, and in case any of you were wondering (not that it isn't obvious), they were more fake than genuine. The next is a favorite too. It was at Blake's Lotaburger in Albuquerque. I can't decide which is more egregious: the subject/verb disagreement or the rampant unnecessary apostrophes. (credit to Bob for the photography)

In the UK if a road sign has something inside a red circle, it's a prohibition. Getting onto the below road, I guess I'm not allowed to be riding a bike or a horse, OR be a time traveler.

(advertisement for a Turkish bath)

(I'd be curious to know whether this was done by a feminist making a statement about women and skirts, or by a guy who had to go and didn't want to wait for a vacancy in the men's room. I'd like to think it was the former. Either way, it was in Marmaris, Turkey.)

Pregnancy update

We're getting a lot of questions about how the pregnancy is going, so we figured we'd update via the blog. In short: things are going great! (After the horrible sickness subsided in June I've felt MUCH better.) The baby seems healthy, and I feel fantastic. I'll be 31 weeks Saturday, so I'm definitely into the 3rd trimester. Apparently the major discomforts are around the corner.

To answer another few questions we get...

• Yes, we have a name chosen. No, we're not disclosing it.
• My belly button is still an "innie"--but only barely.
• We have registered--at Babies R Us in both the UK and the US.
• No, I haven't had any cravings. I'm sure that makes it easier to eat healthy.
• Yes, the baby moves around A LOT. It just makes us super-excited to meet him!
• No, we don't get another ultrasound; we have to wait until December to see him again!

The bump is getting huge, and even though there have been photos on various blog posts, here are a few more that track the progress of the bump. He's definitely growing!

19 weeks

21 weeks

29 weeks