He's Here

Today we welcomed into the world our little boy, Gavin Asher. He weighed in at 7lb 9oz and is 20 and 3/4 inches.

Frankfurt in Birmingham, Christmas on Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving we skipped the traditional turkey meal and opted instead for a drive across the country to the largest German-style Christmas market outside Germany. You'll remember how much we love the German Christmas markets (here and here). It's about a 2-hour drive to Birmingham, which is a twin city of Frankfurt, Germany. They try to have an authentic German Christmas market, and we felt like they were successful in recreating that experience. As usual, we were there for the food, and we had some tasty stuff!

So many sausages! We loved the Bratwurst and Weisswurst we had. Here's a photo of Jacob eating his and holding mine; and a photo of me using the industrial-sized mustard squeezer.

This girl is making Poffertjes, which are little yeasty pancakes. We had some with powdered sugar, which were delicious.

Here's a photo of a yeast dumpling filled with plum preserves, topped with vanilla sauce and poppy seeds. It was actually super-delicious!

We did try one thing that wasn't good. They fry potato pancakes, and we've seen this at the markets in Germany but never tried it. They smother it in applesauce. We thought the pancake wasn't worth eating, but I did take one last lick of the apple stuff (which was yummy), and Jacob got this very unattractive photo.

Below is Jacob in front of the Haribo stand. We may have purchased something there too. :) Things we also ate (not pictured): candied almonds & peanuts, chocolate-covered strawberries, pudding pastry, cherry pastry, chocolate-coated almond bar and a rotisserie ham sandwich.

Just a couple of photos of the stands. We know we should be saying Happy Thanksgiving today, but we're really saying Merry Christmas!

A Wilde night

Last night we went to London and saw a production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. You might remember that I'm actually a huge Oscar Wilde fan; and you might also be thinking that we're a little theatre-obsessed. Yes, we love the theatre, but mostly we just want to see as many plays as possible because we know the arrival of our son will make that super-challenging.

The play was wonderful. I've loved it since I first read it, but this is the first of Wilde's plays I've actually seen on stage. The acting was flawless (particularly impressive was the guy who played Lord Goring-- Elliot Cowan), and the sets were gorgeous! Mostly we just laughed the whole time and enjoyed Wilde's witty writing.

I'm not sure why the photo is so skewed, but you'll notice a famous face among the cast of the play. As Mrs. Cheveley in An Ideal Husband, Samantha Bond (far right) is best known in her role as Miss Moneypenny in the Pierce Brosnan James Bond movies.


In addition to seeing this production, we also ate some German food at the Bavarian Beerhouse restaurant. No one who has read the blog will be surprised to see Jacob's selection of the Schweinehaxe. The food was ok, but not wonderful. We recommend getting your German food in Germany, not in London.

And just for fun, here are a few of the best quotes from the play:

• I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.


• One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.


• ...life cannot be understood without much charity, cannot be lived without much charity

Baby update & shower

This weekend our friend Becky threw me a baby shower! It was lots of fun, and it just made me even more grateful for the awesome friends Jacob and I have. I was surrounded by amazing people who are genuinely excited for us. I scanned the cute invitation (minus Becky's address and phone number) above.

We've had people ask about the baby's room, so here's a photo. It's where we put all the gifts from yesterday; we'll eventually organize it all, I'm sure.Here are a few fun photos from the shower, including my friend Hollie demonstrating the use of the hooded towel. :)

Last weekend we also bought something ourselves for the little guy. It will match nicely with his Dad's England shirts. :)

And here are a couple of shots of me. The first shows that even though I look alarming from the side, the view of the front isn't as bad. [Because I'm carrying the baby so high, these are my regular, non-maternity jeans that I can still button with no problem--crazy, I know.] The second photo shows what a nice tabletop the baby bump makes for eating the delicious beef stir-fry Jacob made tonight.