Krees goes Dutch Kiwi!: Update from after Paris

South Africa - November 2011

In November 2011 we traveled to South Africa and brought Charles's parents along for the ride. We spent a week in and around Cape Town, a few days near Hartbeespoort and the Cradle of Humankind, a couple days at Pilanesberg National Park, and two days with my friend Stephanie and her family in Pretoria. It was a FANTASTIC trip! There are (currently) 78 photos in this album and don't include some of the great places we visited or people we saw. I may add more as we finish weeding through the approximately FOUR THOUSAND photos we took. Seriously. It was a great trip.

Yes, I've been lax about posting lately. There was the visit from my family for Thanksgiving (good!), the trip to Palermo with the Yuns over Christmas (good!), and since the New Year I've been busy busy busy preparing for this trip for Paris - far more so for the e-VLBI demonstration we gave at the opening ceremony for the International Year of Astronomy last week than for the couple days of sightseeing we got this weekend.

Charles spent Thursday and Friday last week, then Monday and Tuesday this week, chaperoning Aldus around Paris, entertaining him at the Louvre and elsewhere, and trying to break him of his new habit of NOT giving kisses to pretty foreign girls who request them. His flirtation with a handful of French girls at a cafe Monday seems to be a step in the right direction.

There are two main reasons I feel particularly compelled to [begin a] post today rather than wait for...say...another six weeks or so as has become habit.

1. INAUGURATION. I can't wait to get out of this IAU Symposium this afternoon (don't tell my boss!) to go find a place where we can watch Obama sworn in. Yes, I will likely find myself crying in public, but I think people will understand. [Addendum: Charles and I both missed the swearing-in but met up to catch the speech. Unfortunately for us it was being dubbed over in French and was difficult to hear the original audio over the French. I cried anyway. And somehow managed to make Charles a little teary-eyed as well.]

2. I suppose I should make some sort of more formal announcement to those we haven't told already: Aldus will be getting a little brother or sister in June. Woo hoo! I will admit I was feeling quite shell-shocked when I found out at the end of October that I was pregnant, but most of that stemmed from first-trimester exhaustion and trying to keep up with Aldus. Now that my energy and appetite are back, the thought of trying to keep up with a newborn and a two year-old seems much more manageable. And in the past few days I've started to feel the baby move! Every woman who wants it should be able to get that feeling. There's nothing like it.

2009 is going to be a big year.

Comments

once more -- but maybe more official now: CONGRATULATIONS! And you are so right - that little baby fluttering around and you're the only one who can feel it - there is not much more that can make me feel so extremely happy (and feminine)

Posted by: Aleid | January 22, 2009 at 04:05 PM