Baby Church!

Mike and I would like to welcome Mia Shea Church to the world! Mia was born today at 10:16AM with a full head of black hair. She was a whopping 9lbs 8oz and 21" long. For those that don't know, Mia's parents are Paul and Monica Church, very dear friends of Mike and I!

And we're sure it's no coincidence that Mia's middle name is similar to a stadium in Flushing. Paul is a die hard Mets fan!

For the record, I called it--I knew it was a girl about a week after they told me Monica was pregnant! This is the 10th baby I have successfully predicted! Who knew I'd grow up to be a baby psychic?!?!?!

Spanish Rice?

As some of you know, I have been trying to get my American food store here to stock my all time favorite side dish--Rice-A-Roni, not only is it the San Francisco Treat, but it's Tara's treat as well! Well, I have been bugging my friend Ahmad for it every time I go into the American food store. Today, I went in just to check on the stock and to pick up some onion soup mix for dip, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the glorious Rice-A-Roni banner on a box. From across the store I spotted it, but thought it was weird that it was in a brown box and not the lovely one I'm used to. Upon further inspection, it was SPANISH RICE flavor! URGH! So I had a little talk with my friend, and he's going to try to get me Chicken flavored Rice-A-Roni. The annoying part is that they already stock Zatarain's Spanish Rice!

This has actually been the story of my life this week. I went to pick up our framed flag yesterday and it wasn't ready. I hauled my cookies all the way to High Street Kensington for Monterey Jack cheese, and they were out.

White Cliffs of Dover!

What a lovely day we had last Saturday! Our friends Kialee and Chris invited us on a little drive out of the city to Dover so we could see the white cliffs. The views were breathtaking on top of the cliffs. We tried not to look down as there was a really ugly seaport below. We grabbed lunch in a pub in Dover and went on a hike over the cliffs. Kialee gets the gold star for the day because she hiked in the mud wearing heels! Unfortunately, there wasn't much else to see in Dover besides the Cliffs, so we decided to try and check out the Village of Sandwich and possibly get a sandwich there. Ironically enough, there were no sandwich places in SANDWICH! Then we went back to Kialee and Chris' place in Chiswick (West London) and had a mini pub crawl with a great dinner at the end!

This week Mike has been working like crazy. Up and gone before 7am and not home until 11:30 or midnight! Gotta love the year end stuff! He even has been dreaming about work...Mumbling about databases and replications in his sleep!

On Sunday we're having a Superbowl party with a bunch of our ex-pat friends. The game doesn't start until 11:15 or so here, so we're planning a late night. I'm having plenty of coffee and tea on hand to keep us all awake! So....LET'S GO GIANTS!!!

The White Cliffs of Dover!

Yep, that's right! Tomorrow we're headed out to Dover to experience the white cliffs in all their glory! Our friends Kialee and Chris have asked us to tag along with them on a day trip to the White Cliffs, with a possible stop off at Cantebury Cathedral, the town of Sandwich, or Leeds Castle. We're very excited at the prospect of eating a sandwich in Sandwich! I'll post some pics when we come back!

Bon Jour! Disneyland Paris!

We got back last night from Mike's birthday trip to Disneyland Paris, and boy were we exhausted! We arrived at the resort at around midnight on Friday. We had only eaten light snacks on the train, figuring we'd get some room service when we got to the hotel. Unfortunately, room service was closed when we arrived, so we ate dinner out of the vending machine! Mmmm potato chips and snickers! It didn't matter much though as we were really tired and just wanted to get some sleep for our big day on Saturday. We woke up to a wonderful breakfast at the hotel and headed over to the park. We started at Parc Disneyland, where we were happy to see that Mainstreet USA was still MAINSTREET USA! The main difference was that instead of Cinderella's Castle they had Sleeping Beauty's Castle. All in all the park was the same as the park in LA. Mike has never been to Disneyland in LA, so he was trying to compare it to Orlando. Let's just say there's a reason why one is a WORLD and the other a LAND. Generally, the shows were similar, with some of them being in French. Most things were in English, but I did glaze over during some of the safety announcements. We then headed over to Walt Disney Studios which again, had a lot of the same attractions in the US.
For dinner we went to the New York Hotel, and ate at the Manhattan Restaurant. It was a lovely dinner and we actually decided to walk the mile and a half to our hotel from there--Like we hadn't walked ENOUGH that day! When we got back to the hotel we stopped and had a few drinks at the bar where we met the Royal Valet to the Crown Prince of Denmark. He spends all of his free time in Disney, so he's been there 23 times in the past year! He was a pretty interesting person--perhaps a little off, but nice nonetheless! Sunday morning, we went back to the parks in hopes of seeing some of the shows and riding some of the rides we had missed the day prior--mission accomplished. We also managed to do some shopping--my specialty!

Then it was off to the train station for the ride back.

The biggest treat of the weekend though was watching the Giants win their spot in the Superbowl. Mike stayed up for the whole game. I fell asleep midway though, but woke up during overtime to see the victory! It ended at about 3:00AM, and then Mike had to wake up extra early this morning for work! Needless to say the Racano's are planning the biggest and best Superbowl party this country has ever seen!! We're even having some guests that say they're coming in their PJ's since it's on so late here!

Why the English are so pastey...

You see, the sun doesn't shine very often in this place. You skin doesn't get much exposure to sunlight at all! Mike and I have joined the masses of pale Englishmen! We didn't realize it until we had a photo snapped of us this weekend in Oxford. I'm posting the evolution of the Racano Ghosts here....

The first photo was taken of us about a month after we arrived in London. We were on our trip to Portugal with my friend Amanda. As you can see, there is still some pigment in our cheeks!



The next photo was taken last weekend in Oxford. If I didn't know better, I might think that we were relatives of Casper...

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Can't wait for our trip to Mauritius to gain some color again...too bad we have to wait until August!

Pics from Oxford

Long time, No Blog...

Sorry everyone. Things have been a little hectic here. As some of you have heard, our wedding photography/videography company has scammed us. They have shut their doors and despite it being nearly 10 months since the wedding we still don't have an album or video to show for it. SO, in the past few days we've been working really hard to get in touch with our photographer, congressmen, bankruptcy courts, and even the FBI. Luckily, this evening, my photographer rang me back and she thinks that she has our digital media. She was actually on vacation in PA, but wanted to call me back as soon as possible. She says that she backed up everything she did in 2007, and is 99.9% sure that she's got it but will call me back later in the week to let me know for sure! Unfortunately, she didn't think that my videographer would have anything backed up as it would just be too much for them to store.

The scam that the photography company ran, went far beyond our little St. Patty's Day event. At this point there are over 500 couples signed on to the yahoo groups website, and when speaking with one of their vendors yesterday, Mike found out that they did over 2000 weddings per year. Sadly, Kim and Al are in the same spot as us. We both contracted with them within days of each other. Kim doesn't even have her englargements! There are couples from 2006 that still don't have their proofs! I suppose we're among the lucky ones as we've got our proofs and enlargements we ordered. Honestly, this really is the kind of thing that people only hear about it bridal magazine columns! It doesn't ever really happen!

Other than this debacle, we've been very busy here. Mike is smack dab in the middle to busy season, which means he gets home around 8! Hahaha! My memory of US busy season is that Mike came home well past midnight most nights! This passed weekend, we went to visit everyone in Oxford. We stayed at my Uncle Mick's house overnight and my cousin's brought us around the city. We went to the first pub in England and out for dinner. They showed me all of my mom's old haunts and where she used to go dancing! On Sunday on the way to the bus station, Uncle Mick showed us the house where they grew up and all of their schools and where my mom used to work. It was really a jam packed weekend! I'm posting some pictures here.

Again, this weekend we off and running. Since it's Mike's birthday on Friday, we're going to Disneyland Paris to celebrate his last year in his 20s...I figure at 30 it's all downhill and really time for us to start growing up! We're staying at the DreamCastle Hotel and have 2 day park hopper tickets. It should be fun!

Since Mike peeked and almost saw his birthday present, he got it tonight (a couple days early). I got him a Wii. He's so excited, he's already setting it up. I got him Madden NFL, Zelda and Mario Party. Please note that US games will not work here, so please don't get him any! We can't even bring the system home with us, but I figured 18 months with it, and he'll probably be sick of it anyway. Then we'll just sell it.

Thats all for now, I'll try and be more timely with my blog updates.

I was on NFL UK!!!--well, my email was!

The NFL UK on SkySports here in England has their own show during the NFL games with their own commentators, etc. Well, part of their show is that you can email them and they answer your questions. Today I sent them an email that said, "As a New York Giants Fan living in London, based on their performance last week I think the NY Giants have the best shot of beating the Patriots in a Superbowl match-up...who do you think would be the best match-up?"...And they read my question on air, and had a debate among the 3 commentators! They are traditionally very "anti" Giants on the panel for some reason, but one of the guys agreed with me!

I'm famous!

Airing Out the House...

Mike is feeling exponentially better today, and has decided to air out the house and become a white tornado cleaning everything in sight ( and out of sight) while I'm still sick on the couch. He's opened all the windows and I'm trying to bundle up under blankets. I agree, it's got to be done! We live on the first floor, and because our bedroom window is fairly close to the entrance of our building, our curtains are always shut. Today Mike opened the curtains to find a little mold had formed on the wrought iron window. So he's gone to attack that! I have to say, I'm a little jealous that Mike's feeling almost 100% already...I'm still working at about 40%, and I started this thing about 4 days before him!

Euro-Disney Birthday!

Today, while Mike and I were watching reruns of Everbody Loves Raymond sick on the couch, we started brainstorming for destinations we could visit for Mike's birthday. Originally, he wanted to go skiing, but we couldn't find anything in the Alps that would cost us less than $2k all in, so we bagged that idea. Then I started looking at destinations we could visit via Eurostar high speed rail from London. Disneyland Resort Paris is right on the rail! We booked our weekend there. I think there are definitely worse places for a 29 year-old to spend his last birthday in his 20s, don't you???--Don't worry, I'll be sure to get lots of pics of the birthday boy with his MIckey ears on. Disneyland Paris is actually pretty reasonable...With the rail tickets and 2 nights in their "New Yorker" Hotel, it's less than 300 GBP. Let's just hope that the two of us are up to par before then. Next weekend we're supposed to visit Uncle Mick and the gang in Oxford, which we've rescheduled on them twice now, so we really want to try and make that!

1st Doctor Visit in the UK...

Well, if you can call it a "doctor" visit. This morning I went to the walk-in clinic in Parson's Green (about a half mile away). I was met by a nurse who informed me that there are no doctors there, just nurses. Great. So, the nurse did the regular nurse stuff, asking questions and what not. THEN, she asked me if I was a victim or if I knew anyone who was a victim of domestic violence! Do I look like a battered wife???? I guess my shock and awe came across on my face because she quickly said that she asked everyone that. The long and the short of it, she says that it's just got to run it's course and didn't prescribe anything. She said that I should inhale eucalyptus steam and drink lots of fluids. SUPER! I even told her that I would like her to prescribe me an antibiotic and a strong cough medicine, and she said that the strongest cough medicine is over the counter, and that I didn't need an antibiotic. Much to my dismay, I left the office with a pamphlet on how to make eucalyptus steam and had to take another trip to the bloody chemist to get more over the counter crap.

Apparently, as Americans we're overmedicated. Which, is probably true, but I know that if I'm under the weather, and I get a nice z-pack or amoxicillan, I'm good to go in a day or two! But as it's a viral infection and antibiotics don't kill viruses, I'm off to drink some orange juice and away I go!

In other news, Mike's sick now too. He's home from work today. So, now I have to be a nurse to boot!

AND, we're scheduled to get our first snow today! They say we should have a couple of inches this afternoon. We're getting winds from Siberia that are causing a major cold front! I must say, it was a bit nippy outside!

Long time, No Blog...

Yes, I know I have been slacking in my blogging, but being back in the US on holiday, I found much more interesting things to do than blog! In fact, we were so busy over our Christmas break that I have come down with a very strange sickness. It only is bad in the morning and at night with coughs, however, I STILL have no voice whatsoever. Mike thinks I need to see a doctor, so I'm going today AGAIN to try and register. Even then, it will take 48 hours for the registration, and THEN I can make an appointment! By then, I could be dead. Just kidding, I'm sure this illness isn't life threatening...at least I hope not!

Anyway, we had a lovely time at home, busy, but lovely. On the flight back we said that next year we're going to try to be a little smarter in how we schedule things, and try to avoid making the 1.5 hour drive from West Milford to Marlboro everyday! We feel like we spent more time in the car than in any one place! It was great to see everyone, and that's what's important, right?

Over Christmas, Mike and I pooled all of our Christmas money and bought a digital SLR camera. I'm really excited about it, and am planning to take a class while here so that I can make the most out of it. Who knows maybe I'll even become a paparazzi...I think I stalk the royals enough...Hahaha!

We spent New Years Eve at a very cozy pub on the Thames with our friends Duff and Larissa. They were the only other expats in town for the New Year, and although I was a little under the weather, I was a trooper and went out for the evening. I figured that we only are going to get 2 NYE's in London, how can I spend one of them in bed and asleep by 9? The pub we went to was not in eyeshot of the fireworks, but was located on a bridge that we could see them from. So at midnight, with a bottle of champagne in hand, we trekked out to the bridge to see what might have been the lamest fireworks display in history. I think our local fireworks display at the high school football field are better. Nonetheless a good time was had by all. Yesterday, Mike and I were feeling the wrath of the previous night, and slept pretty much the whole day away.

Today, Mike's back at work, I'm off to get some food in the house, and call my temp agency. I guess I have to go back to work sometime, right?