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