We are so lucky!

We've been very blessed this summer to be surrounded by supportive friends and family.  My college girlfriends threw me an "e-shower" where we managed to video conference in 12 girls from 4 different locations (San Fran, LA, NYC and good ol' Heinsberg, Germany) to catch up, open gifts and show off the bump a bit.  It was awesome and I think lasted 4 hours - we really never run out of things to chat and laugh about. :)

And, my girlfriends here threw me an ADORABLE shower, with the theme being that I'm "ready to Pop!"  They were so clever and creative with their decorations, activities and food.  I was truly touched by the whole thing - really could not have imagined anything better.  I've put some pics below.  One of the reasons Colin and I are so thrilled to be having a baby in Germany is because of this supportive community.  My girlfriends who are mom's here have made mama-hood look so fun and all of the girls have been there for me every step of the way during this pregnancy. Lucky us and lucky little Baby Cav too!

They did a popcorn bar with different varieties of delicious popcorn - cookies n' cream, snickers, jalapeno and cheddar!

Two of my awesome co-hostesses - Missy and Cathleen

My co-hostess Katy and me... Katy was 37 weeks pregnant when she did this, and I do not really know how she managed!  Our little girls will be a bit less than 2 months apart :)

My co-hostess Erin diligently working on the game they thought up - "Name that Celebrity Baby". They know I like my US Weekly's... :)

Gorgeous array of desserts - Pink Pop Rock Cupcakes and Cake Pops.  They even made extra so Colin could get leftovers...

They filled out these cute "words of wisdom" cards - such a sweet keepsake.

Delicious lunch of poppyseed chicken salad, fruit salad and my favorite blueberry scones

Everything had these cute labels.  Really it could be a shower on Pinterest. 

Thank you girls for the amazing shower!! 

Meg's visit!

We had a great summer of traveling and visitors.  When we got home from Switzerland, my awesome roommate from Atlanta came to stay with us in Heinsberg at the end of her extensive travels while on a sabbatical from work.  Meg and I lived together for 2 years in midtown Atlanta - we miraculously found each other on Craigslist and it was all meant to be from there.   She is also Lola's second mama.  In fact, when Lola and I picked her up from the Aachen train station, Lola knew just who she was and was happy to sit in her lap for the drive home and the rest of the weekend.  It was cute to see those two reunited.

 

After traveling all over Europe and Africa, Meg was content to be in Heinsberg with us, and we were so glad to have her.  We went to dinner in Maastricht and Meg was able to come to the baby shower my friends threw me. It was great to have her here!!

32 week bump visits Maastricht

I really have no clue what we are doing in this picture, but I think it had something to do with how full I was of the delicious Thai food we ate... hmm...  likely I just felt like I might pop which has been a theme for several weeks now!

Final Babymoon: Swiss Alps and Some of France

I suppose every trip for the past nine months has been a sort of "babymoon" for Colin and me, but our trip to Switzerland was our last big trip before we started "nesting" so I guess that makes it our official Babymoon.  It was the perfect last trip - it was so easy to enjoy the beauty of the Alps and delicious Swiss fondue and rosti's.  We had gorgeous weather and perfect clear skies for Colin to go to the top of Jungfrau, and we also enjoyed driving back home while making a few stops in France - Annecy, Beaune and Nancy.

On our arrival day to Lauterbrunnen, we took a short hike to the nearby Trummelbach waterfalls.  These falls were pretty cool as you actually had to enter the mountainside to see them.

The next day was our highlight.  We took the train from Lauterbrunnen to Wengen, bought  a picnic lunch and took a gondola up the mountain to Lauberhorn.  From there, we took a quick steep hike to get a view opposite from the Jungfrau, and then hiked to Kleine Scheidegg for magnificent views of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau.

Map of Alps in the Berner Oberland

We loved the cows just hanging out on the mountainside.

Showing off my 31 week bump.  At the top of this mini peak, we were approached by an Ob-gyn from San Diego who confirmed my suspicion that I probably shouldn't go to the top of the Jungfrau, but he was impressed that we made it up the steep hill with the bump.

Colin snapped a bunch of pics from the top of Jungfrau. 

When Colin came back down from Jungfrau we hiked a bit more before training back to Lauterbrunnen.

Our couple of days in the Swiss Alps were awesome and probably one of Colin's favorite trips so far.  On our way home, we drove through France so we could hit up a few more destinations.  Our first stop was Annecy, a quaint French vacation town.  

 

We rented paddle boats and paddled around the lake for a bit.

We also enjoyed a final dinner of fondue before strolling the town in the evening. 

After Annecy, we drove north through the Burgundy region to Beaune, which we loved.  Its a cute little town in wine country with a fun market and a very interesting old hospice, which dates back to 1443.

We were actually so impressed to learn that this old hospice was still used until 1971.

We decided Colin should do some wine tasting in some of the old caves in town. 

We liked the D-I-Y style tasting.

We continued wandering some of the old sites in the town before heading out to do some tasting in the countryside.

Several wine bottle purchases later (we always justify this for our collection to bring back to CA), we continued our drive home and stopped in Nancy.  The only thing we knew about Nancy before stopping there was that it was on our way home.  We were shocked to find its old town absolutely gorgeous.  We enjoyed a delicious dinner in this old town square and then watched a laser light show with a bunch of other townspeople until we all got rained out.  We had kind of scoffed at the idea of a laser light show when our hotel concierge told us about it, but were actually quite impressed with the whole thing.  We'd definitely stay in Nancy again if we head down that direction in France in the future.

Pretty great babymoon!  Its been easier to slow down on the travel than I thought.  We had hoped for one final trip - possibly to Berlin- after this one, but we have ended up just staying home and getting ready for the baby instead.  Its been a different sort of fun for us, but we are definitely enjoying our final weeks with our little family of three (Lola included).