24 Weeks

This picture was taken last weekend at 24 wks. I found out the day before that the babies were both 1 lb 4 oz each. It sounds like they might truly be identical twins. No, we don't know the sexes of them as our hospital won't tell. Only 3 more weeks left of work and next week I'll be cutting back an hour each day. I'll miss work but I really need the rest now that I'm getting bigger. We've bought some baby equipment (double stroller, one car seat-the other is on back order, a playpen, a little bit of clothing, and that's about it so far.

20 weeks

Here I am at 20wks along. This was taken a week ago today. Not much happening here other than I'm growing more and more everyday and I'm finding I can do less and less everyday. Both babies are kicking so much stronger than I can tell they are gaining strength. I've been told no more stairs at work and to avoid them whenever I can, plus no more lifting (other than light stuff) as I have placenta previa. We are hoping things will change as the pregnancy progresses. I have another u/s on Halloween to see if it has moved at all. I could be put on bed rest anytime now but hopefully not at all.

Okay, I'm not morbid to be taking this picture of a graveyard. This happens to be a gravestone of Skagways most famous villain, "Soapy Smith" who was a liar, murderer and crook. You can google him to learn more as I don't have enough room to share the whole story.









Here's Ryan looking for gold. I won for the most amount of gold found. My gold would sell for about $16.50. Whoohoo, I'm rich!!!












This is "Soapy Smith's" Saloon. This was also the last place he was before he was shot and killed by the town's hero who was later to be found just as much of a villain as Soapy.










Wow, a Monkey!!














A beautiful sunset seen from our ship near Campbell River.

Skagway, Alaska

This was our last stop on our cruise. A cute little town that hasn't changed a whole lot since it was first build in the 1800's. The building on the right of this picture is all covered in Driftwood. I think I like this town the best because it had the richest history.








The Golden Hotel. I'm not sure if it's still actually hotel. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not as we were told this other hotel was the only hotel in town and the bottom floor was the tourist bureau.










This one's a bunny!













The Glaciers! Apparently this is what everyone wants to see when they come to Alaska. I expected to see more ice. I will say that it was extremely cold though.











More ice.

Alaska

This is Dolly's Whorehouse. The owner, Dolly asked that her 'house' be left as is so that future people could see how she lived. Apparently, she worked into her sixties---ew! I was going to go in for a tour but the lady dressed up as Dolly was smoking away in the doorway and smoke while being pregnant makes me vomit literally. So I passed.







Here is another towel animal by our cabin steward. This one is an elephant. Where do you go to school to learn this stuff??











This is the back of our ship (in case you didn't know that by looking). Dave kept asking me to take pictures of the ship for some reason so I made him pose for me.

Ketchikan, Alaska

Our cabin steward surprised us several nights with animals made out of towels. Sometimes they used props from our room too. Very talented person. Actually, our cabin steward was awesome. He treated us like royalty and the room was cleaned twice a day so it was always spotless.







Ryan, my mother in law, and Dave just before we got on the trolley behind them. This trolley took us around town to show us the sites and to share a little history.











A lot of streets in Ketchikan are built on a hill. This road is propped up by stilts attached to the hillside. Some of the roads in Ketchikan was just very, very long stairways. They have street names and are maintained by the city. The garbage man has to travel up these staircases to collect the garbage and then return the can to its rightful place. I couldn't get a picture of it as we went by too quickly to get one.

Cruising To Alaska

This is a picture of us leaving port at Canada Place (on the right). It was beautiful and warm that day and lots of people were already in the pool.














Dave and I posing for the camera.












Ryan and Dave wishing they remembered to pack their sunglasses.

I'm having TWINS!!

On July 20, 2007 We found out we are expecting twins. I'm currently13 1/2 wks pregnant and this picture was taken a week and a half ago. As you can see I'm already showing!

Holland, Germany, & Vancouver

Eindhoven, Holland
My brother Paul pretending to use the public urinal. We thought it would make a funny picture for my son and let's say he thought it was pretty funny.








We could not believe the amount of bikes parked here when we arrived in Holland. We were on our way to a shopping area when we noticed all these bikes and then only a couple of hundred feet away were more bikes. There had to almost a thousand bikes parked. How does one remember where you parked your bike?





Back in Germany, our last night before flying back to Canada. We enjoyed dinner at this pub that was built several hundred years ago.









Here we are inside the pub for our last dinner. Notice the couple in the background? I think they were posing for the picture as well. It was one long table that we all sat at even though we were not with the other people.






This picture is taken from the plane window looking down on Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver. If you look closely you can see the ferry.

A Day Trip to Cologne, Germany

Cathedral in Cologne. I can't recall the name of it but it HUGE! In fact, you can see this cathedral from the Rhine Tower in Dusseldorf which is a 20 minute train ride away.














Another view of the cathedral. It was impossible to capture the whole cathedral in the view frame of the camera.
















A stained glass window inside the cathedral.



















A view of inside the cathedral. Unfortunately, it's a bit blurred.
















I met with a couple of friends while visiting in Cologne. Sanna lives only 20 minutes away but Vera flew in from Austria.

Back to Dusseldorf

I can't get enough of the old architecture in European countries. I believe this building belongs to the church as it was in a couryard where the church sits.












This is the outside of the church building. The crucifix scene was quite spectacular to look at. It was large in size and intricately carved. The scene is on the outside of the church facing the street.






































Daniel and myself enjoying some the ice cream parlour on a rainy day. Can you believe how busy it is? It was always this busy regardless of the weather. Germans love their ice cream.












There's our desserts. Yummmm. I can't believe my brother only ordered a small bowl of chocolate ice cream.











Daniel peeking over his Daddy's shoulder. Look at those eyes, LOL!














Another great family photo. I love the look on Daniels face.











It's bath time!

Liege, Belgium

We visited Belgium for the day just before I came home to Canada. The town we visited seemed as if they were going through some economic problems as there were many poorly maintained buildings that at one time were quite beautiful.















Here we are studying a menu trying to decide if we wanted to eat this old restaurant that was built in the 1700's.











The grey building straight ahead is the restaurant building that was built in the 1700's.













This is a parliment building in Liege. I decided to go off on my own while everyone else sat down for dinner. I came across this massive building and then went inside. I don't think I was supposed to go inside but nobody noticed or seemed to question me.











This was an interesting building I came across when walking around looking for a place to eat. The building appears to be very old. It also appears to be in better condition in the picture than it did in real life.













I love this picture. I took this on our way back to the car before we headed home. It was a beautiful night.

The Imperial Castle of Kaiserwerth

These pictures are of Castle ruins that are very close to where my brother is living. In fact, I can get there by walking in about ten minutes if I walk briskly. I loved this place. It's free to tour the grounds and you can walk through most of the ruins. At night the castle is lit up. I bought a book that chronicles the history of this castle and it is quite fascinating. It's been through many seiges with a final one in the 1700's where it was ordered destroyed. After that it served as a quary for building some of the houses in Kaiserwerth. I love the grass growing on the top.


This is me posing by one of the upper windows. Behind me is the Rhine River. This castle was once surrounded by water but one day a man and his troops came to the castle to free his friend the Bishop from the prison and the only way he could approach the castle without getting hit by arrows was to go upstream and make a dam. It took weeks to make it but once it was done it caused a finger of the river to dry up and he was able to approach the castle by land and rescue his friend the Bishop.









Maybe one of my German friends could translate this for me?? Most of the stones were translated to English except this one.













This was one of the water portals to enter to the castle from.














I love this photo. At the bottom of the photo you can see square holes. This was where the beams were to hold the floor up. The room was most likely the main banquet room.












This is looking from one of the lookout towers. It's quite the view from here. To the right is the Rhine, and below is the water portal to enter the castle.