31.5 weeks

I only have 8.5 weeks to go which is hard to believe. Thus far being pregnant in Norway has been a great experience. It could be that I don't have to drag myself to work everyday or it could be sharing this pregnancy with a Avery has it made it so much more special. Yet all in all I am very happy with the quality of care over here. I love my midwife, Ingeborg, she is fantastic and spends a full 30 minutes with Jeff, Ave and I every appointment. Avery gets to sit on the table with me when my measurements are taken and they check the babies heartbeat, she thinks this is very cool! I am measuring on the small side of normal again, the same happened with Avery, so I was hooked up with a 32 week ultrasound.

I do not have to pay any expenses out of pocket and will not have to pay for the delivery. They will keep me in the hospital for at least two days before I am discharged but I can stay up to four days if there are any problems. Hospitals push natural births, however, epidurals and pain medicine are available. This is fine for me since I enjoyed having Avery without an epi and had already decided to have Anders the same way. I can get acupuncture if one of the midwives trained in it is on call and I can even deliver in water if I wish (I don't wish). The delivery takes place in the hospital but will be done by a midwife with a Dr. on call in case anything goes wrong. The infant mortality rate in Norway is very good and Trondheim's hospital is very modern. I am feeling very taken care of and I can't wait for the next 8 + weeks to fly by so I can hold my little man!

Averyisms

The other day we looked at ads of swimming pools. Avery decided she needed one and that she would help Anders swim. She said she'd hold onto him tight, but not too tight, not holy moley tight because that's too tight.

She likes to give really tight hugs that she calls alligator hugs.

When telling you something Ave likes to end the sentence with, "so that's why" or "that's what I'm talking about."

Black Wolives means black olives and ridicrius means ridiculous

Currently she loves the song by Beck titled, "Lost Cause" and loves to contemporary dance to it.

She asks daily if Anders is coming tomorrow and then gets mad at me when I tell her no he is not.

She thinks that three months and three days are the same length of time.

She often hugs my belly and kisses it.

She is in the questions phase where she asks things like, "what's in water" or "what's in fish." Sometimes I can answer and other times I just make shit up.

The other day her Dad told her not to touch anything, referring to the computer. She walked up to me, poked me and said, "can I touch Mom," in a very sarcastic voice.

The other day I was stuck in the bathroom on the toilet without toilet paper. I asked Avery to go downstairs and get me a roll we had been using as tissue paper. The first time she went downstairs, dinked around for awhile and came back with nothing. So I sighed and sent her down again. A few minutes later she stuck her arm in the door, holding her snake and said, "Mom snake is dancing for you." At this point, roughly ten minutes after my initial request, I got up myself and rummaged around the cupboard for some kleenex we had stashed. The kid has at best a thirty second attention span.

Last night before bed she told me I was a beautiful princess.

Gibraltar

We left early Friday morning to drive roughly an hour to Gibraltar. The road there was full of round abouts so of course Avery got sick, again. Gibraltar was interesting. We did not know what to expect and probably should have done more research. I had a spa appointment at 1:45 so we thought a couple of hours on the rock would be long enough. Little did we know that Gibraltar is extremely commercialized and to even get to the rock you have to walk through blocks of shopping and cafes. We were a little disappointed in the commercialization of the British Territory, however, I can't complain too much since we got a liter of Vodka for 7 Euros and I found cadbury eggs. I would like to go back and climb up the rock to see the view from the top. The first siting of the rock. It was crazy how much traffic goes into Gibraltar. So many people going there to duty free shop.
Inside customs, you have to show a passport to get into Gibraltar since it is a British Territory.

Once we went through the tunnel system (pictured below) we walked out into this plaza. To the left are streets and streets of duty free shops.

After my facial, the first one I have ever had. I loved it.

The Cathedral at Malaga

After the Bioparc we drove into Malaga so that we could go inside the Cathedral. It was amazing and beautiful. The ceilings were very high, the doors were huge and the architecture was extremely intricate.
It's so odd to be inside a place that is so old and to think of all of the people who have stood in that exact spot. Trying to imagine what it would have looked like 500 years ago is a little humbling. The feeling of calm inside such an old place of worship is hard to describe.

The ceilings had statues carved into them. Can you imagine the work of carving and then hauling each stone into place by hand.
Before we went into the Cathedral we ate at a Spanish restaurant in a plaza right next to it. Jeff and I ordered an appetizer of Iberian Ham on two over easy eggs which sat on french fries which was really good and than seafood paella for the main coarse. Avery loved the paella.
Jeff also got a liter of Sangria. This sangria had a cinnamon stick in it which I think really enhanced the flavor, yes I had to at least taste it. Not being able to drink sangria in Spain, for lack of a better word, sucked. Anders better appreciate the sacrifice Mama made for him ;)

Bioparc Fuengirola

We decided to take the kids to the Bioparc since it was a quick 20 min drive from the resort. It was smaller than the one in Valencia but I think nicer since there was a lot of shade and some great animals. We spent our morning here and than headed in the afternoon to Malaga.

Avery was a little afraid of this guy.

Right after this picture was taken Avery said, "the alligator thinks I'm beautiful." It was so sweet and funny. She didn't realize that they kept staring at us and coming towards the glass because they wanted to eat us!

Gotta love Grandma's.

The resort

We stayed at the Dona Lola Club which is situated in Mijas Costa. It was a fun location and a beautiful resort.Brothers.

Wouldn't be Spain without a topless woman sunning by the kids pool!

But I don't want to get out of the pool, even though my lips are blue and I'm shivering.
View from our balcony.
This was one of the mattresses off of the pullout sofa beds. Avery decided it was her home and hung out in it whenever we were chilling in the room. Shayden decided to join in and before too long they were both hanging out in their "home".

The road to Rhonda

On Monday we took off in our rental car to check out Rhonda, a small town located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The drive was beautiful, however the windy road proved too much for Avery and she threw up both coming and going. We got to Rhonda right in the middle of siesta so there weren't too many stores open but we did find a charming little coffee shop that served coffee and gelato and even had a slot machine that Jeff and I tried out. It was a fun day and nice to see the interior of Spain. We stopped at a little fruit stand on the way to buy some apples and clean Avery off (yeah kids and mountain roads don't mix.) This was the view from the pull off. Along the way there were many small communities built into the sides of the mountains. This was one of them.



The Spanish country side is beautiful. I'd like to explore it some more one day.

Beach Days

Our resort sat right on the Mediterranean Sea. The beach wasn't the best I've seen but it was still a beach and the kids had a blast playing with the waves.

Yeah I'm pregnant ;)

Avery kept yelling at the waves, " is that all you can do you big baby." She apparently wanted bigger waves.
The first day we went down to check the beach out the kids decided to get wet so we stripped them down and let them play. They both thought the waves were great. The ocean was a little cold for me but Shayden and Avery didn't seem to mind.

Malaga, Spain Day 1 and 2

Over the last week we met Jeff's family in Southern Spain. Jeff, Avery and I flew out of Trondheim on Friday and got into Malaga around 2:30 pm. We took the subway to our hotel since it stopped right across the street. Subways or trains in Spain are so different than in the States. They are clean and efficient and so much cheaper than taking a cab. We stayed one night in Malaga before meeting the rest of the family on Saturday. Malaga was great. We stayed in the historical district and were in walking distance of all the historical sites. Our hotel the Eurostar Astoria was great and I would recommend it to anyone traveling to Malaga. Walking around downtown we came upon this old building.
This is a fortress called La Alcazaba. It was built by the Arabs in 11th century to protect the port. We could have walked to the top of it but we didn't have time as it took roughly 25 minutes just to get to the top.
The outside of the Cathedral which was built in 1528. Later in the trip we went back and went inside. It was closed this morning. The grounds are beautiful so we spent some time exploring them.
Outside the cathedral.
Orange trees were everywhere.
The Cathedral.
A plaza in front of the cathedral. All the grounds were marble.
A street in Malaga that was entirely marble. The shops on this street were very high end.
Our balcony.

Saturday around noon we took off from Malaga and took the train into Fuengirola. From there we took a taxi to our resort Club Dona Lola. Our cab driver had a sister that taught Spanish at Buffalo University. He was a lot of fun to visit with and he gave us the low down on the entire area.