Milk Coma

A girl and her dog

Lazy Week in DC

We've had a pretty low key week so far -- above are some pics and things seem to be settling back to "normal."  Reid is back to work almost full time.  It's still nice having him in the basement, in case I need a quick break from the baby.  It's also nice to get some adult conversation over lunch.  Ella continues to be a pretty zen baby during the day, but between 11 pm and 4 am she is sometimes a challenge.  At this age, every day seems different from the next, so we'll hope that tonight one of us won't be up late with her.

Ella and I went to a new mom's breastfeeding group today, which was a nice little excursion and a neat opportunity to hang out with other breastfeeding women and babies.  I weighed Ella while we were there and she is now 9 lbs 2 oz (two pounds up from her birth weight), so things seem to be moving in the right direction as far as that goes. 

We also got our new glider/recliner delivered and it seems really great so far.  Ella and I are looking forward to spending a lot of hours in our new fancy chair (though hopefully not too many in the middle of the night).      

I survived my first bath

Grandma and Grandpa H Visit

Grandma and Grandpa Henderson came to visit Ms. Ella the first weekend after she was born and here are a few photos from their wonderful visit on their way to sunny Florida.

Ella Leahy Henderson

On February 3, 2013 we welcomed Ella Leahy Henderson into our family.  We were so excited to finally meet her.  We hope to update this blog from time to time to keep family and friends in the loop on what we've been up to.

Dad showing off his new shirt in the hospital.

Ella's trip to New Orleans at 11 days old for Aunt Kate's wedding -- first meeting of cousin Maddie and Aunt Megan in the airport.  Both babies were dressed in pink.

Still in Moscow

Alive and well.

Via Train to Moscow

We arrived safely in Moscow via the "Red Arrow" overnight train. It was the nicest overnight train Reid and I have been on in a long while and some of us had a decent night sleep on the train. The train was beautiful and the conducters/ hostesses were all dressed in matching uniforms and sent us off in fashion and on time.

After arriving in Moscow, we negotiated the metro during morning rush hour to a stop near our apartment where we found a cafe and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast while we waited for our apartment. At 11:00, we dropped our bags off at our apartment and headed back out for a stroll around Patriach's Ponds and Old Arbat. We came back to the apartment for a quick nap and then met up with one of Tim's family friends for dinner. On the way to dinner we walked through the Red Square, posed in front of St. Basil's Cathedral, and gave the former KGB headquaters building a wide berth. We enjoyed a leisurely dinner and stroll back home.

More St Petersburg

Over the past couple days in St Petersburg, we visited the Peter & Paul Fortress, and took a stroll across the Neva River, were awed by beautiful mosaics inside and out of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, and took in the Hermitage which in addition to being a beautiful palace contains an impressive art collection including a couple Da Vinci's, Rembrants, Rubens, Monet, Matisse, Renior, and Pisarro just to name a few. We are packed and about to head off to the train station for our overnight train to Moscow where we'll be for the next few days.

St Petersburg

While in St. Petersburg, we have strolled around Nevsky Prospekt, visited Gostiny Dvor, admired the exterior of Eliseevsky (a delicatessan mentioned in Anna Karenina), viewed Russian art at the Russian Museum, strolled through the Admiralty and Mikhailovsky Gardens, drank vodka chased with picked Herring, stayed up until 4:30 drinking with Russians, been dazzled by a fireworks display, and taken a day trip to Peterhof. Peterhof is a tsarist palace whose grounds include 150 fountains that has been likened to Versailles. We spent a beautiful day strolling through the gardens and viewing the fountains along with many other locals and tourists. Today we plan to visit a couple more sites and tomorrow we'll spend the majority of the day at the Hermitage before embarking on an overnight train bound for Moscow. We chose to take the "Red Arrow," in which girls in uniform will allegedly greet us with song and dance and send us off with song and dance. It has been an adventure and we are really lucky to be traveling with out own translator.

Happy belated father's day, Dads. Love you! Dyanne & Reid.

Arrival: Russia

Blogging is back to document Russian 2011. Check back for more updates soon. We successfully met up with Tim, Stephanie, and Jen in Newark and arrived in St. Petersburg on time. Our driver was there to meet us and drove us straight to our apartment where our apartment agent greeted us to show us our HUGE apartment! It's three bedrooms, two baths, with a complete kitchen and walking distance to a lot of the big sites. We'll post more updates soon.

XOXO Reid & Dyanne

Coming Home

We are headed to Chicago tomorrow, I am flying to DC on Sunday, and I start work on Monday (my start date got moved up, yay!). Reid will be joining me later in the week. See everyone sooooo soon!

Oktoberfest - Day 1

A couple photos from our first day at the 'fest. We've been back twice since then and are now simply recovering (and doing job applications and various other tasks). More pictures of us plus beer coming soon.

Final Stop

We are here in Munich--our final stop on our travels. We are enjoying ourselves so far and heading to Octoberfest on Thursday.

Drizzly Dubrovnik

We had planned to drive south to Montenegro today, but woke up to rain. We decided that driving on unfamiliar mountain roads wasn't the best idea, so we are holed up in a cafe catching up on various household tasks instead. So far we've etched up a budget, discussed where we should live, and Reid is now working on updating his resume. A good use of our time. But it's sad that we are no longer enjoying the carefree life of few responsibilities besides what sights we'll see and what hotel we'll sleep in. I think we're up to 63 hotel rooms over the course of six months. It's been nice not having to clean a bathroom in that long, but we're also looking forward to not packing up our bag every third day or so.

Vatican City

When in Rome... you must visit Vatican City. Which we did and somehow avoided the lines, although there were plenty of crowds, especially on the way to the Sistine Chapel. But it was well worth the hassle (of course) and we were more than impressed even with our high expectations!

Dashing Dubrovnik

We've had a wonderful couple days lazing in beautiful Dubrovnik's old city walls, getting lost on its winding streets, and gazing at the turquoise water. We have a couple more days here and plan to take an excursion to a couple islands for some beach time and visit a few more museums, but we are definitely winding down our vacation. We spend more and more time chatting about our plans for our return than for the next ciy we'll visit. It's inevitable, I suppose, and good that we are excited to come home, but it's a little sad to watch the end of our great journey fast approaching. Until then, we'll keep taking pictures and updating our blog with along the way.

In Croatia

We arrived in Dubrovnik tonight and are safely ensconced in a hostel for the evening.  Tomorrow we are off to discover the old town, which we got a hint of on our bus ride from the airport and it looks pretty amazing! We are excited.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

I LOVE Rome. What can be better than gorgeous city with ancient ruins, charming fountains, and as much pasta and pizza as you can eat?! On our first day here we visited the Forum and Palatino and the Collosseum. After seeing the ruins of several Roman cities on our trip it was pretty cool to see THE Roman city. Plus Reid got to do some cool poses at the Collosseum

Cappadocia in Photos

Here are some photos from our lovely time in Cappadocia. We woke up early on the morning of our anniversary and watched the hot air balloons taking off (first photo). Although we considered going, it was a bit cost prohibitive. We celebrated instead by renting a motorbike and touring around the area, including a hike up Uchisar castle.

Arrived in Italy

After an eight hour layover in the Istanbul airport yesterday, we arrived in Rome. It's beautiful here and we are really enjoying the cooler temperatures. We wandered by Trevi Fountain and Piazza Navona last night (along with many other tourists) and grabbed some food before crashing for the evening. We'll post more photos soon.

Ephesus Photos

Istanbul Photos

Here are a few photos from our time in Istanbul with Tim and Jen. We were there for three nights (Tim and Jen stayed an additional night before we arrived). We stayed in a lovely apartment in Beyoglu that Tim found and we had a great time exploring the nearby area. We also made it to the main tourist attractions: Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque, the Haigha Sofia, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, and, of course, the Cistern. Siblings, you will all be glad to know that I had everyone saying "the Cistern is theese waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy" by the time we left. We also took a ferry across the Bosphorous to the "Asian side" for breakfast on our last day before dashing out the door to the airport for our flight to Izmir. All it all, it was a great time and here a just a few photos (mostly from Topkapi Palace) from our time there.