twenty eight days

I am so excited about our trip. Did I tell you how this trip came about? For our anniversary last year, Jonathan and I were so broke and so we said no presents. So he gave me a card and inside was this little map of Europe. There was a little heart sticker attached to the bottom with a note that read: Next year, for our fifth, we'll go wherever your little heart desires. And I got to put the little heart sticker on the map wherever I wanted to go.

In the words of Salt N Pepa:

what a man, what a man, what a man,
what a mighty good man

Anyway, I picked London. London... I need to see it. And we are flying over on our anniversary. I cannot believe it has been five years.

And I think I'm almost ready for the trip. I've got a cute new coat, some cute and comfortable shoes, a fabulous outfit to wear to Gabriella's christening. (I'm so corny, I bought a tweed skirt. But it is a gorgeous tweed, okay?) And I think we've gotten Andy, Teresa and Gabriella some really fun gifts.

I can't wait to meet Gabriella. It was so crazy, finally meeting Teresa in the summer of 2005. I was so nervous that she would be this wild and crazy Brit with a wicked sense of humor, fabulous clothes and be able to drink all kinds of strong, trendy cocktails. And I felt so frumpy, being newly pregnant and tired and nauseous and already all puffy and bloated-looking. And when they arrived, they told us that Teresa had just discovered she was pregnant, too! And she was nice. So nice. And yes, the wicked sense of humor was there, and the nice clothes, but she and I hung around a lot in sweat pants and ate a lot of little anti-nausea candies and went to bed early each night. And it was great. I was so relieved that I really liked her. And not just because I wanted to like her. But because she was someone I could see fitting very neatly into my circle of friends. We kept saying how sad it was that we didn't live near each other. Because Jonathan and Andy are so much alike, and are such great friends, and it is very rare, I think, to find another couple where you genuinely like both of them.