Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Volvo Experience

Wow! What a great time!

We've just come back from picking up our brand new, 2010 XC60. It's beautiful! Check out the photos on Flickr.

We started out on Wed (Oct. 28) by leaving Kaiserslautern by train. The train ride took a little over 4 hours and headed north to Kiel, Germany. The ride was nice. I just love traveling by train. You get to see the landscape, you get to see new people coming on and getting off and it's all WAY faster than driving or any other public transit. We cruised (at high speed) through several regions of Germany and enjoyed the beautiful fall foliage and changing landscapes.

Once in Kiel (a port town) we walked out of the train station and walked directly to the harbor. And just after a short walk we came upon a big ship that would be our ferry. We checked in, boarded and settled into our birth and started exploring the ship.
I have to say, I was quite impressed by the birth! I was expecting much less and got so much more. The beds were comforatable, the bathroom was generous (as generous as can be in a ship's birth) and the whole room gave us pleanty of space to spread out w/o tripping over each other.

After a short exploration, we were off to dinner. The buffet was beautiful. Probably not as nice as a true cruise, but pretty darn nice. Lots to choose from! And the dining room had such amazing views. At this point we were still in harbor finishing the load up - yes, we did eat w/ the older crowd, but if we hadn't we would have had to wait until 8pm to have dinner and me and peanut just can't wait that long for a meal!

When we were just about finished eating, the whole room started vibrating. Well, it just so happens that the dining room sits on top of the engines! So there we were, having our dinner digested for us, and watching the cast off process. It was AWESOME!!

By the time we had finished dinner, we had seen the sun go down and Kiel nearly all pass by. So we headed up to the sun decks to take some photos.

By then we had left harbor and were out to sea in the North Sea. The wind was COLD and hard, but it was worth the fresh air and seaspray.

We whiled away the hours before bed just haning out in one of the lounges and watching the night-time scenery pass by.

We finally snuggled into bed to the gentle rocking of the boat. I was expecting to be able to hear the waves and water pass by, but the room was very well sound proofed and we spent the night in near silence. Another surprise, given that the ferry was carrying a good crowd of people.

The next morning, we woke up, showered, dressed and then went topside to take some sunrise photos. The air was even colder and we were now about 2 hours from port in Gothenburg Sweden. After capturing some photos, we headed to the dining room and enjoyed a seaside breakfast. Again, a beautiful spread with much to choose from. We finished watching the sun rise as we ate our eggs and drank our hot chocolate.

By the time we finished breakfast, we were headed back into civilization so we went back up to take more photos, exchanged some Euro for Swedish Kronor and then got ready to disembark. The captain was quite impressive. There were some interesting maneuvers that had to be made to get us into dock and he did it w/o any trouble.

As we exited the ferry, we headed down a long gangplank and found ourselves in Gothenburg. There at the bottom stood a gentleman with a sign with our name on it! I felt so special. Our own chauffeur. We were whisked into a nice looking Volvo and we drove for about 5 minutes to the Volvo business/manufacturing park, which I have deemed “Volvo City”.

This business park had several buildings and all of them were marked “VOLVO” in some way or another. We were dropped off at the visitor center where we were again greeted by name, introduced to our “new car specialist” and given coffee and postcards to write home. The specialist introduced himself, gave us a quick greeting and welcome and then was off to pull our new car into the showroom.
Shortly after we arrived, another American couple arrived. They were in from Oregon to pick up their new car. WOW, now that’s a trek. So, apparently it doesn’t matter where you buy your Volvo, you can always come to the factory visitor center to receive it. They got to drive it for a limited time (2 weeks I think) and then they return it to the factory (or other approved shipping location) where they pack your car up and ship it to your home dealer. Gosh, I’d find that just too frustrating. How long does it take to ship a car? I know when we did it through the Army, it took about 4 weeks. How hard would it be to get a taste of your new car then be without it and waiting for it on the other side?
So the specialist pulled the new car into the showroom and we were introduced to “Kollett” (yes, our new Volvo already has a name, the License Plate was “KL ET ###” so we named her as such.) The specialist showed us most of the bells and whistles and helped us get the settings in place as we like them – not just the seat and searing wheel, but the whole car has settings that have options you can choose from – kind of like your cell phone – choose the look, choose the sounds, and on and on!)
After we were pretty well set with the car, we were allowed to go out to the “test track”. Yes, sounds impressive and exciting, but it was just a quarter mile strip of asphalt in a straight line. But we drove it back and forth to make sure we were comfortable with how things worked (a quarter mile at a time).
After the test drive, we were invited to lunch at the visitor’s center where they fed us Swedish Meatballs – and they were delicious! I loved it, in a time when they could have introduced us to a lesser known Swedish dish, they chose to go traditional and give me exactly what I was hoping to have!

After lunch, we took a whirl-wind tour of the production facility (where we learned that our model was actually created in Belgium) then a visit to the Volvo museum (boring). By then, it was time for us to head back to the ferry and begin our journey back to Germany.
We loaded up onto the boat, this time thru the vehicle ferry entrance, went back to our birth, dropped our things, and went to the sundeck to enjoy the sunset.

The sky was on fire that evening and we got some amazing photos. When we’d had enough wind, we headed to the dining room, had dinner then wasted away the evening and finally tucked ourselves into bed.

The next morning we were determined to capture photos of the sunrise. So we set the alarm extra early, got bundled up and headed topside to get the photos. Sadly, as we approached the doors to go outside, we saw that it was raining – yup, we must have been back in Germany.

It wasn’t raining too hard, so we stuck around to see if we could see anything, but the cloud cover was so thick for as far as you could see that we never saw the sun until 4 pm that day. A few more photos later, we were headed back to breakfast, followed by gathering and cleaning up the room and then over to an observation lounge where we once again watched the docking process. We were dismissed to our cars and eventually, we drove off the boat and back onto German soil.

We drove south starting at 9am. We made a few stops (food, bathroom) and finally made it back home Thursday evening at about 8pm.

It was a great time! Part of me wishes we had stayed a night in Sweden, but at the same time, I was happy for the excellent ferry cruise and the wonderful treatment we received at the Volvo center. I was truly feeling like a VIP by the end of the trip – and the best part was the excellent souvenir we got to bring home.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

No new news...


Yesterday we had another ultrasound and got to see things like the feet, that baby's bladder and the hands clasping...but Peanut just wouldn't show us if it was a boy or a girl *Grrrr*.

The baby stayed face down (toward my spine) and legs crossed the entire time. He/She even squirmed away from the doctor several times.

Everything looks healthy, the baby is very active and has a heart rate of 127. The Previa looks to have moved completely in the last 5 weeks so that's even greater news.

We have a few more U/S pictures, but again, it's hard to tell what they are.

Tune back next time for more adventures - the next appointment is Nov. 10.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

It's been too long!

It's been just a bit over one month since I posted an update and for that I'm sorry! Things have been quite busy for us here in the Watson Haus.

Since we last checked in with "first baby scare" not too many things have been going on. The baby is doing very well...I think :) and Stephen and I don't have too much to complain about.

Just this past Friday (Oct. 9), I gave my last performance of "Almost, Maine". This play was a lot of fun to do, but I found myself very uninterested in continuing to do the production after 2 weekends (and Friday was the 3rd weekend). It just zapped the energy and excitement from me. I loved seeing the other cast/crew members so often (as many of them are now very good friends) but I just don't have the stamina to work & rehearse all week and perform on the weekends.

The good news is last Friday was actually for competition. Not the whole show went, only select scenes and my scene was one of the ones selected. The awards show is tonight, but I don't plan on attending - so hopefully I'll get some good news regarding awards, if not about myself at least about my show. For photos, click here.

I am now 19 weeks pregnant and am feeling the baby move! I began recognizing it at week 17, but now that I know what it feels like, I know that I was also feeling the baby move as early as week 14. We have a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday and this is the appointment that we could possibly find out the gender of the baby.

YES! We do want to know!! It's driving me batty not knowing. And I'm so honestly confused by the thoughts and intuition that even I can't tell if it's a boy or a girl. Some days, I see the face of an adorable little girl and on these days I crave fruits and sweets. Some days, I hear a little boy "whisper" in my ear and on these days, my attitude is fierce and my skin is dry.

What's a girl to do?! I suppose, I just wait and pray that God gives us a healthy miniature of ourselves. I will certainly post an update if we have any news after Tuesday. And of course, 20 week baby bump photos will be taken on Friday, Oct. 16 (ish). For other baby bump photos, click here.

Monday is a federal holiday!! So let me be the first to wish you "Happy Columbus Day"! Seriously? Who celebrates Columbus Day? How does one celebrate Columbus Day? Is there a special meal? Perhaps a gift? Well, I completely forgot that it was a holiday and scheduled a doctor’s appointment for my stomach as early as possible (no concerns, just routine follow-up). Which, for any other doc appointment, wouldn't be an issue. The problem here, is that the doc is an hour away, the appointment is at 8am and just because I'm having a holiday, that doesn't mean all the Germans trying to commute will.

So despite my having a holiday, I’m still going to have to leave the house at 6:15 a.m. to get to my appointment on time and hope that traffic jams and construction don't hold me longer than 45 minutes. UHG! Usually I'm an early riser...but I like to rise early so that I can go sit and relax or do something fun...not shower and get ready to fight traffic.

The good news about the whole situation is that the appointment is in Mannheim, Germany and this is a FANTASTIC shopping area. So far, I've got Stephen coming with me and maybe we can do some shopping. I'm hoping it'll turn into a delightful day in the city - weather permitting.

I know I mentioned before my vivid dreams. Well, I had a doozie today. This is 99.9% of the reason I woke up at 5 a.m. today. Sadly, this wasn't one of those wonderful, happy, colorful dreams. This one was quite horrific...

I dreamed that I had gotten pregnant while SCUBA diving (yes, that is medically impossible, but it's a dream, just go with me on this). Stephen and I were so happy, because this is what we wanted and found this to be a lucky coincidence.

There was no birthing scene, just suddenly, I had a baby. I use the "baby" term lightly. It looked more like a miniature house elf from the Harry Potter movie. It was clearly evil and as soon as we had it in our hands, it began trying to kill, mame and destroy.

I dropped it and it scurried behind a dresser (the very dresser we plan on using for the baby). In an effort to trap it, Stephen pushed the dresser up against the wall as tight as possible. I then told him to drop the dresser leg on top of the thing to kill it. He did, but it wasn't quite dead. So I got on the dresser and we both continued to drop the furniture onto the thing until pieces of its body began to break off. The pieces still writhed as independent entities.

"Hurry, gather all the pieces and burn it" I said. And as Stephen was wrapping the pieces in white paper, a hand got away, fell off the table he was working on and dropped to the floor. The skin peeled back to reveal a mechanical robotic hand.

The fingers stretched and clawed in an effort to get away, and as this happened, the hand sprouted a new arm, new shoulders, new body, new neck and head. It regenerated into a complete being again.

Before it could regain conciseness, I grabbed it by the neck, turned it face down on the floor, grabbed a HUGE letter opener and began stabbing and cutting the thing. I made extra sure to hit all vital organs beginning with the lungs and heart and concentrating on the brain stem.

As I was slashing and cutting, I found myself very concerned that I was cutting the orange carpeting.

When I felt like I had done a good enough job with the cutting, I took the head into my left hand, twisted it awkwardly (to break the neck) and then ripped the head off. I then continued to dismember the thing and stopped when all the pieces were dead.

I was covered in deep red and blue blood so we decided to go swimming so that I could get cleaned up. Swimming in the exact same place that I became pregnant.

I think that it's quite clear why I couldn't go back to sleep after this.

The most surprising thing is that while I lay in bed, I kept telling myself "remember every detail! Write it down. Don't forget anything." Even though this may have been the most horrific dream I've ever had. The dream was so full of color, commitment, anger, pain, fear and I could actually feel the way the letter opener passed thru the body and organs. It was disgusting and I'm quite surprised by myself and my brain's interpretation of such an act.


Hopefully soon, these images will be replaced by baby duckies and kittens. I don't think I can handle much more of this grotesque abomination.