MY DISSERTATION IS FINISHED!

THAT'S RIGHT PEOPLE. My dissertation is finished, bound, and ready to be turned in! FINALLY! I thought this day would never come :)

It's not a big deal really.. I just wrote a book. 

Okay fine, it's a HUGE deal and I'm SO excited about it!

I'm going to turn it in this afternoon :)

Not a lot else to report except that I have a real pregnant belly now.  It's kinda cute, but not so cute when I stare at my closet with exasperation every morning because I can't button a single pair of my jeans!  I bought a pair of maternity jeans but they're at the tailor until next week because they were about 4 inches too long.  So until then, I'm living in sundresses and leggings that suffocate my waist.

No cravings except still fried chicken.  I still want it all the time!  This week I mostly just want my bed because I have a cold and I feel awful.  I want to take so much Nyquil but someone in my tummy (ahem BABY) won't allow it.  So I'm sticking to orange juice and going to bed at 8 pm for a few days.

I'm having a bit of a crisis with the chalkboard.  The chalkboard part was coming off so I painted it with chalkboard paint.. but this week, when I tried to erase the chalkboard pens off the chalkboard, the paint came off too!  I think the answer is to just write with regular chalk but I need to repaint it again!  I'm going out to look for a new one today because it's getting to be quite labour intensive.  

Here's one more photo from this weekend.. I was crushing Mat's head with the umbrella because I'm selfish and was trying to keep myself as dry as possible.. oops :)

That's all I've got today!  Going to turn in my dissertation and enjoy doing no research, reading, proofreading, editing or referencing for the rest of the afternoon!

Week 15

Not a lot to report in the blog today.  Mat and I had a busy busy weekend.  We never see each other during the week so we have to cram a million things into the weekend and we never manage to get everything done!  

My dissertation deadline is looming.. only two and a half more weeks! I'm planning on printing the final copy and taking it to the bookbinder this week so I can turn it in a few days early.  I'm past the point of caring what it says.. I just want it to be done!

Baby will be 15 full weeks tomorrow.  I'm starting to actually look pregnant, a fact that Mat points out all the time :)  Pretty soon I can start wearing my "Baby on Board" pin on the tube without feeling like people think I'm lying!  I'm also going to have to start buying some maternity clothes in the near future because I can't button most of my jeans anymore.  I went into a shop the other day to look at maternity tights and they were £26 for ONE pair!  No thank you!  

Anyway, here's our week 15 photo (I finally managed to find chalkboard paint so the chalkboard is back!)

My pregnancy app says baby should be about 4.5 inches long at this point but Baby Horvath was 4.7 inches long at our 12-week scan... I think we have a future basketball player on our hands!

That's all!

Blogging.

I am blogging to avoid finishing my dissertation. I'm SO close.  13,849 words finished.. I need to get to 14400 at least but I just can't find the motivation to do those last 600 words!  I will be spending most of today in the library so hopefully it will be finished by tonight.

In other news, Baby is 14 weeks today.  My stomach is definitely starting to look a little bit pregnant.. not enough that strangers have started rubbing it or people have started giving up their seats on the Tube for me, but just enough that I can't button my jeans.  Also, I want to eat fried chicken for every meal.  Literally, every meal.  I have been practicing some serious self control or else I'd probably have gained an extra 10 pounds by now!

I realise this is an awful photo all around. Here's the story with the chalkboard. Basically it's a really cheap chalkboard (costs £10) and we write on it with chalkboard pens.  To erase them, you have to use cleaning spray.. which has also rubbed off the chalkboard.  So it's useless now.  We're going to get some chalkboard paint and paint it but we haven't had time yet!  So next week we should be back to cute chalkboard weekly updates.  But for this week, a piece of paper had to do :)

Mat and I went to Dorking this weekend to get out of London for a few days.  We hung out with Mat's family and friends and had a nice relaxing weekend!  And I hung out with my BFF's Alfie and Easy :)  I think I need a dog....

There was a huge bike ride (think 50,000 cyclists) going from London to Surrey (where Dorking is) on Sunday so all the roads were closed and there were cyclists going through town all day.  It was 100 miles from London to Surrey and back to London - pretty impressive ride!  I couldn't do it!  And even though that cloud looks quite menacing, it was actually a beautiful day.

I've decided to try a new library to finish off my dissertation so I've started going to the Senate House Library.  Because King's is part of the University of London Union, we can use other ULU libraries for free! It's nice to have a change of scenery.

For the final photo, here's a blue chicken (rooster? cockerel? one of those) in Trafalgar Square. I have no idea why it's there.

The end!

Baby Horvath :)

In case you haven't heard the news.. Mat and I are having a baby!  We were as surprised as I'm sure you all are, but we're very excited!

To answer all of your burning questions:

1. I've already returned my wedding dress and ordered a new one because it definitely will not fit come November.

2. Yes we were engaged BEFORE we got pregnant.  We're not having a shotgun wedding :)

3. Yes we are having the baby in England.  Yes using the NHS.  It's not quite as cushy as American healthcare but I'm sure it will be fine.  And no it won't be anything like where Kate Middleton gave birth unless someone wants to give me £6,000 (that's how much it costs for one night in the Lindo Wing of St. Mary's Hospital in Paddington).

4. Yes Baby will be a dual citizen (British and American passports.. should make traveling easier!)

5. No we don't know the sex and we won't be finding out.  We want to be surprised! 

6. I'm 13 full weeks tomorrow.  Our due date is February 4th.  We had our first ultrasound last Thursday and Baby was happy and healthy (but lazy.. slept through the whole thing until the sonographer made me jump up and down to wake him/her up!).

7. We've known for a long time (since mid-June) and it was a painful secret to keep.  I'm not good at keeping secrets AT ALL so I was counting down the days until it was okay to tell everyone!

I think that about covers it!  We've been taking weekly baby bump pictures but there's just nothing to see yet so I won't bore you with the last 6 weeks.  But here's the one we took yesterday.. it looks like it could be a baby bump but I just had a big lunch ;)

Mat when we first found out.  That's his excited/panicked face :)

And one more cute one from yesterday's mini photo shoot! (please note how ridiculously long Mat's arms are.. hopefully Baby gets my normal-sized arms! Haha)

In other exciting news, I got my "Baby on Board" pin for the Tube!  You wear it when you're pregnant and people give you their seats.. it's amazing.  However, I don't think I'm big enough to use mine yet.. people would think I was lying!  So I carry it around just in case the nausea hits on the Tube (and these days the nausea seems to hit all the time!) and I need to sit down.

That's about all the exciting news I have.  And thank goodness for that because between the wedding, the baby, Mat's new job, my new job, finishing my Masters and moving to a new flat I don't think Mat and I could take any more excitement!

Off to be productive now!

Dover

Mat and I had a few days away in Dover last weekend.  The White Cliffs were absolutely beautiful, but the view is marred a bit by the humongous ferry port underneath them!  It was quite nice to be out of the city for a few days.  London is nice but it's nice to get away from the hustle and bustle! We didn't take very many photos, but here are a couple.

High speed train! Only 1 hour and 9 minutes to the coast!

Beach. I love that the beaches are rocks instead of sand because I hate sand. It wasn't really warm enough to swim but there were plenty of people in the sea anyway!

The only picture we took together and it didn't turn out at all :(

Steps up the White Cliffs

So pretty :)

Fountain in the middle of Dover. I like it cause it looks like a dandelion :)

Nothing else to report on my end! Back to dissertation work!

Random London Stuff

We didn't have this commercial in the UK but I heard about it through the grapevine.  I can't actually believe that anyone found anything about this Cheerios commercial offensive, but apparently they did. And I think the children's reactions are so refreshing and perfect. I especially love the little girl in the teal shirt talking about George Washington. So cute!

http://www.dailydot.com/lol/kids-react-cheerios-commercial-race/

Anywho. I'm making serious progress on my dissertation!  I've surpassed the 10,000 word mark, which means I'm in the home stretch (almost).  If you're my friend and have any knowledge of juvenile corrections, research methods, education, post-graduate writing, the English language, etc. and would like to have a crack at proofreading it, please let me know! It could use all the extra eyes it can get!  Fair warning, it's 22 pages single-spaced at the moment and will just get longer over the next few days. But an interesting read I think (obviously I'm a little biased).

I haven't been doing many exciting things lately to write about.  I've been taking some random photos around London but they aren't very exciting..

This is a tiny Mini Cooper that got pulled over or in an accident or something. It was just the most British car I've ever seen! It's hard to see but it even had Union Jacks' on the rearview mirrors.

Old London meets New London

Ginormous cruise ship docked next to the HMS Belfast. I've never seen a cruise ship on the Thames before! They must have opened Tower Bridge (it's a drawbridge) to let it through because it's massive.

Another view.

As I was taking this photo, a guy on a bike asked me if I would take his picture while he jumped off the bridge we were standing on........ luckily he was kidding because I was not up to talking someone down from the ledge of London Bridge!

Finally, I want to say a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Kelsey on her engagement!  I can't wait to hear all about the planning and how stressed out you are :) 

Back to work! I need another 1000 words written today!

Life in June

Apologies for the lack of blogging lately!  Moms and Pops came for a visit, then we moved to a new flat in southeast London, then I went to Cyprus for 9 days!  And the internet was just installed in our new flat today so I haven't been connected to the digital world. 

Our new flat is really cute! Tiny, but really cute. I love it.  It's in a quiet little area and has a front AND rear garden.  

Cyprus was amazing! We were there for the European Universities Volleyball Championship - the best university volleyball teams from countries across Europe come together to play. We went representing GB but only had one British person on our team.  London is a very international city!  

Sadly, us Brits didn't do very well in the tournament but we did have really bad luck with our draw (our first two games were against the Germans and the Russians, both really good teams!)  Here are some pictures!

Before the opening ceremony with the men's team from Sheffield.

Again, before the opening ceremony.

With the Russian team and referees after a hard game!

And the best part, the sunshine and the beach!

Apart from the volleyball, we also ate traditional Cypriot food, listened to Greek music, walked through Nicosia to the border to the Turkish part of Cyprus (but didn't cross it) and had a Hen Party (aka bachelorette party) for me and another girl on the team who's getting married!

Pool at the hotel.

Border to the Turkish part of Cyprus. 

GB men v. Poland.

Hen Party night!

Church in Larnaca.

Day trip to the beach! Not too shabby :)

Finland v. Serbia

Can't go 9 days without eating pizza! Papa Johns in Cyprus :)

Also, I got a real job!  In a nursery that opens in August.  I've been hired as a nursery nurse (aka a teacher in a child care centre) but they said I'll grow out of that quickly and move on to doing curriculum development or something like that. Very exciting! I start the 15th of July.  

That's all for now! Very excited to have internet again so I can FaceTime with my long lost Momma Bear this evening!  WHOOP WHOOP!