A movie set around the corner from us

A movie company is filming a French movie outside our house today so lots of activity, people, trucks and people in fifties-clothes and old cars. Very exciting to watch on our lazy Sunday!

More nicey-nice photos from this weekend

Excellent company – excellent weekend!

Another whirlwind of a weekend is soon over! John left for the airport this morning, a few hours before we expected. John had misread the itinerary, so good thing we fell asleep early last night! Looks like I have started recapping the weekend backwards now, so think I will just roll with it.

So, last night we were supposed to go out for a few drinks at the local around the corner, but after walking and touristing out in the sun for 4-5 hours and a massive lasagna-dinner, we were zonked. That was probably one of my best lasagnas ever by the way, if I may say so myself!

Anyway, yesterday started with a full Scottish breakfast at Indigo Yard and after that we headed off on the ‘Peter Helin-Happy-History-Horror-walk’ through the old town, down Royal Mile back up Princes Street finally home through the Princes Street Garden. Of course we also made a few pit stops in the old town for refreshments.

Scottish breakfast and Haggis

Ze parents to be

Ze brothers

"I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more..."

Drinks in The Beehive beer garden

The Elephant House where the Harry Potter-books were written

John also had the great pleasure of meeting a woman who is in the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’ for being the most pierced person in the world with her astonishing (and also quite disturbing) 6700 piercings all over her body! She also had lots of tattoos, and she said all in all she had spent £40000 on her body art. Don’t they look lovely together?

A Guinness at The World's End bar

Before we went home for the day, we stopped by in Princes Street garden for a quick stretch on the grass. It was so hot outside that children were bathing in the fountain in the garden. Almost unheard of in Edinburgh!

That was it, a short but intense weekend with lots of fun! Unfortunately John left in such a hurry, he did not have time to write in the guestbook, but we expect a double-header when he is back in the fall.

Thanks for visiting, brother!

John made it in!! YIPPEE!

So Peter decided to take John on a night of the town in the Cowgate/Grassmarket. I unfortunately was too tired to join so not sure of the shenanigans those two got up to but I ordered a pizza so it was ready and waiting when these guys trolled in from the bar in the wee hours.

This morning we took John out for brunch to Indigo Yard as it is such a glorious day outside. Seriously, its like plus 25 and is crazy hot. This town feels like it has exploded with people and everyone looks happy and really polite.

The boys headed off after frukost to tour the city (Peter's installment to follow) and I met up with with my girls, Orlaith and Jen. Jen was on the hunt for another dress for another wedding and Orlaith was on the hunt for food and I was on the hunt for a place to pee! We ended up going to the Living Room which is a really swank place on George Street that I have never been to and all had a bite to eat. Then it was time for me to waddle home for a nap.

The boys are back now and currently talking to Pappa on Skype while I type up this blog. Peter is going to make his famous lasagna and most likely go to the local for a few pints later. I, on the other hand, will stay home and nerd it up! Only 29 days left till the actual due date!!! 5 working days left, 17 days till Mom & Grandpa arrive, 34 days till Nini, Grandma and Julia, 46 days till Josh and my Dad and 49 days till Pappa!

Can't wait to see everyone!

Lovey dovey

some fun photos

Peter has a new calling..."the baby whisperer"

This has been a nice weekend. Peter and I had every intention to go out and about and snap snap the city away but unfortunately yesterday was a bit gloomy until Jen decided to pop around and watch the last bit of American Idol with us and the sun came out for a brief hour or 2. Today though, it is bright and sunny but I'm feeling a bit crowded with 2 in 1 and would prefer to waddle in the comfort of our own home.

I am determined to find the Fuji photo trail around Edinburgh and take photos from all the points. Gotta give myself some projects when I start maternity leave on the 5th. Not sure if I'll be up to much but at least I can have something to work towards if I am!

Thank god we have the internet though! I don't know what this world would be like without the ability to search whatever comes into your brain at a moments notice. Recently we've been watching 48 Hours Mystery which we are addicted to now! Such a good program!

Peter is currently cooking in the kok and making us a impromptu Chinese inspired dish of Chicken Fried Rice with spring rolls!! MMMMmmmm. We're hungry.

If anyone is wondering why I am calling Peter the Baby Whisperer, it is kinda funny. Whenever baby gets crazy in my belly, all he has to do is put his hand on it and all of a sudden he calms down! Hopefully it is the same when Baby is out in the real world!! Of course I hope I have this calming ability too!

Later from the Shaeter!

It feels like it is Friday, but it’s not

An alternative title for this entry could have been the song title ’I thought it was over but it’s not’ or even ‘Just another manic Monday (to Wednesday)’. Yep, it is only Wednesday and it has been a busy, intense week so far. Lots of stuff to do at work for me, probably because the office back in Sweden that I am working with is closed from tomorrow over the long weekend, hence the sales people have crammed a week’s worth of requests into 3 days.

I like being kept busy though, and the progress we are making with our client’s is great despite the poor economic climate, so no complaints there! I have also been phoning around sorting things out for the upcoming sale of the apartment, so that’s all done now. Now we’ll just have to wait until the 15th of June when the rest of the contracts are to be signed.

We also had a dinner party at our place last night. Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Cantwell-Thomson and Ms. Brogan attended and Shaena and I had prepared tons of homemade potato salad the night before and had also marinated what seemed like half a chicken farm. The food turned out delicious, if I may say so myself, and it was a nice evening with some good banter. Thanks ladies! (Now come help with the dishes!)

After our guests left we watched ‘Nixon/Frost’, the movie about the Frost-interviews after the Watergate scandal. Very interesting movie indeed! The political movie theme continued tonight when we watched ‘Wag The Dog’, also a good movie with an intriguing premise about a presidential cover-up after a scandal involving indiscretion in the oval office. I also remember watching that movie in grade 11 in social science class.

All things considered, I think it is safe to say that we will be sleeping in this weekend because we are a bit drained.

Dad: I will phone you tomorrow instead!

Celebrity-spotting deluxe coming up!

Everyone loves a good celebrity-spotting, some admit it, and some don’t. Shaena has had the fortune to hang out with a few celebrities of the eighties and nineties and some of them got caught on camera. Like that time when Hulk Hogan was babysitting her, or the time when Richard Dean Anderson made her blush on national TV?

Mommy Michelle has promised to dig up some of these old treasures and scan them so that we can post them here on our blog. Really looking forward to that!

For now, here's a picture from when we bumped into Colin Mochrie:

Springy Edinburgh

Norway day in Edinburgh. A Norwegian girl was hiding behind the rock, doing her make-up before her singing performance.

Edinburgh castle

Edinburgh castle

Another self-photo

Bump update

It is definitely getting closer now. Here are a few baby bump pictures from this weekend. The first two are taken today when we took a walk in the Princes street garden and the bottom two are from yesterday when we packed our hospital bag.

Enjoy!

When David Bowie met Grandma

Look what we've pulled out of the archives! When Shaena's grandma was working for Pepsi, David Bowie had the pleasure of meeting her. Pepsi were sponsoring his tour at the time. Yep, that is right, Ziggy Stardust and grandma Mary! Afterwards, grandma said: "He smelt so goooood!" :)

Mors Dag in Sweden is coming up. Gift idea?

Going, going, gone! Sold to the only guy that came to the viewing!

The apartment in Sweden is sold! The viewing last night didn’t really attract a stampede of people but one guy showed up and must have liked what he saw. He made an offer on the spot, the real estate agent haggled with the guy as he should, the guy raised his bid, and the deal was done. The initial contract got signed this afternoon and the new owner will take possession on the 15th of June.

I must say, I feel really relieved to get this out of the way and to have the deal done and dusted. I am done with tenants and it feels great to close the books on that part of my life as well. We wouldn’t ever move back to the flat anyway as it is a studio flat and would probably not move back to that particular suburb either, and if we wouldn’t have sold the flat I would have had to go out on the prowl for a new tenant, and that is always a drag. Plus, it is a constant responsibility as well.

We didn’t make the profit we would have hoped for, but at least we walked away with a few extra pennies in our pocket, which is not bad at all. I promised my dad a little something-something if we sold the flat with a profit, so I am happy I will be able to do that for him. It's not much, only a little token of our appreciation to him for making the effort to come out here this summer. Overall, to sum it up, it was a good investment and it served me well for the short time I lived there.

What else is new? Well, more prizes are drizzling in! I won a very nice home stereo system at work today. It was a Grundig iPod docking-station, CD-player, MP3-player and radio in one. I won it in this week’s competition for top scoring training calls with our clients. Nice!

Oh, and another thing; My brother John has booked his flights for 'Edinburgh Take 2' in the end of this month. He is making another attempt to come see us, and hopefully he will not be held up in traffic this time around. I am not going to request another finger-crossing-session, as it is all you guys have been doing lately. This time, I think we'll just go with Karma. :)

All of this combined, it has been a very good week, so we went out for a quick celebration drink with Ron tonight. Burgers and drinks at the pub, simple but very nice and relaxed. The plan for the last couple of days has been to make it to the movies to go see ‘Angels & Demons’ but it has been a busy week (as always) and we have just been too tired to go, but we’ll probably go to one of the afternoon-screenings this weekend. Sounds like it could be a good movie, so I am excited to go see it. Always up for a good conspiracy flick!

Another viewing, cross your fingers!

The second viewing for the flat in Sweden is scheduled for tomorrow evening, so make sure to cross your fingers real tight because at this point it seems like we need all the luck we can get selling it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great flat, nothing wrong with it at all but it seems like there are so many other flats in the same price range on the market in my area right now. I am sure I am worrying for nothing; after all, it is only just little over a week since the last (and first) viewing.

My brother John has been a great help over the years acting as my wingman back in Sweden and helped with organizing key-drops, met with tenants etc. Yesterday he also helped with getting rid of those nasty looking single beds you see in the photos in the advert, and hopefully that’ll give potential buyers a better idea of what kind of space they are actually buying. Thank you John, we appreciate it!

Crappy days and good days

Yesterday was a long and crappy day at work, today was a lot better and things felt like they were were back to normal again. I think I let other peoples lack of commitment and drive get to me personally yesterday, and that is obviously not the best in a business environment. But isn't it just very annoying when you are trying to get stuff done and you are trying to infuse a bit of passion and dedication into the workplace and it just feels like you are stepping through mud?

Anyway, today was a good day. Actually, almost every single day at work is a good day for me and I love what I do and what I am a part of. The CareerBuilder spirit and way of doing business is very right for me personally and I am very lucky I get to do all the things I do, so I really should not complain, but everyone is allowed the occasional moan once in a while, right? Usually when I need to moan, I type up a very long email to my boss, however this time I didn't, so yesterday couldn't have been that bad after all.

People in general, and Shaena in particular, are asking me what I actually do at work and I sometimes feel like Chandler Bing from 'Friends' who goes to work every day, but when asked what he does, he can never really give anyone a straight answer. I really should try to define what it is that I actually do, but I am involved in such a wide array of things on a daily basis, the list would probably be quite long and possibly very confusing to someone who is not a part of the wonderful world of the 'online recruitment advertising industry'. Needless to say, I do realize what a fancy pants line that was!

I think the ultimate question if you want to know if you are happy in your workplace or not is: 'If you won 10,000,000 whatever-your-currency-is, would you quit your job?' - If the question is a no-brainer-definitely-in-a-heartbeat yes, you are working in the wrong place, but if it is at least a hesitant no, I think you can consider yourself satisfied with your job and can afford to have a crappy day or two once in a while.

Late night words of wisdom from me to you, Dr. Phil-style! Free of charge. This time. :)

Everyone is booked!

So it's official. All our peeps are booked with flights to come visit us, baby H and Edinburgh! All in all we have, in order of appearance:

My Mom (17/6/09-17/8/09)
My Grandpa (17/6/09-1/7/09)
My Grandma (4/7/09-18/7/09)
My Aunty Nini (4/7/09-18/7/09)
Cousin Jules (4/7/09-18/7/09)
My Dad (15/7/09-29/7/09)
My Brother (15/7/09-29/7/09)
and last but not least...
Peter's Dad!! (19/7/09-29/7/09)

I can't believe this is all coming together so smoothly and I really can't wait to meet the little one and see what he is all about!! Be nice to get some professional family photos *hint hint*

Anyway, I'm at work...only 19 more working days to go and then a few more days till family starts pouring in. Started having braxton hicks contractions which are needless to say...interesting.

Hoping you are all enjoying the blog and our crazy stories!!

XOXO Shaena Girl!

A fancy new blog design!

What else to do on a Sunday afternoon? We have given our blog a once-over and created our own blog template. What we really should be doing is some house work and clean up all our dirty pots and pans, but this was so much more appealing for some reason.

Erin is moving to Sweden!

Today we also found out that Shaena's old friend Erin from back home in Winnipeg is moving (back) to Sweden! Erin has been accepted to Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and will study there for a few years. Erin is recently married to a Swedish guy and she also lived a year in Umeå, Sweden. These crazy Canadian girls, just can't stay away from the Swedish men! :)

Erin just started her own blog where people back home can follow her adventures in Sweden. Check it out: http://livinginsweden-stayingpresent.blogspot.com/

Lycka till i Sverige Erin!

Movies, movies, movies

Today has been a real lazy-day! Rolled out of bed not too late, not too early and my lovely wife had made me a nice cup of coffee and I was offered breakfast, but decided to make myself a breakfast Fajita from last night’s leftovers instead. Naughty naughty, but so delish! We then made our way out the door and the first stop was the barber’s where I got a haircut. Since I won £20 and bottle of wine in last week’s competition at work, we decided to go pick out a few movies to buy for the collection. We stopped by HMV and bought ‘The X-Men trilogy’, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Life Is Beautiful’. All great movies and we only had to pay £1 out of our own pocket! Sweet!

After a bit of an aimless hunt for new t-shirts for me, we went home and watched ‘Ghost Town’ with Ricky Gervais and ‘Deception’ with Ewan McGregor, none of them very good movies. Then we attempted to watch ‘The Da Vinci Code’ instead, but by that point I think we got a bit tired of watching movies, so we phoned people instead. We phoned my dad and talked TV shows amongst other things… are you starting to see a pattern here?

After our late dinner (a very brave attempt to make Macaroni and Cheese and beef mince that turned out very yummy) we watched a really good show, at least in comparison with other British TV shows, called ‘Bring Back Star Trek’ with Justin Lee Collins who interviewed and tried to reunite the original cast from Star Trek. Very funny and interesting! Who knew William Shatner is such a douche?

Last movie of the night was ‘Red Dragon’, the Hannibal Lecter-movie with Edward Norton and Anthony Hopkins. At last, a great movie!

Hannibal Lecter: I'll call you if I think of anything else, would you perhaps like to leave me your home phone number?

Hej hej! Baby here!

I just got back from another appointment at the midwife’s. All is good, my heart is beating at the right pace, and apparently my head is facing down right now. Very useful to know, I know! :) Next appointment is in a month, and after that it is almost time for me to come out!

Last night Auntie Maeghan came by and baked banana bread for us, and as usual, it was awesome! That was it, just a quick update.

"Where's Waldo?"