Dear Becca,

That's crazy. So many babies. Tell Laura she can hire me as godmother if she wants. I'm the best.

I went to Paris last weekend. We only went for a day cause we had too much work to do. We took the bus on Sunday night. We left at 10:30 p.m and got there at 7:30 the next morning. You do the math. We basically rushed through all the sights: Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Notre Dame, and Eiffel Tower, of course. We took the Eurostar train back which only takes 2 hours.

Here's the Louvre:

And here I am with the Eiffel Tower:

I went ice skating with my flat at Canary Wharf this week. It was pretty fun even though they only played Michael Jackson songs the whole time. Is it too much to ask for a little Christmas music? I only fell once so that's good.

My life has been particularly boring lately because people keep expecting me to turn in work. I just wrote a 3000 word paper. The topic was: What is geography? I still have no idea what it is. I just know I hate it a lot. Oh yeah, and the paper is worth 100% of my grade.

Also you need to send me more food. Or I guess you can just buy me a hot dog when I get home.

Postmarked: 2:02 p.m.

Dear Amanda,

Baby update: We went to go see them yesterday and they are adorably cute and tiny. They can breathe on their own but they have a little tube that forces oxygen in just in case. They are getting fed where the little heart is on their tummy. In a couple days they will be able to get fed breast milk through a tube, but they don't develop the sucking reflex until about 34 weeks. They are only 30 weeks right now, normal babies deliver around 40. Campbell is the smaller one, he's 2 lbs. and Luke is the one who was hogging all the food and he's 3 lbs. They are so precious. Hopefully you can see them sometime when they are bigger. They have to be in the hospital for at least 6 more weeks.

Here's Campbell.

This is Greg and Campbell's hands.

Here's Greg's hand next to Luke so you can see some proportion.

Here's Luke's cute feet.

Postmarked 2:10 p.m.

Dear Amanda,

Sorry I haven't posted lately. Things have been crazy and finals won't be over soon enough. Laura had the babies last night! Campbell and Luke. We are going down in about an hour so I will post pictures. They are little guys but they seem pretty healthy.

Here are some pictures from our Christmas photo shoot. We were in this amazing park called Bronson Park in Los Angeles/Hollywood. I'll take you there when you come home and we can go hiking. I can't wait for you to come home! I hope London is treating you right. It's freezing/rainy here right now.

Postmarked 8:30 a.m.

Dear Becca,

I'm still mad you didn't join Alyson and I for Thanksgiving. We had to have lots of adventures without you. I made Aly make pies while I was in class. It was ideal. Thanksgiving dinner was super delicious. We had turkey from Whole Foods and everyone brought a dish. I ate the appropriate amount of food (meaning I had to change into sweats to contain my belly).

On Friday we went to the Tate Modern and saw a play called Mother Courage and Her Children. Mrs. Dursley from Harry Potter was in it. On Saturday we went to Portabello Market again in Notting Hill. This time we found The Travel Bookshop, thank god.

We also went to the Winter Wonderland carnival in Hyde Park. I went on this roller coaster called Spuk. It was haunted house themed. I have no idea why. It was fun except for the part when I had to pay 4 pounds to go on it.

We went to Brick Lane on Sunday, which has like an outdoor market/ shops/ lots of other hipster things. I got an abundance of bagels from this place called Beigel Bake so I was satisfied. It was raining a ridiculous amount though so we decided to come back home and watch Love Actually. Good decision.

Postmarked: 4:28 p.m.

Dear Amanda,

So I just went to go see New Moon by myself. Which quite possibly could be the lamest thing ever but I was bored and felt like seeing it and no one would go with me. It was actually kinda nice. I don't realize how nice it is to be alone because I so rarely am. Basically the movie wasn't great, but you were definitely right and Jacob's 8-pack made up for it. I'm so Team Jacob. Bella should have seen how good she had it with him. Anyway, of course I'm sitting in the theater with my hood on praying no one I know sees me. The couple next to me: the girl gasped every time Jacob was in the movie, and every single time her boyfriend got mad. Definitely killed the vibe. Then the family in front of me had a little baby who got scared when it was loud. Who brings their baby to a movie at 10 pm at night? I felt so bad for her. She just wanted to sleep.

I hope you and Alyson have a wonderful Thanksgiving! She better make you pumpkin pie. Please feel sorry for me enough to come back home so I have someone to go to the movies with. Thanks.

Just because I had to:

Postmarked 12:37 p.m.

Dear Becca,

I've just been hanging out in London since I talked to you last. So I hadn't seen any movies since I've been here, but this week I saw two. Don't be jealous.

So the first one I saw was 2012. I knew it was going to be horrible, but I haven't had a good movie theatre nap in a long time so I went. I was actually praying the world would end a little early so I wouldn't have to finish watching this movie. Let's just say it was no The Day After Tomorrow. It possessed no qualities of a watchable film (i.e. attractive people, interesting plot, any elements based in reality).

Well things didn't get too much better with Twilight: New Moon. At least it had one of the three good qualities. You can probably guess which one. Let me just say Kristen Stewart is the most unlikable person ever to get a role in a movie. No matter how hard I prayed she just wouldn't die. Falls off motorcycle. Doesn't die. Jumps off cliff. Doesn't die. Antagonizes werewolves. Doesn't die. As you can see this movie was just a series of disappointments for me. The only redeeming quality was Taylor Lautner's 8-pack.

Postmarked: 10:53 a.m.

Dear Amanda,

Hope you are ready for this one. We have MUCH to catch up on. This is clearly out of order, but a lot has happened and we are old now. I tried to send you a damn box today but of course you had to go to London, which is outside of the US and very hard to ship to. Apparently they think I'm going to try to blow up the subway with a box of treats. We are going to try again tomorrow to ship you a box. Otherwise, it will be waiting for you when you get home.

Here is Niko's cozy coupe that he is infatuated with. It has a removable bottom so his feet don't drag right now but he can push it with his feet when he's older. There's also a handle-ish thing in the back so I can push him, which is causing me to have the back of an 80-year old. I had to completely assemble the entire thing because of course it came in a box in pieces, with a piece missing so the steering wheel pulls out if you pull hard enough(which of course he does). I think I may have put the front wheels on backwards also, but it goes so I don't care. The whole car would have fit in a box, I don't understand why they couldn't pre-assemble it.

Moving on to the birthday party... Here was the cake I made him. It's a ship, if you can't tell. And a mighty fine ship if I may say so myself. The unfortunate part was that I made so much other cake that no one ate the ship and it got left outside. It became a rock and then got thrown away. All my hard work. =(

I should have taught Niko how to blow out a candle but our birthday came so fast that I didn't have time. I had to blow it out for him, but he was clearly still thrilled. That was the little cake that I made for him to dig into. He fed me most of what got eaten, but he ate a little bit of it when we gave him a fork. He was overwhelmed with the fact that I was just letting him have at the cake. You could tell that he knew it was wrong.

Nevertheless, there was cake everywhere. He had to have a bath after and the water was all brown and murky from the chocolate frosting all over his body.

Here is the little man the day after pillaging and plundering the house, while stabbing himself with the sword. (He's learning) To this day, he refuses to take off the mardi gras beads. I take them off when he goes to sleep and takes a bath and he gets mad at me. He has them stashed all over the house so he will walk around, find them, and put them on.

Disneyland was SO fun. We are definitely buying annual passes. You need to register and go on your birthday. It's so worth it. Niko loved it. He was definitely overwhelmed and a little bit over-stimulated but that's what Disneyland is all about. He got a lot of buttons that he tried to take off and I got one too that said it was my birthday so that everytime we passed a "Cast Member" they would say "Happy Birthday Becca" and I would be wondering how they knew my name for a few minutes until I remembered my button said my name.

He insisted that we go on the carousel twice. For some reason that was the big hit of the day. I guess I had fun too...

This is Niko looking over the bridge at the Small World boats. He loved Small World and also insisted that we go on that twice. He was so fascinated with the boats and all the little people and animals. It was the first day (by coincidence) of the Christmas decorations at Disneyland, so Small World was all holiday-ish inside. Haunted Mansion was also decorated with Nightmare before Christmas stuff, which bothers me but the ride was still fun. We definitely didn't take Niko on that one.

Hopefully you made it to the end. And hopefully your box comes soon. I doubt it though...I guess it has a long way to travel. We miss you. Come home soon and do fun things with us. Stop prancing around Europe and making me jealous.

Postmarked 10:19 p.m.

Dear Becca,

We have much to catch up on. I'm glad you enjoyed the presents I sent. I won't even go into what a hellish experience it was mailing those. I'll just say it involved me yelling at a roll of tape in front of lots of nice British people.

I must give you a play-by-play of my whole reading week. I flew into Venice on Saturday. That place is quite cool. There's like canals instead of streets (in case you hadn't heard). We basically just wandered around and got lost a lot. There were lots of nice bridges and gondolas, of course. We were there Sunday too, but the weather was not cooperating so it became a nap day. Somewhere along the way I ate a whole pizza.

Here's me looking cute in front of the Grand Canal:

On Monday, we took a train to Florence. We went to Il Duomo which is basically a big, fancy church. We tried twice to go see David by Michelangelo. The first time we got really lost and when we finally found the museum we realized it's closed on Mondays. The second time we got there and realized it costs 10 euros to get in so we left. They had lots of nice replicas of it in the souvenir shop next door so I'm just saying I saw it. I must also note that we had the best gelato ever at this place called Grom. You should definitely eat all your meals there if you're ever in Florence.

Here's a picture of Il Duomo:

On Tuesday we took a train to Pisa. In case you're wondering what's there, it's the Leaning Tower and literally nothing else. Some Italian people got mad at me cause I took my picture pushing it down instead of holding it up.

On Wednesday we flew to Barcelona. The weather was so nice. My skin is unaccustomed to being exposed to sunshine so it was a treat. We went to the beach that night and just bummed around. On Thursday, we pretty much just walked all around the city. Fun fact: my food for that day consisted of three Dunkin Dounts and a baguette. On Friday, we took a bike tour of the city. Yes, exercise is my greatest fear aside from revolving doors, but it was actually quite fun.

Here's me being all athletic in front of the Arc de Triomf:

By the way I called your phone a few hours ago, but you totally ignored me. Remember, you're supposed to put me on speaker phone during the party. I like to be included.

Postmarked: 10:18 p.m.

Sometimes Niko looks for you out the window...

Postmarked 4:57 p.m.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG! We are obsessed with Paddington. I saw your box on the porch and I got deja vu. I couldn't believe you sent more presents! They are still getting to know each other but Niko gave him a kiss and he came with us to Target and Vroman's. Thank you for sending such cute stuff. We love you and miss you!

PS. I didn't get the note about not opening the box until after I had already opened the box....oops.

PPS. Are the cookies that you sent laxatives? Why are they called "Digestives" I ate the other candy(so delicious, I don't know what it is about those Europeans and hazelnut but they are on to something)...but that one freaked me out.

Postmarked 3:27 p.m.

Dear Amanda,

The bus was the best present ever. Aidan is playing with it right now. Niko loves it, and I'll definitely be stealing it when he's napping. I saw the box on the porch and I debated for about four seconds about whether or not I should save it until our birthday to open it. Clearly we opened it. Might as well make the birthday week start now.

Halloween was pretty lame. We were both sick and he trick-or-treated at our front door but that was it. And he only wore his costume for like 5 minutes before he got grumpy and took it off. Your costume was MUCH cooler than his zebra costume. We didn't even eat any candy. I like those blue leggings. Can you take the oyster off and just wear the leggings all the time? If so, that costume was definitely worth it.

You have exactly a week to make it home in time for the pirate party. You better start walking/swimming. We are going to have Costco pizza. Now I know you will come for sure. I've also been wanting to make a pumpkin pie but clearly that isn't going to be a feat I'm going to take on by myself. I might end up just visiting Marie Callenders.

I missed a whole week of school. I have a Chem test on Monday and I'm not ready so its definitely going to be my drop test. I keep waking up praying that maybe its December and the semester is over. I just want to be done with Chemistryyyyyy!

I hope you are having a good week at school. I'll probably put up another post tomorrow while I'm at work. I just wanted to send some thanks for the birthday stuff! Oh and thanks for wrapping it in swine flu newspaper. That was the best part.

Postmarked 3:05 p.m.

Dear Becca,

I am writing this post because I don't want to be writing my art paper. It's a comparison between paintings from Cézanne and Braque. Just in case you wanted to help out or anything. I really don't appreciate teachers assigning me things to do while I'm on my European vacation. They should know better.

I must update you on my Halloween. And obviously you should do that same. Well on Friday night I didn't plan a real costume so I had to improvise. I'm sure you can attest to my creative genius from the photo below.

On Saturday (real Halloween) I was an Oyster card, which is the London Underground card. Besides having to pay 22 pounds for leggings from American Apparel, I really enjoyed this costume. It was certainly comfortable. I must also complain that it took me like three hours to sew on the letters and ribbon. You know me + art and crafts doesn't usually work out. Here are the fruits of all my labor:

I went to see the play War Horse with my uncle last night because he was visiting London. It was quite a lovely play. They had these really cool puppets that were like life-size horses. Check it out:

Thank god reading week is next week. No classes! I'm traveling for the week and staying in hostels. That is as close to backpacking as I ever want to get. Maybe a little too close. By the way it's like 9 days until the big birthdays. What are you gonna get me?

Postmarked: 1:46 p.m.

Dear Amanda,

This picture doesn't need words.

Postmarked 10:04 p.m.

Dear Becca,

So I finally made it out of London. I went on an excursion to España this weekend. We flew into Madrid on Friday morning. I had to wake up at 5 a.m. which as you know causes me to be extra mean. I may have some airport workers to apologize to. Our hotel was in a really good location near Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol. It even came with an abundance of toilet paper which may have come home with me. I don't even want to go into how horrible life is when I'm too cheap to buy toilet paper.

Anyway here's a picture of me in front of something important looking (perhaps Banco de España?):

On Saturday we went to some palace. Well, we saw the outside. We were too cheap to pay to get in. We also went to Museo del Prado which is the big art museum in Madrid. Lots of Velázquez and Picasso. Anyway the most important part of the day was the paella, which is depicted below.

It was super delicious. We definitely ate the whole thing, even though my body doesn't function quite as well when it's composed of 90% rice.

On Sunday, we went to the airport like eight hours early cause our hotel kicked us out and we were too lazy to wander around carrying our bags. I am not a mule. Well, that concludes my holiday in Spain. You still need to tell me what I should be for Halloween.

Postmarked: 1:13 a.m.

Dear Amanda,

Don't get too upset but we may have had a picnic at Eddie Park today.

Postmarked 2:14 p.m.

Dear Amanda,

I took the pacifier away. He's been screaming for a long time. I hope I can be strong.

Postmarked 12:33 p.m.

Dear Becca,

I'm glad you got to go to a pumpkin patch because I sure didn't. They just don't appreciate Halloween here. Millions of Milkshakes was pretty delicious although you might as well just drink Ben and Jerry's through a straw. Now I've made myself hungry again. I haven't been getting my daily recommended intake of ice cream here.

I can't even comment on Jon and Kate anymore. I shall adopt the children and start "Amanda plus 8 plus someone who will take care of the children for me." You can be that someone if you want.

I'm sure the Holy Family Fair was dreamy. You definitely should've taken some tickets. Monsignor doesn't need another new car.

And now for the moment we've all been waiting for:

Hogwarts was all right. I expected the classes to be a bit more lively but whatever.

I went on a trip with BC this weekend. We went to Hastings and Rye. Rye was this cute small town with really old houses. Apparently Stella McCartney lives there. Hastings was another cute town by the beach. It was so weird to see the beach since I've been sun deprived for so long. We happened to be there when the town was having a big celebration. There was this really strange parade with people dressed as pirates banging drums. Everyone was carrying torches or pulling barrels of fire. Awesome basically.

Then they had this enormous bonfire. It was nice since I was freezing. I think it's my curse in life to never dress appropriately for the weather. They also had a really excellent fireworks show. Like even better than South Pas High School which I know seems impossible.

Here's a pic of the bonfire.

I just saw your post about Niko's pacifier. Tell that child he needs to behave. He just has no discipline without me around.

Postmarked: 8:52 p.m.

Dear Amanda,

You missed some fun at the Pumpkin Patch in West Hollywood. It was a really fun place and I got lots of cute pictures. Apparently tons of celebrities go there. As we were leaving there were a ton of paparazzi taking pictures of Phoebe Price (a really un-famous person).

We also passed Millions of Milkshakes and I REALLY wanted to get a milkshake but there was so much traffic. They have a Jon Gosselin shake now. I wouldn't get it just to spite him though. There won't be any more Jon and Kate Plus 8. And TLC is suing Jon for breach of contract. What is wrong with the world.


Niko has a new carseat now and he looks really big in it. He can face forward now and it thrills him to sit like that.



The Holy Family Fair was last weekend and of course it was very uneventful. The food was pretty good and I really wished I had taken some tickets from your house. You had SO many. I could have had so many canolis.

It's almost Halloween. Are you going to dress up? I love your pictures of Notting Hill. I watched that movie the other day and it was so good. I still don't really know the time change between us but we need to videochat soon. We forget what you look like and you definitely won't recognize Niko. He's a little bit mean now and he's kind of a bully. He's really cute though so he gets away with everything. I hope you are coming home for our birthday. I'm going to make some really yummy cakes.