21 weeks

Here is a picture of the 20 week scan ... its neat to see the baby's spine, ribcage, the bones in her leg, arm and hand ... and you can see a little bit of umbilical cord in the top picture coming out of her tummy. Kinda looks like something else ... but its not that at all ; ) In the bottom picture, it looks almost like she is looking out at us and you can see her facial features fairly well. This is an amazing technology that we are very thankful for!


And, so you can see my progress ... a belly pic of me at 21 weeks. I am past the halfway mark now - hard to believe, but exciting too. (My eyebrows are raised because I was laughing and making fun of Peter for taking about 3 minutes to finally take the picture!)



Team PM & tadpole

ETPS Graduation dinner

Thursday night was the McKenna dinner at the Officers Mess - this is the official ETPS grad dinner. It was a very formal mess dinner, complete with a head table of many high ranking officials including three Generals. Also in attendance was the Canadian air attache who came from the Canadian High Commission in London just in honor of Peter - the only Canadian military member on the course. After dinner we spoke with him - nicest guy ever - he even offered us use of his 4 bedroom flat in London whenever we wanted! So, I think we'll be taking him up on that offer when we visit London in early January before coming home.

The dinner was full of speeches ... most of them irrelevant to me because I didn't understand the jokes : ) Also, the course representative, one of Peter's classmates and good friends from the course, gave a speech in honor of the graduates. They also had an official grad procession where each of the 19 graduating students (6 Fixed Wing Pilots, 8 Rotary Wing Pilots & 5 Flight Test Engineers) went forward to receive their certificates. It was a very proud moment for all the exhausted students and their wives/partners. There were some awards given out as well, including the McKenna trophy for the best fixed wing test pilot, it was given to Peter's good friend Bruce ... and here we are after a semi-drunk Bruce insisted he put it on our heads ... um, okay.



After dinner everyone headed to the bar ... of course ... Peter drove me home at 2 am because I was exhausted. He went back for a while to hang out with all his classmates since it would be their last night together. He stuck around until everyone was too drunk to carry on a normal conversation ... then he came home.

Since Thursday Fletch & I have had our Peter back! Peter now gets to enjoy over a month off work, he reports to his new posting in Cold Lake on January 22nd. In the meantime, we have some travelling to do in the UK .. then the move to Cold Lake and settling into our new house. It should be a good month and a bit : )

Team PM & tadpole

Its a ...

GIRL!!! We had our 20 week ultrasound today and found out that we are likely expecting a baby girl! They can't tell you for sure, but what we saw sure looked female : ) This scan was a lot different than the first one - the baby was taking up alot more space, and she was moving around all over the place! She was actually sort of standing on her head at first, and it was really hard for the sonographer to get a good picture of her. But, she gradually moved around a bit and we were able to clearly see her heart beating (all 4 chambers), her spine (perfectly straight), some of the umbilical cord, her ribcage, her lips (no cleft palette indications), her face, hands and arms waving around, her little feet - it was amazing. And, the very best part was to know that she is growing and developing normally - a relief to know that all is well for her. We are still coming to terms with saying 'she' and 'her', I think my gut instinct was that it was going to be a boy ... but we couldn't be happier knowing that we have a little girl in there : ) It really is wonderful news! We went straight out to BabyGap after the ultrasound to buy a little dress - the first clothing purchase I've made since becoming pregnant ... it was fun watching Peter look at baby girls' clothes : ) We can't wait to meet her!



Team PM

He's almost done!

By the time most of you read this, Peter will be officially finished his course at ETPS! His final presentation is today at 11 am. It is supposed to be a half hour long, and then there is a half hour question period, so by 12 Peter & his two teammates will be celebrating in the mess to be sure! In attendance at his presentation will be all of the ETPS tutors, a representative from both the Canadian High Commission in London and from Epner in France where they conducted their testing on the Mirage. These guys have all been through ETPS and they know their stuff inside out ... so the intention is to impress and ensure that they are able to present their information well and be able to answer any question that comes their way. They have to present 67 slides in 30 minutes!! And there are another 100 or so slides with information/answers to possible questions that could come up. The amount of work they have put in to this is just mind boggling to me, and I am very proud of him : )

I took a photo of him this morning as he was leaving ... all dressed up in his dress uniform.


Last week he and his teammates worked for more than 24 hours straight to complete their 300 page report ... this is what he looked like when he got home at 10:30 on Monday morning. He was exhausted, his eyes were bloodshot, and frankly, he was a little stinky ... but he was smiling! That report was the most extensive of all the projects he's worked on while at ETPS, and when it was completed a huge weight came off!


We'll keep you posted on how the presentation went. I can't wait to have my normal husband back once all this work is done, rather than distracted, too busy for everything workaholic Peter! I can tell you who will be doing the dishes for a few days - I am so sick of washing dishes (I am spoiled and very used to having a dishwasher) ... normally he helps me with the dishes, but has just been too busy for anything but work, work, work. What a nice change it will be for both of us after today ; )

Team PM & tadpole

p.s. 6 days until our ultrasound!

*Change of web address for blog*

Hi all -

In anticipation of our move back to Canada we are going to be changing the web address associated with our blog ... this means that you will have to update your bookmarks, favorites or however you keep track of these sorts of things. Its going to be changed to www.teampm.blogspot.com - we're just taking out the 'uk' part since we won't be living here anymore!

To make sure everyone has time to read this, we won't be changing it until Dec. 15 and I'll post another annoucement before then as a reminder. Afterall, we don't want anyone to miss out on the fun and entertainment to be had by reading our blog :)

Team PM

Christmas is coming!

Tonight, Peter & I went to Salisbury Cathedral for the Advent Procession service entitled 'From Darkness to Light'. Being the Protestants that we are, we really had no idea what to expect, we just wanted to hear the choir sing, though I realized part way through that it is probably an annual tradition for many Catholics to attend advent services. We got there about 20 minutes before it started, thinking there wouldn't be very many people there ... we were SO wrong! The place was packed and they were getting ready to turn people away ... we were the second last group of people to get in, and we ended up having to sit at the very back on some cement half walls. That being said, there really wasn't much to see ... and we could hear perfectly from where we were sitting because the sound travels so well. It started out pitch black in the entire church .. and then the singing started, which was a little eerie - but very cool too. Then slowly the choir procession came in and lit candles throughout the whole place, singing as they went ... it was such an ambient atmosphere. There were readings and choir songs and two songs that the congregation participated in - 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel' & another hymn that was not named in the program.

Afterwards we thought it would be nice to stop in a cafe for hot chocolate or something ... but of course, leave it to jolly 'ole England to not have a single cafe or coffee shop opened at 8:00 on a Saturday night! Just one of the things we miss about Canada ... but the town centre was quite pretty with all its Christmas decorations and lights, and a big lit Christmas tree in the market square. We could also hear the church bells ringing from St. Thomas' church, Peter said 'wow, this reminds me that I'm in England for sure!' It was a nice night ... we came home and made hot chocolate here instead :)

Team PM & tadpole