P.S.

I forgot to give the details that everyone seems to want to know! Jackson was 7 pounds, 10 ounces and was 21 inches long. And, no, he was definitely not named after Michael Jackson.

Baby Cooper is Here!

Jackson Thomas Cooper has arrived! He was born at 1:33 a.m. on Friday, July 3. We checked into the hospital on Wednesday at around 2:30 p.m., and late Thursday the doctor decided to perform a Cesarean section. So, it was quite a long birth, but it was worth the wait.

We are all at home now, along with my parents. Today is my dad's birthday, and I think he's just thrilled to have a third happy healthy grandson to add to the family!

We are excited to introduce you to Jackson, just as soon as we are all recovered.

Living in Aviano?

Our friend, Dani, sent us an excellent link to a blog for the Geilenkirchen area - livingingk.blogspot.com. It has such a great wealth of information! I only wish that someone would do something similar for the Aviano area. This really would help people.

I would totally write one, except that we are moving soon. So, someone who will be here for the next couple of years should consider doing it!

Welcome, Baby George!

My newest little nephew, George, was born early Monday morning! My sister went into labor on their wedding anniversary, about a month earlier than the due date. Everyone is doing well, and I can't wait to see the newest baby!

My baby boy is still about a couple weeks away from his due date. Unlike his cousin, he appears content on staying with Mom for a bit.

This weekend, we were honored with a beautiful baby shower thrown by some good friends here. It was a tea party-themed shower (don't worry, plenty of masculine blue accents), and my friends did an amazing job putting it together. We had a lot of great people there, and were spoiled beyond belief with way too many presents.

Thanks, girls, for the fun day!

Busy, Busy!

We have actually been pretty busy lately! Today is the last day of Chris' reintegration break before he heads back to work, and we've really tried to take advantage of the time.

On May 31, we celebrated Cantine Aperte with some friends from the squadron. Cantine Aperte is a day where most of the wineries in the Friuli region open their doors for wine tasting. I was Chris' designated driver, and we traveled around sampling wines. Our group started with a nice lunch in San Daniele (famous for its prosciutto), and then we hit Bulfon, which we agreed was our favorite stop of the day.

In total, we stopped at three wineries, and Chris bought 54 bottles of wine to add to our collection! The nice lady at Bulfon even gave me a free bottle of their delicious Moscato Roso, just for being enormous and pregnant, and clearly a good sport.

Chris and I spent the following night at CastelBrando, which is a gorgeous clifftop castle near Vittorio Veneto. Just for fun and to say we spent the night at the castle. The next day, we hit up some prosecco wineries (since we were in the prosecco region), and had a lovely lunch in beautiful Vittorio Veneto at a great find - Leon D'Oro. I had only a plate of pasta for lunch (Italians typically have more than one course for a meal), and for this, the woman serving us kept making reference to the fact that I was not eating enough, and NEEDED to have dessert. This kind of remark only makes you fast friends with me.

We rounded out last week with a nice day at the Caorle beach, which is only an hour away. I love this beach. It's clean and gorgeous, not too crowded (especially the day we went), and you get your pick of nice chairs with umbrellas for free.

It's been a nice break to have Chris around so much over the past couple of weeks. Now, it's back to work and waiting for the baby to arrive! It can happen any time now. I'm 36 weeks, and ready to go!

Slovenia

We had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend in Slovenia. On Friday, after Chris was done with his reintegration stuff, we drove to Ljubljana, the capital city. We checked into Hotel Lev, which is supposedly the nicest hotel in the city. Being Americans, the two biggest items on our agenda were to find the Mexican restaurant downtown, and to go see the movie Wolverine in English.

Check, and check!

The Mexican restaurant, Cantina Messicana, was excellent in our opinions. It is just nice sometimes to have non-Italian food. And, we did get to go see Wolverine in English with Slovenian subtitles the next day at the BTC City kino. Awesome!

We also did typical touristy stuff and just walked around and shopped in beautiful downtown Ljubljana. We even found a great wine bar called Movia that stocked great Slovenian wines (according to Chris). He had fun tasting and shopping.

On Saturday, we drove to Lake Bled. This was my fifth time visiting Lake Bled, and it never disappoints. The food there is always spectacular, so we hit up our favorite places all weekend, and even made it up to the castle, which is a favorite destination at Bled. I have gotten huge and slow lately, so I gave myself a pat on the back for all the walking and climbing I did at almost nine months pregnant (admittedly with lots of breaks in between).

We spent lots of valuable time in the Hotel Golf pool (which is Heaven for pregnant women), and Chris treated me to a pregnancy massage.

So, all in all, it was an excellent relaxing weekend in Slovenia! My only complaint is that our hotel in Bled (Hotel Savica) did not have air conditioning. Whenever we opened the windows, the cigarette smoke from other visitors would invade our space. So, it was kind of miserable whenever we were in the room. But, lessons learned for staying there in the heat.

He's Back!

Ah, the sweet familiarity of Chris coming back from deployment - it's happened again! I'm glad to say that Chris got home safely on Wednesday from Qatar, and is settling back in at home. Except for the pesky reintegration stuff at work. But, he got to feel the baby moving around and eat chicken enchiladas, so he's a happy guy. We're going to go see Star Trek tonight, and then head out for Slovenia for the weekend. I'm excited to have my husband back home!