Kiev, Ukraine

Here is a taste of Kiev...

                      1/8th of the Kiev Skyline with the Rainbow of Friendship to the left.

Notice the broom... It is literally a pole with sticks tied to it... She works for the city and is cleaning a park with that thing!

St. Sophia's Cathedral. Kiev is filled with old Orthodox churches.

One of the most popular streets of Kiev. It is located next to Independent Square and is blocked off from traffic during the weekend.

Here are a few picture of Kiev.

Sveged, Hungary

I traveled to Sveged on Monday and Tuesday to shoot a My World. Marton is a world champion single knee canoer and he trains and lives in Sveged, which is about 2 hours southeast of Budapest. It is only 20 km from the Serbia border. It is one of Hungary's oldest cities and boast to have the world's great salami. If you ever are in a duty-free airport and you see Pick's Salami, it was made in Sveged. I have  not had the pleasure of trying it! We shot at the National Canoeing  center, which hosted the world championships a few years ago. I guess they have 40,000 people attending. Canoeing is a very popular sport in Hungary. Marton is one of the best. He is huge!!! He doesnt look too big in person, but once he is in uniform and on the water, he looks like a beast! 

My all-male Hungarian crew was absolutely wonderful!!! I loved being around them. They spoke a decent amount of English, though technica

l tv talk was a bit hard to translate. I really hope that the shoot turned out well! i am excited to see the footage.

Here is a few pictures of Svegad.

City center

The city center.

             Marton in the water and my Hungarian crew in a motor boat trying to catch up!

                         My wonderful Hungarian crew and Marton. It was VERY cold that day.

Budapest!

I made it to Budapest! It is a beautiful, beautiful city. When i arrived at 7am, it was really cold and rainy. I was able to sleep for a few hours at the hotel before we headed out into the city to explore, have a late lunch and shop. We lasted until 9pm and i am ready to collapse! I will try to go into more details tomorrow. We will be going to the Hungarian church tomorrow for Easter. The service is supposed to last from 10:30-3pm! It should be an experience!

Here are a few pictures from the day.

The view from my room. This is Pest.

Hungarian Parlament

The Palace and the Danube River

Leaving on a jet plane...

Tomorrow morning i will be boarding a plane, well a few planes actually, headed to Budapest, Hungary. I have a nice 9 hour flight from JKF (NYC) to Budapest. I will be shooting a "My World" story about an Olympic Rower and than on Wednesday I will be headed to Kiev, Ukraine to shoot 3 more stories. I am pretty excited, but i have a TON to do before i can board that plane!
I will try to do some updates while i am there and try to post a few pictures. If you think about it, please pray for my trip, my safety and the baby. My doctor has approved this trip, but it would be nice to have a few extra prayers for Jack.
And now i need to pack....

I am missing ....

my belly button. It seems to have completely disappeared. I once had a nice deep pierced navel. i liked it. There was nothing wrong with my belly button. It wasn't odd shaped or too "in" and not at all an "outie". It just was. And now, it is gone. I fear that in no time it will be forced out from the growth of my large baby belly. My once nice cute navel has slowing begun to fill and slowly disappear. I am looking forward to the day when my navel (and my body for that matter) are back to it's original shape and size. Sigh. Oh the joys of pregnancy.

A kick in the face

Ryan LOVES to feel Jack move. If he can feel him kick, he gets really excited. He is always asking me if he is moving around at all. Well, Saturday night he and Jaymen were joking around about Jack kicking his dad. Jack was moving around quite a bit at that time, and Ryan was able to feel a few kicks. Ryan than laid his head on my belly and was talking to Jack, telling him to give his dad a good kick in the face. I wasn't sure if Ryan would be able to feel anything. Jack is only pound and half or so right now. But the more Ryan kept talking to him, the more he moved around. Pretty soon, Ryan got a nice strong kick to the chin! He loved it! He was playing with Jack and he got a kick to the face.... It must be a boy thing. Ryan and Jaymen laughed and laughed about it.

Springtime!

It is absolutely GORGEOUS out today. Perfect weather. It is in the low 70's with a nice fresh breeze and not a cloud in the sky. It makes me appreciate Virginia's weather. It snowed today in Michigan, and will continue to snow all week! There are robins all over the place here and the trees are starting to bud and flower. Springtime is on it's way!

We have a visitor with us for a month. Our nephew Jaymen is staying with us and hanging out with Oscar. Right now, he is helping my boss move and hopes to find some other odd jobs while he is here. So far, we haven't been able to do too many exciting thing with him, but i think he is enjoying doing nothing for a bit.

I am now 22 weeks and i seem to be growing upwards! I feel like i am carrying really high. They say that boys carry high, so this must be normal. I am going to be traveling a lot in the next 2 months and hope that my stamina will continue till the end of April. I am looking at a trip to Budapest and Kiev the end of March. April will have GMA week and the Dove awards in Nashville and a bridal shower for my sister in Michigan. I am pretty much packing as much travel in before i get to large to fly and before i have this baby!