It's a.......

GIRL!!

We found out a little more than a week ago that we are having a little girl. It's really starting to seem real now that we know what's growing inside my belly. I have always grown up thinking I wanted to be a mom to 2 boys. And, all of the pregnancy "myths" were saying that this one was a boy. So, when the ultrasound tech told me it was a girl, I had to take a moment to absorb that. I certainly didn't have my heart set on a boy (and actually was surprised how impartial I was throughout those first 19wks) but I definitely needed a moment when she said "it's a girl." I looked over at Rian and was hoping he'd be smiling. He was. I shed one small tear down my cheek and then thought to myself, "we're having a baby girl!" I am so excited about having a daughter and hope and pray that we have the kind of relationship that my mom and I do. Dollhouses, Barbie's, baking cookies, etc. It's going to be a fun ride and I can't wait to see Rian interact with his little girl. We've got 2 friends who are both expecting boys and he's already told them their sons better "mind his manners around my daughter." Wow, we're going to have a daughter...I wasn't sure this moment would ever come...

Our changing lives...

Here's a little update on what's been going on with the Lindell's...



We're expecting a baby! I'm currently 15 wks, due May 9th. It has been an interesting last few months. After years of infertility, I decided to try acupuncture as one last ditch effort to see if there was any hope for us to get pregnant. I was told by the doctor that my abdomen "was too cold and needed to be warmed up. It "was not receptive to pregnancy" and they needed "2-3 months to warm it up." That news actually made me hopeful. If they could tell right away that something was wrong, that was more info than we've gotten in the past 7 years from infertility specialists. Fast forward 3 months and I was pregnant! My period started right on time but then seemed to stop. After 3 or 4 days, I started thinking "what if??" I took a home test and it was positive! That is the first time that has happened in 7 years! I was skeptical, of course, and we had to wait several days to get bloodwork done as it was Labor Day weekend (I must have taken 5 home tests while waiting) before it was confirmed by the doctor. Once I was 8 wks along, we got an ultrasound to see if there was a heartbeat before we shared our news with our family. It was so amazing to see that little peanut on the screen and see the little flash of the heartbeat. Definitely worth the wait!



As exciting as it was, I will not miss those first 3 months. I was nauseous all day every day. Eating made my stomach feel better but nothing looked or tasted good. I had a lot of cereal and milk. I was actually angry at times that I had to eat so frequently. It was almost torture. I would've thought because we'd waited so long for this that I would've embraced whatever came my way. Well, that is very difficult to do when it's a struggle to even get a shower in every day! ha ha Thankfully, I don't work full time and was able to crawl up in bed whenever I needed. I hardly left the house for weeks! Rian was real sweet and patient with me as he had to fend for himself a lot.

I am now feeling really good (after suffering a nasty case of the flu a couple weeks ago) and really enjoying the pregnancy. I had to break down and buy maternity jeans the other day as I can't get any of my other jeans to button. It's time to make the move into clothes that fit and make me feel good. Right now I'm in the "is she gaining weight??" phase and looking forward to the obvious baby bump. The good news is I know I'm pregnant and am not having any problems with my changing shape. I'll worry about it once the baby is here and healthy.

Our first trimester screening looked great so I can relax and enjoy this ride. We weren't able to see what the sex is at the last ultrasound as the baby was sitting on it's head and had a mess of umbilical cord between it's legs hiding it's parts. So, we'll have to wait until mid-Dec to find out what we're having. I don't have a real opinion on what I want as I know either one will be great. I'm sure Rian would love a boy because of his love of sports but I would love to see him with a little girl. Watching him have tea parties and playing "princess" with his daughter would be priceless.

Stay tuned...

Our red carpet glory!

What an amazing time we had at the "Public Enemies" premiere!! Here we are in all of our red carpet glory...



We flew into LA on Monday night and decided to walk over to the theatre where the premiere was so we knew where we would be going on Tues night. Lo and behold, the "Transformers" premiere was going on! Very cool! We got there kind of late so all of the stars had already arrived and were on the red carpet doing their interviews. It was hard to see from where we were standing but Michael Bay (the director) was right in front of us signing autographs.




We milled around long enough to watch Shia LeBouf and Josh Duhamel walk into the theatre. Cool!

Spent Tues afternoon in Beverly Hills/Robertson Blvd doing some shopping. Well, mostly window shopping but I did do some damage at the Seven for All Mankind store...Score! Then, back to the hotel to get glammed up for the premiere. We picked up our tickets at will call about 6:30p and then proceeded to try to go incognito on the red carpet so we could watch all the stars arrive. Well, our "incognito" spot we chose ended up being the start of the red carpet so we quickly got booted after some stars started showing up. Oops! Funny thing was, we got asked about 3 times if we were walking the red carpet so I guess we looked like we at least belonged there! Saw Giovanni Ribisi (Phoebe's brother from "Friends") on the red carpet along with Shawn Hatosy (the jock from "The Faculty"). Then, Christian Bale arrived and we were quickly shooed into the theatre as things got quite busy. He ran across the street to sign autographs for the fans. Once in the theatre, we took our seats and waited. A 7:30 start time really means 8:30 I guess in Hollywood! Right before the show started, Michael Mann (the director) came up onstage with Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard and Christian Bale to introduce the movie. I was so glad Johnny was up there since we didn't get to see him outside.

The movie was awesome! Johnny is super sexy in it (but, what did I really expect...he cleans up REAL nice!) and it was very entertaining. After the show, we hung around in the lobby area for a bit to see who came out. Saw Vince Vaughn standing around, Leelee Sobiesky, Stephen Dorff, Giovanni again, and Peter Fonda. Here is my "sasquatch-like" photo of Christian Bale and Peter Fonda. Oops! New camera! Flash was turned off...dang!



That was it for my celeb photos. I certainly wasn't going to be the ONE weirdo around that kept taking pics. So, all of my celeb shots are saved inside my head.

We hopped on a shuttle bus for the quick trip to the after party at the Hammer Museum. It was a cool place for a party. The whole inside of the building was an open air courtyard. There were tables set up all over the place along with heated gas lamps and a bunch of bars with different drinks. We made our way to the bathroom then got a drink and stood around to peruse the room for stars. Saw the same people as before mostly sitting with their friends and family. Rosario Dawson walked by, skinny as a rail! Christian Bale made his way through the crowd with his wife. Gave me a nod and a smile as he passed. I felt like a kid in a candy store, trying not to have a huge grin on my face. It really was neat feeling like we fit in with this crowd.

We met up with Tina (the gal I had been in contact with to get all the info for the premiere) and her friend, Marc. We visited with them for awhile. Really nice people. She told me "Bruno" was premiering on Thurs at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and if we were around, to come by will call and say hi. We made our way back to the hotel about 1:30a and of course, I had had a bit too much wine...needless to say, I was feeling under the weather on Wed. But, we had such a great night, I didn't mind!





Now...what movies will be premiering next summer that we can attend??? I'm hooked!

Fun times ahead!

It's been awhile since I've last posted so I decided to sit down this morning and write a little update. I'm writing from my new teeny little, bright red, Dell Netbook. How cute it is! And, it will be perfect for travel...Anyway, Rian and I are starting to get ready for our trip home. It's time for our annual "trek out West" to visit all of our family before returning to Western NY for another NFL season. But, this year, we've got a bit of excitement...We get to go to a movie premiere in LA!! We purchased an auction item at the Make-a-Wish gala in April where we will get to walk the red carpet, watch the movie premiere with the cast/crew AND attend the cast/crew after party!!! We chose "Public Enemies" with Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard (who won Best Actress in 2008), Billy Crudup and Leelee Sobieski. I am SOOOOO excited! This will be a once in a lifetime experience. We will be able to spend almost a week in LA so will have time to enjoy the area as well as take in the movie premiere. I found a cute dress on www.weartodaygonetomorrow.com, which is a website that you can rent designer dresses. I saw their ad in People magazine a couple months ago and once we got confirmation of the premiere, I ordered 3 and thankfully, one of them worked. I'm not naive enough to think I will fit in at this event but my goal is to not stick out like a sore thumb...ha ha. You never know, I may just be walking by in the background of a photo in US Weekly!

I will hopefully have some great stories (and a few photos) to tell when this is over. I'm sure it will be a night to remember...

I'm the Oscar champ!

I handily beat Rian in this year's Oscar race. I got 18 correct to his 13. I ended up changing a couple of my "blogged" picks when filling out my official ballot. Here are the ones I picked correctly:

Best Picture--"Slumdog Millionaire"
Best Actor--Sean Penn "Milk"
Best Actress--Kate Winslet "The Reader"
Supporting Actor--Heath Ledgeer "The Dark Knight"
Supporting Actress--Penelope Cruz "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Director--Danny Boyle "Slumdog Millionaire"
Animated Feature--"Wall-E"
Best Score--"Slumdog Millionaire"
Film Editing--"Slumdog Millionaire"
Sound Editing--"The Dark Knight"
Visual Effects--"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Documentary Feature--"Man on Wire"
Cinematography--"Slumdog Millionaire"
Costume Design--"The Duchess"
Art Direction--"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Short Film Animated--"La Maison En Petits Cubes" **ok, so that was a total guess*
Adapted Screenplay--"Slumdog Millionaire"
Original Screenplay--"Milk"

Ok, so there it is. I did great this year! I had a pretty "educated" guess on most of the categories and it paid off. Although, I did find it funny that the winner for sound editing wasn't the winner for sound mixing. From what I understand, those kind of go hand in hand. "Slumdog Millionaire" took home every Oscar it was nominated for except sound editing...wonder how that guy's feeling??

I really enjoyed this year's Oscar format for the most part. I liked the different sets and how they seemed to give the awards out in a somewhat orderly fashion (screenplay, costume, makeup, etc). Also, the way they presented the screenplays was cool! It was fun to see the typed words on the screen as the actors followed the directions and lines. The past winners coming out and saying a little piece about each nominee made it feel more personal. It's easy to forget that these actors are people too. I guess the only thing I would change is to bring back the performance of the nominated songs. I had read a couple weeks ago that Peter Gabriel wasn't going to perform his song because he was upset about the editing down of the 3 nominated songs into one medley. I don't blame him! Why did we need the other singing dancing numbers when the nominated songs were just all blobbed in together? There were only 3 songs! I can see how that would be upsetting to the artist if you are expecting him to smile and say "sure, I'll smash my Oscar nominated song into 60 seconds." So, come on Academy, I want the songs performed in full next year!

I guess that's about it for this year's Oscars. Oh, wait, I'd better give my opinion on best/worst dressed...

Best Dressed--This year, I was a big fan of the white/beaded dresses. Penelope Cruz, Jennifer Aniston and Anne Hathaway's were my favorites. Inside joke with my friend Amber, "it's really sparkly!" Sean Penn took home my award for best dressed man. Loved the black on black.

Worst Dressed--I did not like Amy Adams' red dress and huge necklace nor did I like Beyonce's black and gold atrocity. So, it was a tie. For men, I don't really have one. Mickey Rourke definitely went outside of the box but I liked his look. What I don't like are the basic, boring black bow-tie tuxes. And, there seemed to be a fair share of them this year...

Oscars, Oscars, Oscars!!!!

It's Oscar time again and I wanted to officially post my picks. Rian and I did a great job this year in seeing the nominated films. We had a ton of them seen before the Golden Globes so that gave us a good head start for the Oscars. Other than the documentaries, short films and foreign language films, we saw everything except "Australia", "Happy-Go-Lucky" and "Defiance." We had the opportunity to see "Defiance" on Thursday but I hurt my back on Wed night and have been laid up ever since. I am writing this while lying on the couch with the laptop in my lap. I tell you what, you never really realize how much your back does until you hurt it. I have hardly been able to move for 3 days. It's really getting annoying since 800mg of Ibuprofen and a low-dose steroid has yet to cause me a moment of relief. And, we are scheduled on a flight out of Buffalo at 8:25am on Mon heading to Grand Cayman. I am NOT looking forward to that flight. I took a short car ride today and feel like I've taken 2 steps back. Oh well, I will suffer through the plane ride in order to begin my 5 weeks in Cayman. I suppose the diving, however, will have to be postponed until I'm feeling better. Anyway, I digress. Here are my picks for this year's Oscars:

Best Picture--
"Slumdog Millionaire" will take this one. I really enjoyed all of the nominated movies but this one will win. It is the golden child of this year's award season and the Oscar will be it's final prize.

Best Actor--
Sean Penn for "Milk" He did an amazing job portraying Harvey Milk and it was a movie with a powerful mesage. The Oscar people love those movies. Of course, they love a good comeback as well so I really won't be surprised if Mickey Rourke walks away with the award. But, my pick goes to Sean Penn.

Best Actress--
This one is a toughy for me to pick a clear winner. So, for the sake of who I think will win, I'm going with Meryl Streep for "Doubt." However, I'm not sure she deserves the award in my opinion. I honestly think that all of the nominees were standouts in their own way but I would like to see Kate Winslet take home the Oscar.

Supporting Actor--
Heath Ledger will take this one, hands down. Once again, I feel all the actors in this category gave enjoyable performances (although, Robert Downey Jr for "Tropic Thunder"??? Seems like a stray from the usual "Oscar movies"). Michael Shannon in "Revolutionary Road" almost made the movie but the Oscar will go to Heath Ledger.

Supporting Actress--
All good performances but I'm going to vote here for who I THINK should win. Taraji P. Henson absolutely deserves the Oscar in my opinion. I will say, however, I have absolutely no idea if she will indeed take home the award.

Animated Film--
"Wall-E"

Best Director--
"Slumdog Millionaire" As I said before, this is the golden child this year and should win this award easily.

Adapted Screenplay--
"Slumdog Millionaire" You can't have a movie with as much buzz as this if it didn't have a great screenplay to begin with.

Original Screenplay--
"Milk" I had tears in my eyes more than once during this film and tears running down my face at the end. I feel that it deserves the Oscar. The writer/s on this film did an incredible job telling the story of Harvey Milk.


The next several categories I really don't know much about what they are looking for but Rian and I still make our picks...just for the competition. So, I really can't claim much expertise in these categories:

Art Direction--
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

Cinematography--
"Slumdog Millionaire"

Costume Design--
"The Duchess"

Film Editing--
"Slumdog Millionaire"

Makeup--
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

Original Score--
"Slumdog Millionaire"

Original Song--
I only know that it will be one of the 2 nominated for "Slumdog Millionaire." I know, I know, that is a cop out but I need to hear them before I make an educated guess and right now, I can't remember either one.

Sound Editing--
"The Dark Knight" From what I read on Wikipedia and understand about this category, it's the selection and assemblage of the sound recordings in preparation of the final sound mixing. So, I would assume "The Dark Knight" will take this one due to the difficulty of all the action sequences. But, that's a total guess.

Sound Mixing--
"The Dark Knight" This is the mixing of speech, ambience, sound effects and music so I feel this one will win this award as well if it's the final product of Sound Editing. Again, a total guess.

Visual Effects--
"The Dark Knight"

Well, that's it for me. I'm not making any predictions for Documentaries, Short Films or Foreign Language Film since I have not seen them. Any picks I make in these categories would be blind. And, that's not even worth it.

So, tomorrow is the big day! I need to pack for our trip as carefully as I can as to not irritate my back any further and then will send Rian off to the kennel with the dogs while I settle in and watch the Red Carpet arrivals with my friend, Gina. 8:30pm and it will be "Ladies and Gentleman, please take your seats. The show is ready to begin." Yay!

Product plug

I'm a bit of a gadget girl so when my sister told me about the Amazon Kindle she saw on Oprah, I had to check it out. I was a little skeptical about an electronic book (since I LOVE to buy actual books at the bookstore) but was very intrigued by the convenience of having so many books on one device. That evening, I went to work and found out one of the Neonatologists had one with him. Long story short, I thought it looked awesome! So, I ordered myself one "from Santa" and got it beginning of Dec. I immediately loaded it up with books and have never looked back. It is very cool and never again will I travel to far away places with 15 lbs of books in my suitcase. Here I am enjoying my Kindle on Orient Beach in St Martin...



The clarity is incredible and there are 5 font sizes so you can have the type just the way you want it. It isn't backlit however, so reading at night still requires a book light. There are a ton of books available at the Amazon Kindle store and so far I've not found one that I wanted that wasn't available on my Kindle. It works wirelessly, but like a cell phone signal so you don't have to be near wifi. You add the books on the website and *poof* it sends it to your Kindle. You can also subscribe to newspapers, magazines, and blogs. The only thing I need to figure out is how to add them when I'm out of wireless range (ie. out of the country). It comes with a USB cord but instead of a plug and play feature, you need to download the book to your computer and transfer it to the Kindle. My computer wasn't cooperating in St Martin so I will have to figure that out before we take our next trip. However, the Kindle holds numerous books so I can put them on before we go and not run the risk of finishing them all. I just find that sometimes I'm really enjoying a particular author and want to add more books from him/her. I'm sure I will figure it out once I sit down and read the instruction book. Once you purchase a book on your Amazon account, you always have it. When you finish it on the Kindle, you transfer it back to your account and there is room on the Kindle to add another book. The battery life is extremely long so I haven't had any problems with that running out. One downfall is obviously it's an electronic device so you can't use it on take-off or landing on your flight. But, that's a small price to pay when I can travel with one small device and have several books at my fingertips...I'm hooked!

St Martin

For the second year in a row, we've taken a trip to St Martin with our good friends, Brian & Amber. And, for the second year in a row, we had a great time. Lots of sun and sand and alcoholic beverages. We decided to try a new resort this year so we stayed at L'Hoste Hotel on Orient Beach. Orient Beach is on the French side of the island so feels even more "international" than the Dutch side (which is where Rian and I stayed on our first trip to the island in 2005). Orient Beach is very interesting...you sometimes see things that you later wish you hadn't, considering the nudist resort at one end of the beach. The beach is very fun and active during the day, filled with people. About 5pm, most everything shuts down. And, I mean shuts down. The bars on the beach close and board up. They put the chairs away and we even got told one night (at 5pm) that we needed to get off the chairs so they could put them away. It is evident that this beach is more for the day people and the nightlife happens elsewhere. One funny thing we found was that pretty much every person walking out of the little grocery store was carrying a baguette. The French love their baguettes! No matter what time of day, people were buying baguettes.

There is a small beach and bar at the end of the runway at the airport. We went for a couple beers while awaiting Brian and Amber's flight. This is definitely a cool spot to sit and watch the planes come in. They (literally) land right over top of you!





My favorite beach on St Martin is Baie Rouge. It's pretty secluded so not too many people but there are chairs/umbrellas to rent as well as Chez Raymond, a little beachside grill that has the best shrimp kebabs and beans and rice (oh, and delicious grilled plantains!) on the island.




We celebrated Rian's 32nd birthday in Marigot at the marina. We went to Le France restaurant and had a delicious meal and good wine. Rian said "just what I wanted to do, get all dressed up and go have an expensive dinner on MY day." Well, sorry, I guess sitting in the basement playing x-box all day wasn't an option! ha ha But, he did get to have a piece of apple pie so all was not lost.

We all took a cab into Philipsburg one day and "people-watched" while enjoying drinks and lunch at the Blue Bitch Cafe. There were 4 cruise ships in that day so the people watching was great. Went to Ballerina Jewelers to see our friend Deepak (whom we like to visit each trip) and I got a beautiful new watch. Might have been the highlight of the trip for me!



Rian is like a big kid when we're at the beach and enjoys jumping around in the waves. He says it's good exercise but I like to think it's also just "fun." Here he is at Orient Beach...



All in all, it was another fun trip to St Martin. We got plenty of sun and beach time and it was nice to get away from the Buffalo weather...

It's Golden Globe day!!!

Another movie award season is upon us and as usual, the Lindell's have spent the last month seeing as many movies as possible. After last year's writer's strike, the Golden Globes have returned! And as usual, several movies nominated are "limited release" and not in theaters currently around Buffalo. What kind of place is this?? The good news, it looks like at least a few will be in theaters by end of January so at least we'll be able to see them before the Oscars. Here is a list of the movies we were able to see prior to tonight's award show:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Burn After Reading
In Bruges
Mamma Mia
I've Loved You So Long
Milk
Changeling
Doubt
Pineapple Express
Bolt (in 3-D even!)
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

The movies we weren't able to see:

Frost/Nixon
Revolutionary Road (come on, a Jan 23 worldwide release?? 2 weeks after the Globes??)
Happy-Go-Lucky
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (we straight blew that one as it left Regal before we saw it)
The Wrestler
Last Chance Harvey
Defiance
Gran Torino
Cadillac Records

So, we did a pretty good job with what we had since there was only one movie we didn't see that we even had a chance of seeing. This life in Buffalo isn't conducive to our love of movies. Yeah, the blockbuster movies are fun to see but it's always the Oscar nominated "smaller audience" ones that leave me feeling really satisfied. Oh well, someday we'll be back in the Seattle/Portland area and this won't be a problem.

I will save my predictions for the Oscars since we just didn't see enough movies in each category to give an educated guess. However, I will give my opinion in the 2 categories that we did complete:

Supporting Actor--Heath Ledger will win it hands down due to all the publicity he's received and I will admit, he did a great job in the Dark Knight. I just hope when it comes to the Oscar, they don't solely give it to him because he passed away. He was a great actor but this performance might not be enough for me to give it to him. I will make a better prediction once I see the other Oscar nominees.

Animated Film--Wall-E definitely deserves it in my book. I really enjoyed our 3-D experience of "Bolt" but Wall-E gets my vote. The animation was incredible and I really loved the story.

That's about it for now. I love awards season! Red Carpet arrival at 6pm...