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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Baby Moon Part 2 - New York


After Boston, we said our goodbye's to Jody, and took the train down to Penn Station in New York. Let me tell you...as someone who gets queasy on flights (especially with pregnancy)...the train is THE WAY to go!  Holy smokes, it was so easy, and so comfortable.  The seats were bigger, there was free wi-fi, plugs to charge your electronics, no restrictions on seat belt time or when you can use electronics.  It was fabulous.  I just wish there were high speed trains that we could take everywhere instead of having to fly.  But sadly, a train from here to Indiana would take like 3 days.  Boo.  But, I digress.  Here is the summary of our time in NY...

Day 1 in New York: This was kind of a half day since we didn't get to Penn Station until around 2:30 pm.  We walked to the hotel (yes, with our giant rolling suitcases along the streets of New York...) and dropped our bags off and headed into Times Square.  Since it was a half day we basically just walked around Times Square.  We went into the M&M store, bought some touristy things at one of the little shops along the way, saw the Naked Cowboy, and I just took in the big city :)  That night we went to dinner at a restaurant that I had gotten a Groupon deal for :)  Here is the link for Day 1  

Day 2 in New York: Day two started our excursions.  I had gotten a Living Social deal a while back for a 2 hour bike rental in Central Park.  So we used that and toured around all of Central Park.  It was so beautiful.  All that greenery in the middle of a huge bustling city.  Let me tell you, this preggo girl was huffin' and puffin' at some points on the bike ride, but it was so fun.  That night we had dinner at another Groupon restaurant  and then went to see Wicked at the Gershwin Theater.  WICKED IS AMAZING!!!! I absolutely loved it!  It was funny, the music was fantastic, and the costumes were great too.  I highly highly recommend it!  Here is the link for Day 2

Day 3 in New York: To start day 3, we headed to Times Square to stand in the TKTS line to get some half price Broadway tickets.  We expected to get the "cheap" seats for a decent show.  We did NOT expect to get Orchestra section, 8th row center tickets to Phantom of the Opera!  We got an amazing deal.  For anyone in New York that has a flexible schedule, I highly recommend standing in that line.  But be sure to get there early (I think it opened at 10).  We got there around 10:30/11 am and the line moved fairly quickly.  The show was at 2, so we killed some time by going to the NBC studios and Rockefeller Plaza.  We took the tour to "The Top of the Rock" (the top of the Rockefeller building) and saw the city from that view.  Then we headed back to Broadway and took in our second show of the week :)  Then we headed to dinner, and from there decided to do the Empire State building at night.  The views were incredible.  Here is the link for Day 3

Day 4 in New York: Day 4 was not quite as busy as it was cut a little short.  We changed hotels from our Marriott in Times Square (thanks mom and dad for giving us Marriott points!!!) to a really nice Westin in Jersey City right across the Hudson from Manhattan.  So we switched hotels, and then went back into lower Manhattan and took the cruise out to see the Statue of Liberty. Now, I know this is super famous and people plan for months to come see it, but honestly, I probably could have done with just seeing it from the mainland.  But, that's just me, and now I can say I've done it.  Then we took a stroll down to the Wall Street area and saw the Freedom Tower up close.  It's going to be amazing when it's done.  The rest was all under construction so we really didn't get to see the 9/11 memorial.  Next time...  Here is the link for Day 4

Day 5 in New York: Day 5 was kind of our catch up/catch all day.  It was rainy in the morning so we slept in.  Then we hit a bunch of spots that we weren't able to fit in on other days.  We went way uptown and I got to see Barneys NY, then we took a backstage tour of Radio City Music Hall and got to meet a real Rockette, and then we headed over to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.  That was a lot of fun to see all the celebrity wax people!  And finally we rounded off our day with dinner at the oh so touristy Hard Rock Cafe New York.  Here is the link for Day 5

All in all, it was a fantastic trip!  We had so much fun and saw so many cool things.  And we were grateful to be able to spend that much time together away from work before the baby comes.  It was a very successful vacation that went off without a hitch.  So many thanks to Jody for putting us up for 5 days/nights in Boston and being our personal tour guide!  And many thanks to my parents for giving us Marriott points and for letting us use their camera!  We appreciate it!

Check back soon for an 18 week baby bean update! :-)

Baby Moon Part 2 - Boston



This past weekend the hubby and I returned from our wonderful 10 day trip out to Boston and New York.  I had never really been to the east coast, so this was my first time getting to see all of the sites.  I'm going to try to keep this post short and not give you all of the details of every activity of every day...I'll try to just let the pictures do the talking. And, since I took quite a few a whole freakin' bunch of pictures...I'll post the links here instead of the actual pictures.  So, here is the summary of our trip to Boston.  In order to not make this a marathon post, I will write another one to cover NY.  Enjoy!

Day 1 in Boston: This was our day to travel to and through Cape Cod.  Jody was kind enough to drive us all over the place during our stay in Boston.  During the Cape Cod day we had lunch at a fun little diner along the way, saw some really cool beaches and dunes (very different looking dunes if you are used to the California/Pismo dunes), and climbed (thanks babe) the Pilgrim Tower in Provincetown.  The views were great though from that high up.  Here is the link for Day 1

Day 2 in Boston: Day two was our day to drive basically all over the state of Massachusetts (thanks again Jody!) to see some of the pretty fall colors that were beginning to change.  Unfortunately, the New England area had a pretty dry summer apparently, so the tree colors were not as bright as they have been in years past, but we still managed to see some really good ones.  We stopped in a few little quaint towns, and found a cool state park area that had a stream and a little wooden bridge (photo op :) ).  I just absolutely fell in love with the architecture style of the New England area!!  Here is the link for Day 2

Day 3 in Boston: Day 3 was our Downtown Boston day.  This day was a lot of walking!  It was a great change though, I needed the exercise.  First we stopped at the Sam Adams Brewery and the hubby got to do some beer tasting.  Jody and I had rootbeer since she's not a beer fan and I am obviously not drinking for the next several months!  Then we headed in to downtown where we saw a little bit of everything.  We saw the Boston Commons, Cheers, the Boston Harbor (or Habah as they say in New England), the Church of Paul Revere, just to name a few.  That night we had dinner at a nice restaurant and Jody treated us to The Blue Man Group!  The show was amazing and so fun :)  Here is the link for Day 3

Day 4 in Boston: Day 4 was our catch up on sleep day, laundry day, and chill out day.  We did a few things touristy, we went to Plymouth and looked around for a bit...saw the Mayflower replica, and Plymouth rock.  But other than that we ran a few errands with Jody, and just hung around the house since our train into the city to head to NY was an early one.  Here is the link for Day 4

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

16 Week Checkup

This should be a short post (especially in comparison to my last few!).  But I just had my 16 week check up on Monday and wanted to share how it went.  The hubs was unfortunately out of town on work travel so he was not able to come with me.  But, I am so thankful that my mom was able to take some time and be my moral support.

I'm was actually 15.5 weeks at this appointment, but since we are leaving on Babymoon Part 2 before I technically hit 16 weeks, we decided to have the appointment a little early.  That way we could get the bean checked out before we jet set :)

The appointment was short and sweet.  The usual: Get weighed, pee in a cup, blood pressure and all that jazz.  I also got a flu shot this time, since that season is just around the corner.  According to the Dr's scale, I have not gained any weight since my first appointment which was at 6.5 weeks.  Dr. said that was totally fine, and to just keep doing what I'm doing, as long as I'm not losing weight.

And then came the fun part...getting to hear the Bean's heartbeat.  It was a lovely steady 155 beats per minute which is just normal :)  I get a huge smile on my face every time I hear that little thump thump thump through the Doppler   I'm so glad my mom was able to experience it with me as well.  And thanks to her, you all can hear it now too :)  She took a little video on her phone and if you turn your sound up, you can hear our little bean's heart!  Thanks mom!!


Friday, October 5, 2012

15 Weeks

I am now officially 15 weeks and 1 day.  One more week till I hit 4 months!  It's so crazy and exciting and surreal all at the same time.  It's one thing to think about being pregnant, and growing the belly.  It's something totally different (at least to me) to imagine the little life that you're growing, and what it will be like when it finally comes into the world and changes our lives (for the better) forever.  I have so much fun day dreaming about it.  What it'll be like to bring our little bean home for the first time, introducing the bean to the puppies (our original babies), seeing the hubby turn into a huge pile of teddy bear mush when he holds his little bean for the first time :) .  It is all so exciting for me to think about.

But, enough of the sentimental stuff.  On to the stats!  Here is the bump picture for 15 weeks...I was actually good this time and took the picture ON the 15 week mark day!


You'll have to excuse the outfit, we had just taken the dogs to the park and I didn't feel like changing for a 3rd time :)

I'm still wearing all of my normal clothes, although as you can see, with more form fitting shirts, you are starting to see something there.  But, personally I still think most of the time it looks like I need to lay off the donuts.  I think I have one (maybe two?) pairs of pants that still button.  But I'm definitely wearing the belly bands almost every day.  I haven't graduated to maternity pants yet but I likely will by Thanksgiving.

As far as food goes, I'm back to eating normal food.  I'm not solely surviving on carbs anymore which is good.  However, I have found that my appetite seems to have shrunk significantly.  This past week I have had several occasions where I either eat too fast, or too much (still haven't figured out the real culprit here), and then none of what I just ate stays down.  Literally, I get sick either within 2 minutes of finishing eating, or right in the middle of my meal.  So, that has been kind of a bummer.  I guess the plus side is that I never feel sick or nauseous.  It just kind of happens all of the sudden.  So, I either need to eat slower, or learn where that point of no return is!

The stuffiness and sneezing still continues.  But, after all of the recommendations, I finally bought myself a humidifier.  I set it up and used it last night, and whaddya know.....I slept through the night!!  Well, minus having to get up to pee, but that's a given, and not likely to get any better any time soon.  But the humidifier seemed to do it's job.  Needless to say I will be putting it to the test every night now.

Some stats about the bean...
*About 3.5 to 4 inches from head to rump
*About 2.5 ounces
*About the size of an apple or navel orange
Courtesy of thebump.com
*The hairline is starting to form and the hair on the bean's head is starting grow
*All of the joints on the arms and legs are functioning, and the bean may even be starting to suck a thumb!
*Even though the eyes are fused shut for several more weeks, the bean is sensitive to light and would likely wriggle away if we shined a light on my belly.  

I think that's about all for now.  Other than steadily growing a belly, not much is changing.  I do have a couple of baby related projects in the works for my other friends that are also expecting (I know 6 other gals due between January and May!!)  So once I actually give those to their owners, I will be posting the tutorials on what I made.  But for now, it remains a secret so that the mommies to be will be surprised!!  I also plan to do some posts on what kind of gear we're looking to register for, as well as cloth diapering, because I fully intend to cloth diaper :)  (Hubby thinks I'm slightly nuts, but he's still supportive of saving the money!)  

Thanks for reading, and have a fabulous weekend!

Monday, October 1, 2012

14 Weeks and a Santa Barbara Getaway

This past weekend, the hubby and I took a little weekend getaway down to Santa Barbara.  It was so nice to literally get away from our normal lives of yard work and house work and whateverelse work, and just have some time to ourselves!  The first day we went to breakfast at a place called Renaud's.  It's a cute little cafe and came highly recommended to us from Jenn over at July Moon.

Then we took a little drive down State street and found some parking a little closer to the beach.  We walked down to the beach, and took a stroll down the pier at Stearn's Wharf.

The entrance to the pier

The view of the marina.  

Stearn's Wharf

It was so clear!

These guys were so tame!

Baby Bean at 14 weeks.  First trip to the ocean!
After the pier, we walked back down State Street to find some lunch.  After passing so many little restaurants, we decided on one called Killer B's.  It was a grill, and after looking it up on yelp, Hubby decided it was rated high enough for his taste ;-)


After lunch where we got to sit outside and enjoy the 80 degree weather, and people watch (my favorite!!), we decided to head over to UC Santa Barbara and check out the campus.  Sorry, I didn't take any pictures there, we were trying to see how well we fit in as college students!  Finally we came back to the hotel to rest for a little while before dinner.  We went to dinner at another highly recommended location called Jane's.  This place reminded me of eating in a quaint little restaurant in Paris.  The decorations inside were so fun and cute, with twinkle lights everywhere.  And our table was upstairs right next to a window that overlooked the balcony.  It was fantastic!  And, the filet was absolutely delicious!

Sorry for the quality, it was low lighting and taken on my phone.
After dinner we did some more walking around and came across a fun little Italian restaurant where we decided to have dessert (the theme this weekend was eating apparently...)


Also while walking around and exploring all of the little alcoves were fun shops were hiding down on State Street, I saw this awesome piece of work!


Excuse my nerdiness here...but this looked like it was straight out of Harry Potter!  I was so tempted to get in and see if I would be transported to the Ministry of Magic :-)

The second day we went to breakfast at a little place called D'Angelo's Bread.  It's a great bakery and they had super delicious croissants and danishes.  From there we headed to Hendry's Beach.  It's a very cool area and they even have a whole stretch of beach just for dogs to run loose off their leashes!  It was so fun to see them all running and playing and swimming in the ocean.



After some relaxing, reading, sunbathing, and frisbee throwing on the beach, we headed back to hotel to rest up and change for our dinner cruise!

Our dinner cruise was courtesy of Santa Barbara Sailing Center.  It was a sunset cruise so we headed out on the water around 5:30.  On our way out of the harbor, we saw some rather large and rather unique boats that happened to be docked there.

Just some cool yachts and sail boats

More coolness
First up, was this beauty of a yacht.  There were some fancy shmancy people boarding this guy before we left the dock.  Apparently you can rent it out for private parties, but we learned from a couple on our cruise, that it's about $1500 an hour!!!

Then there was this piece of history.  The Spirit of Dana Point, which according to our captain, used to be called the Pilgrim.  A little tidbit of info here: This ship is an accurate replica of a 1770's privateer used during the American Revolution.  Known for their speed, it measures 118 feel long, with a rig height of 100 feet, and 5000 square feet of sail! 



More info can be found here
Then we saw this one.  The pictures definitely do not do it justice.  This massive sailboat/yacht is owned by the Firestone family.  This sucker is a whopping 171 feet long.  This was the epitome of luxury on water.


You can see better pictures and more details about this floating wonder here

 And last but not least, was this guy, the Taxi Dancer.  This boat competes in lots of long distant races all over the west coast.

And since sunset pictures don't really need an explanation...I'll just let you view :)

Tons of pelicans!



Love this silhouette.  I need to adjust the angle of the horizon though :)





Final moments of the sun

First moments of the rising full moon
On our drive back home, we were able to stop in San Luis Obispo (my old stomping grounds) and had lunch at Firestone Grill.  So yummy!

Thanks for reading my marathon post!  More craft posts to come soon, I promise!!