East Coast Babymoon (Park 4)

Thurs, Sept 8th 2011, continued: So DH drove us into Philadelphia. Our hotel was booked on hotwire again and was sort of a chic modern number, great location though, right next to city hall. Unlike the Sheraton and Boston, which was the kind of 4 star hotel that is 4 stars because they take great care of the guest, it was the kind of hotel that is 4 star because it has artwork on the key cards, perfume at the entrance and customized music track in the elevator. As soon as we got checked in we headed back out walking. We walked over to a large indoor market, similar to the North Market hear in Columbus, and I got a Philly Cheesesteak, which was tasty. All filled up, we headed out to walk to the Museum of Art, which is famous mainly for being the stairs that Rocky runs up. The walk to the Museum of Art is all tree filled boulevard, its supposed to have international flags out lining it, but none of them were up. The weird thing about this walk was that while the trees and museums and fountains implied they expected people to walk this stretch, the traffic and pedestrian traffic layouts were total nightmares. You frequently had to wait at 2-3 cross walks to make it across one intersection. We did eventually make it and got some good pictures on the stairs. By this time the sun was setting and we headed back to the hotel to watch the NFL opener.

Friday, Sept 9th 2011: We got up on our own schedule, got moving, grabbed breakfast and walked over to Independence park to visit Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. We got our tickets for the Independence Hall tour and as we walked over to start it I started to feel quite unwell. DH considered just booking it outta there and letting me rest, but I wanted to stick it out and figured it was just pregnancy nausea crap. We did the Independence Hall tour, it was pretty neat, impressive how small the room was that the Declaration was written in, we both thought it would be bigger. Then we headed to the Liberty Bell that had a huge line to get through security. DH and I realized while we waited in line that we had NO idea why the liberty bell was significant. Turns out there really is no reason! LOL. What I mean is, does not have that much historic relevance. It was used as a symbol, and that is the bigger deal. As soon as we finished this we headed back to the hotel to get our car and head out of town as by this time I was feeling quite unwell. We took the Subway back to quicken the process.

A final note on Philadelphia - it is called the city of brotherly love, but their reputation, as sports fans for example, is of being anything but compassionate. I have to say that pretty much everyone we dealt with enforced the reputation rather than the motto. People were rude, you heard people swearing at each other on the street. There were homeless people everywhere. It was not exactly a friendly place to be.

As discussed in my previous post, I felt worse and worse as the day progressed. We went down to our friend's house in Baltimore and I tried to act like I felt OK. We grilled out, I got eaten by mosquitos, we hung out, talked a lot, watched a comedian, and went to bed early.

Saturday, Sept 10th 2011 I was feeling even worse in the morning, but did not want to wreck our limited time in Baltimore and limited time with our friend, so we went ahead and went down to the inner bay, walked around, saw all the ships, looked around the lighthouse. We almost went to the aquarium but DH could tell that while I said I was up for it really I was not, so instead we grabbed "lunch" and then headed out. I feel bad that I felt so cruddy while I was there, but it was still nice seeing our friend. DH drove the entire way back to Columbus because I was feeling so bad. We made it back around 9:30PM and I hit the sack. See my hospital post for what happened the next day...


Overall, it was a great trip. We are REALLY glad that we spent the money and time to do it, because we will not have that kind of freedom (in either regard probably) for a long time to come. It was just nice to concentrate on us for a bit without the stresses of work and pets and house and baby prep. We also got to see tons of new things, go to new states, and explore part of the country I have never been to. DH pointed out that we hit 20% of the country by states, lol: OH, PA, NY, MA, RI, CT, NJ, DE, MD, WV

East Coast Babymoon (Part III)

Tuesday, Sept 6th 2011
Unfortunately, DH woke up feeling not great on Tuesday. He had allergy symptoms. He thinks they were due to the "dead bodies" he breathed in during the tour of the crypt. Much more likely it was just the weird and new pollen, or perhaps some dust from the old sites we visited. He dragged himself out of bed anyways and we headed out on foot from the hotel to locate the nearby Boston Public Library, which was only about 3 blocks away. We went in and started to walk around and it was super unimpressive, just modern functional library, not even that big. Then I noticed this through way and we walked through and BOOM, beautiful courtyard, big sweeping staircases, murals and statues, and awesomeness. We wandered through it all, very neat, but they are not using all of the neat rooms for actual books, so that was a bit less exciting. Kind of a strange set up in my opinion. When I had got my library fix we walked across the street to look at Trinity Church. We did not go in, but it is really cool architecture. I was totally starving so we stopped at a place called Finagle my Bagel and I had breakfast. We walked back to the hotel and changed, then walked over to Fenway to take a tour. It was pretty neat! It is a very old ballpark, and while I am not a huge baseball fan, its still neat hearing all the history and legends associated with the place, and I always like getting in press boxes of pretty much any sports venue, such a different perspective. After the tour we walked back to the hotel, stopping for a slice of pizza along the way. DH was really not feeling well, so we decided that he could go nap while I went off and explored a few sites in the city he wasn't interested in. I hopped on the subway and headed to Harvard University. When I got there I stumbled upon the start of a student-lead history tour and joined in. I went with the tour for about 15-20 minutes, but I was not really enjoying it. It was raining, and the tour was so, I don't know, pretentious? Self satisfied? All of these historical stories about how Harvard screwed over Cambridge or any of those things. I wandered around campus a bit on my own, and then headed back out on the subway. I took it to MIT and wandered around their campus a bit. It feels so full of potential. Walking their halls was a bit like being in a science college commercial, because you really would just walk by a random window and there would be a nanotechnology lab behind or other things. From their I walked across the river, looked at the sailboats, and up the hill to my hotel. It was quite a long walk, especially in the rain, but I had realized that we only had one more full day in Boston and it would probably be rainy then too, so I better see what I can! Back at the hotel I went swimming, then crawled in for a nap. We went out and got a quick dinner from a place called Boloco (boston local) that was sort of chipotle-esque , with a bit more variety, and the coolest soda machine ever. We spent the night in bed watching football and relaxing, hoping DH would feel better the next day.

Wednesday, Sept 7th 2011
Luckily, DH did feel better after his afternoon/evening of rest. We went to breakfast at a place called The Pour House that was recommended by the concierge. It was a casual place, delicious hash. I think DH liked his pancakes as well. We then took the subway over to the same stop that we had ended our Freedom Trail tour on. It was a rainy day, but neither of us really minded. We walked over to the U.S.S. Constitution and the navy yard it was located in. We walked briefly through the museum, explored a WWII destroyer that is dry docked there, and then took a tour of the USS Constitution. It is the oldest commissioned navy vessel afloat in the world. Commissioned means it is manned by active duty navy, afloat means that they can still sail her, and do so a couple of times a year. There is a boat in England apparently that is also commissioned, but is dry docked. It was pretty cool to see it all, hard to believe how old it is and how much action it has seen. It is most famous for a battle during the war of 1812. It is nicknamed "Old Ironside" because the construction of the sides, using a combination of woods native to the U.S., made them virtually impenetrable to cannon balls of the period. Of course it has seen lots of restoration, but they keep as much of it original as possible. After the tour we walked up to the Bunker Hill monument and looked around their a bit. The combination of my pregnant status, the long walk we still had to our next destination, and the poor weather (very thick fog) made us decide NOT to climbed the 100+ steps to the top of the monument. We wound our way back across the river to the North End (remember, the Italian District), and had a nice, slightly late sit down lunch at a Italian place, which was tasty, then picked up a canolli from Mike's Pastries. We had both kind of had it with being on our feet by this point, so we headed back to the hotel and then decided to go see a movie. We went and saw Crazy Stupid Love. It was quite good, funny and sweet, and neither of us saw the "twist" coming at all! Well executed, definitely a feel-good type film, not so realistic. After the movie we walked back to the hotel and just relaxed, watched some TV for awhile, then went back out for a late dinner. We just walked from our hotel and looked for a place, ended up at Mass Ave Tavern. They were nice and casual, they had a live trivia game going, but we did not join in, which turned out to be good because the question structure was very odd. The food was delicious! I had hummus w/veggies, mac&cheese, and half of DH's burger. I would go back for the mac&cheese alone in a heartbeat!

Thursday, Sept 8th 2011
We got up, had breakfast a quick breakfast, and checked out of the hotel. It was pouring cats and dogs outside! DH started out driving, got us out of the Boston w/some traffic delays, then out of MA. We went down through Rhode Island, which was cool, right through Providence. I took over driving and headed out of RI, into Connecticut. I was surprised by how pretty the area is, hills and trees, quite nice. We headed down through Connecticut into NY, actually right into NYC! I drove though the Bronx and the northern edge of Manhattan! Impressed? I am. I am very proud. Anyways, across the George Washington bridge, down to New Jersey, switched drivers again, and DH took us into Philadelphia. (more to come on this evening later...)

East Coast Babymoon (Part II)

Monday, Sept 5th
The weather was gorgeous. We took the subway the short distance to "downtown" Boston. It was not a far walk, but as we were planning to walk all day, we did not want to add on a mile at the beginning. We headed to Boston Commons where we met our tour guide. He was dressed as "Bully", a cooper's apprentice who actually witnessed the Boston massacre. He was dressed in period costume. What were we touring you might ask? It was a walking tour of the first half of the Freedom Trail. It is basically a walking path through old Boston marked by a red trail that goes to many of the major historic sites. Boston is old... really old. It seemed just about every other corner had the oldest of something. Boston Commons is the oldest public park in America. It was originally a literal commons, grazing pasture for the town's livestock. From there we walked up to the Old State House, which is this gorgeous gold-domed building. I thought it was crazy that the entire dome has only 12lbs of gold leaf on it, stretched so thin! I would think they would need repairs all the time. From there we walked to the Old Granary Cemetery. It has many famous graves in it. We learned about how John Hancock was the "King of Boston" because of his wealth. He funded pretty much anything that needed funding in the days of the revolution, including the poor Sam Adams (also buried there), who might be considered the first career politician, as he really  had no other trade and no money of his own. Also, Sam Adams was short, ugly, and very anti-alcohol. He believed the revolution would usher in a recurrence of earlier puritan ideals and called himself the last puritan. This makes it especially hilarious that there is a beer named after him. That picture on the beer is actually of Paul Revere, who was also buried in this cemetery. Paul Revere is an interesting character because he is so over-hyped. In all reality, it would seem he had very little to do with anything. Not that he did NOTHING, he is just way more famous that he deserves credit for. Also buried in this cemetery was Joseph Warren, a name we don't really hear about, but he would likely have been the first President of the U.S. if he had not died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Another famous grave in this cemetery is that of Benjamin Franklin's parents. From the cemetery we walked to the old city hall, which has a few interesting features. First, it is on the site of the first public school, which John Hancock and many other revolutionaries attended. America had a ridiculously high literacy rate for the time period and public school availability is one of the major reasons. Second, it is right next to the King's Church, which the representative of the king so considerately built on a puritan graveyard. Third, in front of it is the oldest statue of Benjamin Franklin, which he actually posed for during his lifetime. From here the path wondered by a couple of other sites which significance has honestly slipped my mind at this point. We walked by a church that was one of the largest public spaces in the town and therefore served as a meeting place for many of the revolutionary meetings, including the one that started the Boston Tea Party, which by the way is one of the earliest examples of nonviolent protest. Eventually we ended up at the square where the Boston Massacre occurred, and we learned all about how it was not really a massacre so much as a riot. I never did quite decide if learning about all of the propaganda, lies, and exaggerations used to start the revolution were reassuring or disturbing. On one hand, disturbing because we tend to put the revolution in such a pure light when really it was full of all of the normal political corruption. On the other hand, reassuring because maybe, since that all turned OK, we really have not strayed that far from our roots with what goes on in politics today. Our tour ended at Fanuiel Hall and Marketplace, where the tour guide revealed that he really was the decendent of the Bully character was playing and had researched him through letters he wrote his mother during the revolution, which was pretty neat.

After tipping him handsomly, because it really was a great tour, we walked into Fanuiel Market. It had come highly recommended, but it was way overwhelming to me, and DH does not like food markets that much. I needed a seat and a I needed it NOW, which was not going to happen with the chaos in there. It was labor day, and it was packed. So, after walking through it quickly we exited and found a nearby sit down restaurant where we sat out on the sidewalk in the shade and ate yummy fish tacos. Feeling much rejuvenated, we continued our Freedom Trail walk by going into Faneiul Hall, "cradle of liberty", where many of the original meetings leading up to the revolution took place. It is well preserved and pretty neat. After that there was quite a hike to the next site. On the way we walked by the country's oldest continually operating restaurant, through an old market place that had fake bronzed refuse (like tomatos and lettuce etc) on the crosswalks, into the North End, the Italian district.

This is when the weirdest, coolest, most random part of our entire trip happened. The whole area was packed because the weather was great and it was a holiday. We were walking up the main street in the North End when we heard cheering ahead, then out of nowhere a bicycle rickshaw comes out of the crowd, and in the cart is a man in a yellow shirt holding the Stanley Cup. I kid you not. The Stanley Cup. In a rickshaw. We were in total shock. Was that really the Stanley Cup? What just happened? We spent the next half hour (and indeed several days) just looking at each other at random and saying "in a RICKSHAW". We watched the local news that night that confirmed that the guy we saw had the Stanley Cup in that neighborhood that day. He was taking it to a local Children's rehab center near the arena and then left on a bicycle. Wow. In a rickshaw.

So, after slightly recovering ourselves, we continued on the Freedom Trail, and found the Paul Revere house, where he lived for quite a while. It had been restored to be like what it would have been like when he lived there. We paid to get in and take the mini-tour, and it really was not worth it. We wanted more info about the man and his life, what we got was random minutia about life during that time period. We moved on and next toured the Old North Church, famous for being the steeple where 'one if by land' was lit. We got in on a tour of the bell tower and crypt, which was pretty interesting but not as historical as we would have liked, though it was neat seeing how the bells work, and its really complicated. From here the Freedom Trail took us to another cemetery, most notable for the fact that the British troops took up post there during the Battle of Bunker Hill. From here the trail took us down off of the hill the North End is on and across the river. By now it was 3:30 and we had been walking and touring, minue the 45 minutes for lunch, for about five hours. We both admitted we were tired and ready to head home. So, we found the nearest subway and headed back to the hotel, where I took advantage of the beautiful pool (with its retracting roof open, looking out at the prudential building and other nearby sky scrapers), and DH took a nap. All rested and cleaned up, we ventured back out for supper to the Top of the Hub, a fancy restaurant at the top of the Prudential Center. It has a gorgeous view to say the least, and the food was quite good. We did not get dessert there because nothing stuck out, so when we finished dinner we spent the next hour or so just walking around the area in search of dessert. We tried to find something local, but nothing popped out, so we did Cheesecake Factory, which was delicious. It was a really long but great day.

East Coast Babymoon (Part I)

Friday, Sept 2nd: We were going to try to get out of town early, but DH had some issues at work and was later getting home. I tried to relax and not stress about it, because as he pointed out, whats the point of stressing about it when the purpose of the trip itself is relaxation? So I chilled, straightened the house etc until he got home, then we headed out. We drove up to Erie, PA; I really wanted to at least cross the state border to feel like we had made some progress. There we checked into a really overpriced Comfort Inn with the most unprofessional lady, "Tina in Training" (that is what her name tag said). The real moment of hilarity was when we walked into the room - it had the queen bed we requested - and a set of bunk beds, completely decorated w/marine life! So we spent the first night of our vacation sleeping under the watchful eyes of a manatee...

Saturday, Sept 3rd: Got up, had the complimentary breakfast and hit the road. We drove up Buffalo NY and then crossed into Niagara Falls, Ontario. I don't know if it was just because we were only planning to stay the day or what but our customs check seemed to take about 1/4 of the time everyone else's was taking, and I am totally OK with this. We circled around and found parking, hopped out of the car and headed for the falls. I have been to Niagara before, but DH had not. Comparing them to my memory, the horseshoe falls were the same as I remember and the American/Bridal falls were bigger. The real difference though was that I don't remember all of the build up - hotels, restaurants, etc. I remember it being much smaller/more open.  Not sure how much of that is in my memory and how much is things actually changing. Anyways, we looked at the falls for a while then went down and got in line for the Maid of the Mist. It was quite the line, but luckily mostly in the shade, and it moved faster than I expected. The Maid of the Mist was WAY better than I remember. In my memory, it did not get close enough to the falls and I couldn't see anything, just mist. This time we definitely could see things! It was really cool, and so refreshing to get covered in mist since it was a pretty hot day. After the boat ride I was totally exhausted and just wanted off my feet and wanted nourishment, so we went to the first sit-down restaurant we could find, which happened to be Hard Rock Cafe. I had never been to one, so I guess I can check that off the list. It was kind cool seeing some of the memorabilia, but I am just not a big enough music fan to fully appreciate it. Feeling very much refreshed we ventured back out into the heat, which had dissipated somewhat, and walked all the way up to the head of the falls, stopping for photo ops along the way. We got tickets for the Behind the Falls caves and then walked around a bit waiting for our turn. My feet were starting to get very tired by this point. We went down and saw the falls up close, also way better than I remembered. At this point we were both ready to get off our feet, so we headed back to the car and looped back to the United States, waited a LONG time to cross the border but it went smoothly. We stayed in Batavia, NY at a Clarion Hotel that beat the Comfort Inn both in price and comfort. No evil sea life! We had good local pizza. We also saw an "Antique Archeology" truck at a gas station, I don't think it was being driven by the guys on the show (American Pickers), but DH does not think they have any other trucks.

Sunday, Sept 4th: We took our time getting going in the morning, but did not sleep in too long. We were taking 90 pretty much all the way across NY, which was kind of annoying because it is a toll road, and therefore you have really limited access to rest stops and food. This was not good for my picky pregnancy stomach, but we managed. It was weird also, as soon as you hit Albany or so (still a good distance from the coast), you could just feel the population density increasing. More traffic, more people, totally different feel. We made it into Boston around 4pm. I was driving and DH was navigating. We sort of got a mini tour of the area thanks to this fact, as we had to circle twice through the greater area before making the right turn to end up at our hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton in the Back Bay area. I wish I could take full credit for booking the room, because it was awesome, but I used Hotwire, which means I did not know which hotel I booked until I had paid (I knew the neighborhood, the rating, etc). Anyways, they put us in a river view room on the 25th floor that was just incredible. Additionally, the hotel is attached to the Prudential Center. Prudential Tower is the second tallest building in Boston and has its own mall pretty much. This proved to be highly convenient throughout the stay. Anyways, when we got into Boston I was STARVING, so we just ate in the food court there, they have this great fast food place "Cheese in a Box" that does grilled cheese! From your basic white bread and American cheese to gourmet piles of meat, veggies, spices on foccacia or something. Stomach satisfied, we just started walking. We walked and saw the Christian Science complex, which is very pretty. We walked over to the fens and to Fenway (baseball stadium), then looped back to our hotel, stopping for frozen yogurt along the way at a place called Berry Line. I thought it was great, DH thought it was too much like real yogurt. LOL.

Ok....  I don't want to inundate you with a post so long no one reads it, and these were really the "short" days of our trip! Perhaps I will write about Monday, our busiest day, tomorrow!

Also... there are pictures on facebook, so I did not feel like reposting here.

My First Hospitalization (in my memory at least...)

If you read this blog regularly you are probably either waiting for me to post about my trip to the East Coast, or depending on how you know me, you may be waiting to hear more about my recent hospitalization and how I am feeling. Let me get the bad out of the way before the good, and also talk about what is more immediately relevant to how I am doing at the moment. Don't worry, the story is not that bad, just sucky. gross too probably, TMI, but its what happened.

On Friday we were in Philadelphia. In the morning after waking up normal and a normal  breakfast we walked from our hotel by City Hall down to the Independence Hall area. I did fine with that walk, we got tickets for Independence Hall and began to walk over there, and while we were waiting for that I began to feel week and tired. We went ahead with the tour, swung by the Liberty Bell, and then took the subway back to the hotel to get out of town since I was not feeling well. We thought it was just normal pregnancy fatigue. We drove to Baltimore, stopping at Cracker Barrel along the way where I forced some food down, but it did not help like it normally does. We got to our friends house in Baltimore and I was still feeling gross, but I thought it was still just pregnancy nausea and tried to hide/downplay it, made plans to grill dinner, hung out, but then when dinner was set in front of me (a burger), I could only eat a tiny portion of it. I felt gross all night, went to bed early, got up and vomited the burger and juice/soda I had eaten back up at 6am. Got up feeling horrible. I thought by now it might be something more than just pregnancy nausea, but still nothing so extreme that I was sure. I sipped some juice but couldn't eat any breakfast. I did not want to wreck our plans so we went down to the inner harbor in Baltimore and walked around. I was very fatigued and the smells of food were killing me. We walked up and down and saw everything without touring anything, then went to a food court for lunch. I got a mango smoothy and sipped at it, and ate 1 or 2 of the fries. After lunch we dropped our fried off, packed up, and headed out of town. I slept some on the way home, but was really miserable, feeling nausea and muscle soreness and general miserableness. I kept trying to sip juice and water because I knew I must be dehydrated. When we stopped around 4:30, everything I had eaten/drank all day came up again. I continued to try to sip water and we got home around 9:30pm, I pretty much went straight into bed and laid/slept, sipped water a tiny bit, took a Tylenol for the severe muscle pain and eventually fell asleep, until I woke up with diarrhea at 3am, then for diarrhea and vomiting at 5am, 6am I just stayed up and kept getting sick. I was SO THIRSTY, my mouth was so dry, and I just felt miserable. I tried to sip water, and it just came back up, I tried to suck ice and it just came back up. I was so thirsty I did not care it was going to come back up, so I tried a caffeine free Pepsi because it sounded good and used it to take my thyroid meds. I very slowly drank like maybe 1/3 of the can and it seemed to be staying down. By this time DH was up and asked if he could do anything/get me anything. I told  him I was going to call the OBGYN as by this time 36 hrs since I had kept any solids down and hardly any liquids in the same time. So I called and they told be to head to labor and delivery at Riverside assessment for dehydration, so we headed straight there. When we got there I was off the charts for keytones in my urine and dehydration (a positive sample ends up as making the strip dark purple, mine was instantly dark purple and ended up turning black). I also had elevated BP (which is the opposite of how my BP has been trending during this pregnancy). They hooked up a monitor to my belly and found the baby right away, the baby had super active throughout the entire illness or I would have been to a doc sooner. Anyways, the baby was doing great, so they took those monitors off and hooked me up to an I.V. and gave me Zofran, then after I had two full bags of IV fluids they asked me to try and drink a half can of pop over the course of an hour and eat a saltine. I didn't make it and managed to throw up the pop they gave me, the pepsi, and loads of other fluid that I had no idea where it came from. At this point they gave me something stronger for the nausea and omitted me. The new med knocked me out for awhile. When I woke up my mouth was SO DRY, I asked and received ice chips and very slowly had some of those. I laid there all day eating an ice chip at a time and watching football with DH, pretty miserable, later in the afternoon I asked for more and was given a Popsicle, which went OK, then cranberry juice. Around the time DH went home to walk the dogs my fever suddenly spiked (it had been very mild). They gave me tylenol, but it still had not broken after an hour. It got up to 101.4F, and then suddenly dropped. I was still physically miserable and had a rough night with diarrhea, chills, hot flashes, but I did not throw up. They came and drew more blood at 5:30am. I woke up with a really bad sinus type headache a bit later and turned the TV on. They came in and said my labs were OK and my temp was fine, so if I could keep down a solid breakfast they would release me. I managed to eat oatmeal, bacon, and orange juice and while it was not super appetizing to me, it did not come back up, so after checking the baby again (still doing great, kicking the monitor, etc), they released me home. They said that there has been a GI bug going around that the OBGYN warned them about and it was probably just this as my other labs came back normal (no infections or anything).

Since getting home I have been trying to eat every couple hours and making myself drink even though I still don't feel great. I have had really bad headache/sinus symptoms but I think they are resolving now. I feel so crazy weak and fatigued, and I feel like its improving so slowly (along with my willingness to eat), that it is going to take me weeks to feel normal again. I hope I am wrong. I am just glad baby has been OK through all of this and I am doing my best to not end up at L&D again. I know I won't feel like going back to work tomorrow, but I am going to try and at least go in for awhile because our sick policies put up a bunch of paperwork/bureaucratic crap if you stay out three days in a row straight. I can always come home if I feel weak or can't keep up with hydrating etc while there. I have plenty of sick time. The only good thing that came out of this? We know our way into Riverside now, so DH will know exactly where to go if there is another emergency or hopefully when its time to deliver!!

What a sucky dramatic ending to a great week... a great week I will hopefully tell you about it soon.

Picture Catchup!

As Promised - the picture "catch up" session!!


M, R, and I at the Farmer's Market in July. We snapped this pic because we were not sure when the three of us would be together again, and its good we did. Since the pic was taken M went to Mexico for extended research and R moved to L.A.!



I took my parents to see the giant corn, always a good time! LOL



Aaron and I on our 5th Anniversary



My parents when they visited, love this pic!!

So, I picked this picture using a thumbnail because it looked like it showed my belly best... so look at the Belly and not my face! This is also from our anniversary, 7/22

And this too, anniversary again!

DH sent me flowers on the day I turned 20 weeks! It was so incredbly sweet, I have been meaning to give him kudos on here forever!