17 Weeks

As of today, I'm technically 17 weeks and 2 days, but I was just too tired to post on Monday.  According to The Bump, the baby is the size of an onion and Baby's skeleton is hardening, changing from rubbery cartilage to bone, and fat is finally accumulating around it. The umbilical cord is getting thicker and stronger, and those little fingers and toes are now topped by one-of-a-kind prints.

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 17 weeks and 2 days
Total Weight Gain: As of my last appt at 15 weeks, 5 days, 1.5 lbs, although I'm sure this has definitely increased after all the eating I've been doing over the holidays.  I've decided to not weigh myself that often at home because my scale has different results than the doctor's scale.  So, we'll just stick with what the doctor says, mmmmkay. 
Maternity Clothes: My clothes are getting tighter, but I'm fighting the maternity clothes.  The BeBand is being worn on a more frequent basis, but I broke down and placed an order with Old Navy tonight. 
Sleep: I'm good at it. 
Best Moment this week: Spending time with our wonderful family and friends for the holidays!
Gender: No idea.  We find out January 11th.  I'm adding a poll on the blog so everyone can vote if they want.  It will be fun to see what everyone thinks we're having.
Movement: Nothing really yet.  Should be soon according to the books and the doctor.
Food Craving: Green olives and sweet stuff (not together though).  Today, I walked past one of the girls I work with and she had what I thought was a doughnut in her hands and I got so excited that someone had left doughnuts in the kitchen... It was actually a bagel.  I was so disappointed.
What I miss: Sleeping on my stomach
What I am looking forward to: My cold going away.
Weekly Wisdom:  I got nothing.
Symptoms: Sporadic heartburn and some round ligament pain when I cough (stupid cold).

And for your viewing pleasure, here's a blurry 17 week picture:

The Big Fat Announcement

Wow.  Has it really been 3 months since I last posted?  Our poor blog has been completely neglected, but I have a really good reason.  I'm pretty sure the majority of our readers (our friends and family) know about our big news, but I thought I'd post it on here anyway because eventually, I plan to make this blog into a memory book.

After spending a perfectly wonderful long weekend in Cape May and Atlantic City to celebrate our first wedding anniversary, we found out that we'll have a new addition to our family arriving around June 7, 2010!

 

Exactly 3 months ago today, we found out!  Our weekend in Cape May and Atlantic City was great.  The weather wasn't great the first couple days, but the last few days were perfect.  We spent our time in Cape May relaxing, eating lots of yummy food including dinner at the Washington Inn and once the weather got nicer, we sat on the beach.  We spent the last night in Atlantic City at the Water Club and had a wonderful anniversary dinner at Bobby Flay's Steakhouse at the Borgata. 

So, here's the story of how we found out that I am pregnant.  All weekend while we were in NJ, I was feeling a little "off".  I kind of felt like I had a cold and was kind of rundown, but I couldn't figure out how to make it better.  Towards the end of the weekend, my stomach started feeling a little crampy and almost every time after I ate a meal, I felt kind of nauseous.  The symptoms were all kind of weird, and for most of the weekend, I kept telling Ryan that I wanted to take a pregnancy test.  He wouldn't let me because he didn't want it to ruin our weekend if I took a test and it was negative.  We returned home late on Monday evening, and I had stopped obsessing over it.  We brought all of our stuff inside and got settled, and I realized that I had forgotten to take a test.  So, I started drinking lots of water so I'd have to use the bathroom.  I took the test, and it was NEGATIVE!  I couldn't believe it, because I couldn't figure out why I had felt the way I did all weekend.  It kind of made me feel a little crazy, like I was making it all up.  I showed Ryan the results and ended up going to bed really early that night.  I was pretty upset and ended up having a good cry over the negative test.  In all honesty, I don't think I was so sad about the negative test as I was about my fear that maybe something was wrong with one of us and that we could possibly have infertility issues.  Looking back on that night, I realize that those thoughts were completely irrational.  After I stopped crying, I decided to read the instructions for the test, and it said that the best time to take a test was first thing in the morning and that if you took a test and got a negative result but thought it was wrong, to wait 3 days before taking another test.  The timing couldn't have been better.  We had Melissa & Pete's wedding that weekend, and I decided I'd take another test on Thursday just to make sure so I'd know if I could drink at the wedding.  I didn't tell Ryan that I was going to take another test because I didn't want to talk about it or have the pressure of him knowing about it.  If I took another test, and it was negative, I'd just throw it away and not say anything about it to him.  Thursday morning finally arrived, and I woke up at 5:30am because I really had to use the bathroom.  I decided to just go ahead and take the test and get it over with and what do you know, the test was POSITIVE!  THE TEST WAS POSITIVE AT 5:30 IN THE MORNING!   I didn't want to wake Ryan (we all know he's not a morning person), so I went downstairs to try and get the excitement out of my system.  The only words I could get out were "Holy shit, holy shit...."  I came back upstairs and tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep until it was the normal time to get up.  I tried to take my time getting ready and waited for Ryan to get out of the shower and dressed before I told him.  I walked into the bathroom where he had just finished brushing his teeth and said "I have something to show you" and showed him the test.  He just looked at me and got the biggest smile on his face and said "We did it!" and gave me a big hug.  Definitely a morning that we'll never forget.  As of today, I'm 16 weeks and 3 days pregnant and will be doing weekly posts hopefully starting next week (week 17).

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Francis!!

We spent the weekend celebrating the marriage of Melissa & Pete, and in spite of the rainy weather, it was perfect!  We had such a blast celebrating with them and everything was beautiful!  Hope you both have an amazing time in Hawaii!!!

Wordless Wednesday

One Year Ago Today

• The sun was shining and the weather was perfect.
• He wore a tux and I wore an ivory dress.
• We met on the lawn to have our "first look". It was one of the only times that we were truly alone that day (well, other than our photographer), and we savored every minute.
• We promised to love each other til death do us part.
• We put on 2 shiny rings as a symbol of these vows.
• We had our first kiss as husband and wife.
• We were completely overwhelmed (in a good way) with love from our friends and family.
• We partied with those friends and family until the DJ said no more (and wouldn't play Shout for us).

The past year has been one of the best so far. Perfect in our own way. I can hardly believe it has already been a year. The day that I married my best friend was by far one of the best days of my life. Happy Anniversary, Ryan!

Oh, and by the way, our year-old wedding cake was surprisingly not too bad considering it had been in the freezer for a year! Did I eat 2-3 pieces like I did on our wedding night and the morning after? No. But the one piece I had was actually ok.

Wordless Wednesday

Some of the other blogs that I read do a "wordless Wednesday" post, so I thought it'd be fun to play along (although, this post is not exactly wordless). With that said, I'll leave you with some ridiculously cute pictures of Ryan and Connor watching football on Sunday while Dave & Cindy were visiting.

San Francisco in Pictures

Just over a month later, and I am finally getting around to posting about our trip to San Francisco. It was a great trip. We had pretty decent weather, and we got lots of exercise from all the crazy hills! The pictures below are just the highlights - if you want to see all the pictures I took, just click on one of the pictures included below and it should take you to our flickr page. Or you can just click here.

First stop, Alamo Square to see the houses that were used at the beginning of the Full House episodes.

After that, we headed to our hotel which was at the top of a really steep hill. This is a picture of one of the streets that Ryan had to drive up (and sit at the almost-top waiting for a red light to change) to get to our hotel.

Dinner at a restaurant called The Stinking Rose. Their motto was that they season their garlic with food - hence the strands of garlic hanging from the ceiling.

One of my first pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, taken on our way to Muir Woods.

Ryan and me at the Golden Gate Bridge.

The entrance to Muir Woods.

Ridiculously tall and perfectly straight redwoods.

Back in San Francisco, one of the old streetcars.

The Bay Bridge that goes to Oakland (the one that they just found a big crack in).

Ryan on the cable car on our way back to our hotel one night after dinner. We wouldn't have survived without the cable cars!

Ryan and me at the Phillies/SF Giants game.

A picture for all the Phillies Fans. We had great seats that were right near the bullpen, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of Cole during the National Anthem.

After the game, we went to Fisherman's Wharf. It was a total tourist trap, but still one of those places that you just have to see.

Ghiradelli Square (in case you weren't sure what this is).

From Ghiradelli Square, we took the LONG walk up to see the crookedest street in San Francisco - Lombard Street.

A cable car in front of our hotel.

Another picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, taken from the ferry to Sausalito. Notice how cloudy it is in this picture.

A picture of Sausalito from the ferry. Sausalito is less than 10 miles from San Franscisco, but had completely different weather (notice the blue skies and puffy clouds). This picture was taken about 10 minutes after the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge above.

That afternoon, we took another boat out to Alcatraz for a tour.

Ryan in one of the cells at Alcatraz.

We came back from Alcatraz and got dinner at Fisherman's Wharf before we headed to the airport for our flight. While we were wandering around, we found Pier 39, where the Sea Lions hang out. It smelled really bad, but we suffered through so I could get a few pictures of the sea lions.

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Mooney!!

We spent the weekend celebrating the marriage of Alexis and Tim! Despite the crazy weather with timing that could not have been more perfect - the monsooning started as soon as we got back on the limo bus to make our way back to the hotel for cocktail hour and then stopped as soon as we got back - everything went off without a hitch. Alexis covered every single detail, and she was an absolutely beautiful bride! Tim didn't look so bad either. Congratulations to you both! We love you and hope you have an AMAZING honeymoon in Greece!!

Pebble Beach Days 2 & 3 - Recap

Ryan spent the morning playing a round of golf at the Pebble Beach Golf Links. Here he is on the 18th green. He had a great time and shot under 100 (I think a 98).

Since I had no plans while Ryan was playing golf, I decided to take the rental car and drive north about 30 minutes to go back to a produce stand that we passed on our way to Monterey from San Francisco to pick up these. It was so worth it! I ended up buying 3 baskets and managed to finish off one whole basket of strawberries by myself before Ryan had returned from golfing.

On the way back from the produce stand, I stopped in downtown Monterey. The picture below is of Cannery Row in Monterey.

I also visited Lover's Point in Pacific Grove which was over-run with squirrels!

After Ryan returned from golf, we picked up our rental car (see below) and did the 17-mile drive. Just kidding about the rental car. As part of our package, we got to take a test drive of the car below for 2 hours, so we figured what better test drive than 17-mile drive.

One of our stops along the way. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see the seals on the rock.

The Lone Cypress. This tree has survived out there for over 250 years!

During our last day at Pebble, Ryan had an early tee time at Spyglass Hill Golf Course (see below). He said that this course was much harder than Pebble. While he was golfing, I was lucky enough to spend some time at the spa getting a Hot Stone Massage. It was amazing.

Blogging While in California = FAIL

Despite my good intentions to blog while we traveled to San Francisco & Monterey, I was a complete failure. Even though Monterey was really relaxing, I just couldn't find the time to blog, and I was so exhausted from all the sightseeing in San Francisco that I couldn't even think straight! I'm working on some recaps from the trip and still need to finish the honeymoon recap, so it is clear that I have a ton of catching up to do. For now, we're on a semi-vacation in Atlantic City. Being the good CPAs that Ryan and I are, we are here to take a class for continuing professional education in order to keep our licenses current. Conveniently, Ryan found a class that we could take that was located in Atlantic City. Imagine that... Ryan found somewhere to go where he could get an accounting class in AND gamble. Whatever, I'm just happy to get away for a few days. We're staying at the Borgata and after a minor snag while checking in at 9pm (there were not any non-smoking king rooms clean - not quite sure how that happens, but we were able to get an upgrade to a suite, so I guess we won't complain), we've had some cheesesteaks with wiz (Cheese Wiz for those who aren't familiar) from Tony Luke's and Ryan is happily seated at a blackjack table hopefully winning some money. After walking around the casino floor and checking out the minimum bets at the blackjack tables, I decided that I just couldn't part with that much money, so I headed back up to our suite and relax. Here's hoping that Ryan manages to walk away a winner tonight.

Pebble Day 1 - Recap in Pictures

On our way to Pebble Beach, we took Route 1 (the scenic route) and saw this.

Half Moon Bay

Some amazing coastline

More amazing coastline. Yes, we drove over that bridge.

We stopped at the River Inn in Big Sur and saw what we think is a woodpecker.

The view from the River Inn at Big Sur.

We made it the Inn at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach in time for Happy Hour and listened to the bagpiper that plays every day from 5:45 - 6:30pm.

We sat around the firepits and enjoyed some libations (sorry, didn't get a picture, but Ryan had a mojito and I had a snuggler - a hot chocolate with pepperment schnapps, marshmallows and whipped cream)

And ate pretzels shaped like golf tees.

Then we had dinner at Pebble.

And had our picture taken in front of the famous 18th green.