Birthday Suprises

Happy Birthday to Me!

I LOVE THIS PICTURE OF US!

Today is my 29th Birthday, we pretty much celebrated on yesterday because G was supposed to be out of town on business travel. He ended up being home, but we had already planned on celebrating on Sunday, and I think he was pretty much dying to give me my present already, so we celebrated yesterday. 

Back story - G has been planning my 30th birthday for many, many months now and all I knew about it was it was a trip that was about 3 weeks long and that I'd find out on my 29th birthday what it was. I knew my parents and his parents were going and knew about it (and a bunch of our friends knew about it as well) and it seemed like everyone was anxious for me to know about it so we could talk openly about it. I had guessed it was some sort of cruise since I love cruising and that it was somewhere that involved flying to since I know G is saving all his travel miles / hotel points for this trip. 

He told me he was going to video record me opening my gift, I had NO idea what I was in for. I opened my gift to find a 252 piece puzzle, and he said by the time I was done putting it together I would know where we were going for my birthday next year. The kicker, I had to put it together without knowing what the picture looked like. He said it took him 40 mins to do with knowing the picture and his parents did it together without knowing the picture and it took them an hour and 45 minutes. Well, I finished it in about 1 hour and 40 minutes (probably would have been a little faster if I didn't let EM "help" before her nap, about 45 minutes into it). He made a pretty cool time lapse video of it too! 

getting started with EM as my "helper"

in process

I DID IT!

the picture of the puzzle, not in puzzle form

So my guesses were both right, it was a cruise and it is overseas. The best part is though, it is a transatlantic cruise, which is something we've both (and our sets of parents too) have been dying to do, so now I get to do some european ports and a transatlantic cruise, all in one! This surely knocks off some of my 40 before 40 list items as well! I'm soooo excited and LOVED the way G revealed it to me. He's so creative and thoughtful when it comes to gifts. (I'm more of a "let me buy it off of your wish list" type of person). We'll be flying into Barcelona  and staying there for a few days (yes, both of the girls are coming with us) and then hoping on a ship which makes stops in Malaga, Spain; Gibraltar, UK; and Funchal (Maderia), Portugal and then we'll spend quite a few days at sea before stopping in Nassau, Bahamas and ending in Tampa. Both sets of parents and our good friends Ryan and Jenny and their daughter, will be joining us on this adventure! 

Sunday night we went to dinner at my favorite place, Kobe's Japanese Steakhouse (we go for almost every birthday between the two of us and most of our friends)! A few of my friends and my in-laws were able to join us for dinner. After dinner, my in-laws came back to the house for cake and we called it an early night. I had a great day celebrating, even if it was a day early!

We didn't do much today but overall had a nice day too. G and I took a nice walk this morning, then we went to lunch with his dad and Nan. I then ran a few errands and relaxed in front of the TV. I'm about to go pick EM up from school and hit up Chick-fil-a for dinner (yes, this was what I wanted tonight LOL). 

Just want to thank everyone for all the birthday wishes (and for keeping my birthday surprise, an actual surprise for so many months)! I feel so loved between my family and friends!! Cheers to my last year before 30!

Thursday Thoughts

~Today, May 1^st begins sales tax being added to Amazon orders for us Floridians. Boo! I know it’s actually a good thing, because that means the Amazon facilities are opened up and many jobs have become available for others, but still doesn’t make me happy to start paying. Although, it really won’t change much, Amazon is still wayyy more convenient than most other shipping and still usually cheaper. The only store that usually compares is Target and since I always had to pay tax at Target, even after my 5% RedCard discount, Amazon would end up being cheaper and had faster free shipping (since we are Prime). According to a random article I read today,  Floridians are supposed to pay sales tax themselves when they buy from online retailers. I never knew this, wouldn’t even know HOW to do it, nor do I know anyone who has ever done that, guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore since Amazon was the only place I was getting stuff tax-free.

~I’m sooo anxious for a cruise. I know we “just” went on one in February, but going on one while pregnant isn’t as exciting which is why I refuse to go on another one anytime soon. Plus, the cruise lines won’t allow  you to go after 24 weeks anyways, so that’s not too far away and with G traveling for work, we wouldn’t be able to go on one in the near future even if I revoked my self-imposed “no-cruising while pregnant” rule.  I’m used to going on at least 2 or 3 a year (yes, I’m obsessed) so knowing we didn’t have ANY booked was killing me. #firstworldproblems So, then today Royal Caribbean puts out a special for Buy One, Get One Half Off most sailings in 2015 and 2016, and we all know I can't pass up a deal, especially a cruise deal so G and I booked a short weekend one for our anniversary in February. Since I’m saving all my extra 2014 vacation time for an extended maternity leave and all my 2015 vacation time for a 3-week, 30^th birthday surprise, I won’t have any extra vacation time for anything more than a weekend cruise. Not complaining though, need my fix. Even if it is SOOO far away!

~This past weekend, I ended up sleeping most of I. I had a 3 day headache and it completely ruined my weekend. We did get out of the house for a little on Saturday to go to my old work team’s cookout (my bike never got fixed so we skipped the bike ride portion) and then took G’s grandmother to dinner on Saturday night but other than that, I did a ton of sleeping and laying around. On a positive note, I haven’t felt better (in months!) than these last 4 days! Hoping this continues!

~Our patio extension/screen installation is finally underway! and we got our gutters put up yesterday too! Never thought I'd be so excited for things like this, really shows you I'm a full-blown adult! 

Day 1

Day 2

~We’re getting EM’s 18 month photos done on Saturday (weather permitting – the shoot is going to be outside) – it’s a little early since she’s still a few weeks shy of 18 months but it worked for my and the photographer’s schedule. We are using a new photographer who is starting out as the one we were using increased her prices SIGNIFICANTLY so we figured we’d try someone new. I’m sure she’ll do a great job and she lives in the neighborhood so it makes it easier than driving 40 minutes to the other photographer's location.

~Apparently, EM has been walking great at school. Like, she will just stand up and walk across the classroom and if she falls while in process, she just stands right back up and continues. At home, I am luckily if I can get 5 steps out of her every few days! The teachers did say they don’t acknowledge the fact that she’s walking until she gets to where she is going and then they praise her, as they’ve realized if they praise her while in process, she’ll just sit and crawl the rest of the way. I tried this at home, but she’s still never done it for me. It’s driving me nuts. Please walk for ME! More so, when we go back to the doctor in a few weeks for your 18 month appointment, please walk for the doctor so she doesn’t think I’m lying, ok EM? Thanks! 

but isn't she so cute?

~And finally, next week (Wednesday) I will get my script to get my next ultrasound, which will be our gender ultrasound! I can’t freaking wait! I wish my OB did ultrasounds in his office, but since he’s a small, one doctor, office he sends us to the hospital to get them done. Here’s hoping they have an appointment available two days later on that Friday (obviously G wants to be there for the ultrasound and since he’s out of town Mon-Thursday, I have to wait until a Friday appointment is available. REALLY hoping the 9^th works, although that might be too “early” for the real purpose of the ultrasound since it’s supposed to be around 20 weeks since it’s the “20 week anomaly scan” and I’ll only be 17+4 on May 9^th. Guess I’ll just have to see what my OB says and when the appointment is actually available.  I’m sure I was just as anxious about this when I was pregnant with EM but I feel like it’s worse this time. 

getting big!

Linking up with Jen at Ramblings of a Suburban Mom for today's Thursday Thoughts! 

Brilliance of the Seas Cruise Recap

Last Thursday through Monday, we (G, EM, myself, my parents, and his parents) set sail on Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas.  We left from the port of Tampa, had a sea day one day in Cozumel, another sea day, and we were back in Tampa, bright and early Monday morning. 

the ship from Senor Frogs

G, EM, his parents and myself drove over to Tampa together and when we arrived in Tampa Thursday morning, everything was going great, we dropped off our luggage and went into the terminal to do our check in. Well, I reached for our passports and then realized we didn’t have EM’s Birth Certificate (she doesn’t have a passport yet). G was the one that gathered our passports and I never looked to check about EM’s birth certificate (BC) nor did I remind him. I'm just SO GLAD it wasn’t me who forgot to grab it. So, we go to the security guard to check in and he asks to see our documents and of course we tell him we just realized we forgot EM’s BC. He asked where we were from and we told him it was about a 2 hour drive away and he said that there would be no way we could do roundtrip and make it back in time. I know we aren’t the first people to forgot something like this, so I figured there was SOMETHING that could be done but wasn’t sure what it was. I was a little mad/upset about the whole situation but the security guy was super nice and said we’d figure it out. He suggested we call the Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics and ask if they could fax over a copy, so we called and they said they can not fax over copies. The nice security guard asked if we had a copy of it anywhere and then I remember that I scanned a copy of her BC on my home computer. I thought maybe I emailed it to myself just in case but couldn’t find it in my or G’s email on our phones. Knowing that they would take the scanned copy, I called up one of my neighbors who knows the code to get into our house and asked her to go get on my computer and email it to me/the port security people. Luckily, she was able to do that rather quickly and we were able to board the ship! We WILL be getting EM her passport before our next cruise so that all 3 passports can sit together and we don’t have to worry about forgetting the BC. Although now I do have a copy of it in my email, just in case!

During the BC fiasco, my parents arrived and they waited for us to get everything figured out and we were all able to board together which was nice. We had a nice lunch together and then went back to the room to take a nap before the Muster Drill. I know they are required by law but they are always the same and always annoying and by now, I am more than aware what I need to do in case of an emergency. Plus EM was sleeping so it required her nap to be interrupted, luckily she got a good amount of time in before that happened so she wasn’t cranky. 

staying occupied during the muster drill

We hung out on the pool deck for some drinks and chatting before all kind of doing our own thing (unpacking,relaxing, etc) and met in the Diamond Lounge before dinner for a few drinks. Since my in-laws are Diamond Plus they each always get BOGO coupons for Dinner at a specialty restaurant so the four of us went to Giovanni’s Table for dinner. My parents opted out and watched EM for us during dinner. Dinner was great, although I would have preferred Chops Grille (but they were booked for the evening and the coupons are only good for the 1^st night). Giovanni’s Table is all gourmet Italian and it’s served family style. We of course all wanted different things so we had a TON of food and tried everything. I’d tell you what we ate but to be honest, I have no idea how to spell it or pronounce it and of course I forgot to take any pictures (actually we took very few pics all together on the entire cruise, not sure what I was thinking!). The cannoli’s at the end were amazing and if I wasn't already stuffed, I would have had seconds! 

My parents took EM for the evening so that G and I could get a night alone. They took her to dinner and to watch the show which they said she really enjoyed. She’s getting to the age where she’s really going to start liking the dancing and singing and bright colors.  The plan was they would have her for 2 night and G’s parents would have her for 2 nights so that we could have some alone time since this was supposed to be our anniversary cruise. Yes, we are those type of people that invite others (*gasp* and parents!) on anniversary trips. I mean we had 18 people on our honeymoon, so it shouldn't be THAT shocking.

playing with Paca

Friday was a sea day and I got up early-ish to go to the gym. I ran 2.5 miles and did some of my arm/strength training.  I met my parents and EM for breakfast and went to change into pool attire. It was nice out, but not hot enough to really go into the water but we did take EM to the kid pool and she loved going up and down the steps and down the slide. I wish I would have taken more pics but here is at least a short video. We relaxed most of the day, all doing various things, I spent most of my time by the pool. I think it’s a little ridiculous that they post signs that babies (even in swim diapers) aren’t allowed in the pools. Even the kids poo! Especially since you don't get discounts on babies. We all had a nice dinner together but since I was so tired after dinner (we had an 8:30 dinner so it was close to 10 by the time it was over) I decided I would just take EM and go to bed and let everyone do their own thing. No sense having any of the parents watch her if I was just going to sleep anyways. 

Playing in the Diamond Lounge:

love the towel animals!

Saturday, we spent the day in Cozumel. All of us went to my new favorite place, Mr. Sanchos.  (I went there with my family on the Carnival cruises I took in September and December - which I just realized I never really did a full recap on - whoops!) Unfortunately, G woke up with a sore throat and wasn’t feeling 100% so he didn’t quite indulge in the all you can drink as much as he normally would have. The weather was beautiful. Although, I do wish it had been a little hotter as it was just a tad too chilly to really stay in the water too long. I think everyone had a great time, especially our dads. They were TRASHED by the time we left. We stopped at Senor Frogs before heading back to the ship. G, EM, and I left our parents there and luckily they (barely) made it back to the ship on time. We all met for dinner later on (except G since he wasn’t feeling well) – I was pretty surprised to see our Dads there since I was sure they would have missed it after the condition they were in when we left them at Senor Frogs. Once again, since G and I weren’t going to be really spending the night doing anything due to him feeling like crap, we ended up taking EM (plus our parents were all still pretty toasted).

Nap Time before Play Time!

cuddling with Nan

swimming in the ocean with Grandma

Enjoying Senor Frogs

More love from Pappy

Sunday was our last true day, as Monday you just wake up and get off the ship. It was a sea day again and after breakfast, EM and I spent it at the pool with my parents (my in-laws were off doing something else as they aren’t big pool/sun people and G was sick in bed the entire day). Once EM was ready for her nap, I dropped her off in the room with G and I went to the gym and ran 3.5 miles. I was very proud of myself for making it to the gym twice - I guess having to report back on Follow Through Friday helped! Most of the afternoon I just spent walking around the ship exploring (none of us had ever been on this ship before) and relaxing/reading. 

G playing with EM

I also took EM to play in the Fisher Price Royal Tots play area (we went a few other times as well). This play area was NOTHING compared to the play area we experienced on Allure of the Seas in December but nonetheless, I love that they have it. It give babies/toddlers the opportunity to play together with a bunch of age-appropriate toys and just space to crawl around and well, be babies. While in there, I met a girl from Israel who was on the ship with her daughter for 1.5 months staying with her husband who is one of the Security Officers. I thought it was nice that she and her daughter were able to do that and the dad didn't have to miss so much of his daughter's baby milestones. That always makes me sad that so many of the crew members are away from their families for so long (most aren't able to have their families come stay with them on board since they share rooms with other crew members). Even if it's making a better life for their families back home, still makes me sad. Although, my father-in-law gave a great analogy, it really is no different than our US Military who do the same thing during deployments (and also make crap money). Not that, that makes it any better/less sad, but some Americans are doing the same exact thing AND  protecting our freedom and missing out on so much with their families.

Our last evening was nice and low key. G stayed in bed all day/night and EM and I hung out around the ship, visit my parents in the casino (only for a few minutes before we got kicked out since obviously children aren't allowed in there) and made our stop in the play area mentioned above. I enjoyed a nice dinner with my parents and father-in-law (I put EM to bed with G and my MIL came down with a bad cold as well so she skipped dinner) and got a good night sleep. Now of course, our evenings alone didn't go as planned so G and I plan to go to St. Augustine next weekend to celebrate our anniversary, just the two of us. Hopefully we'll both be feeling better by then since now I've got the cold that G and his mom had, and G still has it a little bit too.  Overall though, it was a great, relaxing vacation! 

Road Trip and 2013 Reminiscing

As we make the 30+ hour drive to Glendale, AZ for the UCF Fiesta Bowl and catching up on some blog reading, I see a lot of 2013 recaps and it got me thinking about my year. We (and by we, I don't mean me, I haven't driven 1 mile) have been driving since Sunday, Dec 29, 10am est and it's now 1:15pm MTN on the 30th. We've made stops for gas, food, and bathroom breaks. It hasn't been that bad (as a passenger). I've read 1.5 books and watched 2 movies. The most exciting part was a wrong turn around 3am that took us through the adorable (as adorable as a town can appear at 3am) town of Bandera, TX. We ran into some other crazy driving Knight fans in Alabama at a random gas station and have been tweeting with some other road trip knight fans. It's been fun. I'll do a full recap of our trip once we get back but for now, wanted to touch on highlights of the year.

(1) As cliche as it sounds, the number one highlight of my year has been watching Miss EM grow. From a newborn to a toddler, babies change sooo much. EM's little personality has developed so much and she is such a good baby. I seriously have never met or heard of a baby has good/easy as EM. (Terrifies me for a second child, no way we can get that lucky twice). She is my little angel, my little buddy, Mommy's little girl. I love her so much, and also cliche to say, but until you have your own child, you really can't comprehend the love between a parent and child, it's incredible!

(2) G and I celebrated our one year anniversary in February. We stayed at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge and had a safari view room. Having giraffes outside your balcony was very cool! (I'm a sucker for animals) Having a 3 month old, I didn't want to be far away but still wanted to be able to celebrate being husband and wife. We took EM to Animal kingdom of on the Friday of that weekend and can't wait to take her back now that she's a little older and loves characters. EM stayed with my in laws for the rest of the weekend so that we could enjoy some US time, We ate at some nice restaurants (Coral Reef and Boma) and walked around the parks. We had a wonderful first year and it was a great first anniversary.

(3) I went on 5 cruises this year. I know, crazy. All of them (except the one where I was sick and couldn't leave the room) were so much fun in their own ways. I know next year, we only have one booked (in February) and that will probably be our only one since I'm hoping to be pregnant, and that is definitely a good enough reason to miss cruising in 2014. 

(4) I started 2013 with a goal of running/walking 300 miles in the year. I log all my walking/running activity, even if it's the half mile round trip to my in laws (hey, everything counts!). About half way through the year I realized I was going to definitely going to be able to beat 300 miles and upped my goal to 400 miles with a stretch goal of 500. I did end up having a bunionectomy in July, so that put a damper on any running/walking for about 6-8 weeks but I'm still very happy to report, as of December 28th I logged 421.88 miles for the year. I may even get a few more today and tomorrow while we are in AZ. I'm not making a 2014 mile goal since I don't know when I'm going to get pregnant and how much ill actually be able to run but I did make a 30 before 30 goal of 1000 miles by 11/2/2015 so that's essentially 500/miles each year. Even with recovering from giving birth (I think I got my go-ahead to start exercising again in Mid-Jan) and my foot surgery, I completed 8 races, and  the first one wasn't even until July. [(1) 2 Miler, (1) 4 Miler, (1) 5 Miler, (1) 10 Miler, (1) Half Marathon, (3) 5ks].

(5) As part of a team, G and I helped raise over $7,000 for Give Kids the World and I couldn't be more proud of our team for raising such a substantial amount of money for such an amazing organization. (Will link recap here once I get non-mobile) 

(6) As a UCF football fan, this has been quite a year. Obviously that's a GOOD "quite" as I'm writing this while driving over 30 hours to go see our team play. UCF beat multiple ranked teams, has been ranked higher in the polls than ever before in the school's history and is playing (and hopefully winning) their first ever BCS Bowl Game. We traveled to Penn State in September to see them play and that was probably one of the most fun football events I've ever attended (other than the one where I met G of course!) and I can only hope these few days in AZ come close that level of fun! (or even top it) EM enjoyed coming to the games as well! 

(7) Having only been in our house a few months of 2012 (and with a newborn) we didn't really start making it our home until 2013. We've been enjoying adding our own personality to the house by decorating/completing some of the rooms and filling the house with pictures of EM and our family! 

(8) We did Drinks around the World in October and that is always such a fun event! Was nice to have my family and  my husband's family and our friends all together having a great time!  

(9) After much back and forth of what exactly I'd be writing about, I started this blog in August. I love that I've found a new hobby and love the blog community. I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm shocked with how involved I've become with the blog but I actually look forward to the opportunity to share my (our) life with the world (ok, not the world but the very small amount of people who actually read it) and even if it's only a few people, I love writing! I hope I continue to enjoy it as much through 2014. This is my 80th post. I'd say that is dedication for 4ish months.

Happy New Year All! 

Five on Friday

It's that time again, FIVE ON FRIDAY!

(UNO) I went to Mexico last weekend on a cruise so felt like counting in Spanish. The cruise was as great of a time as EM's first cruise (same ship, went to same place in Cozumel, most of the same people) This time though, I made $25 in the casino and my Gram came too! Just a few pics from our fun weekend cruise: 

if you look closely, you can see her pig tails!

EM and Great Gram

EM and Auntie Danielle

(DOS) My sister and her husband finally announced their pregnancy on Facebook so I can finally blog about it! I've known since the day she found out and have been bursting with joy for them! I'm so excited for them. They are going to be amazing parents! They are due in July and I can't wait to have another little niece or nephew (and a cousin for EM)! The announcement that they posted on Christmas Day and was too cute: 

(TRES) We hosted our first ever Christmas Eve party. Remember how I was complaining about doing the Holiday Shuffle? Well this Christmas was stress-free and enjoyable! The party went great! We had a very exciting White Elephant Gift Exchange (with lots of steals and frozen items) and even got my Gram to do a shot of jäger (she doesn't ever drink). I do wish we took some more pics though but otherwise I think everyone had a great time! Christmas morning, just the 3 of us got up and did gifts, EM seemed to enjoy it as much as I was expecting for a 13 month old. (Paper was more exciting than the gifts). We got her a Disney monopoly game (well we were buying it regardless for her when she's older but made it "for her" so there would be more gifts under the tree and she doesn't know the difference) so G and I played after presents (I won, we played again last night and I won again, woohoo!) and then my inlaws came over to exchange gifts with us. We finished the morning/afternoon with watching the Tim Allen Santa Claus movies. We then went to his parents for dinner since they live down the street and had a wonderful ham dinner. We called it a night early and watched more movies, ELF! :) My siblings (or at least my brother) and I used to play monopoly often on Christmas so it was kind of nice to be playing it again, even if it wasn't with them. We'll be celebrating Christmas with my siblings and my parents on Saturday! 

(QUATRO) I went after Christmas Shopping Thursday morning and got some great deals! I'm sure if I would have went out even earlier I could have gotten more but by 9:30 the stores had some stuff but not a huge selection and were dead (no people, no lines) I was shocked. I always thought it was supposed to be crazy the day after Christmas!  Everyone else I talked to said their stores were crazy busy, I must have gotten lucky. Here are just a few of the great deals I got I won't bore you with all of them (got a TON of lights since we're definitely decorating the outside next year and our fence) 

From Bealls (a Florida Store): 3 outfits for EM plus her next year Christmas PJ's, a Christmas Frame and a set of  Sparkly Presents that I feel will look cute next to put tree next year all for $38! I'm pretty sure the sparkly presents was only supposed to be a set of 3 but they weren't marked well so the lady said to take them all as a set. Score!

From Kirklands: 3 framed Christmas pictures (I plan to hang two of them in place of our normal pictures in our "Christmas Tree" room during the holidays - and one somewhere else,just not sure yet) and the 3 presents are metal and have stands so thinking all I'll put those out front of the front door next year. All for $22!

From Target: this was the only outdoor decoration left when I got there around 10:30am besides wreaths - it was still $30 but way better than full price! Will go nicely next to our light up rattan reindeer (which we haven't put outside yet since we didn't have anything else to go with it) 

From Old Navy: Got these two adorable shirts (for next year) and 3 pairs of socks for around $11. 

(CINCO) My best friend Kelly stopped bye today on her way home from her parents on her way back to Boca. I love that I live right off the turnpike so that I'm an easy stop and I get to see her on her trips! I haven't seen her since October when we did DATW and it was great to be able to spend a few hours catching up with her!