Bun in the Oven

I really can't even wrap my head around all that has happened since the wedding. Well, really, in this entire year!! Engaged, married, and pregnant all in one year - on top of EVERYTHING else in our lives! I'm exhausted. Oh. Yea. For those of you who don't know, we're pregnant!! Well, I am.

Shortly after returning from St. Croix, my friend Alaina and I decided to surprise our friend Lindsay at her Ironman race in Augusta, Georgia! It was a pretty aggressive move. Augusta is about a 6 hour drive north, the race was on a Sunday and Alaina was officiating a wedding on Saturday, and we had to be back Sunday night. So that left us the night time to get there, day time to watch the race, and another evening drive home. But we made it! We successfully surprised our iron woman at the start of her race and completely caught her off guard. It was such a fun moment! We spent the day following her around, meeting her at various check points and ultimately winding up at the end watching her cross the finish line. It was such an emotional experience. I have not nor will I ever complete an Ironman. I saw what it took for her to train for this and I admire her so much for it. That takes some serious commitment, strength, and dedication! Lindsay, you are an inspiration!

As if that weekend wasn't emotional enough, I found out upon returning that night that Auntie Bob had passed away. I experienced a lot of emotions about this, especially getting the news that weekend. I had just watched my friend accomplish what few people in this world will ever accomplish; a true testament to the power of the human body. While she was running this race, my 94 year old Auntie's body was giving out from natural causes. It was like this beautiful parallel that was also terribly sad. So much life and death all in one day. I made sure to get to California for the service the following week so I good say my goodbyes and be there for Moggy. It was a beautiful service and the perfect way to honor her memory. Scott Daniels gave a wonderful message as always, and coming into the church listening to the recording of her singing with her trio when she was young added an extra element of beauty to the day. Death is never easy, but at least when it's your 94 year old Aunt who died peacefully, you can feel a little bit better about it. And I think everyone did a beautiful job in saying goodbye and sending her up to God.

Upon returning home from that trip, I missed my period. Yup - there it was! The two pink lines. I was by myself before work (where EVERYONE was gone for the day but me) when I took the test, and it was the weirdest moment ever. I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. Was I ACTUALLY pregnant!? No. I couldn't be. After all, I had JUST gone off the pill and, well, without divulging too much information, let's just say...once was all it took! No wonder so many teens get pregnant! I still wasn't sure though so I took a picture and immediately sent it to Kristy. After I blew up her phone she finally called me back and said, "ohhh yea, YOU PREGNIT!" And that was it! Our lives haven't been the same since. That day was such a whirlwind as I was alone at work all day and I hadn't seen Bart yet and was waiting anxiously to tell him. For all of about an hour I was actually going to wait until Bart's birthday 2 days later to give him the news. I quickly realized I'd never last that long. My brain was such a cloudy mess that whole day that I slammed into a post at a gas station and completely screwed up the side of my car. So Kristy gave me a clever way to break all the news to Bart. (See photo below). It went right over his head of course. But after he calmed down and realized what I was actually telling him, he hugged me, and we took off for a friends wedding. That night there was a lot of looking at each other with a confused/blown away expression, periodically sharing a moment of silent excitement, and just generally letting it sink in. In fact, we spent the next several days letting it sink in. It's still sinking in! Finding out your pregnant for the first time is one of the weirdest feelings ever. I can't really explain it, but it's pretty cool/insane/crazy/exciting/terrifying.

Shortly thereafter we had a little weekend getaway to Amelia Island which is about 2 hours north of us. We just went for one night and enjoyed just walking around the quaint little town and horseback riding on the beach! That was SO much fun and the perfect weekend away. Although, word to the wise: don't trot on a horse when you're 5 weeks pregnant with severe cramps. Agh! The following week we went to Italy. I'm not going to write too much about Italy as it was, well, pretty terrible. We had to go for business and decided to make a little vacation out of it as well. What we didn't realize is that "morning sickness" (aka ALL DAY SICKNESS!) would strike right at the time we left. So I spent most of the trip feeling like absolute hell, unable to eat much, and completely repulsed by the smells of sewage and Italian food permeating the streets. On top of that, we had a ton of issues with our train travel to the different areas, the weather was terrible, and it just generally didn't pan out like we'd hoped. We first went to Cinque Terre which we'd heard amazing things about. It was beautiful, but due to the fact that tourist season JUST ended and there was a massive storm on the horizon, there was no one in these villages and in turn, all of the businesses were closed. It was basically like 5 ghost villages. It was strange, but we were at least still able to soak in some of the beauty. We then went to Pisa to see the leaning tower which was AWESOME. Well, the tower was. Outside of the tower, Pisa pretty much sucks. We knew that, so thankfully we had only scheduled 4 hours there. At least I got to cross the tower off my bucket list and it was totally worth it! Then we headed to Milan which is where the motorcycle trade show was. The show was a success and Bart got a lot of the information that he went there to get. I on the other hand pretty much just stayed holed up in our hotel room sick, hungry, and dreaming of the moment when I would finally get to eat American food. And when that moment finally did come, it sucked. Welcome to pregnancy!

So all in all, it was a successful trip (work wise), we had some fun moments, and a lot of crappy ones. Lesson learned: don't travel internationally during your first trimester. :) Well, Thanksgiving is too much to include in this blog so that'll come next. But enjoy some photos from our last couple months, and we'll see you over the holidays!