February 2019: Everglades & Key West

When I think of February, I just think Tatum’s birthday! 

Of course there are a few other things that happened first. For starters, we actually went out and celebrated Super Bowl Sunday like adults for once! One of Brian’s bosses has a huge, catered Super Bowl party every year and he’s invited Brian every year and this time we were able to go. Conveniently, he lives 5 minutes from my grandma’s house so we dropped Tatum off for a few hours and got some alone time together with other adults (RARE for us!). 

One of my best friends from high school came into town for a few days and I was able to pick her up from the airport and grab lunch. Living far from home really makes these kinds of opportunities so important, and nostalgic. 

Our first two Valentine’s Days together, we really went all out for date night. The last two years have been more low key, one was spent waiting for Tatum to make her debut and last year involved a beach dinner picnic with her little self. But this year was my favorite Valentine’s Day yet, and maybe it will be our new tradition. Brian asked if I wanted to go out and he would get reservations, but aside from New Years, I feel it’s the biggest date night of the year which is a bit of a cliche. Restaurants drive up their prices, plus you have to deal with finding a babysitter and I just wanted a stress free evening. So, I made Tatum dinner and we spent the evening with her like usual, and then when she went to bed at 7:30, Brian and I cooked together. I found recipes for filet mignon and honey bacon Brussels sprouts from our favorite restaurant (where we celebrate our anniversary every year) and made Parmesan garlic scallops and mashed potatoes. We sat down to our candlelit dinner (which was DELICIOUS if I do say so myself) and wound up talking for two hours at the table before eating homemade cheesecake and chocolate covered strawberries in bed. It wasn’t special because it was Valentine’s Day but because we took advantage of an opportunity to have a special dinner just the two of us in the comfort of our own home and reconnect, decompress, and focus on each other. Which as parents is sometimes rare and difficult to do. 

The next weekend was Presidents Day weekend and Brian had a long weekend off so we planned a Florida bucket list trip! At the beginning of the year we sat down and made a list of all the things we wanted to see/ what we would be disappointed that we missed if we move away and didn’t see them while we live here. The Florida Keys and the Everglades made the list! Back in January, I found a great deal on an AirBnB on the southwest side of Miami and we booked it. We left Saturday morning and drove to our AirBnB, got unpacked and set up Tatum’s pack-n-play, then headed to Everglades National Park. 

Everglades was awesome, but there’s definitely some notes I need to make for anyone who wants to travel there. I did a ton of research all week and was grateful for it, but I still don’t think we made the most of the park. For starters, it costs $30/vehicle to get into the park, but the pass is good for a week. You can camp and rent kayaks and canoes in the park, and there are so many “hiking” and nature trails. I would recommend taking a few days and actually camping in the park to get the most out of it. We spent about five hours there, saw a TON of alligators and birds, but there was a lot we didn’t get to explore. I will say, February is a great time of year to go. The weather was warm (80s) but not too humid, and the mosquitoes and bugs were nearly nonexistent. 

The next morning, we got up early and headed out. Our AirBnB was about an hour from Key Largo (the top Key) and I found a restaurant on TripAdvisor called Harriette's that had great reviews, so we headed there for breakfast. We got there around 7:30 am, and it turned out to be this super cute mom & pop kind of place, with incredible breakfast and veryyy fast service. I got the sausage gravy and biscuits which is what they’re known for and it didn’t disappoint. Brian got an omelette that he said was great and we got Tatum pancakes that she loved. We were back on the road by 8 am! 

The drive from Key Largo to Key West at the bottom is a leisurely 2 hour scenic drive, with cute little beach towns, lots of bright blue water, and the prettiest Caribbean beach feel. I honestly didn’t mind being in the car at all for it and Tatum slept most of the way. We got to Key West around 10:15. I had found the only free place to park on the island that wasn’t on the street and we mapped out the closest trolley stop and walked there. A friend had told me about the trolley and it was worth every penny. It’s a hop on- hop off trolley with 13 stops. You can get on and off whenever you choose, or you can ride all the way through and the tour takes about an hour and a half. We did both so we could see all the major sights without fighting too much of the crowds. There were three cruise ships there the day we went and Duvall street and the landmarks were very busy. 

I had a short bucket list for Key West: yummy lunch, Key Lime Pie made from Key Limes from Key West, something that Brian wanted to see, and something for Tatum. Yummy lunch happened at Garbo’s Grill which is the number one moderately priced place to eat on the island and turns out is just a food trunk with outdoor seating and the best Korean beef tacos I’ve ever had in my life. I grabbed some key lime pie and key limeade from Kermit’s, we hit up the Butterfly Museum for Tatum, and the Shipwreck Museum for Brian and I. Tatum loved all the butterflies and how close they would come and land on you, and the Shipwreck Museum had a lookout tower that overlooked the entire island, so that was beautiful. We ended the day at the beach for an hour before starting the trip back around 6 pm. On our drive home, the sun was setting and it felt like it was all around you and so beautiful. Florida has the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. We stopped in Islamorada at Robbies Restaurant for dinner where you can feed huge tarpon right off the dock. I feel like we did a good job of making the most of our day with a toddler and now we can say we’ve been to the southernmost point of the continental United States! We crashed at our AirBnB and headed home the next day! I’m so glad we got our place in a Miami because it really broke up the drive time. It would have been a 7 hour drive home if we had stayed in Key West, plus wayyyy more expensive. This was a fun-filled, bucket list checking, highly affordable trip which was exactly what we wanted, and we made it home by noon to enjoy the rest of Brian's day off! 

The next week was insanely busy getting ready for Tatum’s birthday party and a church activity I was in charge of, and the following week Brian and I took turns with some sort of stomach bug and that ended our month! I’ll have to do a separate post for Tatum’s birthday because of all the pictures I have! I can’t believe how fast February flew by. I know the next few months will be just as quick! 

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Starting Fresh: January 2019 & SURPRISEl

January was exactly what we needed after December: relatively uneventful. Or at least to anyone who didn't know we were expecting another baby!

January was the longest month EVER. 

Now that we’ve announced our pregnancy, I can explain why. For starters, I started getting nauseous from Week 5. Like we found out I was pregnant, I had about three days of celebration and BAM, enjoyment over. While I was pregnant with Tatum, I threw up every single morning for seven weeks. This pregnancy didn’t drive me to actually vomiting, but I was nauseous 24/7, so bad in the afternoons and evenings that I literally couldn’t sit up in bed. I’m not proud of how much TV Tatum has watched since mid-December. 

We told our families about my pregnancy at Christmas and I had to wait until January 8 before we had our first appointment. The second time around I’m so much more aware of all the things that could go wrong and I immediately teared up when I heard his little heartbeat and saw that first ultrasound. We decided to do the NIP Test which would tell us the gender by 11 weeks because it was covered by our insurance, but I was positive it was a boy before that. Mother’s intuition!

It’s always funny to me to talk about my pregnancies because when you look at the list of old wives tales about baby gender based on the mother’s symptoms, mine are the opposite. When I had Tatum, all signs pointed to boy and this time, all signs pointed to girl, aside from the fact I wasn’t physically throwing up all the time. The nausea was much worse for this one though. My only cravings have been cereal and the things I survived on during Tatum’s pregnancy (soda and junk food) make me feel TERRIBLE and dehydrated so I’ve stayed away from them completely. Also probably a good thing since I became a total whale when I was pregnant with her! 

Aside from an NBA game in Orlando, nothing exciting or memorable occurred this month while we waited for our test results and to get through that dreaded first trimester. I officially hit 13 weeks on January 30 and we had our next checkup that day. Our NIPT results were in and as soon as they said boy I almost cried tears of joy. Everyone thought it was because I reeeally wanted a boy, but at this point, I’m really just not ready for Tatum to not be my only little girl! I definitely wanted a boy at some point though, and I wanted Brian to have a son! Everyone says the mom-son bond is like the daddy-daughter bond and is so unique and different and special, but Tatum and I have our own special bond that nothing can ever take the place of. Moms and daughters, man. It’s something powerful. 

I have sooo much guilt about having another baby. I’m an only child, so when I think about how close my mom and I are and how it was always me and her, I sob thinking about how Tatum is still too young to remember this time we have right now just the two of us. Everyone tells me that when I see my babies together that my guilt will go away and I guess she will never know the difference of not having him in her life, but I still cry thinking about it. I guess it’s one-child-mom syndrome because I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around how I will ever love someone else as much as I love her. 

Now that we’ve told people I’m pregnant and we know everything with baby boy is on track and he’s doing well, time is speeding back up. With Tatum, I was so in a hurry for the pregnancy to get to the end, and this time around I’m so laid back. I want time to go slowly, even though I know it won’t because life is insane right now. I’m enjoying every day soaking up my Tatum time, trying to keep in better shape than I was last pregnancy, and trying to document this special time where I finally feel like I’ve found my groove again.... before our world explodes all over! 

We are so excited for another baby, and sooo excited it’s a boy. We’re evening the teams! I couldn’t be excited to have a boy if I wasn’t married to a man who is exactly what I hope my son becomes, so I have to thank Brian for that. With every day and every season, I just love and admire him even more and can’t wait to keep growing our family with him. 

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The Bitterness that was December 2018

The only way to describe December is that it wasn't anything like what anyone had planned. It was nice for the random Christmas festivities that occurred throughout the month, but overall I'm glad it's behind us.

It started when my dad and stepdad were supposed to come down for a long weekend over the second weekend of the month. It was my grandmother's 91st birthday and a chance to enjoy warmer weather. They wound up postponing the trip to February for Tatum's birthday because my grandma decided she was going to fly up with us for Christmas two weeks later, only that didn't happen either. 

The week before Christmas, my grandma got a bad cold which can easily, and has in the past, put her into the hospital. Although she was on the mend, our whole family and her doctor thought it would be unwise for her to travel, given that 80% of people traveling during the holidays end up with a head cold or infection of some sort after the fact. So she cancelled her flight.

The day before we were supposed to hop on a plane to spend 9 days with my family for the holiday, we received some terrible news. Brian's older brother, Steven, had passed away suddenly. Steve was a type 1 diabetic and had been suffering from a stomach bug for the two days prior. As a diabetic, anytime someone can't keep fluid or food in their system it can be highly life threatening. Thursday morning, December 20, 2018, Brian's dad went to check on Steve after taking him food and drinks and checking on him the night before, only to find Steve in his apartment already gone. 

Brian came home from work that day and worked from home the next day while we altered our plans. We decided to still fly to Maryland the next day, but we would leave the day after Christmas to fly to Salt Lake City in preparation of Steve's services. 

The trip from BWI to SLC was nothing short of a nightmare. We had four suitcases full of clothes for 10 days and Christmas presents, a toddler, and a layover in Dallas. We arrived safely in Dallas, only to have our flight to SLC delayed over and over again before it was finally cancelled 5 hours later. Because we had already flown a portion of our trip, the airline said they couldn't help us over the phone and only an attendant at our current airport could help. Brian waited in line for 3 hours until after midnight while I tried to get Tatum to sleep on me before he got to the desk. Once there, they tried many options before finally booking us onto the most feasible flight path to get us there before the funeral services. We had to go get our bags and recheck them, where we learned they had been sitting out on the carts in the thunder and lightning storm that had cancelled our flight, and were soaked, ALL OF THEM, completely through. 

When we went to recheck them, the woman at the airline had the audacity to tell me one of our bags was over weight limit. I probably gave her a look that could have killed her on the spot and responded with, "Well sweetie they weren't like that when we checked them back in Baltimore. Perhaps it's the fact that they got drenched sitting on YOUR runway for hours, or maybe they magically grew in size while I slept on your airport floor for the last 4 hours with a toddler. Either way, I think you can let this one slide." And she did. 

We got on a 6 am flight to Denver, where we had a 6 1/2 hour layover, and then sat on the airplane for an hour while they tried to reroute our plane to avoid a storm around Salt Lake City. After over 31 hours of travel, we arrived in Utah with four soaking wet bags, three exhausted and smelly people, and no patience. Brian's mom picked us up, pumped us full of In-N-Out, and got us safely home where she started washing and drying all our clothes and my angelic sister-in-law let me borrow dry clothes and gave Tatum a bath while Brian and I showered. All I can think is, "Imagine how screwed we would have been if we weren't going somewhere with a free washer and dryer." I don't think I'll ever have to convince Brian to fork out a few hundred bucks more for that nonstop Delta flight ever again. 

The next day was Steve's viewing and the following day was the funeral. Kevin and Brian both spoke and had beautiful remarks. We laughed, we cried, we mourned, and we'll always miss Steven until we see him again. He leaves behind three beautiful children and it's not going to be an easy time without him anytime soon. But we know he's in a better place, free of his fight with diabetes and other of life's struggles. We were surrounded by so many family and friends all weekend, we are so blessed for the love and support we received, and especially the moments that lightened up the hard times. 

We flew home on New Year's Eve, were just getting our bags when the clock struck midnight, and we had never been happier to be home. The day after we got home, we took down the Christmas tree and all our decorations. I think Brian and I were both so done with the month and the way the year ended that we just wanted it all put away and out of mind. Being in Florida helps some, because we aren't reminded so strongly of the mess that Christmas was this year since the weather is usually pretty warm and feels like springtime. 

For a week and a half after we got home, Tatum would wake up at 3 AM and be awake for about two hours. She would just talk and laugh and when we went in to tuck her in, she would just sit back up five minutes later and keep chattering. We kept making jokes that Steve had come to check on her and visit and she just had so much to say she couldn't possibly go to sleep. 

2018 was full. Full of love, adventure, excitement, hardships, frustrations, successes, beautiful triumphs, and bittersweet endings. We traveled 7/12 months, family came to see us multiple months, we bought our second house, Brian started his MBA, we went to four of our best friends' weddings, and we more than took advantage of Florida residency in our Disney World passes. My baby became a toddler.

We're excited for what 2019 holds for our family.

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