I Know I've Dropped the Ball!

So I realize it's been a while since the last post.  When we last left off we were just hitting 9 weeks left in our countdown.  We are now at 3 weeks. That's right. 3. How did this happen??? Where did the time go?? Well we did have 1 week in Florida for a vacation which was awesome and went way too fast. Here are just a few shots of the fun!

Bok Tower Garden

 



 

Kennedy Space Center-Space shuttle Atlantis

 

A nature reserve, complete with gators!

 

Tampa Aquarium-petting the sting rays

 

 

We've also had all sorts of excitement around the home front.  Mom's horse Asher got tangled in the fence and had to be taken to the emergency vet hospital in VA 2 hours away. Don't worry, he's ok.  Just needed some stitches and stall rest for about a month, no big deal right?



S & S had their baby about 3 weeks ago-right on her due date! Baby H made HIS grand entrance after much speculation as to whether or not he was a girl or boy.  So now we have 4 brothers, 3 have had a kid, which translates to 3 boys thus far.  Any guesses as to what Critter will be?? The odds are (not??) in our favor. There was much hope that Sarah would be the one to pop out a girl from both families (hers and the M family) so I don't know how much hope is being placed on ours to be a girl.  No one really talks about it and I don't know of it's because they either a: don't care at this point (because all the hype was about what H was going to be and no one thought/cared much about ours) b: are afraid to jinx it by talking about it or c: have resigned themselves to the fact that we will probably be having a boy as well. From the beginning it was guessed S would have the girl and I the boy so I don't know. My folks have been saying from the beginning that we're having a girl so we've gotten both sides of it. We don't have long to find out which is crazy and exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

We went to a 6 week long birthing class that actually didn't terrify me as much as I thought it would so that was a good thing! I feel mildly prepared for what's about to happen to me-at least I'll be able to follow along when the midwives tell me what's going on.  And we've lots of techniques for laboring at home to deal with it all. Lots of prayers for an easy and quick labor and delivery are always welcomed ;)

The last thing that's been going on around here is that I've developed pregnancy induced carpal tunnel syndrome.  Yea, that's a thing. Apparently 25% of preggos get it.  This is not a club I want to be part of.  Now, I'm not complaining. Really I'm not. It took about 34 weeks for any sort of "issues" to pop up so I count myself lucky that this is it really. But just for a second, imagine that your middle fingers have fallen asleep. You know, the numbness and tinglies.  Now picture that all day, every day, for the last 3-4 weeks. Mix in other fingers and whole hand numbness at times, especially at night when you're trying to sleep and can't because it's migrated up to your elbow or shoulder and you've got fingers that have completely locked up. And you can't take anything but Tylenol (that doesn't work) and the only mild relief is icing your wrists. That's a glimpse of what's been going on.  The hardest part is I've had a hard time doing pony chores.  Heck, anything that requires my hands has been tough.   So life is changing a little bit already.  The big joke around here is that the Lord is preparing me for an infant by waking me up every 2, 3, or 4 hours to have to either walk around for a few minutes to help the pain and/or ice my hands.  Again, I'm seriously not complaining. We keep finding the silver lining. It may be hard to see through tired, teary eyes but it's there.

The big take away from this is how AWESOME my hubby is.  Without complaint, he's picked up my pony chore slack (which has been hard for me to accept).  Without me asking, he'll go out poo pick or feed or do any number of things that I need to do and tells me to go sit and ice. It's terribly humbling which I of course hate.  I think I've heard "shelve the pride and ask for help" more times that I can count the last few weeks. 

We also celebrated 7 glorious married years together.  We didn't do anything exciting but that's ok. We're getting ready for a baby-we needed to relax! I don't know how I got so lucky to have him but I am continually thankful for him.  I guess I just had awesome taste at 16 ;) I  mean look how cute we were:

5 Year Anniversary Trip Stop 3: Cinque Terre

So the next stop on our trip was the Cinque Terre, or "The Five Lands." This is a spot that I had wanted to see for a long time so it was part of my "must see" for this trip.  For those of you who don't know much about this area, it was, and still is, a fishing and boating area.  There are vineyards as well that are carved into the hillside, along with homes. It is now also a very popular tourist destination because it was virtually unheard of for many centuries. They are also a National Park and on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

These lovely and dramatic villages are definitely worth a visit but beware-they are tough to get around if you're not in shape!! There are only two ways to go, up and down! Another big attraction to this area is the hiking trails, which is what we were interested in.  We wanted to take the easy coastal trail to all the villages, which would have taken all day but would have been doable for the two of us since we weren't in the best shape.  Unfortunately there were some terrible floods in 2012 and part of the trail was inaccessible which gave us three options. 1. Take the train to each town to look around that way. 2. Take a boat. 3. Hike the "panoramic" vista trail. We (in a moment of insanity) chose option 3.  So instead a few mile trek along the coast we headed straight up the side of the hill to a 4-5 mile HIKE.  To give you an idea of what we did here is a map: we wanted to take the blue trail.  We did from Manarola section 6, 6d to Corniglia. Now I know that doesn't look to tough. The first 1/2-3/4 was all up hill. We are fatties. It was tough!

 

BUT, we survived!! And it was TOTALLY worth it! We got some of the most amazing photos on this hike- some of the best from the whole trip.  And it was great proof that no matter where you are in the world, hikers ban together and are always friendly and will give you a wave or "hello."  The great thing about a killer hike is the descent down to a yummy meal, complete with beer (for Matt) and a Limoncello for me! I even got to try a local variety which was SO GOOD that I was on a quest the rest of the trip to find a bottle, which I did our last night in Florence!

 

Our first night walking around Riomaggiore (where our B&B was)

 

 



The beginning of stunning coastal views

 

There were these beautiful flowers growing on an old stone wall-so Italian!

 

You can see the village built up into the hillside and the vineyards beyond that! Along with some wispy rain clouds.

 

Great scenery. Even more handsome subject!

 

Starting off in Manarola to hike the coast.

 

Manarola village, no beaches here!

 

Uh oh! Trail is closed! No going on the coastal road!

 



 

That's OK! We'll just trek up the side of a freakin' mountain! No biggie right? Yes, we were all the way down at the bottom before.

 

Endless stairs and uphill. It was almost more difficult because it was all stairs!

 

We can glimpse the next village through the hillside and vineyard.

 

On the way down and am SO happy!

 

A well deserved limoncello and pizza lunch for our efforts.  The scenery was amazing as well.

 

You can barely see the furthest village on that point all the way to the left. We took the train from here.

 

Matt likes to make me look directly into the sun while taking pictures.  It's painful.  And we had just witnessed a couple making out very inappropriately below us so my eyes were already hurting.

 

We also played with the miniature affect with the camera. Oh boy was that fun! And this was the perfect setting for it.

 

 

All in all it was a wonderful 2 nights.  I wish we had been able to take the coastal trail or go on a boat ride to see them all from the sea but we can always revisit one day.  Again I would highly recommend coming here for a few days away. It was actually quite quiet since it's hard to get a car around these villages, and they are closed to cars in the evening too! Just make sure to bring your walking shoes ;)

5 Year Anniversary Trip Stop 2: Venice

 

So there is a reason why people always suggest going to Venice if you are to ever visit Italy. BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME!! Sorry for the yelling, I just get excited easily! This was the 1 place Matt emphatically said, "we ARE going", when we said back to Italy.  He didn't care where else we went. Only Venice was on his agenda. So I then gave him the reins to book a place and figure out what he wanted to do. Only part of that happened. but oh well, it was a good combo effort! He did book a beautiful old palace for our hotel (and broke the budget BIG time! I guess that's allowed when you make the big bucks :0  ) and it was in good walking distance to the major sites. Although we have said if we are to ever go back we're going to stay in another part of the city, on the other end really, so we can explore there better.  But here's a MAJOR heads up everyone: in case you didn't know, Venice is CRAZY expensive! So make sure you budget for everything-I think the cheapest thing we got was the umbrella at the kiosk for 4 euros.  Sure you can buy really crappy knock-off plastic masks for 2 euros but that's not what I'm talking about, and we didn't get those cheapos anyway.  Thankfully we went when it wasn't too hot so it wasn't stinky at all. Sadly, it did rain a little bit but not so much it deterred us from walking around. And Matt lucked out in that we didn't go see any art museums. I would have loved to go to the Academia or the Peggy Guggenheim Museum (I've been before and it's amazing!) but I knew the poor guy would get more later in the trip so I used my museum card sparingly ;)

 

 

 

Taking in the sites on the water taxi.

 

 

St. Mark's square was intermittently busy, depending on the rain situation.  It took a few tries to NOT get people right next to us. 

Gross. Don't people know pigeons are basically rats with wings. We saw people feeding them and letting holding them. Again, gross.

 

So handsome!

 

Inside the basilica.  Again, mosaics and gold plating everywhere. It's kind of overwhelming at times. 



Of course everywhere you look in the canals you see gondolas.  They are pretty looking but not the most efficient way to see things!

 

 

On the Rialto Bridge. That place was PACKED! And the wears were even more expensive!

 

The Bridge of Sighs.  Very interesting history and we've seen it's replica in Bath!

 

We went to a classical music concert which was very nice. The music was great!

 

On a taxi headed to Murano Island!

 

Seeing a glass blowing demonstration on Murano. He made that horse in no time! 

 

Rialto Bridge-it was a cool building/bridge!

 

A beautiful old clock-look how interesting it is!

 

Back inside St. Mark's Basilica. So much gold!

 

I feel this sums up Venice perfectly, canals, gondolas, and churches.

 

Classic Venice!

 

Such a stud!

 

Having so much fun on the boat tour!

 

View from our hotel room. Loved seeing the hanging flowers!

 

The architecture of this city is truly amazing!

 

 

This is one city you could spend days just wandering around, getting a little lost, and seeing some really beautiful old buildings.  The history of it is fascinating as well.  Even if you only have a few days, Venice is very much worth a visit!

5 Year Anniversary Italy Trip-Stop 1: Ravenna

So after much discussion and research we finally decided to go back to Italy for a 10 day trip for our 5 year anniversary.  There were cheap flights into Bologna so we headed there.  First stop, after our flight being delayed more than an hour and having to wait for a very late train out of Bologna, was Ravenna.  Any art history major knows that Ravenna is a must see place for Byzantine mosaics.  Matt being the indulgent husband that he is agreed to some very artsy first few days.  Happily, this is a lovely little town that is laid back and easy to navigate so we go to relax and enjoy some beautiful sights. Our hotel was  little outside the city center but they hired out bikes to the guests so we grabbed a couple of those bad boys and pedaled around town quite easily.  We saw all the "major", aka, UNESCO, sites.  The mosaics, although most were restored, were still beautiful and something glorious to see.  The colors were vibrant and really made you stand and stare for a while. It's always funny to go into a church and see everyone looking up with their mouths hanging wide open!  We really enjoyed this town and ventured to the neighboring one to see the most famous church (regarding Byzantine art) of all, Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe.  The road was nice and flat so it was and easy bike out to it. Unfortunately when we got there they were closing for a funeral for about 1 hour so we biked around town some.  Happily, we found the BEST gelato of the trip. Too bad it was on day 1 right? That gelato is now the standard of all gelato in our life. 

 

The old gate entrance to Ravenna.

 

 

So much color!

 

So much gold too!

 

Look at the beautiful detail! All done with tiny mosaic tiles-so much work!

 

Inside a mausoleum. Love the "stars."

 

As always happy to see pretty sites!

 

Matt wanted to experiment with his artsy photo style too ;)

 

Our fearless steeds, I mean bikes.

 

Saint Apollinaire.  It is HUGE!

 

He's so hard core-show those bushes who's boss!

 

Our future door-knocker.  We saw tons of these all over the town. 

 

We brought the tripod and wireless shutter-release to play some. Not too shabby huh?

 

 Ravenna was a great first stop on our trip. In some respects it would have been great to end here though too since it was so quiet and peaceful.  After the end of the trip and some reflection we decided we did the route backwards but oh well-it was still great!