Aloha 14 Weeks!

How far along: 14 weeks!

Total weight gain: - 5 lbs

Maternity clothes: Still comfortably wearing regular clothes.   

Stretch marks: Still none, we were in Hawaii this week for an early "babymoon" and I got a great massage at the Spa Grande at the Grand Wailea (amazing spa, I HIGHLY recommend for anyone going to Maui) and they gave me some great cocoa butter that I have been using in addition to the Palmers!

Sleep: Sleeping great still.  Being in Hawaii this week, I was in bed EARLY because of the time change and up EARLY.  I am waking up to pee about once a night and most of the time I can go right back to sleep.

Best moment of this week: Being in Maui!  I was very nervous about the flight as I originally had a night flight and got pretty sick the Sunday before we were to leave.  My wonderful husband worked his magic and changed my flight so I was able to fly in the morning  though- love that man!  I don't know it it was being on vacation or just being in the second trimester, but I felt much better this week!

Miss anything: Yummy tropical cocktails.  This was the first time I haven't drank on vacation since being 21 - I REALLY was wanting a Mai Tai all trip!  Also missing sushi.  There were so many awesome looking Poke dishes in Hawaii that I missed out on, and I was really wanting the 3 Fish Sashimi dish at Mama's Fishouse, but passed. :(

 

Movement: Nothing yet - waiting for that moment!

Food cravings: Nothing crazy.  I have been drinking Iced Tea like it's going out of style.  I still get a little nausea at night, so have been trying to fill up in the mornings and at lunch. 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Chinese and teryiaki foods.  Dinner in general isn't my fav.

Have you started to show yet: A little.  Certain maxi dresses show a hint of a bump! 

Gender: Still don't know.

Labor signs: Thank god - no!

Belly button in or out: In- hoping it stays this way.

Wedding rings on or off: On, and actually a little loose.

Happy or moody most of the time: So much happier this week now that I am feeling better!  How can you not be happy when you are looking at sunsets like this all week:

 

Looking forward to: My parents visit - they are coming in week 15!


More Hawaii Pics!

 

13 Weeks!

How far along: 13 weeks!

Total weight gain: - 10 lbs (was at -12, very happy to have gained 2 lbs!)

Maternity clothes: I bought my first few pairs of maternity pants.  Some royal blue skinnie jeans and some bright floral shorts from Gap.  I also bought a bella band this week.  I don't necessarily need these items right now, but they are super comfy and my jeans are starting to feel a little tight in the tummy area. 

Stretch marks: Nada - been using Palmer's Stretch Mark Tummy Butter

Sleep: Sleeping like a log.  I have been taking a 1/2 a Unisom everynight for the nausea, but I think it is really helping with my sleep.  No longer waking up in the middle of the night to pee either!  I am feeling super rested in the morning.  Starting to have some crazy pregnancy dreams!

Best moment of this week: Posting this pic on Facebook and letting the world know!

Miss anything: Exercise - going to try and get back to this soon!  Really missing beer, wine and cocktails.  Everything I have been working on at work is for an alcohol brand (Sauza) so I am craving margaritas constently.

Movement: Nothing yet - waiting for that moment!

Food cravings: Nothing in particular.  I have an affinity towards really cold things.  I can't get enought ice water.  Been loving cold fruit lately as well.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Any type of asian food (except sushi) - I can't even think about Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese....ugh!

Have you started to show yet: To me yes, to the outside world probably not.

Gender: Cayce is thinking Girl...I have no idea.

Labor signs: Thank god - no!

Belly button in or out: In- hoping it stays this way.

Wedding rings on or off: On, and actually a little loose.

Happy or moody most of the time: Happy when I am not feeling sick.  Not too moody at all, maybe Cayce disagrees???? ;)

Looking forward to: Our babymoon to Maui next week - PRAYING that I am not sick on the airplane.  One of my biggest fears is having to use that little puke bag.  And as Cayce can attest, I am not a quite puker.  Hoping for the best though.

Paris, je t'aime! - Our arrival to the City of Lights

This is my LONG overdue trip report on Paris. Being that this trip was over 1 year ago, I am going to try and recall all that I can.  Can we say SLACKER???

We arrived in Paris via Easy Jet (from Pisa). We went with Easy Jet over Ryan Air because it flew into ORLY and from all my research it sounded like the Ryan Air airport was much further from central Paris.  The flight was easy peasy. We gathered our luggage and immediately bought Paris Pass from the info desk which was located right near the baggage claim.

We decided to put on our big boy pants and use public transportation to get to our hotel. From ORLY we had to board a bus (Orlybus), which was a little confusing and not at all efficient. We had to buy tickets from a little machine that didn't seem to work well (there was a huge line and everything was really frustrated with this machine), plus everything was in French so it was a little complicated. Cayce bought the tickets while I waited with our luggage and I could tell he didn't really know what he bought but we went with it and boarded the bus with no problem.  We had secret fears that someone would come collect our tickets on our way there (like they do on trains) and we wouldn't have the right ones and we would be thrown out but that didn't happen!  The bus was really crowded but we were able to find seats. We also go yelled at in French, we still aren't really sure why, but this person didn't seem to like where we had put our bags!

Once we arrived at the RER station (Denfert-Rochereau), things got interesting. We needed to catch the train into Paris, and I thought finding our line (RER C) would be easy enough. Wrong. Thank god for a nice older French woman who could tell we were lost and rescued us. Even though she couldn't speak a lick of English and we couldn't speak a lick of French, we were able to point out on our map where we were trying to go and she, so thoughtfully, walked us to our train. And who says the French are rude - au contraire! 

We were staying at the Holiday Inn Notre Dame which was  located (2 blocks or so) near the Saint-Michel Notre Dame stop.  Stepping out from the Saint-Michel station, I was immediately head-over-heels for Paris.  The weather was a perfect 68 degrees (much welcomed from our 100+ days in Italy) and everything was absolutely picturesque.  We stayed on Priority Club points here, if you are a point collector I would highly recommend using points at this hotel! 

We found our hotel and got all checked in.  By this time it was about 4pm.  Our hotel, although small, was great.  Upon first impression it looked like the hotel was recently updated.  Our room was very modern.  If you remember, the last place we stayed in Cinque Terre was my least favorite so it was really nice to open the door to a nice big comfy bed complete with down pillows and feather comforter. 

Holiday Inn Notre Dame - From Holiday Inn Site

We were both so excited to be in Paris we dropped our bags and headed out to explore our hood.  After doing a little window shopping and picking up some wine we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner.  As you know, we had terrible luck with food up to this point so I was determined to find a good meal.  We got all ready and I pulled up trusty Tripadvisor on the iPad (free WI-FI, yay!).  We wanted something fairly close as we were starving so we settled on L’Epigramme because of the great reviews and it’s close proximity (up 1 block and around the corner).

We got to the restaurant and it was VERY small, it maybe had 6 tables and they were all full except for one.  Cayce and I both got a little shy and intimidated at this point as we looked out from the dark street into the cozy restaurant, imagining that everyone inside was friends with one another and we might be shunned for being Americans and we almost turned around.  THANK GOD WE DIDN’T!  We ended up going in and having one of the best meals of our entire lives (and actually nobody knew each other, it just happened to be a very talkative group of strangers!).  Not only was the meal great, but the owners of the restaurant were so kind and gracious, walking us through the menu even with their limited English.  The menu was pre-fixe and I had  escargot as a starter, duck as an entree and crème brulee for dessert.  Cayce had the fois gras, chicken and flourless chocolate molten heavely cake.  Seriously, the cake was TO. DIE.  FOR!  We also polished off a bottle of wine before heading back for a wonderful sleep.  Full belly + comfy bed = happy girl!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL! Home Goals for 2012

Inspired by Nester, I am putting together some home goals for 2012.  I've never been a big fan of goal setting because the only time I really do it is for work, but I think home goals could be a whole different game!

#1 - Crown molding in the living room!  I am loving the detailed molding in this room:

#2 - To go along with the crown molding, painting the living room, dining, kitchen, and bedroom ceilings (geez, I'm exhausted just typing that!).  I think I want to keep everything pretty neutral, although this pic has my hear swooning for some matchy matchy walls and ceilings!

#3 - Finish landscaping the backyard - when we laid new sod last summer we were cheap and tried to keep some of the old mossy grass, I wish we would have just sodded the whole thing, so that's a must this year!  I'm really loving this clean look:

#4 - Get rid of the wood stove and either replace with a electric fireplace or just clean it out and make it decorative - just don't even know where to start with that beast of a stove though!  I heart the look of candles in the fireplace!

#5 - Find better storage for our bikes - right now they sit in our Den and it's really stating to bug me.  This one is going to be tough - probably will need comb through this site for ideas!

Alright - I think 5 goals is good, don't you????  Should keep the hubs and me busy for the year!

(all images via Pinterest)

Cinque Terre - My Kind of Vacation!

It's been over 2 months since we got back from our Euro vaca so i figure it's time to wrap these trip posts up - geez I have been slacking!  Feel free to give me a cyber slap across the face. :)  Alright then, let's move onto the final leg of Italy - Cinque Terre!

Day 9 - Monterosso 

We awoke in Lucca well rested after our much needed night in, all bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to get to the beach - our kind of vacation!  But first things first, we needed to drop our rental car off in La Spezia and catch the train from there.  The drive to La Spezia was only about 40 minutes and uneventful.  However, our adventure dropping the car off was quite stressful.  I had google mapped directions for all of our destinations but for some reason forgot to get the directions to the Hertz office in La Spezia.  I had the address and we figured the town wasn't that large so we would just wing it - BAD BAD decision.  After an hour of driving in circles (one of which included us driving through a piazza where I am pretty sure cars are not allowed) we realized we were in trouble.  Lucky for us we happened to see a tourist office so I had Cayce park where we were and I headed in.  Well it eneded up being that I had the wrong address for the rental return, so good thing we asked or we could have been at it all day!  Once we had the right address we were good to go and made it to the office easy.  I do have to say that being lost in a foreign city is really one way to test your marriage!  Although, by the time you find your destination you are usually so happy to not be lost anymore that all the fighting from before is usually forgotten!

We finally got the rental car returned and got a taxi back to the train station.  This was the shortest but most expensive taxi ride of the whole trip - 27 euros for maybe 2 miles, yikes!  Because we were going to Monterosso we were able to get on an express train and bypass the smaller towns which was nice.  Although I didn't realize this until we were on the train, so if you are going to a different town be sure to check and make sure it isn't an express train.

We had booked a room in the Old Town at Unico Affittacamere and because the train drops you off in the new town our host had told us to either call him when we arrived and he would pick us up or just to tell the tourist office we were there and they would call him.  Since we didn't have a cell phone we opted for option 2 but were told that at the TI that they would not call for us.  The did give us a map and direction though and assured us the walk was not far.  They were right, the walk was not bad at all and allowed us to take in our first views of the beautiful Italian Riviera:

The town is really small and we found our room with ease BUT our host was not there.  We were in the same jam as our arrival in Rome!  Luckily a man that was delivering the laundry for the rooms came by and was able to call the owner on his cellphone for us.  This was actually the room I liked the least on our trip.  It it did it's job but it was on the dirty side in my opinion (lots of mold in the bathroom) and didn't have AC.  It was in a good location but looking back I wish we would have splurged a bit for something with a view since Cinque Terre is such a beautiful place!

After getting settled in we put on our swim gear and headed out get a much needed beer and explore on the new side:

Cheers!

New Town Beach

It was getting pretty late in the afternoon and we wanted to get in the water so we decided to head back to the beach on the old side.  The new side of town has much more beach space and isn't as rocky but most of the areas was pay chairs (anywhere you see an umbrella is a pay spot) and since it was late we didn't want to fork out any doe.

After beach time we headed back and got showered and had dinner at a nice seafood place.  At dinner we happened to meet two couples, one from Peoria, IL and one from Philly (the couples did not know each other either), with whom we talked and laughed with throughout dinner.  We were all getting along great so we all headed over a small American bar for a night cap (OK - maybe it was a couple nightcaps, we closed the bar down and were booted!).  All in all it was a great night with new friends!

Day 10 - Monterosso 
We both woke up this morning with a bit of a headache from our over extended night caps brushed it aside and put on our running shorts and shoes and headed out for our hike to Vernazza.  The hike is supposed to be the longest and toughest of the 5.  We are not avid hikers so we had no idea what we were in for and hoped we could both make it through!  It was definetly hard but doable and the hike was filled with aaaahmazing views!

After completing our hike in about an hour we went down to the Vernazzagelato and beer and caught the train back to Monterosso.  Back in Monterosse we decided to rent a chair on the new side.  We laid out in the HOT HOT sun for about 3 -4 hours (we had umbrella's thank god!), took a few dips in the sea - the water was a perfect temperature and had a few beers before heading back.  We had dinner at a place right by our hotel and it was just ok - in fact I would say both dinners in Monterosso were just ok as we aren't big seafood people (there is just something about eating a shimp that still has it's head that I just don't get!).  After dinner we met up with our new friends and polished off a couple bottles of red before getting kicked out the bar.  We headed to the same "American" bar and had a drink there before heading home for the night - closing out the bar again!  It was hard to sleep this night because we knew what the next day had in store for us....PARIS!

New Friends!

Pinterest Challenge! Striped Walls

 I am participating in my first Pinterest Challenge via YoungHouseLove!  I actually completed this task a few months back, but I did get my inspiration from Pinterest, so I think it still works!

I had been really wanting to liven up my my kitchen somehow and thought some nice crisp stripes would be the PERFECT solution.  Here are my inspiration images (all via Pinterest):

My wall color was/is currently a khaki/sandy brown and so I knew I wanted crisp bright white stripes to off set.  The stripes in all the photos I liked all tended to be on the bigger end, which was great for me - less work! 

I used off the shelf flat white paint/primer mix from Home Depot (I forget which brand!).  In addition I used Frog Tap to make sure that there was no bleeding, a pencil, yard stick, level, small roller and pointed edge paint brush to do this project.

I measured off my stripes in 12 inch sections (I think the last section ended up being about 12.25, but I don't think you can't tell at all) across the wall and used my yard stick and level to make even lines across the wall.  I then taped all my stripes and got to painting.  Before the pain had a chance to dry I carefully removed the tape and Viola - I had striped walls.  What a change it made, I just love them!

I also ended up painting the chair rail and wall underneath in the project as it was the Khaki color before.  I think it really made a huge difference!

Tuscany - Wrapping It Up

San Gimignano - Day 7

We woke up in the AM, sporting a tiny red wine headache, and couldn't fathom driving the 2+ hours to the wine tour I had booked us.  I'll admit that it is tough for me to veer off the sched, but that's why I married my husband - he is constantly reminding me to go with the flow and I adore him for that.  So after some hemming and hawing we emailed our cancellation.

We had been feeling a wee bit glutinous on this trip (gelato everyday - yes please!) so we thought it would be a good idea to walk (and by walk I mean hike) into town and climb to the top of the town tower - it was a great view and only 3 Euro (don't quote me on that, might have been 4-5).

View from the top of the tower

And what shall one do after hoofing into town and hiking up a tower, why get more gelato of course!

After a bit of shopping we headed back home and got ready for dinner.  This being our last night at the farmhouse we decided to splurge and have dinner there again, and tonight we were in for a treat, it was Steak ala Florentine night!  We got ready and enjoyed a little pre-dinner glass of wine, whilst trying to take in all the beautiful scenery:

And just because, here are pics from dinner!

This was the starter and I would have been happy with just this - I could eat a plate of meats and cheeses like this for every dinner and be happy!

Steaks on the open pit!

This dinner was amazing, and growing up on Montana beef, I don't say that lightly!  But overshadowing the meat was the red, in the picture above, and the hosts were not shy with it.  I literally think we each had a bottle, it's really hard to know because our glass would be half empty (or full depending on who you talk to) and they would come around and fill it again.  Sneaky?  Yes.  Complaining? No. With all the wine indulging we moseyed onto bed around 11.

San Gimignano to Lucca, with a little Florence in between - Day 8

One note I haven't mentioned about Agriturismo Niccoli is that breakfast is included every morning, which was great for us as we would fill up on breakfast, allowing us to save money and just have a small snack for lunch and then be hungry for a big dinner.  Today, our last morning, we fueled up once again - the breakfast was really good and plentiful with meats, cheeses, yogurt, fresh fruit from the farm, fresh bakes pastries and cakes and hard boiled eggs - once again another plus for this place!

We headed out on the road to Lucca, but we were making a pit stop in Florence on our way.  We were very aware that it is a major no-no to drive in the city center and that there are hefty fines for doing so, so we were a bit nervous about accidentally driving in.  As we got closer and closer into town we kept seeing signs that had red circles with a slash through them, which I thought meant we had entered the danger zone, come to find out later on these were just no-parking signs, but I didn't know that and it caused for some stressful times and a couple conversations that went like this:

Me:  "STOP!!!! You can't drive here, there is that sign!!!!! TURNAROUND!!!!

Cayce:  "Why didn't you tell me earlier!??!!"

Me:  "I didn't see it!"

Cayce:  "You NEED to pay better ATTENTION!"

Me:  "I'm trying really hard but I can't read the signs!"

You get the point - it was tense! We finally found some free parking and headed into the city center.  We did a little shopping and then made a rookie mistake by letting our hunger get the best of us and being indecisive trying to find the perfect lunch spot that ended up with awful microwaved pasta.  So awful in fact that after we were done we walked around the corner and saw a McDonalds and couldn't help ourselves.  Yes we are horrible people for eating at McDonalds in Florence but my god, the fries and ICY diet coke hit the spot!

He looks happy!

Sweaty and tired at the end of the day!

I am ashamed to admit we didn't really do much in Florence other than walk around and eat at Micky D's.  I did some shopping; bought a couple of great leather purses but every attraction had a huge line, and we were just really "sight seed" out at this point.  We just really wanted to wander around the city so that's what we did!  

After "seeing the sights" we jumped in our car and made it to Lucca.  I am not really sure why I wanted to visit Lucca so much, but when I was planning our itinerary it seemed like a good spot that would be relatively close to Cinque Terre.  That being said the only thing we really wanted to do was rent bikes to explore the town, as I heard that was the thing to do, but by the time we got there we were both so exhausted that we our night consisted of 2 much needed showers,  1 large salami pizza for takeaway, 2  Peronis and 3 episodes of Jersey Shore.  ***Disclaimer*** I'm not REALLY a fan of the show BUT it was the only English channel and it was taking place in Florence, where I just been 4 hours prior, so that made it much more interesting.

Next up Cinque Terre!