Babymoon

My mom gave me and Jason some great advice shortly after we told them we were pregnant. She told us to find a week to get away together before the baby was due. 

It was hard to fathom the idea of a vacation at that point in my pregnancy, as I felt extremely nauseous. But we were hopeful that my the first week of by third trimester, I would be up for something fun.

I was. 

So, last week we headed off on our babymoon. Felt like we had just taken our honeymoon...oh...we had...just a little over a year ago.

We decided to keep it somewhat cheap and simple, so we did a So Cal sail. We knew ourselves...and knew we would get bored in one place the whole time, so we had three stops along the way.

Our first stop was Orange County on Saturday. First thing we did after checking into our hotel: Coffee Bean (the first of five stops at Coffee Bean). That has to be one of the best things about Southern CA.

Two years ago we had done an LA trip and Jason took me to Downtown Disney for the first time. We knew we wanted to revisit there and eat at one of our favorite restaurants: The Jazz Kitchen.

 

This place definitely is on our top 5 for best ambiance and food! I think we both ordered the same entrees as last time too: Jambalaya for Jason and Pecan Crusted Salmon for me.

 

 

It's great to walk around and get in the Disney spirit without having to deal with the chaos of the park. And, ESPN Zone is one of Jason's favorite places.

Did you know they have TVs in the bathroom stalls there? CRAZY!

And, we got a good laugh at this shirt, which will probably be true for our son...

 And, a TV sized version of Fruit Ninja?! Heck ya!

 

Sunday we went to an Angels game. No, neither one of us are Angels fans, but Jason wanted to take me to this park. We were totally impressed by how clean it us and how fan-centered it is. And, it was a great game - four home runs! Jason was excited to see his guy Mike Trout (learned all about him) hit one of the homers.

 

On Monday we left for San Diego (after a quick fix to our flat tire). This was the stretch of the trip that I was most excited about. I hadn't been to San Diego in ten years since my senior trip. We stayed in a beach house that whole week then, so we weren't really in San Diego much.
We spent Monday walking around downtown and exploring the Gaslamp District.

Check out the view from our hotel window: We both quoted at the same time, "So, this is how David must have felt..."

Monday night we headed to Old Town for dinner - Mexican food, of course.

Coronado Beach was the agenda for Tuesday. Finally, our first beach day :)

Apparently Coronado Beach is rated as the second best beach in America? I think that is a bit of a stretch, but it was very nice.

 

 

We enjoyed the white sand beach and exploring the Hotel del Coronado.

 

Before heading to Santa Barbara on Wednesday, we wanted to beach it up again, so we headed to Pacific Beach for some sun before heading out of town. After battling LA traffic, we finally arrived in Santa Barbara. So glad we live in Nor Cal...

We didn't arrive until late afternoon, so we decided to head down to State Street to explore and have dinner. This was Jason's first time to Santa Barbara and it did not disappoint. 

It was overcast all day Thursday and only 68 degrees, so we didn't go to the beach. (But we were thankful for those weather conditions compared to the 100+ degrees at home). We did lots of walking around Santa Barbara and Carpenteria and lots of antique shopping.

Thursday was Jason's birthday and a Lebanese restaurant, Zaytoon, was recommended to us by a friend, so we thought it would be perfect for his birthday dinner. You know how much we like our crazy cuisines. 

We saw pictures of this restaurant online and the ambiance looked incredible. It did not disappoint. One of the coolest restaurants I have ever eaten at. I will do a separate post about the restaurant, but here are a few (fuzzy) pics...camera broke :(

Jason was excited they had hooka.

The sun finally came out on Friday, so we got some beach time in before hitting the road for home.

I am so glad that we took some time to get away for a week. It was just what we needed. Pregnancy and me have not been great friends, so I have therefore not been a very fun person, let alone wife. Since I've been feeling much more like myself the past month or two, it was great for Jason and I to have some quality time together...just the two of us...before our little man joins us :)

Tahoe Travels

Cartmell family tradition brings us up to Tahoe each summer.

Unfortunately, with my sister and I both being pregnant this summer, we weren't able to coordinate a week we could all go within the acceptable travel window for our pregnancies. 

Thankfully, we had a family wedding on Jason's side in Tahoe that still gave us an excuse to get up there.


Last weekend, Jason and I spent a great weekend with his family in South Shore.

It started off Friday with his cousin Zach's wedding on the beach. It was a gorgeous setting.

Here we are with Jason's siblings and their spouses (and also with Jason's parents). His sister is also pregnant and due about four weeks after I am. So fun to be pregnant at the same time as my sister and sister-in-law.

 

 

 

A bunch of us stayed together in a cabin with an incredible view of Lake Tahoe. The whole backside of the house was windows, so we got to stare at this view all day long.

It was quite chilly and breezy on Saturday, so we spent a lot of time visiting indoors. We did make it down to Jameson Beach for some rum-runners at the Beacon and a visit to Camp Richardson's Ice Cream Parlor (both Cartmell family Tahoe traditions that I loved sharing with Jason). 

With my bubble-gum and rainbow sherbert ice cream. Pregnancy Craving?

And, it's always fun to find a 'Big Daddy' saying along the way. The joke behind this might have to be a separate post one day...

Jason was sad they didn't sell shirts...

No bathing suits or beach for this Tahoe visit, but it was a great weekend with the Baker family.

Eat Around the World - Germany

It had been months since Jason and I went out for an 'exotic' meal at an ethnic restaurant (mostly due to the fact that there were only about ten foods that actually sounded edible to me for a 3 month period - thank you pregnancy). But, come May, I was starting to feel much more like myself, so we planned a day date to the city and decided to hit up an ethnic restaurant while we were out there.

I have been having mini-cravings for sausage, so we decided to do a German restaurant. Neither one of us have smart phones (keeping it real, folks), so we brought my iPad with us and were going to figure out the restaurant once we got into the city. Unfortunatley, my iPad was not getting good service, so we went to the Hyatt, pretended to be out-of-towners staying at the hotel, and asked the front desk for a good German restaurant. They highly recommended Suppenküche in Hayes Valley (Yelp review here). 

We were welcomed by a huge crowd and an hour wait, which is always a good sign. The restaurant totally reminded me of Germany: it was loud, crowded, and had a bunch of large tables where you sat with others (do not go here on a first date...no privacy and you can barely have a conversation due to the noise).

I enjoyed an entertaining visit to the bathrooms while we waited. This gave me a good laugh.

Once we were seated at our table (with two other random couples), we enjoyed looking at the menu. I got a kick out of the beer menu, which reminded me of my trip to Oktoberfest in Germany. The guy at the bar behind us was actually drinking one of the boot beers, and we had a great time cheering him on and watching him finish his TWO liters of beer.

 

I settled for the 1-liter.

 

Just-kidding. No drinking for this pregnant lady...this was circa Oktoberfest 2006.

For dinner, I ordered the bratwurst.

  

It was almost as good as the real-deal out of Germany! (Again, circa Oktoberfest 2006).

Jason ordered the wiener schnitzel. 

Both were quite tasty, but neither compared to the apple turnover we had for dessert. Yum!

 

Overall, I would give the restaurant a 9 out of 10. I mostly rate it down because of the ambiance, but I guess it gives you a good flavor for German culture :)

Our Gender Reveal Party!

When Jason and I found out we were pregnant, we both knew we wanted to find out the sex of the baby before he/she was born. However, we thought it would be really fun to share the moment with our family. I had heard of people doing the colored cake reveal, but I wanted something that was a little more visible for everyone to see. I love balloons and thought they would be such a fun way to reveal our baby's sex.

Early Friday morning, we had our 20 week ultra sound. I was definitely nervous and praying for a healthy baby. The ultra sound went great - our tech was so nice and totally put me at ease. It was so fun to see our baby, as it had been two months since our last ultra sound.  Our baby was not cooperating and being stubborn (of course) and was on its head the whole time.  However, the baby was moving around like crazy and the ultra sound tech was not surprised that I had been feeling kicks for 3-4 weeks already. Our baby has super long arms (91st percentile...legs only in the 48th) and a 'big belly', already weighing in at 13 oz. She said our due date is closer to Sept. 23rd now, but they don't change due dates after the first trimester, so I'm still staying with the 28th. The doctor confirmed a 'perfect baby', which was all I wanted to hear. They then wrote the baby's sex on a card and put it in a sealed envelope, along with a picture of 'the parts.'

All day Friday I starred at the envelope with our baby's sex in it. It was torture to just have it sitting there. We had previous plans for Friday night, so we had to wait until Saturday night for our reveal party. 

On Saturday morning, we brought a big cardboard box to the local party supply store and asked them if they could fill the box up with balloons. They looked at us like we were crazy. We then explained how we had this card in a sealed envelope with our baby's sex written on it. We wanted them to open it, fill the box with the appropriate colored balloon depending on the sex, and the tape up the box. They then looked at us like we were even crazier. One guy even said, "Are you serious?" But, they did agree to go along with our odd request!

Finally the time came for our family to arrive. It was our first time hosting a big event in our new house, so that made the whole night even more exciting. Here is a picture display of the evening:

The box of balloons

Pink Lemonade and Blue Punch

Cupcakes made by my sister, Mel.
(All pictures are also courtesy of Mel)  

 Here we are making our tally marks for boy or girl:

I wore pink for girl; Jason blue for boy.

From 8 weeks on, Jason had called a boy. I had no inclination until about 12 weeks, when I started thinking girl. I really thought we were having a girl. However, at 19.5 weeks, I had a doctor's appointment, after which I started thinking boy. Then, after our ultra sound at 20 weeks, I thought boy even more. I still wore pink since I had thought girl the longest.

Right before we opened the box!
Final tally: Boy 7, Girl 8

 

 

We each cut our side of the tape, ripped off the center strip of tape together, and on the count of 3, we opened the box. This is what came flying out...

Love our reactions!

This is my mom's reaction...she has 3 daughters, 2 granddaughters, and is terrified that my sister (who is 6.5 weeks ahead of me and not finding out) and I are both going to have a boys.

Twin Boys?!

My mom, sisters, and nieces...and the boy in my belly!
We had all voted girl...and were all wrong!

Yep, definitely a penis...

 

 

We are very excited for our new adventure and to welcome Baby Boy Baker!