19.5 Weeks: Bump on Vacation

I definitely felt a bit more pregnant this week. I think I'll probably feel like this every week, but hey, it's true.

This week, I was wearing different clothing than I've been wearing--a lot of t-shirts and tank tops because of the warmer weather. Those things are just naturally tighter than a lot of other things I've been wearing at home, so it seemed to make the belly more prominent in everything I wore. I wondered if I'd get my first stranger comment, but alas, no one was brave enough to assume that I was anything more than a little round around the waist. I got a lot of wear out of my cute maternity capris and things I bought during my shopping spree a few weeks ago.

Even though I planned to take a photo up against a wall for consistency, it never happened. Instead, this will serve as my official belly pic for the week!

And a little closer up:

19.5 Weeks Pregnant

I felt the baby moving around a LOT this week. He/she is obviously getting bigger because I am feeling it more frequently throughout the day, and the kicks/punches are definitely stronger. Still, baby is most active at night. Especially with all of the walking we've been doing--when I lie down at night, it's like the baby's party is just beginning. But I'd also feel him/her when I was still at other times, like lying out by the pool, or sitting at dinner.

Feeling all of those punches, kicks, and somersaults definitely makes it feel more and more real! I really have a baby in there... wheee!

Next week, I'm going to try to get back on a normal weekly schedule, instead of this ".5" stuff. So stay tuned for another pregnancy update post early in the week!

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Florida Marlins

Well, well, well. Surprise, surprise.

Yesterday, I mentioned that they were forecasting for rain today. It said that we had a 100% chance of precipitation, and the hour-by-hour forecast looked like crap. We were not happy, as we're heading home tomorrow. We were hoping for one more day of spectacular sunshine.

As it turns out, we got it. Not only did it not rain (not a single drop), but it was never even cloudy. The vacation gods were clearly looking down upon us today.

Upon waking up to the gorgeous weather, we pretty much immediately went downstairs and right out to the pool. Even when it's summer and nice out at home, we don't have much opportunity to lounge around a pool, so this is sort of a special treat for us. Love, love, love.

Between all of the reading I did today, and our trip home tomorrow, I'm definitely going to be finishing my book! I probably should've brought a second one with me. Whoops. Anyway, book recap/review will be coming soon. :)

We took frequent dips in the pool to cool off, as it was pretty hot out there! I love to swim. I wish we had access to someone's pool at home so I could enjoy it more often!

The beach, just across the boardwalk from our hotel.

At one point, since the weather was so nice, we took a walk out to the street so I could take a few pictures of Miami Beach.

Back at the pool, I ordered a virgin strawberry daquiri. Perfect refreshment on such a beautiful day!

After spending pretty much the entire day at the pool, we went inside to get cleaned up and to figure out what to do for dinner. We wanted to go someplace nice, and we wanted to try out some Cuban cuisine. We ended up choosing Lario's on the Beach, which I guess is owned by Gloria Estefan. Once we discovered that, I couldn't stop singing "The Rhythm is Gonna Get You" in the shower. Oh, Gloria.

Before we drove to dinner, we took a quick walk on the beach. We took some photos, one of which is going to serve as my official belly pic for the week. But I'll post that separately so that I'm sure to document the week appropriately! :)

Palm trees in South Beach, across the street from Lario's.

A funny story about parking in South Beach for dinner: We wanted to drive down because it was a pretty long walk, plus we had to go straight from the restaurant to the stadium for the baseball game. Our concierge told us that it would cost us $5-10 to valet park at Lario's, and that we shouldn't bother trying to park elsewhere because there's no way we would find street parking or anything. We thought that $5-10 sounded reasonable for the convenience, so we went with it.

When we pulled up in front of the restaurant, the valet came to the car. I got out, preparing to give him the keys, and he said to me, "It'll be $20." I was surprised. I know South Beach is expensive, but $20? For AN HOUR? PLUS TIP?? I guess I'm cheap, but I immediately said, "No thanks, I think we're going to check out our options for street parking" and we got back into the car. I made our next right on a side street, and wouldn't you know... we immediately found street parking. We fed the meter and paid all of $2 for parking for like an hour and 45 minutes. Our spot was literally half a block away from the restaurant. SCORE.

As for dinner, the food was good, but the service was only so-so. Our waiter took his merry time to do everything, and the restaurant wasn't even busy since it was pretty early. We saw him hanging out with other waiters on the street instead of worrying about clearing our plates or getting our check. Lovely.

South Beach.

Soon, we were on our way to the ballpark. Because of traffic, it took us a bit to get there, but it wasn't too bad.

(BOOOOO Dolphins!) Shortly after arrival, we discovered that it was "dog night" or something... everyone was allowed to bring their dogs to the game! It was pretty hilarious to see all of these dogs walking into the stadium. It made us miss Tessa!

We had pretty decent seats. We were in the first row, right behind the bullpen for the visiting team. I'm not surprised we were able to get tickets like this, considering it seemed like NO ONE was at the game. I guess Floridians don't really give a crap about the Marlins. It's OK; I didn't give a crap, either. The funny thing is that Michael isn't even a baseball fan. He has just started some kick about wanting to visit as many professional ballparks as possible, so I get dragged along. I've not complained about the games in the past (Giants and Cubs were both cool), but the MARLINS?? C'mon, man.

I was pretty damn bored. Especially since the Marlins quickly fell behind by 5-0. I tried to keep myself busy with my BlackBerry.

Look, even these guys are bored. And they were winning!

But Michael seemed to enjoy himself, which I guess is all that counts.

Sun setting outside of Sun Life Stadium.

We left at the beginning of the 7th inning. *YAWN* We got a little turned around and confused getting back to the hotel, so it took us much longer than it should have. Ughhh, I hate getting lost. It was aggravating.

Now, it's packing and off to bed. We have to get up early tomorrow to get to the airport and get home. Although I don't want vacation to end, there is always something to be said about being home, don't ya think?

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US-1 North

Michael was super ambitious and got up early this morning to attempt to watch the sunrise. Me? Not so much. I'm not a morning person to begin with, and my other issue is that once I'm up, I have a really hard time going back to sleep. Plus, vacations are for sleeping in! :)

Unfortunately, he didn't see much of a sunrise because of the cloudy weather. But he still snapped a few cool photos in the early morning light.

He said he stayed out for about 20 minutes before coming back to bed.

When we got up for the day, we had to get packed up so we could check out. Our time at Southernmost on the Beach had come to an end. While I showered, Michael took a cab to the airport to pick up our rental car (just an economy car this time--a lovely, smoky-smelling Hyundai Accent). Once everything was packed, we loaded up the car, checked out at the front desk, and prepared to leave Key West. But we had to make one last stop for a photo opportunity.

The "Southernmost Point of the U.S." was located literally a block away from our hotel. We actually walked down to it a few times, but there were always hoards of people around and it was annoying to try to get up to the landmark and take photos. However, we knew we wouldn't leave Key West without getting some pics, so we had to do it. Thankfully, it wasn't TOO crazy at that hour, so we only had to stand in a short line before we got up for our turn. The person behind us offered to take our photo together, and here is the result:

90 miles to Cuba!

Mission accomplished, we walked back to the hotel, got into our car, and begrudgingly left Key West.

At Beer School on Tuesday, one of Michael's fellow students told him that on our way back up north, we simply HAD to stop at No Name Pub for pizza. Coincidentally, we reached the No Name right around noon, which was perfect because I was STARVING.

It's exactly what you'd expect it to be... a cute little pub. The thing I found most interesting/impressive was that every square inch of the walls and ceilings were covered with $1 bills. All of them are signed, drawn on, scribbled with messages and dates, etc. People proudly leave their dollar bills as a sign that they were once there at the No Name Pub. I knew there were thousands of them, but when I went to the bathroom, I saw a framed newspaper article with an interview with the owner. He claims that there are between 65,000 and 75,000 $1 bills stapled to the walls and ceiling. WHOA. Anyway, it's pretty cool looking, and quite the sight to see.

We ordered a pizza and garlic sticks and chowed down. Seriously, it was a lot of food and it was delicious. I'm still full, frankly.

The power flickered off and we had issues getting our bill as a result. (Seriously, No Name? You couldn't have just done the math for us?) We had to wait a good 15-20 minutes just for the freaking bill! Annoying, as we just wanted to get back on the road.

Eventually, everything worked out and we were on our way, heading closer and closer to Miami Beach.

After hitting some traffic in Miami, we arrived at our hotel in Miami Beach between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. We checked in and got settled, then decided to take a walk down to South Beach to check it out. We walked around for quite a while, but still weren't able to work up much of an appetite after our big lunch at No Name. Instead, we decided to sit outside on a lovely patio at a fancy-looking cafe and order a couple of desserts (and a cocktail for Michael). The weather was really breezy, but it was still beautiful to sit out on the street and take in our surroundings.

Once we had been significantly stuffed with sugar, we made the long walk back to our hotel, and now we're calling it a night. The weather wasn't very nice today--warm, but overcast all day. Tomorrow, it is supposed to rain. :( We're not sure what we're going to do with ourselves, as we had been planning to spend our time out by the pool or on the beach! That's not the way we want to end our vacation...

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Sunset Cruising

Today's plans consisted of a whole lotta nothing until the evening. This vacation has been much more relaxing than some of the other ones we've taken in the past. We typically like to go-go-go and get out and see everything, but with our "babymoon," we decided to approach things at a much easier pace.

We woke up and got ourselves out by the pool fairly early, securing prime lounge chairs. We spent the whole morning reading our books in the sunshine, and taking dips in the pool to cool off. It was lovely!

Around lunchtime, we decided to take a break and grab ourselves some food. We didn't have to go far--we decided to eat at the Southernmost Beach Cafe again (where we had breakfast on Monday). After all of the not-so-great eating we've been doing, we were both in the mood for some serious vegetables, so we both ordered some awesome salads, and enjoyed them with a great view of the beach.

There is just something about eating your meals while being able to see palm trees and ocean waters... I love it so much.

After we were done eating, we went on a little walk down the pier right outside of the restaurant.

A quick stop back at the room, and we were back out at the pool again for another hour or two.

Eventually, we decided we'd had enough lazing around and went inside to shower and cool off. We spent the late afternoon walking around a bit, first down to the lighthouse...

...then over to Duval Street...

...then back to our hotel grounds. Since we're leaving Key West tomorrow morning (SAD!), we wanted to be sure to take photos of the hotel property. I'll share those in my hotel review post, coming up next week sometime.

By this time, it was HOT, so we went inside to cool off in some much-appreciated air conditioning.

Before heading out for our sunset cruise, we went down to the pool bar to have a few drinks during happy hour.

I was even able to score a virgin pina colada. Yesss!

View from our table during happy hour. Still plenty of people out at the pool!

Soon, it was time to walk alllll the way down Duval Street one last time to catch our sunset cruise. In Key West, it's pretty usual to see people walking down the street with beers, so Michael took a bottle from our room for the walk down to the boat. As we were just starting to make our way down Duval, a woman with her husband stopped us and sounding kind of desperate, said, "Excuse me, but where did you get that cold beer?" We said, "Back in our hotel room!" Poor lady. She looked like she reallllly wanted a beer. :)

For the sunset cruise, we again went with Fury, for a trip called "Commotion on the Ocean." The trip features appetizers (vegetables, fruit, meatballs, chicken wings, cheese), drinks, and live music. We set sail right around the time the sun was getting low in the sky.

When we were taking this belly pic (we were kind of obsessed with them while we were on vacation, haha!), the couple next to us noticed and asked if it's our first child. We said yes, and the guy proceeded to tell us that his son just got married and that he and his wife were currently trying. That always cracks me up, when people share with strangers that they are "trying." Anyway, this guy was really excited about the prospect of being a grandfather, so I guess it was pretty cute.

Meanwhile, a blonde guy walked past us, and ready-to-be-a-grandfather guy tried to convince us that it was Owen Wilson. From the very beginning, I was pretty damn sure that it wasn't him, and when I got a closer look at him a little later, I was 100% sure there was no way the blonde guy was Owen Wilson. Still, we kept running into ready-to-be-a-grandfather guy on the boat throughout the night and he kept making comments about how he was sure it was Owen Wilson. Allllllrighty then.

The band was pretty entertaining. They played a good variety of music.

We passed the time by walking around different areas of the boat and taking photos.

Because of the clouds in the sky, we soon realized that we wouldn't be able to see the setting sun touch the water like we did the other night at Mallory Square. Bummer.

While it certainly wasn't the same because of the clouds, it was still pretty. BUT, little did we know that a little while later, we would be treated to something pretty spectacular...

Now, come on... how gorgeous is THAT?

Soon, the sun was all but gone and the boat began to make its way back to the dock. It sure took its time, though... they give everyone time to party! At this point, it really turned into a booze cruise, and honestly, it was just not fun for me. It seemed as if every single person on the boat was drinking except for me, and frankly, it was not the kind of environment that is fun to be in when sober. Still, I tried to enjoy the boat ride and the beautiful evening.

We did eventually make it back to the dock and everyone disembarked. Since we hadn't really had any dinner, we decided that instead of eating late, we would get some sweet treats to hold us over until breakfast. I got an ice cream, and for Michael...

...we stopped at Blonde Giraffe and got him a slice of key lime pie.

Because it was our last night in Key West, it was only right that we ended it the same way we ended every night... in our hammock, staring up at the sky, listening to the ocean, and taking in the soft breeze off the water.

If I've said it before, I'll say it again... PERFECTION.

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