Mother's Day, Anniversary and Graduation...OH MY!

Mother's Day: A week after we got home was Mother's Day. It was my official first Mother's Day if you count fetuses in utero! Grant made me breakfast and got me flowers. Several people sent me cards. It was a special day...despite the fact that I was fighting a nasty cold. I hardly ever get sick, but I consulted with Dr. Google and apparently pregnant women's immune systems are down for the duration of their pregnancies so their body won't reject the baby (or babies). So I will be extra careful and wash my hands even more often with that bit of knowledge. Luckily I didn't get sick on vacation!

Anniversary: May 28th was a great day. Not only was it a day off work and a day to remember our brave servicemen and women, but it was our 6 year anniversary! We celebrated by going out to a new Italian restaurant for dinner. It was good, but not nearly as good as what we had experienced just a few weeks prior in Italy. I feel so blessed to have found Grant at such an early age. I can say in all honesty that I am more in love with him now than I was then. I cannot wait to see how he will be as a father. I know that he will do an amazing job as he has already with Penelope and Reagan. I am prepared to fall in love with him all over again. :)

Graduation: A week after our anniversary was my sister’s high school graduation. Tess is the last of the five of us Zaccardis to graduate high school, but she is certainly not the least.

She outscored all of us on her SATs and is headed to UF in the Fall. I couldn’t be more proud of her. She is going to LOVE being a Gator and has so many amazing opportunities in her future. She is going to be living in a double in Rawlings Hall. I will be sure to visit her often with the twins as we raise them to be Gators as well.

It doesn’t seem like it’s been 12 years since I started college at UF. Time goes by so quickly. Tess came to visit me when she was in elementary school. It was so special to take her around campus, to football games and share my college experience with her.

I plan on going down to Gainesville this August to help her move in. Help is a relative term since I will be quite pregnant. But I’ll be a great supervisor! Move in day was always my favorite at UF from being a student to being an RA to a Hall Director. It was always filled with meeting new people and the start of a new year. I went down to Orlando to help Zack move in the last two years. Each time my goal was to be mistaken as many times as possible as a college student. I’d wear shorts and a tank top and I was quite successful. I have a feeling that I won’t be able to pass as an incoming student at UF this time around.

Back Stateside and Baby Update

We arrived home Sunday night. I left on Monday for Augusta. I had a field ride with my new manager in Augusta on Tuesday and Wednesday. One night at home…then two more nights in hotels. The field ride went well. I shared with my new boss that we were expecting twins. She was excited for us. We made some great calls. I headed back home on Wednesday afternoon and had my next doctor’s appointment on Thursday.

This was my first appointment at the high risk OB. High risk because we are having twins, which I don’t really see as high risk because it is so common these days (1/32 births in the US is now a twin birth and of those 50% are vaginal), but oh well. More doctor’s appointments and more monitoring can’t hurt. This office was crazy crowded, so much so that there weren’t enough seats for the pregnant people in the waiting room. The receptionist had to make several announcements for the non-pregnant fathers, grand parents, children to get out of the seats for the women who were visibly pregnant.

We met with the ARNP. She was kind of cold. I didn’t have many questions since we had been through all of this with my Reproductive Endocrinologist and my regular OB. Then we got to see the babies! That is always my favorite! They were definitely growing and moving! This ultrasound was to check for markers for Down Syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities. The measured the skin behind their necks and their nasal bones. All looked great! Then, I had a finger prick done and would get the results in about a week. The results came back all clear! Yay! The doctor was great and after all of that we were free.

I had a follow up at my regular OB the following week where we used a Doppler to hear the heartbeats and they took vitals for me. It was a quick appointment.

Everything was looking great with the babies. The weeks were progressing fast. I still didn’t look that pregnant. I was still in the, “I’m too afraid to ask her if she is pregnant because she might have just put on a few pounds” stage and even today at 18 weeks 4 days I still feel that way! I was even mistaken for a college student yesterday! SCORE!

Mannekin Pis??

Grant and I headed north to Brussels, Belgium. I was looking forward to trying the chocolate, Grant the beer. We decided to save some cash and take the train from the airport to the city center. We got out of the train station and decided it would be best to take a cab to the hotel since we had no idea where it was in relation to the train station. We put our bags in the trunk of a cab, got in and told the cab where to take us. He looked at us like we were crazy. Apparently the hotel was only 400 yards from the train station! We got our bags back and the cabbie gave us walking directions to the hotel. We checked in and headed out. We only had two nights to see all of Brussels.

 Grant's first beer in Belgium :)

 Our hotel in Belgium...Hotel Amigo

 A few photos from our first afternoon in Brussels

 The royal palace in Brussels...I love anything royal!!

We walked around the city and took the train out to the Automium. It was cool to see it in person, but there wasn’t much else out that way. I didn’t realize that this sculpture was so far outside the city center. 

 Us and the Atomium

 Can you find me in this photo?!

Gay pride parade in Brussels

That night we had a great local dinner at a popular restaurant. The menu was all in French…good thing I know a bit of French! Belgium doesn’t have its own language instead the use French, Dutch and English. I had a beef stew made with local beer and Grant had chili. It was all very good.

 Our dinner menu. It was tasty!

The next day we took the train out to Brugge, the chocolate capital of the world! Brugge is also known as a mini Venice. The town was quaint. The streets and shops were cute and the chocolate was tasty. There were chocolate shops on every corner! On the train ride out to Brugge I heard a couple of girls talk about going back to Gainesville…turns out they were Education students from UF! What a small world! The Gator Nation is EVERYWHERE!

 A map of Brugge (Left), me eating my fresh Belgian Waffle! (Right) 

 Brugge is filled with little canals like Venice. It was really charming.

 Beer shop in Brugge

We headed back to Brussels on the train. When we got out of the train station we heard loud music and people talking over loud speakers…We walked over to see what was going on. It was a giant soapbox derby race with people riding in cars they had made down a hill and around a banked turn and through a finish line…in costume! It was pretty cool.

 The soapbox derby in action!

 After the cars ran the track they put them on display for people to sit in and take photos.

 Grant out front of the soapbox race.

We visited a few more chocolate stores and then were on a mission to find the “Mannekin Pis.” This statue is like the Eiffel Tower of Brussels. They make it out of chocolate, they sell hundreds of key chains featuring it, they have it on tee-shirts. They decorate him with different costumes almost weekly. Here he is…the Mannekin Pis.

Once we found him you couldn’t miss him! There was a crowd of people all around him taking photos. What an interesting mascot to your city, Brussels!

The next morning we flew back to Florida. Our vacation was over. Back to the real world. Back to counting the days until the end of my first trimester. (That Sunday I was only 2 days away from lucky week 13!)