But I Am Le Tired....

Anatomy of the other night.

1:30 AM  Harper wakes up, fusses, I feed her and put her back down.

2:00 AM  Our air purifier's (i.e. the GREATEST WHITE NOISE MACHINE EV-ER) fan motor seizes up.  It lasted 10 years, it's had a good run.  I use Sleep Sheep instead which will run for a maximum of 43 minutes at a time.

3:30 AM D snores, I kick him.  H fusses, but goes back to sleep.  I get up and turn the Sleep Sheep back on.
 
4:00 AM H Fusses, I feed her again.  I turn the Sleep Sheep on again.

5:00 AM H fusses, I curse the damned toy designer that made the sheep only stay on for 43 minutes.  I go on Amazon.com and purchase a new air purifier.  I curse the fact that I will have to make it through two more nights like this until the new air purifier arrives.  I turn the damn sheep back on again.

6:00 AM The dogs bark to get their breakfasts.  H shifts around.  D gets up to let them out and feed them.  I turn on the MOTHER EFFING SHEEP AGAIN.

7:00 AM I finally give up and wake up.  Darryl blow dries his hair and packs for his business trip.  H doesn't even stir or make a peep. 

Ugh.

Harper's Birthday

I haven't gotten around to posting Harper's birth story because the little miss has kept me pretty busy and honestly, I didn't take notes or anything like some bloggers do (um really, notes?  I don't mean to judge but I was kinda busy HAVING A BABY, though I guess it would be a nice keepsake for Harper, maybe?).

So after a week of stalling past my due date and going in for checkups every couple of days to make sure everything was looking okay since it's generally not recommended for gestational diabetics to go past their due dates, we went to get checked first thing in the morning on Monday April 2nd.  My doctor finally said I was dilated enough and effaced (I think it was something like 1.5 cm dilated, 50% effaced) where he would attempt to do an induction.  So we agreed to induce the next morning.  Luckily there was a spot available!

So we showed up the morning of April 3rd to the hospital.  I was freaking out because D seemed like he was taking his sweet time getting out the door and then he missed the exit to the hospital.  I was afraid they'd say, "Sorry, you were 10 minutes late, we aren't going to take that baby out of you today after all."  Once we got there, there was no problem, we even had to wait to be checked in even though there was no one else waiting.  They brought us up to labor and delivery after we registered and paid our bills and had me get into my hospital gown.  We had 2 nurses, we were very lucky.  One was from ICU and was getting trained on labor and delivery and one was a more senior nurse.  It was cool because we were benefiting from every step of the process being explained to the ICU nurse, we never felt lost or confused.  Plus, since it was a training situation, I was their only patient that day, so I got lots of attention.

Around 8 AM we started the Pitocin.  Not long after, my doctor came by and broke my water.  Then I knew there was no turning back!  They kept asking me what my due date was as the nurses logged my info, I think they asked me 3 times.  They were surprised I was allowed to go past it, but all that extra work I put in with diet and blood sugar monitoring paid off to allow my OB to let me do that.

Around 11, my contractions started to really hurt.  I started to have to squeeze Darryl's hand.  They told me I could have my epidural at any time and that there was a 30 minute wait for the anesthesiologist.  I didn't think I really needed it but the contractions were getting a little harder so we said yes, please send him in.

It took the anesthesiologist about an hour to get to me.  Not long after requesting the epidural it's like I fell off a cliff pain-wise.  SO.  MUCH.  PAIN.  Every contraction was excruciating.  They had to show D how to hold my hand so I wouldn't hurt his when I squeezed it.  Sometimes the contractions wouldn't end before the next one would begin.  Both D and the nurse had to get in my face and remind me to breathe through them.  I didn't want to be a jerk, but I did ask a couple times WHERE WAS THIS EPIDURAL GUY?

Finally he made his way to my room.  Besides Harper, I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life.  This was the only part where I did not appreciate the ICU nurse being trained in my room.  He explained to her what he was doing and she was a super sweet lady, but it took every bit of my self control to keep from saying to them "Less with the talky talky, more with the pain relief."  Soon enough it was in and I was feeling better.  So I made it the first 4 hours without any pain relief.  I proceeded to sleep for the next 3 hours or so, which was glorious.  It was just the recovery time I needed to be able to push.  I asked the nurse how anyone did this without drugs.  Her response was that normal labor doesn't feel that way, it's a gradual increase, thus easier to manage the pain.  Pitocin makes you contract much harder.  Wish I had known that before hand and gotten that epidural earlier, but live and learn!

Finally around 3 PM they checked me and I was 10 cm dilated, it was time to push!  This was the first time I was aware that I was totally numb in the legs.  They described to me how to push, but I said "How can I do that when I can't feel anything?"  They probably thought I was an idiot, but I really had no idea what to expect and hadn't done a good job of educating myself prior to the birth.  Part of that was intentional though, I didn't want to be in control of the situation.  I believe in those situations, you just shut up and do what the medical professionals tell you to do, given that you have carefully selected a medical setting that you trust.

So we began pushing.  It went well, but after a while, Harper's heart monitor started showing some distress so they shut off the Pitocin and gave me oxygen.  Finally, she started doing better and we resumed pushing after a 30 minute break.  Everyone kept exclaiming how much hair she had once her head appeared!  Finally they called for my doctor and the room was suddenly flooded with about 15 people, including med students.  I thought "wow, this must be it, no way this many people would swarm in here if the birth wasn't immanent". I'm not shy, so I didn't mind the audience, mostly, I just wanted to meet our baby girl.  So the doctor came in and had me push a few more times and all of a sudden, there she was, our little baby girl!  D cut the cord and did not pass out (though he told me later that he did get light headed and had to sit down, I never even noticed).

After an uneventful 2 nights in the hospital and lots of visitors (and cupcakes, both Harper's and my blood sugar was good, no diabetes for either of us!) our little family was able to go home!  

3 Year Wedding Anniversary

We went from this.....

To this.....

All in 9 years time.  Today we celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary!  Our first was spent diving in Belize, our second was spent touring around Italy.  Our third is a bit different but our greatest adventure yet, caring for our little munchkin at home.  Looking forward to celebrating this weekend on our first date night since H's birth!

34 Weeks

Here's me after a long day at the office this week with my feet up watching TV.  Petey decided it would be appropriate to rest his chin on my belly, which, coincidentally, was the same spot that the baby chose to kick.  It didn't seem to bother him, he happily lay there for quite some time. 

This weekend we made some major progress on the nursery, I can't wait to show the big reveal to you guys!  We also celebrated our last Valentine's Day as just the two of us.  It's probably going to be our last big romantic night out for a while.  Darryl brought me flowers and we had a late supper at Chez Zee.  After cooking a nice dinner for us at home for many years, I've sworn off staying at home for Valentine's Day.  Go out, trust me, it's better.  Or have him cook, D is good at that :). 

 My mom was also super sweet and for Valentine's bought me this gown to wear in Labor and Delivery.  My friends who have had babies have sworn up and down how much better something like this will make you feel on the big day.  I'm not sure at what point in the process I plan to wear it, it'll also depend on if I ultimately end up with a planned C-Section based on the baby's size.  It may be something I slip into post-op, we'll see.  At least I will have some wardrobe choices ;). 

My gestational diabetes isn't going well, so far the initial medication they gave me isn't working so I've been referred to an endocrinologist for insulin.  I was super bummed this week when I got that news, but I'm going to make an appointment with the specialist and we only have a few more weeks left, I'm sure I'll live. 

Maternity Photos

At 31 weeks Darryl and I returned to South Congress Avenue, the place where we had our engagement photos taken, to have our friend Amelia take some maternity photos of us.  Amelia has been quite the photographer as of late and made us feel very comfortable.  Getting my picture taken right now is the last thing in the world I want, I feel like such a whale, but I'm so pleased with how these turned out and that we took time to do this.

I plan on using these photos for the baby book and blowing one up and framing it for the baby's room.  I wanted to be shot in front of the Jo's "I love you so much" graffiti so the photographs would be a love letter to our baby.  I think they have the perfect sentiment to describe our feelings toward each other and towards the baby.  Thanks so much to Amelia for sharing her talent with us!

Weekend in the Hill Country

This weekend to celebrate my 30th birthday, D was kind enough to reserve a cottage in the Texas Hill Country with our friends the Andersons and the Mizes.  This is probably our last weekend to get away and it was absolutely perfect.

Our Bedroom

The grill and firepit, where we cooked s'mores under the Texas stars.

 D was sweet enough to roast me a marshmallow and I made myself a PERFECT s'more with a Ghirardelli mint chocolate square.  Not diabetes approved, but it was my birthday weekend and I only had one.

Front porch for relaxing

Gourmet kitchen where we all cooked dinner together Friday night.

The cottage was set on 34 acres and had two horses, one was a mini-horse.

Janet and the mini-horse

Christine and Janet with the not-so-mini-horse

Interesting story about the horses.  We got there super late after dark and wanted to build a fire in the outdoor fireplace after dinner.  After a lovely night, we finally turned in.  Around 7 AM I woke up with a leg cramp (yay pregnancy ailments) and walked into the kitchen to walk it off a bit and get a look at our surroundings once the sun came up.  Much to my surprise, staring in the living room window at me were the horses.  I got D out of bed and asked if the horses should be this close to the house and he said that the corral was probably close to the house, to which I replied, "No, they're standing next to the hammock, THAT close?" 

He jumped out of bed and we realized that the gate we had gone through the night before to get the firewood (and had left open) was the gate to the horse corral.  Thankfully, we had secured all the other gates on the property, so they couldn't escape, but D still had to herd them back into their corral.  The mini-horse wasn't having it and freaked out and started running around the house, which in turn got the bigger horse all riled up.  So there we are, in the middle of no where, with 2 horses in our front yard and no idea what to do.  Thankfully they decided to return to their corral on their own, after which we secured the gate (um, hello, if you're going to rent out your cottage maybe LOCK THE HORSE CORRAL GATE or perhaps LABEL THE GATE or better yet DON'T STORE THE FIREWOOD IN THERE???)

After D was done playing horse whisperer, we collapsed back into bed for a couple more hours.  The horses were super friendly to everyone else later that day, coming over and letting everyone pet them.  Everyone but D.  The horses had already decided that he was not cool.

Later that morning, Christine prepared a delicious diabetes friendly breakfast for us and we headed into Fredericksburg for some shopping while the boys went to the Admiral Nimitz museum.  I found some yummy smokey salsa and white truffle oil for D and I to enjoy at home and found some dog treats that looked like s'mores for the pups who were spending their weekend at the kennel.  That night we headed to dinner at the Cabernet Grill.

D and I before dinner

The girls before dinner

After an amazing dinner I got my long awaited slice of chicken fried pecan pie with a scoop of Jack Daniels ice cream.  While I wanted to wolf the whole thing down, I shared it with D since I wasn't really supposed to be eating it at all.  He was happy to oblige, for the good of the baby of course. 

We spent that night playing games and laughing so hard I was sure I'd pee my pants (thankfully I did not).  The next morning we packed up and stopped at the Herb Farm in Fredericksburg on our way out of town for a delightful brunch and then headed back to Austin. 

Happy New Year!

We had one of our most low key New Year's celebrations this year, maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but maybe I just realized how super duper blessed we are.  Saturday I spent most of the day in the kitchen, cooking chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and sprinkles (YUM!) and the Barefoot Contessa's Greek Salad Recipe.  I added some lettuce to the salad, since D isn't fond of weird veggie only salads.  I also used some of the olive oil we brought back from Tuscany for the dressing.  I hate how Ina Garten is always saying "use 1/4 of a cup of good olive oil," implying that her viewers typically buy some sort of subpar ingredients on a regular basis but since you're making her recipe you should step it up a notch?  Maybe it's just me....

Anyways, I brought half the cupcakes over to a get together at D's brother and sister-in-law's house in the late afternoon.  We visited and had snacks and the boys grilled.  I mostly housed the chips and dips, using pregnancy as my excuse for my usual gluttony over anything dippable. 

After the sun set we headed home to change clothes, feed the pups, and then head to NYE bash number two (yes, we're very popular, kind of a big deal, I know) where I brought the rest of the cupcakes for dessert and the greek salad I'd prepared earlier.  We went over to Christine and Parker's for an AMAZING dinner complete with an impressive spread of hors derves, wines, egg nog, a delicious prime rib, yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, and kale au gratin.  Suddenly, I wished I'd made a more impressive dessert, maybe cupcakes are a bit low brow as a finale for a spread like that, maybe I'm a bit nutty because I'm preggo, but they were moist and totally hit the spot.  I ate two.

We headed home right after midnight, this preggo was A) exhausted and B) *TMI alert* rather gassy.  Like grab on to something wincing in pain with gas cramps gassy.  It was so bad that I had flashes of worry that I was in labor or something.  Then the reality set in that oh-my-god-labor-is-going-to-hurt-that-much-and-more-f*#$!  So we came home where I could take the appropriate medications and wait out the storm in the peace of my own bed.  Also, note, that this isn't  like me being all farty and gross, it was just pains, I would kill to "be all farty".  The baby seems to be jamming up all that business in my digestive tract so it's not getting out, thus the intense stabbing pains in my abdomen, causing me to excuse myself from social gatherings, lest people interpret my periodic gasps and winces of pain as I clutch the nearest pillow as actual labor.  I blame that damn greek salad and all the chopped up veggies.... 

 

New Year's Day we woke up, decidedly un-hungover, and spent the day doing chores around the house.  I picked out a paint color for the baby's room.  There were multiple trips to Lowes.  The paint department guy there officially knows me as the crazy pregnant lady who bought WAY too many sample jars of paint and made off with roughly half their paint chips.

Left to right:  Sliced Cucumber, Lilting Laughter, Yellow Bliss, Butter, and on the bottom, Vanilla Wafer

The Lilting Laughter came off very pink and while I loved the Sliced Cucumber, we realized our ENTIRE house is either green or grey and that it wouldn't kill us to use a different color in one effing room.  Vanilla Wafer is a bit too close too white, so it's in between Yellow Bliss and Butter.  Butter looks best in the daylight, Yellow Bliss, best by artificial light.  We're still trying to decide between the two, but I'm sure it'll look great whichever one we choose.  As you can see we have ridiculously dark blue walls in that room, so a good coat of primer will be required. 

While I was having my color summit in the nursery (attendees included two terriers and D), I also made a big pot of my Guinness Stew.  This is one recipe that I can genuinely claim I made up.  I researched some other versions online, but it was inspired by something D had skiing one time and came home and told me about.  I made some tweaks from the last time I made it.

-Brown the meat in half a stick of butter.  Toss the meat with 2 tablespoons of flour, salt and pepper, then throw it into the melted butter.  I used 2 lbs this time.
-slice up an onion, 4 cloves of garlic, two carrots, 8 oz of sliced mushrooms, and half a lb of new potatoes, sliced in half.
-throw it all in a pot, add a can of tomato paste (4 oz-ish?) pour in a can of Guinness, add a cup of water and one packet of onion soup mix (I made this in the past with 2 packets, but I'm trying to cool it on the sodium being preggo and all and it was perfect)
-throw in some herbs, thyme, a couple bay leaves, some dried parsley, basically anything that sounds good and isn't nailed down
-put a lid on it and slide it into a 350 degree oven for 2 hours (I took it out once to stir it half way through)
-D likes his sauces thick, so I thickened the sauce with a couple tablespoons of flour, but that's totally optional
-I served it with buttermilk biscuits, but if you kept the sauce thinner, some rice or egg noodles might be nice.

And there you have it, flying by the seat of my pants, making it up as I go and never the same way twice, but it always turns out damn tasty and D is a very happy man.    Which is good because he spent the whole day rekeying our locks, replacing door knobs, fixing our brand new fan (which was crappily made, engineer husband to the rescue!).  And that is the very unglamourous way we rang in the new year, but it made me realize how blessed we were to have so many good friends, plenty of food on the table, jobs that allow us to have such nice things, a beautiful home, a darling child on the way, and of course, two of the snuggliest and most entertaining pups on the planet.  Sometimes you have to stop and wonder what you did to deserve all this, you know?

Day 3, Hubs and I Take on the Italian Transit Strike in Florence

When we checked into our hotel after our long trans-Atlantic flight and then our long trans-Italia train ride (okay, it wasn't that long, Italy isn't that big) we were informed by the hotel staff that our tour for the Uffizi had been cancelled due to a transit strike.  What? 

I called the tour company, they explained that transit workers would be on strike that Friday and that the gallery would likely not be open so they wanted to re-book our tour on another day or on another tour.  Our itinerary didn't allow for this, so we opted for a refund and freaked out a little that we probably wouldn't be able to see the museum we were most excited about.  Cue furious Googling on my iPhone to figure out what the heck was going on.  One thing my Googling mentioned, during strikes to expect public demonstrations and street closures for parades.  I paused to contemplate this.  I, slightly disgruntled with my current work situation, had brief flashes of me joining the Italians to protest my BS paycheck compared to my workload.  Sure I don't work in the Italian transportation industry, but I'm sure I could explain to them my beef and I bet they'd totally let me join their demonstrations.  Also I briefly had visions of the hubs bailing me out of an Italian jail the next morning as a result of my protests against "the man" holding me down.  No, today was not the day to join an Italian labor demonstration.

So back to the Uffizi.  You are supposed to make a reservation to go in, lest you have to wait an obscene length of time in line to go in.  These reservations book up months in advance.  We had made no such reservation since it was covered in our tour.  Which was now cancelled.  We decided to take our chances anyways and loiter around in that line (which was quite short because no one thought the museum would be open) while the staff that had come in met to decide if they had enough people to open the museum.  We didn't have to wait long, they decided to open and we were IN!

Inside the Palazzo Vecchio, brief detour on the way to the Uffizi

Palazzo Vecchio

The Uffizi

Once we were inside we cued up our Rick Steeves audio guide and got a guided tour of the gallery at a tiny fraction of the cost that we would have paid for our live guided tour, FTW!  My favorite works were Botticelli's Primavera and The Birth of Venus. 

View of the river and bridges from the Uffizi window

After our tour of the Uffizi we hoofed it back to the Duomo for a slice of pizza and to follow Rick Steeve's Renaissance Walk through the city.

Inside the Duomo

We started at the Duomo and walked back through the city viewing all the buildings and sites of interests from the Renaissance.  Finally we ended up back at the Ponte Vecchio (yeah, we walked all over creation on this trip).

I made Darryl drink out of the fountain, we didn't know how to do this the "right way" until we reached Rome

Us on the Ponte Vecchio, a Medieval bridge

The globe room at the Galileo Museum

As if our robust trek back and forth across the city wasn't enough, we decided to squeeze in the Galileo Museum, which is basically their history of science museum.  It was neat, they had some super old maps.  And when I say super old, I mean pre-Columbus-the-world-is-flat-look-out-you're-gonna-fall-off-the-edge maps, which to see an original of, is pretty cool.  And we saw some neat globes and lots of tools and survey equipment.  Back in the 1700s when people would have parties they would do physics demonstrations so they had all sorts of machines that generated electrical charges and did all sorts of things that I guess would entertain a people prior to the invention of reality television. 

It was a pretty interesting museum, uncrowded, and well air conditioned.  But our bodies were getting tired so back to the hotel (on the completely opposite side of the city again of course) we went for a little rest.

That night we went to a little restaurant we'd discovered on our stroll the night before.  We settled down with some of the house table wine and had a little appetizer which was basically ham, tomato, basil, and cheese toasted.

I had the wild boar pappardelle.

And D had a pork chop with rosemary potatoes.  For dessert, I think we had tiramisu.  I learned that while D hates tiramisu in the states (the lady fingers are generally way oversoaked with liquor flavor) he likes proper Italian tiramisu.  Imagine my relief.  I typically don't care if he doesn't like the things I do because that means there's just more for me, but desserts are often shared and I was scared I would be scarfing down the tiramisu solo on this trip and was pleasantly surprised.

Then we found D some gellato (he ate this 2x a day people, not even joking) and strolled back to the hotel to rest up for our biking tour of the Tuscan wine country the next morning!


Our Second Anniversary Trip to Italia!

On May 4th we embarked on our first trip to Europe together as a couple (my first trip to Europe period).  I've never had any interest in traveling to Europe, in fact, it's the LAST place I wanted to go because everyone's already been there and we could totally go when we're older.  But the hubs really wanted to go and made a good case and so as a compromise I agreed to go so long as we went to Italy, which is where my great grandparents lived prior to immigrating to the US.  So flights were booked and off we went!
This trip could not have come at a better time for me.  Work has been such a crazy stressful mess, I have never needed a vacation more.  We originally booked coach tickets but when we arrived at Dulles in DC to make our connection, the thought of spending 9 hours in coach suddenly became less appealing.  After a bit of a debate, we went to the gate agent and asked that they upgrade our tickets to business class.  I'm so glad we spent the airline miles, it was an overnight flight and it really helped me to unwind and rest at the beginning of our trip.

Here's Darryl and I enjoying wine at the bar at the Red Carpet Club.  Notice the lady behind him at the bar looks like she might die.  Totally didn't notice that when I took this picture.  D is fiddling around with our new awesome camera we bought for the trip.  I have no idea what kind it is, nor have I bought a digital camera since 2004, so perhaps I'm easily impressed.

Our seats were at the bulkhead in business class so we got to peep into first class.  I've never seen business or first class on a long haul flight.  I'm usually so far back in coach I'd need binoculars to see the better classes of seats. 

The first class pod style seats were so close I could touch them.  Darryl wasn't impressed with the plane, it was older.  Both Darryl and I have done a few trans-Pacific flights and we took it for granted that they use the best planes in the fleet for those flights.  Still, this United plane was WAY nicer than the craptastic Continental plane we took back to the States and even though we weren't on one of the sleek high tech planes that Darryl usually flies on to China, Business Class on such a long flight kind of rocked my face off.  We've upgraded to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean but this was way better.

Here's my little glass of bubbly at my seat.  There were like 10 levers, it was a total mind-f***.  Darryl had to explain to me how to operate my seat like 4 times and was visibly embarrassed as I tried out the various stages of incline.  I made quite a scene.


Darryl is clearly too refined for my antics.  After pillaging the free newspaper cart and the amenity kit (socks, eye mask, ear plugs, toothbrush and paste, and Murad hand lotion) I checked out the sleeping amenities.  No ratty questionable looking pillows and threadbare blankets.  A pillow with a legit case on it and a quilted white duvet which came presealed in plastic. 

After our pretakeoff bubbly, we were served warm nuts.  The stewardesses were also super good with the concept that my champagne glass should never dip below 25% full.  After all that bubbly, I headed to the lavatory and found that everything is better in Business Class, even the lavatories.  In addition to the normally expected items they had pomegranate hydrating mist for your face, pomegranate lotion, and mouthwash. 

After my little trip to the ladies room it was time for dinner.  Our first course was a veggie spring roll, salad, a roll, and of course more champagne.  The flight attendants were the most pleasant employees of United that I have ever encountered to date.  We were the youngest people in Business Class (something I didn't notice until I pointed out to D that all the people in First Class were old) and the flight attendants kept making a fuss about how cute we were.  They also greeted us as Mr. and Mrs. XYZ (which threw me for a loop, how do you know who I am lady?  Then I realized she was holding the manifest and knew who was sitting in what seat, I'm slow, I know).

Dinner was beef short ribs and roasted vegetables (and of course more champagne).  Dessert was ice cream and grappa.  Then I reclined my seat and finished watching Country Strong (terrible movie) and then laid back and caught some sleep.  The flight attendants were like ninjas, my sleep was a bit fitful since I'd had so much to drink I didn't take a sleeping aid on the plane so I didn't sleep as well as I could have, but every time I woke up and drank my water, rolled over and went back to sleep, the next time I woke up my glass was mysteriously full again.  Ninjas I say.

First Course

Morning came and we were treated to a lovely continental breakfast, I cleaned up a bit, and it was time to land in Rome! 

On our next installment, navigating ourselves from Roma to Firenze called "Italian Trains Confuse Us".

We Are Back!

We had a Rollie on our arm while we were sipping Chandon....okay it was a Timex and I seriously doubt United serves Chandon in business class.

We had lazy days in the sun...

And took in the art and history and all the wonderful things that Italia has to offer....

Coming very soon, a proper recap of our trip complete with the gory details of how I nearly met an untimely death on a bike under the wheels of a Fiat, how I barfed gelatto into a bidet (so very Euro of me), and all the marvellous other adventures (not to mention 1500 photos we took, I promise to only post half, ha). 

Second Wedding Anniversary!

While a ranch in the Texas Hill Country was no Buckingham Palace, I couldn't have asked for a more fabulous wedding day.

Two years ago today I.....

Waited anxiously to get this party started....

Shared vows with my wonderful husband...

Took silly pictures with our wedding party

And danced the night away with our closest family and friends...  Can't wait for all that the future holds!