Key West Trip

We just got back from Key West, and let me tell you, traveling and being away from home while pregnant isn’t very fun (Well, I had fun, but my body didn’t want to cooperate with me!)! My advice to couples wanting to plan one more vacation before starting a family: Do it BEFORE you get pregnant!! 

We went to Key West to attend my very dear friend, Christina’s wedding. By the way, she looked absolutely gorgeous and the wedding was so much fun!!  We arrived on Tuesday, June 5^th by way of airplane. Our first leg from Houston to Tampa was great! Then I saw the tiny plane we had to get on to go from Tampa to Key West. It looked like a toy plane. But I’ve never had problems or fears with air travel, so it didn’t bother me too much… Until it was time to board the plane. It started raining. Since you had to walk on the tarmac to get to the plane, I got wet, so that didn’t help my mood any. Once we got on the plane and all 16 passengers boarded (and that was a FULL flight!), it started POURING! I immediately start freaking out. Neal was across the aisle from me (but still within reaching distance), so he was trying to calm me down. I kept saying, “We can’t take off in this weather. We can’t take off in this weather. We are too small. There's no way. ” But the plane started heading out to the runway. I’m fighting back the tears as I look around the plane and see other passengers sleeping or reading. Why isn’t anyone else freaking out?!?! Neal is trying his hardest to calm me down. “Look, the rain is slowing down.”  I respond with “Ummm, I’m looking out the window and the rain is coming in sideways. Our plane is shaking from the wind! Don’t tell me it’s slowing down.” Luckily, the pilot comes on the intercom and announces that we can’t take off in this weather and that we’ll have to wait until it slows before we take off. MY PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED! Thank you, Lord!! 

Day to day breakdown:

Fast forward to Key West, we arrive to cloudy weather. We are in paradise, and we don’t even get sun? That’s just great. We shared a house with my other dear friend, Jamie and her family, (Regan, Lily, Doris and Karen). They were wonderful housemates!! We always had clean laundry and dishes! I’m definitely inviting them on our next vacation! :-) 

 

Wednesday: snorkeling with Neal. The sun was hiding behind the clouds again and the water had this weird substance in it (which the tour guides said it came from the coral around us…) so our visibility wasn’t the greatest and I only saw a handful of fish. But it sure was nice to be in the water!  

On the boat, getting ready to go snorkeling!

Thursday: Neal and Regan made it a guy’s day and went scuba diving. I can’t scuba since I’m pregnant, but honestly the thought of scuba diving freaks me out, so I’m glad I had a good excuse to NOT go!! So instead the girls went shopping and then to the beach. Again, the sun decided to be shy so we cut the beach day short and I went & got a prenatal massage and Jamie got a mani/pedi.  

Neal scuba diving

Neal is "underwater planking", according to my brother!

Girls beach day!

Friday: Neal and I went to Bahia Honda State Park, which was the first day we got to see the sun come out! It was such a beautiful day (but very hot!!!). I had a great time spending time with Neal! We also got to meet up with the bride-to-be and have some lunch! 

Bahia Honda State Park

 

Saturday: We walked around Duval St. and had a quiet day before the wedding. The wedding was so beautiful, and Christina looked amazing in her gorgeous dress!! The food was SO good!!! And we cut up that dance floor!! As painful as it was to dance (see my feet comment below), it was SO much fun!! I’m sure Baby J wasn’t too happy with all the dancing, shaking and twisting I was doing!!!

Mr. & Mrs. Allen Burks!

The girls!

The hubby and me!

Dancing!! Lily loved NKOTB!!!

Sunday: We had planned to go on a stake-out in search of the New Kids on the Block. They were on a cruise that was docking at Key West Sunday morning. But, Neal got really sick overnight so we decided to sleep in. Just knowing NKOTB were on the same small island as me had my head spinning!! We even had Lily (20 months old) singing “Oh oh oh oh oh.” (From their song The Right Stuff).  We had breakfast at Denny’s and then stopped at CVS for some medication for Neal, but there were no sightings of them…

Then it was off to the airport to go home. Of course our flight to Ft. Lauderdale was delayed. We didn’t have much time to get to our connection flight, but we made it! Neal and I slept all the way to Houston. Once in Houston, we went to the baggage claim to pick up our luggage. We were there for an hour before we realized that we were probably not going to see our luggage come around the baggage carousel! Neal’s bag was missing and so was Jamie’s. We had to file claims. When we got home and I started unpacking, I realized all of Neal’s clothes, our toothbrushes, hairbrushes, toiletries, and ALL of my makeup were in the other bag… The bag showed up to our doorstep at midnight the next day (Tuesday morning).  I’m just glad to have it back!! 

Jamie waiting for our bags that never showed up... Haha!

 

My feet:

I’m not quite sure how to explain what my feet looked like on this trip, but let’s just say they looked like Hobbit feet without the hair. My ankle bones and arches disappeared completely! I didn’t recognize myself from the knees down! It was disgusting!  My thoughts are combining the air travel (and pressure on the plane), the salty restaurant foods, walking all over the place in flip flops, and my added pregnancy weight, that my feet were doomed to swell up! I elevated them whenever I could and I soaked them in ice cold water, both of which helped a lot! I had purchased some cute sandals for the wedding, but I was unable to wear them due to the swelling of my feet!  I’m just glad to be back home and back in my routine because my feet are back down to their normal size!