Obligatory Pregnant Bikini Picture

As promised....

This is what I look like in a bikini these days. Yikes! Click on the photo of me to view more of Marks photos from our vacation.

Oh! Fun memory: shortly after this photo was taken I had a seriously embarrassing wardrobe malfunction! This was, of course, the one time we went to the main pool and there was actually a crowd to witness my humiliating moment. I was bending over to pick up my towel and my top broke. The clasp just snapped in half and my big pregnant boobs popped out in front of everyone! To make matters worse I gave out a little involuntary shriek which of course just brought everyone's attention to the fact that there were loose boobs flying everywhere. Fantastic.

Things Trish Would Like About Naples

While we were on vacation we couldn't help but think what fun it would be to return someday as a family. Not only were we excited to share Florida with Abernathy, but also with her paternal grandparents! Trish and Jerry live in Baltimore and we don't get to see them nearly as often as we'd like, so we are always trying to come up with ways to include them so that Abernathy will be sure to get to know them just as well as Jim and Cathy who live here in Chicago. Family vacations were always my favorite bonding experiences as a kid! We took note of several factors of allure for Trish particularly...
First off, devoted Catholic that she is, Trish would be delighted to know there is a Catholic church literally one block from the hotel. Imagine the convenience of being able to attend mass in an unknown city without searching forever to find a church! Why, you could go everyday if you wanted to and still miss out on precious little beach time. It's that close!
Secondly, and this is important, the hotel keeps an excellent stock of the pink packets. In fact, you won't need to special request Sweet N Low at any restaurant in Florida, as far as we could tell.
There is a MEGA Tommy Bahamas in town complete with four stores and a restaurant that really gets hopping after the sun goes down! Those folks in Naples really know how to live it up and can belt out "Happy Birthday" like you wouldn't believe!
Last, but certainly not least, there is a Talbots WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE of our hotel! Again a conveniently located, friendly, familiar face in a strange town. The Waterside Shops at Pelican Bay offered (in addition to the main event) a small assortment of large restaurants as well as Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, and an impressive array of luxury boutiques. A great place to kill time if the clouds ever roll in (which, of course, they never did in our presence) or to escape for lunch and shopping when you need a break from the sun.

Now if that doesn't sound like a good family vacation destination, than I don't know what does!

Babymoon: A Photo Journal

We have returned to the arctic tundra known as Chicago from our glorious babymoon. We had a lovely time and hope to go back to Naples some day. We had great weather, great food, a surprisingly huge hotel room and a pool to ourselves everyday! It was fab!

A last minute change of plans forced us to drive across the Florida peninsula from Ft. Lauderale Airport to Naples via the desolate highway 75, A.K.A. "Alligator Alley." Little did we know, the journey would be one of the highlights of the trip!


Things got off to a great start when Mark splurged on a convertible to indulge me. It made our trip across Alligator Alley a real adventure. Plus, a white Sebring....how FL is that?


At night we saw stars...how romantic!
And there was a fire pit at the hotel to keep us toasty warm after the sun went down.
There were always lots of hot bodies on the beach

But we tended to hang out by the pool. This is the lap pool at the hotel which was basically right outside our room. I guess everyone else preferred the main pool, so we pretty much had this one all to ourselves, which was perfectly fine with us! It takes a lot of guts to rock a bikini in the seventh month of pregnancy...but not so much if no one's looking.MAIN POOL...




Every night around 6pm we saw a spectacular sunset! It is quite the thing to do in Naples!
Relishing our coupledom before our family officially becomes a threesome...er, a trio? Yeah that sounds better.
PROOF THAT WE SAW ALLIGATORS!!!!
We stopped by Everglades National Park on the way back to the Airport to witness some wildlife...It was WILD!
Then we saw our last sunset and it was time to "hit the road."

The End!

P.S. I will post some of Mark's photography (including pregnant bikini..shudder) when he gets a chance to upload his roll. He is a much better cameraman that I am, so you'll get the artsy vacation shots. He also tends to take a lot of pictures of me...so if you're curious to see my sun burn, my chlorine hair and/or my bulging belly please check back soon!

First Sunburn of '09

Mark got burned during the drive from the airport to the hotel...oops! 

But the ride was a fantastic adventure! We saw tons of beautiful birds and about a hundred alligators!!  I had never seen one before today and I screamed each time I saw one and pointed and went crazy!  I tried to get pictures but the speed limit in FL is 70 so they were whipping by too quickly.  Fun fun fun! OMG alligators!

Pool time!!!!!!

Garfield Park Conservatory

I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory this morning with Jill and Simon for a Hip Mama Meetup Meet and Greet. It was very warm! We learned how to wrap a baby up in a long piece of fabric and wear him on your back. The new chic fashion accessory!

Bethany and Gunnar Stop by

Bethany and Gunnar came over to feed me lunch this afternoon! We had so much fun playing in the new nursery, sitting in the new high chair and getting to know the pink floppy doggy! Then Gunnar went for a spin on my desk chair, which looked like a blast! Point of fact: Gunnar is no longer a baby. Now that he is walking he is officially a toddler. Watch out!

Click on Gunnar in the high chair to see more pictures from our lunch date.

President Obama!!!!

We have congregated at the offices of McKay Trading today to witness this historical moment. Barbara got patriotic!

Closet Doors

Saturday we had closet doors installed in our bedroom! It is so exciting for us! yay!

The Nursery is Turning Into a Nursery!

Finally! Mark and I spent MLK Day getting our parental act together. We set up the nursery (decided what went where), and decorated it to make it nice and childish. We hung some butterflies, put up some bird decals, strung up the mobile, got a new rug and voila! The room is definitely starting to resemble a nursery! See for yourself. It only took forever.

Abernathy Shares, Simon Meets a New Friend

Tonight we had dinner with Jill, Alan and Simon! Simon had a blast getting to know the saggy Mylar balloon from my shower much to our entertainment and delight! He also got to try out Abernathy's rocker and high chair. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up from him! Above is my very first video post...I hope it works! Let me know if there are any problems and I'll try to fix it.

Click on Simon to view more pics from tonight!


Little Bear!

Now it is 9pm, which is way past our bedtime...good night!

Soul Searching

A father-to-be gazes pensively into the roaring fireplace.

Bon Voyage!

Sasha is heading back to school tomorrow so Mark and I headed over to Kenmore this evening for a delicious last supper. We'll miss you, Sasha! Click on either photo above to view more pictures from the evening's festivities: sewing, sushi feast, Yosemite Sam impersonations and *gasp* a game!

Photo Shoot on Maiden Lane

I forgot to mention...
Last weekend, back when we were still in warm, sunny San Francisco, we had a family photo shoot on Maiden Lane. The subjects were Nona and her men. As part of her daily Mocca experience Nona is serenaded by a fabulous jazz trio. They are excellent musicians who have become quite close with my grandmother over the years. They are shown here, flanking their most loyal fan, along with her sons, Jim, Josh and Michael. As you can see the photo shoot was quite the spectacle, and soon a crowd gathered to see what all the fuss was about. It was a lot of fun! The camera the photographer uses is really old...I don't know the details about it though.

Manual-Schmanual

I was going over my photos from San Francisco with Mark last night after we got home from the airport, and we were surprised how blurry most of them turned out. I don't have the greatest vision to start with so I couldn't tell until I imported them that anything was that fuzzy. Anyway, Mark checked out the camera and located the problem: it was set to be manually focused. Of course, I didn't know that, and wouldn't have known what to do about anyway, so I was pointing and shooting as if it was doing all the work for me. Long story short, here are some blurry photos of the Grodzins family in San Francisco for your enjoyment!

Chicago

We are back in the frigid Midwest. It's a high of 16 degrees today. Good to be home...

Thank god we're getting out of town again next weekend! The upcoming trip to Florida is our so-called "babymoon" and we'll be cutting it pretty close to the cut off date for flying. I'm officially grounded starting the 30th of January (32 weeks), so I'm getting some much needed traveling out of my system before then. I can't handle being stuck in Chicago for an entire winter...I can't even imagine what I'm going to do here for an entire February!

This picture was actually taken from Midway, the morning Mark and I left for Baltimore. It was cold then too.

Friends and Family

Sasha's friend from Parker, Julia, is temporarily living and working in San Francisco. We had the pleasure of spending Saturday and Sunday together, shopping, snacking, stretching and catching up.