Newport, Rhode Island (Momcation!)

Back in July, I took a "momcation" to Newport, Rhode Island to visit my friend Lindsey.  It was three nights away, and it was really, really great.  Kenny was about five months old at the time, and it was the longest I'd been away from him ever.  It recharged my batteries, allowed me to give attention to my friendship, and I had more energy and excitement about coming home at the end.  I highly recommend it!  It's also important to me to role model for Kenny that I'm independent and have interests and activities outside of my relationship with him.

Linds picked me up at the Providence airport in her gorgeous convertible, and from that moment on, it was top down, sunshine ON!  I flew in on the 4th of July, so some grilling out and fireworks were in order.

But first, we were HUNGRY!  So Lindsey took me to one of her all-time favorite nostalgic Newport spots: the Castle Hill Inn, est. 1875.  Gor-geous.

The Lawn at Castle Hill Inn

Their beautiful lawn and terrace have incredible water views, so we got a table to have lunch and a cocktail al fresco.  I enjoyed a wine spritzer, because they're totally underrated and perfect for summer day-drinking, as well as their chicken al mattone, with heirloom tomatoes, burrata, and a roasted tomato vinaigrette.

And of course, since it was my first visit since Linds moved to New England, we had to share a dessert.  It was some kind of incredible funfetti cake-inspired layered magic, with delicious whipped cream and raspberries!

Spritzers are underrated.

After that, we retired to relax at Lindsey's house, which had a rooftop porch with water views and the perfect fireworks vantage point too.  We drank rosé and grilled out for dinner, capping off a beautiful travel day for me.

Over the next few days, we took a road trip to West Hartford for some real estate shopping (spoiler alert: Linds lives there now!) as well as took in the wharf and seaside in Newport.

We had a delicious breakfast at the Corner Cafe; the portions were huge, and the menu was full of Irish, Portuguese and West Coast influences.  It's the kind of place where you find black & white pudding, chourico, and breakfast burritos on the same menu, and it works!

While at the wharf, I enjoyed seeing gorgeous yachts and adorable shops.  I even visited the original Alex & Ani storefront and bought two bracelets to commemorate my trip.  The pineapple represents my friendship with Lindsey, and the sun represents a song I like to sing to Kenny.  Together, they remind me the importance of love and relationships in many facets of life.

 

One of my favorite things during our trip?  Touring The Breakers mansion!  I love The Biltmore in Asheville, and so I wanted to tour at least one mansion in Newport.  The Breakers is part of the Vanderbilt family empire, so it was the perfect one for my visit.  These incredible mansions not only have ocean views, but the exteriors and interiors are luxurious and high-end.  I can't believe these were considered summer homes, versus permanent residences!  Very Downtown Abbey.

My getaway to Newport was perfection.  I enjoyed the company of my friend, the delicious food, refreshing drinks, beautiful homes and seaside, and overall New England charm.  I felt so refreshed and happy when I got home, and I'll always have these beautiful memories of my first real trip post-partum.

Baby Showers & Breakfast

In January, I was blessed with TWO more baby showers, both of which ended up being brunch or breakfast events!  Given that I love breakfast foods, it was pretty perfect!  The first, thrown by my friend S, was a local celebration that brought together a bunch of my favorite Tennessee ladies and some out of staters too.

I didn't do a great job getting a bunch of photos, but my favorites were the mimosa/bellini bar (with sparkling water for me!), the breakfast buffet with favorites like biscuits and hash brown casserole, and doughnuts instead of cake.  Yum!

We had folks from Nashville, Brentwood, and Franklin, but also longer hauls like Knoxville, Cookville, Crossville, Chattanooga, Monteagle, and even Illinois and Indiana!  I think it was really good for my Mom to see what a great community I have here in Tennessee.  After six years, it's definitely my favorite place I've lived thus far as an adult.

Then at work, my friends J and P put together a shower in one of our conference rooms.  The snowy weather caused a reschedule, but it ended up being a really nice breakfast "open house" style shower.

And the super-fun balloons from my shower made their way up to my desk later too.  :)  People who missed the shower are still bringing gifts by my desk, and it's so touching and sweet!

Something we've received that wasn't necessarily on our registries: tons of books!  Here's a nursery sneak peek where you can see how we've displayed a bunch of them, and we are going to store the rest in a book bin.  We love reading (I worked at the public library in high school) so it's wonderful to have these already to read to baby Kenny!

Now after three (yes, three!) baby showers, I've written over 100 thank you notes and counting.  We are just so grateful for all of the gifts and love that we've received, I wanted to make sure to thank everyone individually for thinking of us.  I'm old school about notes and snail mail like that.

I also wanted a way to keep all of the adorable cards we've received.  I decided to use the same method I used for our wedding cards; I punch a hole in the corner and use a loose binder ring to keep everything together.  I even included the invitations to the baby showers, so I could keep those together with the cards.

When I'm sitting in the living room with swollen pregnancy feet, it's encouraging to flip through the cards and read what people wrote to us.  I'm tempted to stick it in our hospital bag, just so I can read it if I need the encouragement.  :)

I'm so grateful for the blessings and love we've received in anticipation of our new arrival!

Disney World for Adults

Some people manage to schedule a "babymoon" during their pregnancy with their partner, but a combination of work and our holiday plans kept us from having a nice getaway.  But I did have a girls' trip planned for Labor Day weekend that ended up being the perfect substitute!

A while back, my friends and I were imagining the perfect girls' weekend... and for us, that meant staying at an amazing resort at Disney and enjoying the parks.  I know what you're thinking.  "Disney World?  For a bunch of grown women in their 30s?"  Oh, yeah.  When I was a kid, I loved Disney World.  As an adult, I realized they have a LOT of high end and delicious offerings and fun that exhausted parents can't take advantage of on family trips!

Tip #1:  Stay at a Disney resort, near your priorities.  There are resorts at Disney World of varying levels of cost, as well as off-property hotels and resorts.  For our weekend, we felt it was a priority to stay on property, and we favored the resorts that would allow us to walk to the back entrance of Epcot by the World Showcase.  After all, we were visiting during Epcot International Food & Wine Festival!  We stayed at Disney's Beach Club Resort.  I like staying at the resorts because they have shops, restaurants, and so many conveniences.  Beach Club is also near other resorts, which once again expands your restaurant options.

Tip #2:  Make reservations for your top experiences.  I had two wishlist items: Afternoon Tea at the Grand Floridian, and dinner at California Grill during the Magic Kingdom fireworks.  My friend wanted to do the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall with the princesses.  All of these were wonderful, memorable experiences, things that I knew I would probably be less able to enjoy with an infant/young child or a husband who is not a fan of Disney stuff.

Tip #3:  Take advantage of your flexibility as an adult.  Even though Labor Day is a holiday weekend, many kids are back to school by then.  So traveling during the "school year" calendar reduces your crowds and increases chances you can do special stuff.

We also didn't have to deal with naptimes or bedtimes, because we're grownups.  So when we found out there were tickets available for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, we bought them the day of the party.  We also didn't overplan, just had 1-2 things per day based on those reservations we made for our top wishlist items.  So we planned our park visits around those reservations too.  When it rained, we ran for cover.  When we were tired, we sat down for coffee.  When we needed to just lay down by the pool, we did just that.  We'd change course and randomly do a ride because the wait time wasn't long.  We stopped for photos.  We did things we didn't plan on doing.  Being pregnant, I really appreciated the flexibility!

Tip #4:  Make choices where you splurge, and where you save.  My friend didn't want to deal with the free bus service, so she splurged on a car to take us to and from the airport.  I splurged on food for sure.  But we made up for it by eating some of our "on the go" meals at the quick service restaurants, and by ordering kids' meals.  Yup, one of my favorite Disney money-savers is ordering kids' meals!  They're usually enough to fill me up, and they're way less expensive than the fast food for adults, because they know they can't jack up the prices as much on kid food versus adults.  I never had anyone question it when I ordered a kids' meal at the counter!

Pro Tip: We were concierge level at the resort, so we tucked in big time during their free breakfast and snack times when we could to save $$$!  I think my husband would have loved this, so I'm keeping it in mind for the future.  He could make the cost worthwhile just in wine alone.

This poolside kid's meal came with a bucket and shovel to play with!  LOL

Tip #5:  Make it special and memorable!  I ordered sparkly ears and tank tops for the group.  One of the girls gifted us Alex & Ani bracelets.  We wore our ears everywhere like kids and just embraced our inner child.  It was really fun, so it felt like a celebration and not just a trip to the parks.

For pregnant ladies:   I really didn't feel limited during my Disney experience.  The few things I couldn't ride (the new Pandora rides, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Expedition Everest) had such long lines my friends didn't even want to attempt them.  (The Pandora rides went down for most of a day so the wait times were 3+ hours!)  I rode a number of my favorites, especially at the Magic Kingdom.  And by saving money on alcohol, I was able to stop for delicious snacks (like a Dole Whip!) as a trade-off.  Honestly, I think Disney was great because there are ample benches to take a seat, shade from the heat, and more for the comfort of the entire family.  They really planned the parks with family in mind, so preggos can enjoy it too.

Watchouts for Adult Groups:  Firstly, Disney is designed for families, so sometimes it's hard for them to figure out three adults who want three different credit cards on their Magic Bands.  We had to do a lot of work on the tail end of our trip for incidentals, because most things were charged to our room (one friend's card) instead of the cards we painstakingly set up at the front desk from the get-go.  So realize that sometimes the Magic Band thing works against you as non-family, so paying with cards (not bands) is probably the easiest way to make sure stuff doesn't get jacked up.

Secondly, if you want to take advantage of Fast Passes, you need to buy park tickets ahead of your trip and link all of your My Disney Experience accounts online.  *Or* you need to link accounts ahead of time at a minimum to reserve available Fast Passes upon arrival.  That's the only way you can all reserve Fast Passes together through the website or the app.

Lastly, Disney World is honestly for families first.  So just keep in mind that the place will be crawling with kids (I know, I know, this seems obvious) which means having some patience and sympathy.  I for one used it as an opportunity to see what strollers and baby gear everyone was using as intel for my baby registry.  If you need an escape from kids, I recommend focusing on Epcot and places like Disney Springs.  The higher-end the restaurant, or the later you stay out, the fewer crowds (and kids) you'll usually find.

I'm not sure when I'll next be at Disney... but I'll probably have a kid in tow!

That will make for a whole new blog post.

But this trip was one of the best, and I'm happy we went and enjoyed it as grown-ups.

Nashville Murals

Which came first, Instagram or cities creating way more murals than they used to have?  I'm not sure.  Nashville has definitely been stepping up its mural game.  My friend B and I like to do something fun when we get together, so a while back (truth: I think it was May or June) we had a delicious brunch at Marché Artisan Foods, then went driving around town to take photos with some of our fav murals.  

My advice is to choose your neighborhoods and have a plan in mind, so you can park and walk between murals easily.  We found free parking (at least long enough to snap a pic) pretty much everywhere for these.

Here's where we ended up!

East Nashville Mural

Side of the Joyner and Hogan building at 600 Main St

DCXV Industries Nashville Mural

Center 615 building (East Nashville)

Nathan Brown mural

Corner of Overton and Mansion St. (across from Barista Parlor in the Gulch)

 Ian Ross Mural

11th Ave South/Laurel Street (the Gulch)

Jason Woodside Mural

11th Ave. S/Laurel St. (the Gulch)

What Lifts You

302 11th Ave. S (the Gulch)

Draper James

2608 12th Avenue South (12South, side of the store)

I Believe in Nashville

2706 12th Avenue South (12South)

(Note: there's a bigger one at 1306 McGavock Pike at Marathon Music Works)

Nashville Script

2705 12th Ave S. on the side of Corner Music (12 South)

Green Pea Salon Flower Mural

2900 12th Ave S (12South)

Make Music Not War Mural

2900 12th Ave S across from flowers (12South)

I'm not the first or last to post about Nashville murals, but I will say we had a lot of fun being tourists in our own area.  It was funny to see certain murals' popularity, as there were times we had to queue up to take our turn for a photo!

There are SO MANY more we haven't visited, too!

One of my fav local bloggers, Kristin Luna, did an even  bigger mural post/adventure if you're interested.

Do you have a favorite Nashville mural?