Travel

Viva Mexico!

~ atastytrip ~ Leave a comment

A few weeks after the 4th of July and just before Amelia turned 6 months old we headed to Riviera Maya, Mexico! Not only was this our first family vacation with Amelia in tow, it was also her first flight (insert cringing emoji). The trip was wonderful, but traveling with a 6 month old is not easy…or lightweight. So. Much. Stuff.

Pack Mule
This is ONLY our carry on baby stuff…

Thank you Robert for doubling as a pack mule. Love the many talents of my super husband.

C's and A

My biggest anxiety leading up to the trip was making sure I packed everything we may possibly need (this involved lots of list making and double checking) and traveling with breast milk (this turned out to be super easy and no big deal, win!). The flights on the other hand…well, I wouldn’t call them ‘easy’. We had 4 flights total and 2 went OK and 2 involved lots of crying despite my best efforts at nursing/distraction/handing the baby off to family members. I’m not sure if flying will get easier or harder the older she gets. Being a parent on a plane definitely gives you a whole new threshold for tolerating other babies and young children on planes (sorry anyone I ever side-eyed in the past!).

IMG_4742

Once we arrived in Mexico Amelia settled into a schedule pretty quickly and did well, despite some very late bedtimes. Our resort, the Vidanta Grand Luxxe, was beautiful and HUGE. The size made getting around slightly difficult since we had to travel everywhere with baby gear, but the variety of restaurants, pools and activities was wonderful.

Pool
My model niece.. first ones at the pool every morning!

We never lacked for something new and fun to do on the resort and spent one day away at a zip line park, complete with ATV’s and cenote swimming, which was a lot of fun despite my fear of heights.

Continue reading →

30th Birthday in the Big Apple: New York Part 3

~ atastytrip ~ Leave a comment

We started our last full day in New York the same way as our second, at the bagel shop.

Pick a Bagel

Today, it was Pick A Bagel, an almost as highly rated and much closer to our hotel stop than Best Bagel and Coffee. The line was long but moved quickly.

I opted for a sesame bagel with chive cream cheese while Robert again went for a breakfast sandwich. After breakfast we walked down to Rockefeller Center.

IMG_5391

We wandered around the garden fountains, a few nearby stores and St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

IMG_5406

Our next stop (my favorite!) was the New York City Public Library.

IMG_5414

I’ve had a long love affair with books for as long as I can remember and couldn’t wait to see the iconic Library Lions.

IMG_5422

The Library was definitely the most beautiful I’ve ever been in and Robert was a great sport, letting me explore to my heart’s content.

IMG_5436

IMG_5431

IMG_5429

Love that man.

IMG_5438

Next up, Grand Central Station! Another must do on my list after seeing it in 8 million movies but never having been myself.  Continue reading →

30th Birthday in the Big Apple: New York Part 1

~ atastytrip ~ Leave a comment

Now that it’s in writing I guess I am officially 30! I’ve said it out loud plenty over the last month but this must be the first time I’ve actually typed it out because it looks so old  odd!

Robert’s family always makes a big deal out of celebrating birthdays and I am lucky that he has passed that on and makes sure that I feel special and celebrated each year. I met Robert a few months shy of my 21st birthday. We hadn’t had the DTR (defining the relationship) talk before I left for Las Vegas with my girlfriends to celebrate finally being legal. Upon checking into our hotel I learned that Robert had surprised me with a day at the hotel spa the morning after I turned 21. It was such a thoughtful gift and I returned from that trip with an “official boyfriend”. It also kicked off a long line of very sweet and special birthdays (except for the one fluke year where he forgot to get me a card and we ate McDonalds for lunch…but we don’t talk about that 😉 and this year was no exception.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, dinner with friends is always nice and a party (while pregnant) didn’t sound too fun so we decided to take a trip. I hadn’t been to New York City in years and Robert hadn’t been since he was in middle school so we decided it would make for a perfect long weekend. In true crazy planner fashion I started our itinerary right away. There were LOTS of sights I wanted to see, but more so there were LOTS of places I wanted to eat (I mean what else is a pregnant girl supposed to look forward to on vacation?). If you are planning a trip to the city I highly recommend you start following a few NYC Food Instagram accounts but prepare for your mouth to water.

PSP 4

We flew out on Thursday and arrived in NYC around noon, just in time for lunch! Of everything I wanted to try, I was the most excited about trying soup dumplings or Xiao Long Bao. I tried a giant soup dumpling once when I was in China but couldn’t wait to try the cute little ones I’d seen all over instagram (and that aren’t available in any restraurants anywhere near where I live 😦

Pinch

We wet to Pinch Chinese on Prince Street, a menu I had scoped out well ahead of time and couldn’t wait to order one of everything from. Much to my dismay, they weren’t serving the snow crab over glass noodles for lunch, so we opted for pork soup dumplings, beef pan fried dumplings and Shrimp and Pork Wontons which come in the most delicious broth. EVERYTHING was delicious, highly recommend, A+++. Everything we didn’t order that I saw others around us eating looked delicious too. If we return to NYC anytime soon we will definitely be making another visit to Pinch, preferably at dinner so I can get my hands on those crab noodles.

Soup Dumpling 2
The cutest little soup dumpling you ever did see
Making dumplings
Loved Watching this guy handroll each dumpling!

After lunch we walked around Nolita (Soho? The boroughs confuse me) and browsed through a few shops before stopping at Milk Bar for dessert.

Continue reading →

Sea Island & A Last Minute Birthday Trip to New York City

~ atastytrip ~ Leave a comment

If nothing else this has certainly been a summer of last minute trips.

Fountain

 

For a type A planner like me this is pretty out of the ordinary. I knew earlier this year that I wanted to take a trip in June. The end of June would have been our original due date had we not lost our first pregnancy in December. I thought a trip would hopefully help us from being too sad as the date approached. Finding out we were expecting again in May definitely helped alleviate some of the sadness surrounding late June but it still seemed important to take a trip together to commemorate the event.

We talked about the trip a lot, but never pulled the trigger on a location. We wanted to go somewhere totally new but were reluctant to go too far away with a new pregnancy. Finally, at the behest of Robert’s cousin we decided on Sea Island, Georgia. We planned the trip so that it would coincide with our 3 year anniversary, only a few weeks away by the time we actually got around to the planning part.

anni
Anniversary Dinner

The planning part entailed booking a room and making restaurant reservations. *Tip* Reserve your restaurants EARLY! We were too late to get into either of our top two choices 😦 A prime example of why I am typically a Type A advance planner. In the end, the restaurant choices mattered very little as I spent some of the trip sick (more on that later). Of the three options for lodging, we chose to stay at The Inn, the least expensive of the three. We quickly found out that Sea Island was pricey (especially during their peak summer season when we were there) so even the least expensive option cost a pretty penny. The Inn was closer to the Cloister (Most expensive option) and all of the amenities than The Lodge (second cheapest option) so it seemed like a solid decision. On top of our room rate we chose to pay extra to use the amenities and have access to the Cloister which I would definitely recommend because if you aren’t going to use their beautiful property and beach then why stay there at all? Wherever you choose to stay, there are free shuttles that run constantly which is a great feature.

We left for Sea Island on a Thursday, later than we had anticipated and hadn’t been on the road 30 minutes before hitting traffic. And by traffic I mean MAJOR traffic. Our easy 2 hour trip took us almost 4 hours 😦 On top of this being annoying (mostly for Robert, I had a book, thanks for always driving babe!) it also completely threw off our dinner plans so we decided to stop on the road. Robert chose Outback, a decision that I would sorely come to regret just a few hours later.

Continue reading →

Canada Part 1: Yoho National Park & Lake Louise

~ atastytrip ~ Leave a comment

Our trip to Canada started off with a bang. Or perhaps a better word is ‘bust’. I woke up at 3:30 AM to an email alert from United that my 6:30 flight had been canceled and I needed to call to reschedule. My original flight was supposed to take me from Savannah to Chicago where I would meet Michelle, then Chicago to Calgary where we would arrive in time for lunch. The problem was the weather in Chicago, so the only option they could offer me was an even earlier flight (6:00 AM) to Newark, Newark to Houston (wrong direction!!) and finally Houston to Calgary where I would now be arriving around 5 PM. Poor Michelle got an even crazier re-route through San Francisco and didn’t get in til nearly 8! So much for exploring Banff on our way to Golden that first day. Disappointing but luckily we had built a free day into our itinerary just in case, and after all, we did both make it to Canada, with our bags! No small feat after all that rescheduled nonsense.

We stopped for a late dinner at the Cactus Club Cafe. Our waitress raved about the Prawn Ravioli which she said was the winning dish in a Canadian version of Iron Chef. We ordered the appetizer version and it was definitely delicious as was the rest of the meal.

Cactus Club
Cactus Club Cafe: Dark lighting<delicious food

Post dinner we stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a few groceries and then hit the road for Golden, arriving just after 2 AM and immediately going to bed after 24 hours of travel.

We woke up the next morning to discover that our Air BnB was really adorable and incredibly well appointed. The owners had left us toiletries, coffee, candy, a bowl full of fruit and even a dozen eggs! So yes, the stereotypes are clearly true, Canadians are really nice.

After breakfast we packed our lunch and headed for Yoho, our first park of the trip. As we drove we got our first daylight glimpses of Golden, a cute and fairly quiet little ski town surrounded by huge snow capped mountains.

Here, I feel it’s appropriate to take a minute and get this out of the way, as I’m sure to be repeating it 8 million times throughout these posts: CANADA IS BEAUTIFUL! Like breathtakingly, mind blowingly beautiful in a way that only mountains and wilderness can be. If you want to see a piece of the world that still looks exactly as I believe God must have intended it, go to the Canadian Rockies. You won’t be disappointed.

Tiny Town

Ok, so back to Yoho. Our first stop was a short walk to the Natural Bridge.

Meesh at NB

The Natural Bridge is a natural span of rock over the Kicking Horse River that houses a small waterfall.

NB Other side
Kicking Horse River

The water, like most of the water we saw throughout the parks, was the most beautiful shade of green/blue due to mineral deposits that run off from the glaciers.

NB 5
Pool at the foot of the Natural Bridge

Our next stop was Emerald Lake, which just so happened to still be frozen solid. Continue reading →