Last night Jacob and I arrived home from our "babymoon"! We had SUCH a great trip to Key West, FL!
We left VERY early Saturday morning after a very short/stressful night sleep. Friday night after we packed and prepared everything for our 7:30 am flight (eek!) we were headed to bed around 10:00pm and I leaned over to kiss Athena goodnight on the couch and noticed she had a few splotches of bright red blood on her. I reached up to my nose and realized I had a bloody nose. As Jacob later told me, it was gushing. I didn't start to full on panic, but Jacob jumped up and got me tissues. Within seconds I had bled through about 6 tissues and had blood dripping all over my hands. I started freaking out. I have never had a bloody nose in my life, not even when I broke my nose. All I could think about was the baby and what was wrong with me and if it was hurting her. Jacob rushed and got heavy duty paper towels and starting freaking as well. At this point I was bleeding through paper towels quickly. Jacob had me lay down on the couch...big no no. I immediately choked on the amount of blood rushing down my throat and it made me panic even more. I said we need to call a doctor and immediately I thought of one of my parents best friends from Chicago who is an OBGYN and just last week had told my dad to make sure I call him if I ever need anything. We called my parents in a panic and asked him to call Mike. He was on vacation himself but called me immediately. He was awesome. He told us exactly what to do and reassured me I was okay. Although, he said after applying pressure if the bleeding didn't stop we needed to go to the ER. He also wasn't too sure about me flying in 9 hours, but said if all bleeding stopped I should be fine. Luckily once we figured out where and how to apply pressure the bleeding stopped and has yet to start up again. I slept awful that night though as I woke up every half hour to make sure I wasn't bleeding! Needless to say, we were exhausted when our alarm went off at 4:50 am on Saturday.
We had to fly to Miami to catch a little flight to Key West. Luckily we booked first class tickets there and back and on the way there we were on a HUGE plane, so first class were the seats that lay completely flat into beds! Neither of us slept a wink that flight though. We chatted the whole way, enjoyed a yummy breakfast and of course kept tissues nearby for any sudden bloody noses =)
Once we arrived in Key West we got to our resort and hit the pool! That night we rode the shuttle to downtown Key West and had a great dinner overlooking the water. I think we got back to the hotel around 9:30 and slept over 12 hours that night. Such a great way to kick off vacation!
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| Seafood Dinner at The Conch Republic |
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| Jacob buying a "Cuban" cigar |
The next day we ate breakfast at the local Waffle House and then spent the first half of the day by the pool then got ready to go into town for dinner and our excursion, the glass bottom boat!
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| Best iced coffee in Key West! |
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| One of our best meals- soft shell crab and yellow tailed snapper! |
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| We're so glad we took people's advice and did the glass bottom boat! |
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Our first taste of Key Lime pie on the island!
(Key Lime and Coconut Mango Key Lime) |
The next day we headed into town and grabbed breakfast at a Cuban restaurant and took the food to the famous "hot sauce bar" called Peppers. It was pretty cool, you can do a free tasting of like 25 hot sauces. I did about 8 before they got to hot for me! We spent the rest of the day walking around, stopping at a few bars listening to live music, and stopping at some food stands for local eats!
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| Jacob about to try to hottest sauce on the island |
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| He survived! |
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| Listening to some live music |
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| Chocolate covered key lime pie...oh my! |
I didn't get any photos, but that night we had one of our best dinners on Stock Island. We had asked a few locals we met over the first few days where we should eat and we heard multiple times to go to Stock Island at eat at the Rusty Anchor. We took their advice and had the best conch fritters ever! We got the seafood sampler and we were thrilled we had listened to the locals! Great food! When we got back to the hotel we went down to the pool/hot tub for a little and vegged out!
Our last full day in Key West we ventured out to one of the three beaches, the one we heard had the best water. (Fort Zachary Beach) One of our hotel shuttle drivers gave us some inside scoop on the beach and also where to eat on our way back to the hotel. We had a great day relaxing at the beach and snorkeling! We were shocked, but right off the beach we saw TONS of cool fish! We also got to see a cruise ship arrive in Key West- it actually was the same boat we were on in May 2011! (Carnival Ecstasy!)
On our way back to the hotel we took the shuttle drivers advice and stopped at Blue Heaven for a late lunch and key lime pie. He told us, this is the "real" stuff, not the Sarah Lee stuff everyone else sells...hah! We split the grilled cheese and lobster roll and of course a piece of the key lime pie and oh my gosh....
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| From the words of the locals...the REAL key lime pie |
We went back to our hotel and relaxed a little before our last night in Key West. We spent the evening having a great last dinner and enjoying the infamous Mallory Square! (Where they 'celebrate the sunset every night!)
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The best show at Mallory Square! This dog would go around
collecting tips and drop them in his bucket! Too cute! |
The best part about Mallory Square was finding the souvenir I'd been wanting! We are doing a collage wall in Embry's nursery and all week I was searching for some local art for it. I wanted to be able to have something from our trip and we found the perfect piece. We stumbled upon a local artists' booth and she had some really cool paintings. When we searched through her stacks, I KNEW I found the perfect piece! The colors are great and girly and the flamingos were too cute! I also loved how it looked like a "dad", "mom", and "baby" flamingo!
Earlier in the week we stopped in a cute shop and picked up this book. Too cute! Already looks cute on a shelf in Embry's room!
Our last day in Key West was Wednesday and we flew out that day at 5pm. We went out to a big breakfast and hit the downtown area one last time. We had a few last souvenirs to buy; something for our dear neighbor who kept Athena, an ornament for ourselves (on all of our vacations since we've been married we buy an ornament from that city!), and something for our built-in shelves in our living room where we try to bring back something from each trip we go on. We also had one very important food stand to eat at before we left town. Garbo's Grill is by far the highest rank, most talked about place to get food in Key West. They are only open a few days a week and people rave about this place. Each day we heard people talk about it! Let's just say it was worth all of the hype! We split brie, mango and jerk chicken quesadillas and some Korean street tacos....WOW! Great last meal in Key West.
Overall, we had such a great trip!!! We flew back to Miami and then sat in First Class again on our flight to Dallas and had a delicious meal on board. It was great to get home and pick Athena up at our neighbors house. We both tried to pick our top three favorite things about the trip and had a hard time listing things. Overall, we agreed having time to just spend together, with no school, work, tests, etc. hanging over our heads was the best thing ever!
