In September, my husband and I decided to go to Orlando for a fire fighters conference. It was a tough decision because of the cost, but we talked and talked about it and decided that it would be our last trip, just the two of us, for MANY years to come. With plane tickets & hotel booked, we were off to Florida. I was about 19 weeks along and it was still safe to fly.



We set off for the airport in Hartford early in the day after dropping the dog off at the kennel. Sammy loves the kennel. He has other dogs to play with and he can bark all he wants without us yelling at him to stop. He always comes home exhausted!


We breezed through check in and security and off to the gate to wait. Once on the plane, just as our drinks arrived, I started to feel kind of strange. I couldn't really put a word to the feeling but just not right. I didn't say anything to my fire figher/EMT husband but just sort of sat there quietly. After a few minutes, he looked over at me and asked if I was ok. I apparently was all flush and he thought I was going to pass out. I said yeah, I don't feel quite right so he hugged me tight and the feeling eventually passed. I could feel the baby moving around in my belly so I knew he was just fine. What a scare! I have never passed out before so I didn't know what to expect. I don't know at this point if it was from excitement, being tired or the cabin pressure change. Needless to say, I was now anxious just to get on the ground in Florida.

We had a great trip! It was VERY hard for me to not have a beer since virtually everyone around me was enjoying theirs. As with many fire fighter functions there usually is beer involved and this was no different. I was one of only about 6 women on the trip and I quickly became friends with DH's friends' wife Ann. We went to the pool together while the guys were off at training. We also went to the spa, twice, to get manicures & pedicures-what could be better than that? When we arranged for transportation to the spa at a sister hotel we expected a yellow cab to drive us. Oh no, we rode in style, a nice Lincoln Towncar picked us up and took us to the hotel, we didn't want to get out of the car. The driver was very nice, he opened the doors for us, we felt special. The guys were jealous for they had spent their day riding in a stinky bus full of men.

I was so worried about gaining too much weight on this trip because the doctors gave me a definate limit. As with any vacation, all you do is eat out and this was again, no different. We walked ALOT and I think that made all the difference. I had some great meals and hope to go back to some of those restaurants with our little guy in the future. My favorite was the cuban place we ate at the last night, http://www.cubalibrerestaurant.com/. I wanted a mojito SO bad! The food was amazing and our waitress was very good. We ate our dinner inside the restaurant and when we were done, the guys enjoyed some cigars out by the outside bar while Ann and I relaxed. We had gone to Sea World earlier in the day and my ankles/feet looked like they belonged to Shamu himself. Between the walking, heat and pregnancy they had swollen to an unrecognizable size! It was so gross! Ah, the joys of pregnancy.