Andrew's favorite place in the world is NYC. The weekend of October 18th Andrew and I went for our annual fall trip, so technically this was Peanut's (my mom's nickname for Baby Kassouf) first trip to NYC. We spent the weekend seeing Broadway shows, eating at some of our favorite places, and relaxing. We stayed in New Jersey at the Marriott at Glenpoint. It was a very nice hotel and we got an upgraded room because the hotel was having phone issues and every time we called the phone would just ring.
Friday night we went into the city and saw Big Fish, this show was about a father who wants his son to always dream big. It is based on a movie that Andrew likes and he was very curios to see how they would adapt it for the stage. I was expecting to like this show least out of the entire weekend but it turned out it was one of the best shows of the weekend! Now that Andrew and I are expecting Peanut, we watched this show through different eyes. It was cool to have this new perspective. After the show we stayed to "stage door" and we met Norbert Leo Butz and Kate Baldwin. They were both very nice and willing to sign autographs.
Saturday we slept in and had a lazy morning. Then we went into the city to grab lunch, that afternoon we saw the matinee show of Matilda the Musical. I was super excited to see this show because it was one of my favorite movies as a child. I use to watch it every time I visited my Mommom and Poppy. This show was also very good. I loved the music and it was so cool to watch a cast of mostly kids dance and sing on the Broadway stage. It was neat to see all the different magic tricks from the movie being done on stage.
After the show we walked over to Bryant Park to hang out for a while and spend some time in the quiet part of the city. I love going to the different parks in the city because once your in the park it's so quite and calm. But as soon as you walk to the edge of the park it's complete city life again; it's like a mini oasis.
Saturday night for dinner we walked over to Cafe Jolie, it is a small crepe restaurant that we found a year ago. We love eating there because we can get savory crepe's for dinner and a sweet crepe to split for desert. It's one of my favorite places the city. After dinner we went to see First Date. This show was about a couple on a blind date and since Andrew and I met on a blind date we figured this was a must see for our relationship. The show stared Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez. Zachary Levi was the voice of Flynn Rider in Disney's Tangled which was the first movie Andrew and I saw together and one of the lines from that movie is our relationship motto. Krysta Rodriguez was in Smash which was one of Andrew's favorite shows. This musical was absolutely hilarious! And the blind date story mirrored our story so much it was almost scary! After the show we "stage doored" again because we really wanted to meet Zachary and Krysta. They both were so nice and personable; they loved hearing that we had met on a blind date, are now married, and expecting our first child. Zachary even brought out speakers and an iPod to play music while he signed and after signing everyone's playbills he stayed and took pictures with anyone who wanted pictures. He was there for well over an hour. Andrew has been "stage dooring" for years and Zachary was by far the nicest most laid back person he has ever met.
Sunday we got up, packed and then went into the city. We ate lunch in Rockefeller Center, a place I love to go and visit. I don't know why I like it so much but I just think its a really cool place.
Then we went and saw Annie. This was a good show but it was our least favorite of the weekend, only because it was very much like the movie and was very predictable. It was still enjoyable and we are glad we saw it before it closes in January. (The theater was also freezing! which made it much less enjoyable for me).
On our way back to the bus to get to our car we stopped at the Cake Boss Cafe, we had walked past it everyday on our way to a from the bus and never went in, but we had a few minutes and since I love Rachel Ray who works with the Cake Boss frequently we thought it would be a good idea to try it out! We got 2 cupcakes (peanut butter chocolate for Peanut and I and carrot cake for Andrew) they were very good!
It was a great weekend away from home and I'm sure Andrew is counting down until we get to go again. I also think he is super stoked to take Peanut when he/she is old enough because he always wants to make everyone lovers of NYC!
Announcing our good news to the world. This went on Facebook when I was 12 weeks. Andrew choose this Bible verse as our memory verse for the month so it has been posted all over our house. Our faith is the foundation of our relationship and I jumped at the opportunity to share that with the world. We thought it would be cool to announce our news using a gift box because our child is a gift. We also switched off on the gender colors to be fun and show that we are excited for either a boy or a girl!
On September 27, 2013, we got to see the first movements of our son/daughter. It was crazy getting to see our child move and wiggle all over! It all became very real in this moment.
Andrew's Dad came into town on a planned trip the day after we found out we were expecting and Andrew could not wait to tell him. I was a little worried because I knew Andrew's Mom would not be with Dad and I thought she might get upset about not finding out in person but we were not going to be in Myrtle Beach until Christmas and we couldn't wait until then! So Andrew came up with a great idea, he would Skype call his mom and that way we could still see her even though she could not be with us. Andrew told his mom some story about wanting to buy a tablet so he wanted to try out Skype to see which tablet he was going to buy. So Mom got on Skype when Dad got here at 11 p.m. and we gave Dad an envelope and small gift. Dad offered for Mom to open it but she said he could do it. The card said, "Here is something your house will need for our visit next summer." and then he opened the gift which was a small pack of outlet covers. He showed them to mom and said, "They're outlet covers, something you would need for children." Then, he looked at Andrew and I and asked, "Are you trying to tell us something?" We responded, "Yes!" He got up to hug us and Mom was screaming over Skype in excitement while also saying "This is not fair, I can't hug anyone!" They were both very excited and began praying immediately!
My Mom was the next person we talked too. We were going out of town that weekend so we had to see her before we left so we set up a weeknight dinner in Annapolis. She joined us for dinner at Chevy's. When she got there we gave her a card and the small wrapped gift. Her card read, "Here is something your house will need next spring." As soon as she read it she looked at me and said "Is this something for a baby?" She knew right away without even opening the gift. I said, "Yes" and we all hugged and then she went back and opened her gift. Some might say mother's intuition but she had a few clues to help her figure out our big news. First, we had seen her the week before I took the pregnancy test for a concert and she offered me a glass of my favorite wine which I declined because I was 3 days late. Which could of meant anything at that point but I was being cautious. Then a week later we asked her to dinner in the middle of the week, so she was slightly suspicious and right!
Next was my Dad and step mom. We had dinner with them the night we got back from our weekend trip. They met us for dinner at P.F. Chang's. We were a few minutes late and Dad and Molly were enjoying drinks so when we got there and moved to a table I handed Dad his card which said, "This is something your house will need next spring." As soon as he read the card Molly just looked across the table at us and then back at Dad. He then opened the outlet covers and Molly started freaking out. Dad was still looking at the outlet covers in a confused way when Molly finally said, "Are you pregnant?" and my Dad stopped, looked up at me waiting for a response and when I said "Yes" they were like, "Really? Oh my goodness!" They were excited, gave out hugs, and they all celebrated with sparkling wine! I drank ginger-ale from a champagne flute!
It was fun getting to tell Grandpa, Grandma, Nanna, Poppy, and Naoni. I would say most of them were very thrown off by our news because I don't think they were expecting it quite yet. But they were all very very excited!!
