mini recapping the year before baby
There is nothing philosophical that will come out of this - but I figured I would start 2025 on a little more personal note before returning to any kind of ⭐ wedding content ⭐ in this blog. I’m sitting here right now in a snow globe, on my laptop, having just finished my final appointment before our daughter arrives. It feels so surreal to have started last year with no concept of this baby and to have the beginning of this one be marked by almost nothing but waiting for the little gal to make her appearance.
That is a huge milestone and I won’t downplay it - I promise! My little lady has been alongside me for nearly 30 weddings, 28 in-office days with Ohio Magazine and however many friend and family hangouts we’ve managed to squeeze in between. This baby has been booked and busy! Just try and pencil something in with her. But actually, that itself — her accompanying me to everything — is something I will never be able to experience in this capacity again. Once she’s here, she’s here for good - and life as Nick and I know it will be flipped on its head.
This year will hold beautiful vows, flash-filled cake-cuttings and wild dance floors. The FedEx employees will continue to see me appear their counter with rolls of film spilling out of my hands and a little note for the lab with my order number. Anyone who works at Acme can still expect to find me scouring their aisles for just-one-ingredient I need for my recipe of the week. But celebrations are going to expand: the first time she actually smiles at Nick and I, the inaugural night of her sleeping the whole way through, the big day she fits into my favorite little pajamas we found for her.
Anyway: those are just guesses! I just scrolled through my camera roll for like 10 minutes and came up with the concept of sharing a little album of film from a few Airbnbs and Vrbos we found for different occasions this year. Wrapping it up with a bow! We’re about to be sealed in our home for the foreseeable future and looking at these is like a vow that cabin fever is only temporary. Is this anything? We’ll see:
May in Farmington, Pennsylvania: We spent 🚼 Mother’s Day weekend 🚼 with my mom, Nick’s mom and my sister, Shannon, at this cottage near Fallingwater. Originally we saw this place and were dead-set on doing a vow renewal of some kind here. After looking at it more closely it wouldn’t have made sense to have our friends trek out and try to squeeze into this little place just for the sake of us having a couple cute photos - haha. It turned out for the best; we got to celebrate Shannon and my birthdays by eating pizza, taking a hike, seeing an architecture nerd’s dream home and having dinner out in the middle of a tornado warning. I found out about the baby a few days after we came home!
July in Miami, Florida: Nick and I are one-big-vacation-a-year people. For this one last summer, we made the genius decision to visit one of the most humid places in America in its peak off season while I was like halfway through my pregnancy. You live and you learn! The picture on the right is a beautiful building in the Calle Ocho neighborhood and the picture on the left is a glimpse into the backyard jungle outside our Airbnb (complimentary)
One of my favorite memories of this trip is the heat accidentally being set when we arrived and Nick metaphorically and literally sweating, asking the woman in her seventies hosting us: “So, my wife is actually pregnant - do you have air conditioning?” Just trying to be so polite to this person when like … of course she does, she lives in Miami 😭 We spent the time attempting to tan at the beach, eating Cuban food, scouring Everglades and Biscayne Bay National Parks, trying our first Publix and almost fainting on an art deco architecture tour. Again: you live and you learn!
October in Novelty, Ohio: Okay, I’m cheating for this one! It’s not an Airbnb or Vrbo but it is a rental property so I’m counting it. We had my baby shower on a cozy, cloudy fall morning with an actual chance of showers. This place is what I imagine a house in Heaven would look like. I had rented it for my bridal shower four years prior and pounced to book it again since it is popular - and RIGHTFULLY SO. My mom, Nick’s mom and Shannon made it even cuter thanks to my mom’s addiction to Boyd’s Bears and sentimentality that runs so deep she’s saved nearly every blanket and decoration from when we were newborns. Her and I took a few photos of each other upstairs before we left. It makes me cry to think of there being three generations in those!
November in Hocking Hills, Ohio: Last but not least: I won’t gate keep this thing! If you are planning a trip to Logan and remotely like mid-century modern anything, see if this Vrbo is available. Just search the area plus “vintage vibes!” and it’ll pop up. Nick and I spent two nights here and I had to be promised we would return again with our baby someday before I left the place. We spent the weekend doing a cave hike, eating chocolate chip pancakes and exploring Athens - which, by exploring, I mean going to the same two places we’ve been before: Donkey Coffee and Casa Nueva. We like what we like!
