Hoboken sisters trip

On Sunday we got back from a little escapade to the east coast. Me and a little lassie named Bethany both left our hubbies and babies behind and went to visit a little philly named Vanessa. We planned the trip months ago before I knew there'd be a bun in the oven and though I did call Bethany crying on Monday, telling her I didn't know if I should go because my personality sucks right now and I'll just want to lay around, my gallant husband was the one to persuade me into still going and getting away from everything for a few days. He's a lovely man that one. The trip did not disappoint! Well, most everything didn't disappoint. The canolis at Carlo's Bake shop may have disappointed a little. But Bethany is a faithful viewer of The Cake Boss so it was everything her dreams were made of. Here she is in all her cake boss lovin' glory.

What a good girl she is.

Wait wait wait. Let me back it up a second. I'm getting ahead of myself. Do you know Hoboken? It's right across the bay from Manhattan. Within swimming distance. We just strapped on our wetsuits when we wanted to head into the city. No no we didn't. But it's gloriously close! (or miserably close, if you're Vanessa, and so sick of city life you can vomit at will any time, any place. Just kidding. Sortof.) Ugh. I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts. Can you tell? You better not say yes. The thing is, my kids are playing/fighting right next to me on the floor with a package of stickers and princess barbie dolls. So I'm typing with one hand and hand wrestling with the other.

The single most grandiose event of the entire 5 day extravaganza may or may not have been the fact that Ness didn't know I was coming. She was only expecting Bethany. Jason thinks the "Collard surprises" are a little overdone, but we can't help ourselves. We're addicted. And every time we plan to surprise a family member, (someone's arrival is a surprise pretty much every get-together we have), we bring it up like it's a totally original idea that's never been done before in the history of mankind. So Beth and I flew in at about the same time to the Newark airport, found each other, jumped and hugged around together for a bit and then caught a cab to Nessa's. Our cab driver was heavy breathing the whole time and growled a little bit when I sneezed after him and leaned forward to jovially tell him, "It's your fault ya know! Sneezes are contagious!" Literal growl. No words. We had to suppress awkward laughter from that point on. You think that's my best stuff, cab driver? You think I really think that's funny? Because I don't. I was only trying to be polite, not really funny. If I wanted to, I could have you in stitches... and probably make you wreck this cab because you were laughing so hard at my jokes. I just thought we could be friends. Don't you dare growl at me.

So, we get there and scheme up a plan. It's about 9:30 pm. Dark outside. Sam is out of town. Bethany calls Ness from the front of her building. We have to wait for her to come let us in. So I decide to go creep and hide behind some bushes nearby. Except I don't want her to see my little spikey hair and immediately lose my cover, so I have to put my shawl over my head, nativity scene style. After they hug and jump around a bit together, Bethany says to Ness, "Oh my gosh come look at these tiny kittens someone left over here behind these bushes." And Vanessa is a real sucker for kittens; she hates with a passion all baby animals except for kittens. Just kidding. Stop getting off track! So she and Beth come creeping around the corner to see the adorable little kittens and I'm meowing up a storm hiding behind there, she even says "Oh my gosh I can hear them" and I'm there all crouched down under my shawl. And when she rounds the bend, I jump out at her and make a real crazy angry cat noise. And before she knows it's me, I happen to have a billy club in my hands and start beating her on the back with it as she's trying to run away. Just kidding about the billy club. But I think she did scream at the same high pitch note for a solid 12 seconds before we all noticed she had a big wet spot on her pants. And then we all had to ensue the hugging/screaming/jumping around and into each other thing from before. It was rich indeed.

Alright, I'm pretty sure Scarlett has a little canteen of gasoline in one hand and a matchbox in the other, so I've gotta wrap this up. I don't know if I'll be able to afford much more narrating with this post, probably mostly pics. I didn't even bring my camera though so I'm stealing these from Ness. Forgive. But don't forget. 2 cool 2 B forgotten.

And here the little dears are after standing in line for 3 hours at Carlo's bakery, shoving a little canoli here, smearing a little croissant there. I am proud to say I did not stand in line for 3 hours, but stayed home and slept. It was glorious with a capital G. Sometimes, when you're pregnant and have two little monsters at home, you have to fly across the country so you can take a nap.

Keeping the tradition alive with the sisters pedi...

Venturing into NYC for a girls night... this was the view while we waited for our ferry.

Once we got into Times square Bethany was like a kid in a candy shop. First time to NY. And she loved every second. It might have had to do with the fact that when we were all standing there looking at purses at a street vendor's table, the lady selling the purses pointed at Vanessa and in broken english said, "She is not so beautiful", then pointing to me, said, "She is not so beautiful," and then to Bethany and said, "She is most beautiful". Bethany was pretty smug for the rest of the night after that. It was awkward. We had a good laugh. Until we were out of the public's eye and Ness and I had to jump her.

And there's our favorite friend sitting on the ground with us here as we're heading into dinner...

Trinity church... love Leah's face

There's that lady again we all love and adore... (the one on the far right I mean)...

It was fabulous. My favorite parts were just sitting around Nessa's living room talking and laughing. And maybe some new york style pizza. I love my sisters! Sisters cruise is next. I was lamer than I'd have liked to be on this trip, so the cruise will have to be when none of us are pregnant. Which may not be for like 10 years but hey, at least we have dreams and aspirations.

Okay, and as I'm signing off, I just have to say that pregnancy with baby number 3 is a whole new animal. You think you were off the hook with the pregnancy stuff? This round, I started noticing a thickening of my mid-section before I even took a pregnancy test. I was already thinking things weren't fitting right and I needed to cut back my nutella intake from one jar to 3/4th a jar a day. Didn't cross my mind that a wee one was starting to grow. With your first, you are 4-5 months into it, still teensie tiny and just dying to put your maternity clothes on. Round three it's like my body already knows so well where we're going and knows there's no use in kidding itself. I mean, just look at the difference of before and after shots:

Before pregnancy number 3:

And now, at 10 weeks:

It's so unfair. Don't even tell me you can't see a difference because I'll know you're just lying to try to make me feel better. I'm already pretty much as big as a house. Sigh.

{*P.S. I'm coming back and adding this now... I can't bear the thought of anyone thinking this last part was serious... No, no, no... neither of these bare-midriff pics are legit. haha.}