I am actually a few days into 10 weeks, but I couldn’t forget to document how week 9 went down…

The last few days of Thanksgiving break were lots of fun. The day of Thanksgiving, we did a lot of relaxing. Jason’s mom did all the cooking – which I think next year I’ll volunteer to help her out some, but I’ll be honest, this year, it was great to just sit on the couch and read all day – then enjoy a delicious meal! I took advantage of the free time I had to just lie around, read, sleep, and visit with family. We did talk a long walk after the Thanksgiving meal around the farm land behind the Baareman’s house. It was really fun to get outside, move our legs a bit, and even pet the horses! The farmland is actually owned by the University of Mississippi and is a research farm, but there are tons of trails and paths to walk around on. It is really funny because many times you can actually hear cows “moo-ing” from inside their house!

On Friday, we decided to venture out to Jackson, MS to participate in the annual Black Friday shopping. We didn’t get there until about noon, but I did snag some pretty good deals on presents for family, and a few clothing items for myself at Target! We had lunch at this place called Newk’s that was really yummy. I ordered soup and salad, and the cup of soup was gigantic! It was about a foot across, and very shallow, but still I hardly made a dent in it- thanks to first-trimester queasiness – ugh!!!! When will it stop!!? After lunch, we spent some time at Dick’s Sporting Goods, where Randy got a Basketball Hoop marked WAY down from like $600 to $200! It was crazy! We also got some plants at a local nursery before heading home. After the drive home, we went to downtown Starkville and enjoyed some delicious pizza at Old Venice Pizza Co. We got the John Wayne pizza – which was really good. Side note- I think that my biggest pregnancy craving so far is pizza. I could really eat pizza every day if I could. I can’t tell if this is real craving, or just the only thing I want because it is mainly bread – I tend to only want to eat bread these days. A lot of other things don’t appeal to me because the smell of everything has increased like 10 fold. I normally love red onions, but tonight I couldn’t stomach them.

That night, when we got home, the plan was to watch a movie together, but instead I went right into the bedroom, laid down and half read/half slept. I think the full day of shopping wore me out! lol.

The next day on Saturday, Jason and I went on a long brisk walk. The weather was beautiful – it was sunny and crisp outside, but not cold. Exercise does energize me, so I really enjoyed our walk. When we got home, I took a shower, and then again was tempted to just lay back in bed and read. So you can see what an exciting life I’ve been leading lately *sarcasm*! Good thing is, my book is really intriguing – it is the sequel to the Other Boelyn Girl – it’s called The Boelyn Inheritance. I have this thing for historical fictional books. We also watched UGA beat Georgia Tech! That day we just hung around the house and then had BBQ for dinner. We also watched a really cute movie called Christmas in Connecticut.

All in all, I was really grateful for my relaxing trip to MS. I think I really needed the time to just do nothing for a few days – it was glorious!!!!

On Sunday, we left pretty early in the morning for the long trek home. We stopped in Birmingham at Panera Bread – primarily for me to get bread- haha. We stopped in Atlanta around 3:00pm and visited with my family. We had a few hours to just stay and chat, so that was really fun. They told us about their trip to Houston that they had taken with the kids and Kristen and Ben. We also got to see photos of their trip. After our brief stay, we hit the road again and made it home around 8 or so I think. I made shrimp, rice and veggies loosely based on a recipe – I’ll never do that again! It didn’t turn out very well and I couldn’t really stomach it. I’ve found that in the evenings, I really can’t eat much other than bread and cheese, or bland stuff like cereal.

We went to bed, didn’t clean up or unpack at all (leading to a very CRAZY start of the work week) and were ready for the next week – Week #10!