I waited a few days after eating these oysters just to be sure that I wouldn’t get ill so that no one could say I told you so.

They were so fresh and so tasty and so worth it!

Middle of town

East side of the island

Best seafood in town (admittedly, the only seafood in town)

During our December vacation to the south, we made a day trip to the Blow Fly Inn in Gulfport Mississippi.   We had seen the restaurant on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives a few weeks before and put it directly on our list of places we must eat in our lives!   James is recently obsessed with flounder and we saw on the show that they have a crab stuffed flounder and fried pickles (my personal favorite!).

We started with Fried Dill Pickles with Bayou Sauce and an order of Fried Green Tomatoes with Creole Mayo.  Both were amazing.  Amazing.  Tasty and Amazing.

James of course ordered the Crab Stuffed Flounder with Hushpuppies.  He could only finish the top half of the flounder and got to take the bottom half home.

Thomas and I got the Mississippi Delta Catfish.  My luncheon plate was smaller than his dinner plate- good news considering I was stuffed to the gills with pickle chips.   I don’t ever remember having catfish before but James and Jenny both persuaded me that it was the closest I would get to fish and chips.  I really enjoyed the fish but wished I had a spicier tartar/bayou sauce to dip them in.

And Jenny got the Shrimp Po-Boy.  She thought the shrimps were a little small but the boys loved her leftovers when she came home.

I also ended up with a banana pudding on my luncheon plate.  The waitress was worried I wouldn’t have enough room for the pudding as I was taking the second half of my catfish home but OF COURSE I was able to make room for the pudding.

Happy face.

I hit my third trimester this week- 28 weeks.  For the past few weeks, I have noticed a significant increase in the amount of comments regarding the size of my pregnant belly.  I know this isn’t anything new  to other pregnant or formerly pregnant women- but there are millions of women out there who somehow think it is a great idea to point out how LARGE a pregnant belly is when they see one.

The conversation usually goes with the offender first asking how much longer I have, or when I’m due.  To which I reply- “Oh I’m due in March.  I still have 12 more weeks”.  This almost always gets me a huge wide eyed look of surprise and some sort of “OMG you SO big!”.

I  heard of this before I got pregnant but I had no idea how ridiculously widespread it was- and that the biggest offenders are actually women who’ve been pregnant before.

So for the last 12 weeks of my pregnancy, I’m keeping a running tally.

2.  Waitress at the Blow Fly Inn, Gulfport Mississippi.  28 weeks.

Waitress: How much longer?

Me: Oh I’m due in March, I’ve got about 12 more weeks.

Waitress:<<The Face>> Wow!  You are ALL baby!!  Do you think you’ll even make it to March??

1.  Counter Lady at the Ship and Shore, Dauphin Island Alabama.   28 weeks.

Lady: When’s your baby due?

Me: I’m due at the end of March.  12 more weeks.

Waitress:<<The Face>> What???  You SO BIG!!!  I’ve never seen a pregnant belly that big before.  You’re gonna get so big in 12 more weeks!  Oh MY Gawd!  And I’ve had four babies- I should know about big bellies!  I was never that big.

Thanks, y’all.

That belly is all baby… no turkey!  23 weeks, 2 days

This is what happens James isn’t home for the night.  Daisy ends up snuggling in bed with me.

And we send this picture to James to know he was missed.

James and I intended to head to Kentucky on Saturday afternoon after our childbirth class.  Unfortunately, the Blizzard of 2009 had different plans for us.    We decided on Friday that if we had any intention of making it to Kentucky before Monday that we’d better leave a day early.  It took us most of the day to get packed up, get the the rental car (long story… James had a little fender bender with the Versa), and get all our errands taken care of so we could be on our way.  We finally left in the late afternoon- promptly hit a buttload of traffic- and finally were out of the Baltimore beltway a bit after 5.

Rather than go south through West Virginia, we opted for the route north through Pittsburgh.  It is about the same distance but we were hoping to avoid the storm.   I obsessively tracked the incoming snow on my Weather Channel iphone application.   We stayed ahead of the storm for a few hours- but just outside Pittsburgh we started getting snow.  And it basically snowed all the way through the rest of PA, through the tiny point of West Virginia, and through Ohio until we reached Cincinnati.  Just outside Cincinnati it lightened up a bit.  A reasonably long 9 hour drive turned into a painful and scary 12 hour drive.   But we made it- we survived.
And the next day Mom sent me photos of exactly what we missed…

Digging out

And the Baltimore tradition of shoveling out your parking space and claiming it with lawn furniture.

We are in Kentucky for a few days visiting the in-laws.  James took some time out from our busy schedule to read to the beagles.

Daisy and Huck got a new bed for Solstice.   We stopped by the LL Bean outlet on our way out to Kentucky and picked up a new bed for them.  This one they love even more than the last- this one has a nice fleece top.

Why did we need a new dog bed?  Because a few weeks ago Huck decided he was too cold one night and turned their old dog bed into a sleeping bag!  I came down one morning and couldn’t find Huck because he was hidden inside his bed.

And for good measure- here’s both Huck and Daisy trying out Scrappy the mini-pin’s dog bed.