I’ve decided that my life has never been any better than it has been this past year. Last night I met my sweet little Erica – a friend who I’ve known since 1st grade – for our monthly happy hour. Last time we met, I was 3 weeks and 2 days pregnant and 99% convinced I was with-child; although, I had no test to prove it. Being that most of our happy hour visits include at least 2-3 glasses of wine each, my little drinking partner noticed my lack of consumption. I had told her about all of my symptoms and that I thought I might be pregnant, and we left it at that. SO, I was excited to see her last night and confirm that I was right!

BUT, everything got way better and so much more exciting upon arrival. Erica started telling me about her recent trip that weekend to the Smoky Mountains with her long-term, live-in boyfriend (who is just perfect for her). She told me this great story about taking a walk in a field and coming across this huge pack (or herd?)… whatever, a group of elk. She said they just stood there watching and Jake (the bf) took tons of pictures. I’m a visual person, so of course, I was anxious to see them.

She handed me her phone and told me to scroll to the left. I’m going through the pictures, loving these giant elk, when all of a sudden, I came across THIS ONE:

The beautiful & perfectly happy Erica & her future hubs

Obviously, my reaction was something like… “SHUT UP! OH MY GOD!! OH MY GOD! YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED!” All the while, my eyes are welling up. Now you have to understand, we all knew that Erica and Jake would be getting engaged SOMEDAY… but we always joke that every time it rains, Erica pushes back her timeline. Like, “We were going to get engaged this year, but did you see that rain? Now we have to pick up sticks this weekend. We’ll probably push back the engagement a few years.” It’s not really THAT bad, but kind of… regardless, it was such a happy moment to hear that they were finally making the commitment and entering into such a happy time together.

Now, onto the goods… how amazing is that ring? Just under 2 carats of flawless beauty. Her lovey designed the ring himself, including all of the engraving. Beautiful!

That’s a lot of bling!

So, we started talking about how to tell the other 3 girlies in our little group, which was a blast. We have a pretty fun idea planned. BUT, Erica was saying how she wanted to wait to tell them until after the weekend because we are celebrating our beautiful friend Carrie’s 30th birthday on Sunday and she didn’t want to take away from her day. She was mentioning how she hoped all the other girls would be excited with everything going on in their lives and I said, “yeah, I wonder how they’ll react to me being pregnant.” She said, “Yeah… wait what? You are? I KNEW IT!!”

We spent the next couple hours reminding each other of the other’s new situation… “You’re getting married!” “I know… you’re pregnant!” “Holy shit!” Don’t you just love girl friends? Mine really are the best!

She’s getting married!!!!

I feel like this post should end, “And they all lived happily ever after.” It’s just so amazing to see everyone so happy and to be so happy. Every day gets better. Even just the little things. I laid in bed with my hubs this morning for a good 30-45 minutes just chatting and laughing. It just felt so simple and amazing. I’m very grateful.

Symptoms

Still feeling happy, alert and chipper today (can you tell?)! I find myself getting pretty darn tired at night, but am otherwise feeling great. And actually, I don’t even really feel nauseous today.

I will say that I slept like a ROCK last night. My head hit the pillow at 10 and I didn’t wake up until my husband got up for a drink of water this morning at 6. It’s crazy because my husband was also out last night and didn’t get home until 11pm, which means that I slept through him coming home and my dog’s very verbal welcome. That’s success.

Oh! The other thing I discovered yesterday is that nylons are the devil. I had to get up and take my nylons off in the bathroom at work yesterday by about 2 pm because I felt like they were trying to kill me. To counteract yesterday’s horribly uncomfortable outfit, today I’m in a sweater, black leggings and riding boots. RELIEF!