Greetings from North Dakota

And a belated Happy Thanksgiving! Tyler and I left the pets with my parents and flew out to the (very) rural town of Marmarth, ND this week to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family. I love my in-laws and the rest of Tyler's family, so it's worth the long trip to get out here. Unfortunately, the little town they live in is three hours from the nearest airport... and this time, we bought tickets when oil was super high, so the cheapest flight we could find went from Hartford to Philadelphia to Denver to Rapid City. Yuck. And in case anyone pregnant was wondering, US Airways does not, in fact, supply airsickness bags, which means you may be forced to vomit repeatedly into a Ziploc bag containing Tums with holes in the bottom, while your husband pretends he doesn't know you, and everyone around you looks completely disgusted. Not that this is something with which I have recently had precise experience or anything.

Anyway, we got here and we've been having a great time. It's so relaxing to get out of Connecticut for a change, and I've been needing this break since I started school way back in July! I haven't done a single speck of schoolwork, which has been amazing... and I've been eating ridiculous amounts of delicious Thanksgiving food (I'm not messing around... we're talking entire pies here, people). I love seeing my two little nieces, too-- and watching Tyler play with them is so cute. One of them is almost two, and the other is only three months old. Usually, thinking about my baby seems so abstract and unreal because I don't ever spend time around any babies or kids. But being with little baby Jaxyn is a reality check for me... in a good way. She's a fussy baby and cries a lot, but she's so adorable, and I guess it just reminds me that this is something that people do every day, and it's not some big scary unknown.

So it's been great to relax, especially because I never ever stop and sit around and do nothing for more than a couple minutes at a time... but it turns out, when I'm not distracted by the craziness of school and clinic, I'm pretty uncomfortable! I'm getting bigger every day and I haven't been able to work out here, so I'm sure that's part of the problem, but seriously-- holy. Back. Pain. I would kill for a Snoogle (a pregnancy back pillow). And by that I mean, if I saw someone walking down the street with a Snoogle and they said the only way I could have it was to kill them, I would not hesitate to shoot them in the face, take the Snoogle, and run. Okay, maybe that's a little drastic (except not really, I'd totally do it, and there aren't any cops out here anyway, so hmmmm).

Hope everyone's had a lovely holiday!