How I Told My Grandmother + Florida Visit Recap

Hi from Charlotte. I arrived home last night around 7 p.m. after spending the last five days with my grandmother in Florida. I’m going to share an overview of my visit today but before I do, I thought it would be fun to tell you how I spilled the beans to her about my pregnancy. A few of you have asked! 🙂

She knew we had been trying for a while but my grandmother is one of those who doesn’t really pry for info unless I share. She knew that we had a surgery scheduled but I can’t even remember if we told her dates or specifics.

Anyway, remember when I went to Florida back in September for a quick weekend visit? My mom had been in Charlotte the week prior and I decided to fly back with her for the weekend. The main reason for this was because at my very first “pregnancy check” appointment, my doctor tried to use a portable ultrasound to see if the sac was in the right place and to detect a heartbeat and while he could see an embryo in the sac, he couldn’t get a heartbeat. He said, “we’ll stay optimistic and schedule you for a re-check in 10 days” and also explained that the rate of miscarriage was around 25% with early pregnancies. To say I was freaking out was an understatement.

I decided to go to Florida for the weekend just to surround myself with family and try to take my mind off of the baby situation. I ultimately decided not to tell my grandmother at that point that I was pregnant although my mom and dad knew. I wanted to wait for that heartbeat before I told her, although I knew in my heart I would have told her either way. It was so difficult to wait!

Fast forward to my 8 week dating scan and we heard that heartbeat. I was measuring 7 weeks and 6 days. At this point I wanted to tell my grandmother so I called a local florist in Fort Walton Beach that I love and asked if she could help me with a special flower delivery.

Y’all, I cried alllll the way through that phone conversation with the florist. It was insane. I ended up asking her to create a bouquet of pink and blue flowers with a note that said, “Pink or blue, we’ll know by Christmas. Baby coming May 2018! We love you, Jen and Tanner.”

My grandmother called me right after she received the flowers and I was still such a stressball at this point because I was told at my dating scan that I had a subchorionic hematoma but that’s a story for another day. I cried all the way through that conversation too and my grandmother told me to relax and be happy and that it would all work out. Oh grandmothers. <3

So needless to say she was super happy to see me this visit and to see a little belly growing!

I flew out on Saturday afternoon after teaching my 11:15 a.m. class. I grabbed lunch at the airport which was nothing to write home about.

Just an hour and a half later I was arriving in Florida at the Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (VPS). It is the most chill airport ever…this was the scene when I walked out of the terminal to meet my Uber. The driver is the sole car you see driving towards the terminal here!

My parents usually pick me up from the airport but since they are away, Uber was an easy option. About 20 minutes later I got to my grandmother’s condo. We sat on the balcony and caught up as the sun was setting.

I pulled some homemade spaghetti sauce out of the freezer for dinner. We enjoyed it with some crusty bread and I had ice cream for dessert.

My days were pretty standard and started with oatmeal. I got on such an oatmeal kick there and ate it all four mornings. Check out Instagram for the recipe and the secret ingredient that I added!

After a couple hours of computer work I worked out before lunch. I ran outside two days, went to yoga one day and ran treadmill intervals and lifted one day.

The first day I was there I made a salmon salad with canned salmon, plain greek yogurt, mayo, relish and dried cranberries. I ate some combo of it most days for lunch. I was on quite a cottage cheese kick too while I was there! I love dipping crackers into cottage cheese.

Salad + salmon salad crackers.

The first two nights that I was there the sunset was beautiful. The second two nights it was very cloudy but still made for a dramatic sky.

On this night I went for a long sunset walk on the beach.

After sunset (which is so early – around 5p this time of year), I got started on dinner. It was a fun time of day for us because I would cook and my grandmother would sit at the kitchen bar and keep me company.

We had a spinach frittata and avocado toast one night. Simple frittata recipe is on Instagram.

The most AMAZING grouper parmesan another night. I stopped by a local fish market to pick up freshly caught Florida grouper and oh my goodness, it was melt in your mouth good.

I served it with roasted potatoes and brussels sprouts.

And the final night I was there I made a big pot of white chicken chili. I know this pot doesn’t look very white but I got a little heavy handed with the chili powder. There are no tomatoes in it though. Recipe is here.

I also made some skillet cornbread.

My grandmother always has great magazines around her house and once I spotted a recipe in Oprah magazine for cranberry pistachio white chocolate bars, I knew I had to make them. My grandmother shelled the pistachios while I prepped the batter.

All done! (and yum!)

Evenings were hanging out on the couch watching House Hunters or Christmas movies and chatting or playing Scrabble.

Gah, I love Scrabble so much!

My grandmother set me up with some good in-flight entertainment. She saved two crosswords for me from the newspaper and HGTV magazine. I also had my copy of The Alice Network.

Home sweet goldens.

So grateful for this time with my grandmother. <3

How did you tell your family about your pregnancy? Did you tell them right away or wait a while? I told my parents less than 2 hours after getting a positive test, haha.

Favorite thing to do (or that you did) with your grandmother? 

Have you done any holiday baking yet?