OUR BABY MOONS

From both of my pregnancies, one of my favorite part was our "Babymoon".

A relaxing and/or romantic vacation taken by parents-to-be before the craziness begins.

When I was pregnant with the twins we were afraid of traveling on planes because I had a risky pregnancy so we got on a car and went to Marco Island which is only a few hours away from home.

We had a very relaxing weekend there, as we went to the beach, the movies and some good restaurants. The best part without a doubt was getting in the ocean, my belly felt so heavy and getting in the water took all the pressure off my back.

The second time around we really had no plans for a babymoon, until my husband's friend Arnold, who was also expecting a baby at the time, called him and told him he found an offer for extremely cheap tickets to go to Italy, and that we should consider going on a babymoon together.

Something I've never told you before is my husband's passion for Italy, I'm sure he was Italian in another life; his favorite food is Italian, his favorite wine is Italian, his favorite soccer team is AC Milan, he likes to dress and look like an Italian, I could go on and on about his obsession with Italy but it would take me days...

So you can imagine his excitement when he got that call about the cheap tickets to Milan, he bought the tickets on the spot, without telling me anything about it, nor asking if I would even be able to go.

When he told me the date we were leaving I almost flipped, as I was going to be 30 weeks pregnant by then. I called my doctor right away and he told me, "don't worry, there is absolutely no problem, just make sure you walk a lot while on the plane, that way you get good circulation on your blood".

So we packed our bags, left the twins with their grandparents and left to Milan for a week!

We had planned a little road trip, so once we landed in Milan we rented a car and headed to Verona, but after getting lost for a little while we ended up in the small city of Bergamo, and decided to explore it. We stayed in Bergamo for a couple of hours, took the Funicular to Città Alta (Upper Town) and had lunch near Piazza Mercato delle Scarpe.

We then kept driving towards Verona, where we spend two magnificent days, and fell in love with the city. Its beauty is indescribable, it's one of those places that you have to be, see and feel to understand its greatness. The people in Verona were so nice, even going out of their way to help us in any way. The food and wine we had was really something else, Verona is in the Veneto region, so they are very famous for their wine, "Amarone", which they also use to make their most famous dish, "Risotto Amarone". To drink the Amarone and to eat the Risotto Amarone was worth the whole trip and more.

Verona is not only known for its great wine, cuisine and fashion, but it's also a gorgeous medieval town built between the Adige River, which has many historic places like the Arena di Verona (Colosseum), Cathedrals, and Giulietta's House (Romeo and Juliet), among many others great sightseeing places.

After Verona we headed back to Milan, but stopped in a very small town called Sirmione, which I had previously visited 15 years before, while on a trip with my grandparents, and I wanted to re-visit to remember my time there. We only stayed for a couple hours but it brought back so many great memories.

*We finally got to Milan, where we went sightseeing to all the common tourist places, as well as the places where the locals go. The best part of all is that we went to see an AC Milan match (Aaron's favorite soccer team), and watched them win! Seeing his face was amazing, he looked like a kid in a candy store!

After a great game we headed to an amazing restaurant, Osteria Primonovecento, who is managed by a friend of ours, and we had an unforgettable semi-private dinner.

The very last night of the trip we were lucky enough to find tickets to go see the highly acclaimed opera "Carmen", at one of the finest theaters in the world, Teatro alla Scala, that was the cherry on top of the cake.

We really had the best time, so good that when we got back to Miami all we did was search for great deals to go back to Italy, and after some months of looking we found an even better deal. Less than a year later, in 2016, all four of us went back to "La Bella Italia" for my birthday on another amazing vacation!