With my job keeping me as busy as it does, I haven't been able to blog as much as I would like to lately-- unfortunately, updates have started to only come weekly when Baby Blakely gets another week older. And while little Liam certainly monopolizes many of our thoughts, there are other things going on in our lives-- things that I should be writing about.
Rob and I finally had a chance to take a short vacation last weekend. I've felt like, for the past 6 weeks, we've just kind of been passing each other coming and going. My biggest event of the year for my job has taken lots of long hours, evenings and weekends to prepare for, and the wrap-up is still going strong. Rob has a full time job, plus grad school in another state to try to balance, on top of his family life-- he was out of town three out of four weekends in April. The first two were spent in Nashville at Vanderbilt and the last was in Massachusetts visiting friends and family.
When we were home, it seemed like a rare occasion where we both were free of responsibilities at the same time-- if I wasn't at the office, I was answering/sending e-mails or working on grant proposals. If Rob was in town, he was Skyping with classmates or working on long papers.
While it's life, and just how things are, it hasn't felt good. No nights spent on our front porch talking, no Saturday morning trips to The Peanut Depot, no listening to baby's heartbeat on the doppler at night before bed. Many meals eaten separately & many quick phone calls to check in, but never enough time to really talk.
We went to one of Rob's work events together on Friday evening, then came home to relax. We decided to head to Atlanta on Saturday and spend the night. With this being the first weekend at home in over a month for Rob, I didn't think he would want to go anywhere, but he was up for it.
Saturday morning, we jumped on Priceline and found an awesome deal on a hotel in Buckhead, then jumped on craigslist and found tickets to the Phoenix concert that night. We ended up having a blast. Here's a clip from the concert:
I have some anxiety issues that make going to concerts a little difficult for me-- I don't like big crowds and I hate being on the floor level of a concert where people are constantly pushing from behind to get closer to the stage. I stopped taking my anxiety meds when we started trying to get pregnant, so I no longer have those to help. Now, with a baby on board, I'm even more nervous about the safety of me and Liam when we're in situations like this-- I'd rather be safe than sorry. Rob and I talked about this before we bought the tickets and agreed that we'd get there early to try to find a seat.
The Tabernacle is really cool-- it's an old church converted into a concert space and even though the entire show was general admission, there are two balconies full of seats. We got there as the doors opened and were able to get a seat on the 4th row of the first balcony-- We even scored an aisle seat for me. Getting there early meant we would see the opening band which is always hit or miss. I'm happy to say that Two Door Cinema Club was really good!
After the concert, we went to Buckhead Pizza Company to grab our favorite post-concert snack, with our ears still buzzing. (Man, we're getting old.) As we ate, we wondered if Liam enjoyed his first concert-- I read last week that at 18-19 weeks babies will cover their ears when sounds are too loud. Hopefully he was kicking to the beat (not that I felt it), liking what he heard.
Rob and I finally had a chance to take a short vacation last weekend. I've felt like, for the past 6 weeks, we've just kind of been passing each other coming and going. My biggest event of the year for my job has taken lots of long hours, evenings and weekends to prepare for, and the wrap-up is still going strong. Rob has a full time job, plus grad school in another state to try to balance, on top of his family life-- he was out of town three out of four weekends in April. The first two were spent in Nashville at Vanderbilt and the last was in Massachusetts visiting friends and family.
When we were home, it seemed like a rare occasion where we both were free of responsibilities at the same time-- if I wasn't at the office, I was answering/sending e-mails or working on grant proposals. If Rob was in town, he was Skyping with classmates or working on long papers.
While it's life, and just how things are, it hasn't felt good. No nights spent on our front porch talking, no Saturday morning trips to The Peanut Depot, no listening to baby's heartbeat on the doppler at night before bed. Many meals eaten separately & many quick phone calls to check in, but never enough time to really talk.
We went to one of Rob's work events together on Friday evening, then came home to relax. We decided to head to Atlanta on Saturday and spend the night. With this being the first weekend at home in over a month for Rob, I didn't think he would want to go anywhere, but he was up for it.
Saturday morning, we jumped on Priceline and found an awesome deal on a hotel in Buckhead, then jumped on craigslist and found tickets to the Phoenix concert that night. We ended up having a blast. Here's a clip from the concert:
I have some anxiety issues that make going to concerts a little difficult for me-- I don't like big crowds and I hate being on the floor level of a concert where people are constantly pushing from behind to get closer to the stage. I stopped taking my anxiety meds when we started trying to get pregnant, so I no longer have those to help. Now, with a baby on board, I'm even more nervous about the safety of me and Liam when we're in situations like this-- I'd rather be safe than sorry. Rob and I talked about this before we bought the tickets and agreed that we'd get there early to try to find a seat.
The Tabernacle is really cool-- it's an old church converted into a concert space and even though the entire show was general admission, there are two balconies full of seats. We got there as the doors opened and were able to get a seat on the 4th row of the first balcony-- We even scored an aisle seat for me. Getting there early meant we would see the opening band which is always hit or miss. I'm happy to say that Two Door Cinema Club was really good!
After the concert, we went to Buckhead Pizza Company to grab our favorite post-concert snack, with our ears still buzzing. (Man, we're getting old.) As we ate, we wondered if Liam enjoyed his first concert-- I read last week that at 18-19 weeks babies will cover their ears when sounds are too loud. Hopefully he was kicking to the beat (not that I felt it), liking what he heard.
We slept in on Sunday morning then headed over to Atlantic Station. We walked around and looked at the shops, got some lunch then headed over to the Bodies exhibit. We've been talking about going to see it for over a year. It was supposed to move on to a different city back in Jan, but they extended it until the end of May. When we got there, we noticed that there was another exhibit in the same space called "Dialogue in the Dark" so we bought tickets for both.
Dialogue in the Dark is an experience designed to show sighted people what it's like to be blind. For almost an hour, you are lead by a guide through several environments in complete darkness, equipt with a cane and encouraged to use your remaining senses to determine where you are. As you travel through a park, a grocery store, a busy street, a beach with a dock and a cafe, the surface changes, the sounds change and you may find yourself running into a tree in the park or a car on the street. I thought it was so cool-- the guides are all blind or visually impaired and at the end, you sit in the cafe (in the dark, of course) and ask them questions about what challenges they face. I've been through some team building exercises where I've been blindfolded before, but nothing came close to this experience. I was really glad we did it.
The Bodies exhibit was, of course, awesome.
Really just fascinating... I've wanted to see it for so long & I'm glad we finally made time for it. My favorite part was looking at all of the fetuses at different weeks in development-- I post updates every week, but to see it for real was just amazing.
Before we left Atlanta we took a trip through IKEA-- can't go to ATL without going there, even when we don't need anything. But this time I was on a mission to find something for the nursery, which I'll post about later.
The trip was just what we needed-- a way to reconnect and do something fun together. Planning fun things to do naturally brought us together and made time for us to start talking again. I hope that we plan more of these short trips in the coming months as a way to recharge our relationship before the baby comes. We always think that we don't have time, but when we make time, it's well worth the effort-- it was just what we needed.
