The time I had almost six days to myself.

Two weeks ago, Tim was on vacation. He's been at his job for six years, I've been at mine for less than one, so we don't exactly have equal vacation time. I'd taken some unpaid time off in May, so I wasn't able to take more time off, and on that Thursday, we got up super early, drove to the airport and Tim and Elle flew to Ohio. They were gone until Tuesday, when I left work early to pick them up at the airport (and of course their flight was delayed and I encountered torrential rain on the way there and we hit rush hour traffic on the way back).

But that's six days - three times the longest amount of time I have been away from Elle since she was born almost two years ago. Tim and I are used to traveling separately and being away from each other - although not preferable, we're able to return to our long-distance relationship roots and manage short-term separations with relative ease. And he and Elle have plenty of one-on-one experience (for those not familiar with our situation, he works nights and I work days, so he takes care of Elle every morning), so I wasn't worried about her missing me terribly.

I was simultaneously excited and depressed about their trip to see our families. I knew I'd miss them, but I also knew I'd enjoy having some "me" time and the opportunity to get some stuff done around the condo.

Tim put almost 1,200 miles on the rental car and spanned the state, hitting every region except the southeast corner of Ohio (we've never had much use for the southeastern part of the state - sorry, southeastern Ohioans!). Elle was along for about half of those miles.

Elle was a trouper and traveled super well (especially considering she had to spend so much time in the car/plane and slept in unfamiliar places with people she doesn't see on a regular basis), and Tim got to see his beloved Reds and lots of his family, but we're hoping there aren't many more vacations like this, where we're separated and/or rushed and/or exhausted. 

While they were gone, I went to Spin class (twice! and to the gym without having to rush home!). I made a huge mess of the condo (and then spent time cleaning it all up). I planned a night out with friends. I ate what I wanted when I wanted and watched crap TV. I also missed Tim and Elle terribly, and while I was glad they were with family, I was jealous that I wasn't with them. It was hard to walk past Elle's door every night - open - and know that the quiet in the condo wasn't because she was peacefully sleeping in her crib.

To illustrate how a situation like this presents many conflicting emotions, I made a list of some of the things I noticed about my time by myself. Here are some things I could do that I normally cannot:

- Leave scissors out.

- Leave markers out.

- Not have to wash dishes every day or run the dishwasher more than once.

- Decide to go to the beach and just grab a towel and go - not debate the timing of the trip, if the time getting ready is worth the effort, worry about the sand that will get in all of the crevices of the baby and car, bags needed for the trip, etc.

- Spend an hour debating between two different pairs of shoes and then decide not to get either one.

- Visit 5 different (shoe) stores in about 40 minutes because I didn't have to mess with a car seat, stroller, etc. (I was having a shoe crisis, and unlike many women my age, I detest shoe shopping. Detest is actually a nice way of putting it. At one point I called my mother and expressed my anger at the genes that gave me huge, wide feet. But I digress.)

-  Go to Target even though it was monsooning out - I needed to buy stuff, darn it.

-  Eat lunch at 2:30 instead of noon because no one (other than me) was crying and whining because they were hungry and it was nap time.

- Watch TV before bedtime (like Lifetime movies and other fun stuff) instead of reading Tumford the Terrible for the tenth time that week before bedtime.

- Go to Spin class without worrying about who was going to watch my kid and "Ohmygosh I have to get home" because Tim/the sitter needs to do this and that and I need to take care of Elle.

- Sleep in until a ridiculous hour after a night out with friends. (I would probably still be sleeping except one of the cats jumped up on my dresser.)

- Have a night out with friends without paying for a sitter or worry about how early I was going to have to get up the next day.

- Leave my coffee cup on the floor while I leisurely read the newspaper.

- Change diapers.

- Leave the house whenever I wanted.

Conversely, I could not:

- Get hugs when I got home from work.

- Rock my baby before bedtime.

- Read Tumford the Terrible for the tenth time that week.

- Have a regular eating schedule.

- Spend the entire time at home because it got lonely.

- Make a freaking decision and buy the shoes already instead of wasting a ton of time deciding.

- Hear the sounds of giggles and toddler-speak that normally fill my home.

- See my family.

- See my husband's family.

Princess Elle Belle at her birthday party.

 - Attend the birthday party my husband's side of the family hosted for my almost-two-year-old daughter.

- Spend time with Tim.

- Enjoy a baseball game with my husband and his cousins.

- Make up for the fact that Tim took about seven photos on the trip (I would have been pushing 300).

I was extremely glad when they got home, despite the fact that the condo had been pristine that morning and looked like a tornado had hit within 3.4 seconds of their arrival. There was laundry to do, routines to get back in to and hugs to catch up on. It was fantastic to have a few days to myself, but I'm glad to be sharing them again :)

Wordless Wednesday: Winter X-Games

For my birthday, my family gathered in the mountains
of Colorado - where it snowed, snowed, snowed.
Here, my sister caught the perfect photo of Tim's
favorite game with Elle - Baby Tossing!
More on our trip to come - I'm still
catching up on life and photo editing!

Babymoon!

Earlier this year, Tim and I had considered taking a trip to Arizona to visit my best friend Meghan and her husband and to see the Reds in their new spring training home. Alas, those plans quickly unraveled because my husband's place of employment didn't grant him the time off fast enough and flight prices skyrocketed out of the range of our budget.

Soon after realizing that we wouldn't be taking a spring trip, I started doing some brainstorming. We've driven through Atlanta countless times, but any past plans we've had to stop in the city have been thwarted. As I researched, I found that - conveniently - the Reds were playing the Braves in mid-May. And it was a two-game series in the middle of the week. (Read: Cheaper trip with less vacation time used than almost anything else we could have planned to a place we wanted to go anyway.)

My only wish for a trip to Atlanta? To see the Georgia Aquarium.

So with three days off, we could easily drive up, see the aquarium, catch both baseball games and drive back. And because it was a drivable destination, we could wait until a few weeks before to make definite plans (like buy tickets or book hotel rooms) and not have to worry about something happening with the pregnancy that would render it impossible for me to travel. We asked my doctor about the lengthy drive, and he said it would be fine at that point in my pregnancy as long as we stopped often to stretch my legs. (And considering how small my bladder felt on that trip, stopping often to stretch my legs wasn't the issue - it was stopping to find a bathroom.) But we waited until the appointment before our trip to get final clearance to go and make plans.

We scored a great hotel right downtown via the Priceline negotiator, and we were shocked that we didn't hit terrible traffic. I was dealing with a nasty sinus infection that had hit days earlier, but other than that, we had a great trip. The sickness mostly made sleeping well an issue and prevented me from enjoying any of the food I ate after the first day, but as long as I had a box of tissues at all times, I dealt with it.

I had solicited some recommendations on places to eat, and before we checked in to the hotel, we headed to a barbecue place called Fat Matt's.

It was delicious. The seating area was small, but the service was fast and the food was really good - Tim order half a slab of ribs, and I got a half-order of chicken and we shared it. The only downside? The heartburn I had later that night. But it was worth it!

We checked out our hotel and decided to walk around the city a bit before it got dark. We got a little turned around trying to find the Georgia Aquarium (where we were visiting the next day), but we ended up finding the aquarium *and* Centennial Olympic Park, another place I had wanted to check out. We got to see some cool fountains at night and walked back to the hotel through the Georgia Tech campus, which was really pretty. Because of the heartburn, I requested that we stop at The Varsity, another restaurant that had been recommended to us, for an F.O. (Frosted Orange).

The Varsity: This place was awesome,
and dangerously close to our hotel.

It was yummy, and the perfect thing to eat after a long walk and a meal of BBQ sauce. We headed back to hotel and watched some basketball.

The next morning, we were up early to get to the aquarium as soon as it opened. We were blessed with gorgeous weather during our trip - it wasn't too humid or hot, and it was nice and sunny for our walks. The aquarium was about a mile away from the hotel, and we took the same path through the Georgia Tech campus. And then we realized the aquarium didn't open until 10. And we thought it opened at 9. So we headed over to Centennial Olympic Park again and explored some more.

Tim in front of a park sign on our morning visit to the park.

We headed back to the aquarium at 10 and dove in. We had pre-purchased tickets using our AAA discount, so we cruised in and started checking out the five main exhibits - Cold Water Quest, Georgia Explorer, Ocean Voyager, River Scout and Tropical Diver. I loved them all, but my favorites were Tropical Diver and Ocean Voyager.

Big wall 'o sea in the Tropical Diver exhibit.

I love seeing massive amounts of tropical fish, seeing sea life that lives so close to the Florida coast and learning about the ecosystem, which is pretty much what Tropical Diver provides. Ocean Voyager had massive tanks of impressive animals - whale sharks, other sharks, rays, etc. I was blown away by the scale and beauty and calm of it all. Tim loved the Cold Water Quest because they had beluga whales.

We also had tickets to the 4D theater, so we saw a show there and bought special passes to see the Planet Shark exhibit. We didn't want to spend a ton of money on lunch in the aquarium cafeteria, so we split some food and went back to my favorite exhibits after lunch.

I really, really enjoyed the Georgia Aquarium, although I'm not sure if it is my favorite aquarium (while on the trip I counted - I think I've been to nine aquariums now). It definitely ranks up there, though.

When we had seen everything at the aquarium, we headed back to the hotel - but first, we stopped for a meal at The Varsity. My sinus infection was in full force at that point and I couldn't taste anything, so I had a burger while Tim had two burgers and some onion rings. Then we headed back to the hotel to take a quick nap before our next adventure: Navigating public transportation to get to Turner Field.

We asked a few questions and consulted a few maps, but luckily it was pretty easy to figure out. I rode the light rail system in Pittsburgh for almost a year and a half, and I've also been on the light rail in D.C., but basically all we had to do was buy our passes and follow people in Braves attire :)

We took the rail to a shuttle bus, which took us to the stadium. Then we found our seats and enjoyed the game! (Except the Reds lost. Ouch.)

View from our seats for the first game.

The seats were really good and we had a great view of the field, no one in front of us and a nice breeze. Perfect. We took the same route back to the hotel (although we got a little turned around when we came out of the light rail station, and a helpful-but-somewhat-suspicious-looking man helped us find out way back to the hotel). Tim decided he wanted to order some pizza, so we settled in for a relaxing night of watching the NBA playoffs and eating yummy food.

The next morning we had to check out of the hotel, so we packed everything up and Tim went for the car. This time we were driving to and parking at the stadium for the day game. We made it in plenty of time and went to find our seats, which were near right field and wayyyyy in the sun.

Holy sunny: View from our original seats for the second game.

It was crowded and hot, and we lasted about three and a half innings before I couldn't really take any more pregnant-woman-baking-in-the-sun. We found a nice shaded area above the third base line, got some ice cream (for Tim) and some frozen lemonade (for me) and proceeded to watch the Reds blow a six-run lead. The way they lost was quite a feat, too - a walk-off grand slam that nearly was caught by Laynce Nix. To see the two losses - and have them be quite dramatic - was not cool.

So we headed out of downtown Atlanta - around 5 p.m., mind you - and prepared to brave some fierce traffic. But really, once we got out of the immediate downtown area/game traffic, we were surprised at how well traffic was moving. (We have had HORRENDOUS experiences with Atlanta traffic in the past.)

We ended up stopping for dinner around 9 p.m. and figured we'd make it back to the condo by 1 a.m. ... except the exit we needed to take off of I-75 was closed. We could have taken the previous one, but there was no indication that *our* exit was closed. And then the next exit was closed. None of this would have been a big deal except my bladder and I had a deal with Tim that it would be emptied by 1 a.m., and we were now two exits south of where we needed to be and running out of gas. Luckily, we still managed to get home a little after 1, and I half-ran to the bathroom and all was good again.

It was a good trip - not too busy, but we got to see several things we wanted to see. We thought about trying to cram some more in to our trip, but it was supposed to be relaxing, and it was. We didn't have to rush any where, got to take naps, got to sleep, eat well and be out and about. In our books, that's a pretty good trip :)