Thanks, Vacation.

We left Boston last Wednesday when it was hovering just under the double digit degrees and when my nerves were well under a 10 on a scale of one to having it together.It wasn't until well into the third day of our vacation when it hit me how very badly I needed to be on vacation. Something about pulling yourself out of your daily routine really gives you the opportunity to look at how things are going, what things aren't working and where more energy needs to be allocated.

I've spent a lot of this pregnancy sick, which is really difficult for me; I don't do rest well and I don't like feeling unable to give life my all, which is exactly what bronchitis, pneumonia and a bit of pregnancy induced asthma created. So we decided to take a vacation; just a week and just the three of us to get away somewhere a little warmer with no house projects or work schedules or alarm clocks. Like I said, it took a few days for me to unwind. A specialist I saw put me on an extended round of steroids that made my anxiety a lot less manageable than usual and left me feeling aggravated and jittery, so after a few days of rest and one breakdown I decided to stop them. I've felt so much better since and was able to run, well, just as much as my pregnant pelvic muscles will allow, but I can breathe so well. It's glorious to be back to running after Maddie and spending time running, swimming and breathing again!

Vacation gave me a chance to pause and get ready for this next chapter of our lives. I've got some big moves to make at work and only a few more months before I take some time to focus on taking care of our new baby girl. Although I've been planning for this for the past 7 months of knowing I am pregnant, I don't think I have thought enough about how I need to unplug from the world (and work) and dive into caring for a tiny baby, a three year old and me. I was able to really process this, make some plans, talk to my lovely husband about our team approach and really start to wrap my head around the fact that I am about to bring another person into our family and all the things that go along with birthing, breastfeeding and raising siblings.

On top of all this relaxing and thinking and sleeping in (yes, well past 7am every. single. day) we also managed to have an awesome vacation! We did a day at Disney, a couple rounds at Downtown Disney (aka free Disney), a day trip to Daytona to see one of the besties and her family (who happened to also be down in FL), another day trip to Tampa to go to an aquarium and hit the beach and a whole lot of time in the pool with a certain little fishy who just could not get out of the water. It was, indeed, exactly what we needed.

Here are some pictures from our trip (sorry if you have already seen them all over social media!). Now I am going to go put a million layers on and take that kiddo of mine to gymnastics class. Brrrr.