Very Wet

We continue to have wet and dreary weather here in Seattle.  Monday was mild and partly sunny as was Tuesday in the afternoon…but it’s a Monday and Tuesday, why couldn’t we have gotten just a glimpse of it on Saturday or Sunday?  Bryan and I are both needing a vacation, bad!  Bryan has been a few places this winter though, including skiing and snowshoeing a few times, so I’m inclined to say that Chelsea needs it even more.  I’ve been nowhere since Christmas.

And I’m definitely starting to feel like as exciting as pregnancy can be, it certainly has a way about it of making you feel left out.  For instance, we have two birthday parties the next weekends.  On the agenda, white water rafting for one so I’m out for that one with a lame, “I’ll meet you after for Mexican dinner and margaritas (I mean scratch the margaritas)” and for the other is whirlyball followed by brewery crawl (um, literally out on both accounts).  But I want to be a part of the fun.  I need some fun but my idea of fun and pregnancy-approved fun doesn’t quite go hand in hand!  The eating, the body, everything else isn’t a big deal to me, but the missing out on the fun is.

We have tried to make the best of the wet weather.  After another benedict brunch at home we went for a walk through the Arboretum in the breaks in showers on Saturday.  We watched Three Billboards, which I really did enjoy.  We made a few dinners.  I went to church with a friend because Bryan went skiing with other friends.  And I thought a LOT about upcoming trips over the weekend.  I baked a cheesecake with strawberry and blueberry compote (that’s unusual of me but it sounded good and it came out really good).  But the weekend didn’t feel all too much different than the previous weekends when I spent hours studying.

The week treated me alright with another filling Seattle Restaurant Week dinner with Bryan.  I got to cycling class and barre for low-intensity exercises.  I got someone to clean the house for us.  We had our April doctor’s appointment with all news being good news as well as another ultrasound to get stubborn baby to pose right for its measurements.  I went to the farewell happy hour for my coworker Maureen at Von’s Gustobistro which I compensated not drinking by eating way too much bar food and spilling the beans to everyone there (about 20).  We had a great dinner at FareStart by a previous winner of Seattle’s Restaurant of the Year; Stateside.  I upgraded my iPhone 5 to an iPhone 8 which wouldn’t normally excite me so much but I not even able to store more than 10 photos on my phone without running out of space.  And we had our staff meeting today with pizza, salad and laughs.

We have two trips coming up; San Diego and Eastern Europe.  For San Diego we have a very sweet oceanview balcony room booked in Laguna free of charge thanks to mystery shopping.  We will be spending two nights there after spending two nights on our own in San Diego.  We leave in a few weeks and really looking forward to sunshine, beach walks, fish tacos and luxe accommodations.  For our Eastern Europe trip we have our housing researched (but not booked) for each city and our flights.  I’m leaning towards booking train/bus travel once we are there so we can have a little wiggle room on the duration we spend in each city.  For that trip I am definitely looking forward to some sightseeing, the food (all the schnitzel, pierogi, goulash, sausages, etc), pastries, and idle time taking in the historic cities.

And on the baby front, we had two appointments this week.  We had our monthly appointment for April that was a speedy appointment.  We also had the follow-up ultrasound to get a better look at the baby’s spine and cord attachment, which also went fine and we found a very active baby.  All signs point to good health and progressive growth so far.  We signed up for a 7-week child birth and parenting class through our hospital, Northwest Hospital, which will begin at the beginning of June and will keep us busy on Wednesday nights.  Hopefully we will also meet some expecting couples in these classes as well.  I also signed up Bryan for a Conscious Fathering class (that was free with our class sign-up) that will be in July.  I am looking forward to these classes quite a bit.  I’ve been talking to an acquaintance, Anne, who is expecting about a month before us and whose families both live in Texas.  We have basically agreed to try to set up some sort of monthly babysitting exchange to give each of us a date night out just as couples.  She has also had no complications and smooth sailing so far and is also using a midwife, but at another clinic.  Between her and another girl at work I don’t feel completely alone in this whole progress.

Chelsea