Life Lately: Moving, Pregnancy, and a Trip to Europe

Hey, friends! Thank you so much for all of your messages on various social media about our baby news. I was going to write a big baby post for today, but I thought I would share a broader life update and save most of the baby news for when we get back!

Photo by Brittnie Renee Photography

I’ve never been one to sugarcoat things on my blog, so I’ll start off this update by saying these last few months have been rough for us. It just felt like one thing after another (sorry to be vague; there are just some things I can’t share), and we’re both exhausted. Chris was also in the middle of intense studying for his radiology board exam from the beginning of this year until the end of June (he won’t know the results for several more weeks), which added to the chaos. This was the first time I’ve taken time off from my blog and haven’t felt guilty about it. I just couldn’t add more to my plate.

We are so excited and thankful for this second baby, but this pregnancy has been hard. I thought my nausea and vomiting was rough with Anthony, but that was nothing compared to what I’m experiencing this time. I could barely function for weeks (so thankful for my mom helping me out with Anthony!), and once the nausea got better, I got hit with intense migraine headaches. I’m still dealing with those (and honestly, still vomiting at least once most days), but I think I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Just to add to the fun, we moved on Tuesday! I need to go back and see how many times I’ve mentioned moving on this blog because we move an excessive amount. By an excessive amount I mean we have moved nine times in our almost ten years of marriage. I honestly didn’t want to do it again with how much we have going on right now, but it was necessary. Our rent went up so much for our townhouse (seriously, what is the deal with the rental market here?), and the place we were living in would have been crowded with two kids. We just moved into a house for the first time and signed a two-year lease, so fingers crossed we can stay put for that long! We picked this place because of the neighborhood-there is a really great park, an athletic center, and a large pond with a bunch of ducks. Have I mentioned that Chris has been on nights for the last two weeks and while this move was happening? Yep, it’s been all kinds of crazy around here.

Let’s talk about something happy now, shall we? We leave for our big trip to Europe to celebrate our big milestones (we turn 30 two days apart and then celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary two days after that) on Sunday! Once again, the timing is interesting, but it’s the only thing that worked with the dates Chris could get off work. We are flying into Dublin, Ireland and doing a 12-day cruise to several places in Ireland, Scotland, England, and a day in France. I picked a cruise because we wanted to go to lots of different places, and for once in my life, I honestly had no desire to plan. Of course, I did set up tours in various ports, but that was the extent of my planning, and I’m thankful for that.

I have been wanting to do a big Anthony update since it's been a while, and he has learned so much, but I will have to save that for when we get back! I continue to be impressed with how well he is handling the constant switching between Russian and English. He can say four-word sentences and recently learned colors (and now tells me the color of every object he sees). He also really loves to color and often asks me for his crayons and paper. He has really enjoyed exploring his new house the last few days and is excited to have a dedicated playroom until the baby moves out of our bedroom.

That's the gist of what's been happening lately. I'm hoping to share parts of our British Isles cruise on Instagram and Instagram Stories, so look for those if you're interested. I'll also hopefully be writing some more updates and travel posts when we get back!