Richmond Getaway

Last week we reached a bit of a breaking point. Sam's current project has been a bit intense. That's the nice way of saying it. Several 60-80 hour weeks, working Saturdays and Sundays, only 1 day off in a month, one 22-hour shift-- it's basically enough to cause a full-on mental breakdown (let's not forget there is a one-hour commute each way). Once I realized how soon I was likely to melt into a puddle of stress and exhaustion (Sam, too), I declared a necessary vacation. Sam told work he was taking the weekend off (confused as to how we got to the point where you actually have to request the weekend off), and he would take Monday off too. We decided to head to Richmond for a little getaway. Perhaps not exotic, but it is a close drive and a fun, new place to explore. I emailed my dear friend Jenna, who recently moved away from Richmond, and she gave me a wonderful list of tips, which served as the base for our itinerary. It was the perfect weekend to mend our worn-out little souls, and we all came back refreshed and ready to face the last stretch of the project.

When we first got there, we hit up the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Of course Bria loved this stained glass of a fancy lady. Her other favorites were paintings of flowers. She usually does pretty well in museums, but I think going there directly from a 1.5 hour car ride wasn't the best idea. Still, we got to see a lot of beautiful artwork, and we enjoyed exploring the lovely grounds of the museum as well.

We spent a lot of time lounging in our hotel room-- because this was definitely a vacation dedicated to relaxing. We swam in the hotel pool both days, enjoyed the breakfast buffet, and ate a lot of junk food. Bria had never slept in a hotel before, so I was nervous about her ability to fall asleep with us awake in the room. Sam and I huddled in the corner, playing on our phones in the pitch dark room (thank you, free wifi!), until Bria drifted off to sleep. Then we hooked our laptop up to the tv and watched a movie-- wearing headphones so as not to disturb the B. It may have been my favorite part of the trip.

Monday we spent at Maymont, an incredible and beautiful park in Richmond. We explored the Italian and Japanese gardens as well as some of the other grounds before calling it a day. The only downer of the vacation was that I had a really horrible cold (and I didn't have sufficient meds with me), so I didn't have the energy to explore anymore. I'm glad Sam and Bria are such good sports and didn't mind calling it a day early in the afternoon.

We broke up the drive home with a pit stop at the outlet malls 20 minutes south of home for a little shopping and some dinner. The perfect way to wrap up an awesome weekend.