28 Weeks

Yes, that's right - somehow we have managed to make it to 28 weeks.   I'm trying to figure out where the time has gone and we are hastily making plans to get everything done before baby arrives!  In addition, we are in the process of getting ready to go back to school 2 weeks from tomorrow, so lots going on around here.

As you can see from our Wordless Wednesday post, we were in Colorado recently.  We actually took a wonderful vacation 3 weeks long.  We drove to Minnesota to visit MJ's mom and one of her brothers.  We also drove to CO to visit her other brother.  We figure we drove about 6000 miles in those three weeks.   We had lots of fun and it is always nice to spend time with family.

Next OB appt is tomorrow - we get a peek at Cupid, regular appt, appt with insurance, and also glucose test.  I thought since they did it early and I passed no problem that I wouldn't have to do it again, but they said I still do.  I am already dreading the sickly sweet orange drink. 

We are just enjoying our last couple weeks of vacation and gearing up to meet Cupid in a few short weeks - the time will be here before we know it! 

He's Home!!

Monday morning we got up as usual and I went downstairs to let the dog out. I did my usual scan of the backyard and gazebo and was sad that Gus still hadn't arrived home. It was day six and we had pretty much given up hope for him coming home. I left the sliding door open (as I usually do) so that Sadie could come back inside when she was finished.

All of a sudden, I hear MJ yelling from upstairs - "HE'S HOME, GUS IS BACK!!!" I walk into the kitchen and there he is! MJ came running down the stairs, scooped up GUS and we checked him all over. Other than being a bit skinny, he wasn't hurt, scratched, not even dirty. We gave him some food and he was good to go! Needless to say, we are elated that he is back with us!

Within minutes he was asking to go outside again.


















We left him sprawled out on the kitchen floor taking a nice nap when we left for work.


















He curled right up on the dog bed when we got home and took another nice nap.


















Other than the fact that he has been meowing incessantly because he want us to pat him, he seems perfectly fine. Having him home was a great way to start the week!

In other news, today was the last day of school - YAY!!! Summer vacation is here for the next 68 days.

Tomorrow morning is our 20 week ultrasound - we'll post pics when we return. I think we are going to go see T0y St0r.y 3 after the appt.

Almost There

We've almost made it to the end of the school year.  Only a day and 1/2 to go with the kids.   I'm not so sure we'll survive, however!   This has been the longest end to the school year that I can remember.  It has just seemed to drag on and on.  Never mind the fact that the temperature was 92* on Friday and will stay that way right through the end of school.  YIPEE - hot and naughty kids.   I can't think of anything better!   It will all be over soon.

We are also almost halfway through this pregnancy - tomorrow will be 20 weeks!!  And on Wednesday we get to go for our BIG ultrasound!  And, no, we are NOT finding out what this baby is.  Neither one of us wants to know.   My mom is coming to that appt with us and is very excited!

In sad news, one of our cats - GUS is missing.  He went out on Tuesday evening and we haven't seen him since.  We are very sad and wish we knew what happened to him.  Our other cat Max is just beside himself and is so out of sorts.  We think he knows what happened and we wish he could tell us...   The cats are never gone for more than a few hours at a time so this is not normal.

I'll take a new belly picture tomorrow and post them!  Happy weekend everyone!

Happy

It has been a good week - we have lots to be happy about - here's the list:

1. TTC is plugging along and I'm doing what I do best - responding slowly! Next appt is Friday for blood work and ultrasound.

2. When I called to order the sperm, the lady wasn't sure our donor was available and said she had to go find out from the doctor. All is well though - there is some and it will be delivered to my doc on Friday.

3. MJ and I went in to school for the last three days and worked our hineys off! The best news is that we are done and ready to go - we don't have to go back until we're required to on Aug. 31.

4. Starting tomorrow we get to hang with our favorite 6 (yes, she's a year older) year old Olivia until Sunday. She's coming to stay with us while her mommas celebrate their anniversary.

5. It has finally been HOT here! The first week this summer we have hit the 90s!

6. We've had a couch in the basement forever that is just always in the way and becomes a "catch all". Someone on Free.cyc.le was looking for one and they came to pick it up today!

7. Saturday is one of our favorite days of the year - Sta.ples Teach.er Appre.ciation Day. We hit three different Sta.ples in the course of the morning and get our free goodies. We usually score big at this event! Raffles, free stuff, major sales, and double points on our rew.ards card!

8. Last night my mom called us and told us that her neighbor got 4 tickets to see Meli..ssa Eth.eridge in two weeks. They are her employer's front and center box seats. She asked if MJ and I wanted two of the tix. FREE tix to Mel.issa - you betcha!!!

As you can see, life is nice around here - we have lots to be happy about! We are enjoying the last couple of weeks of summer vacation and trying to remain as stress free as possible!

Camping and Wine

We left MN on Thursday and drove to IN for the night. The next day we drove to NY and set up camp for two nights. We had a cute little spot right next to the pond and the weather was gorgeous! We brought MJ's mom home with us and she was AWESOME camping!

Beautiful sunset viewed from our site!

MJ and her mom making s'mo.res.

On Saturday we visited the Sen.eca Lake Win.e T.rail. We went to six wineries and one brewery. We had an awesome time sampling the different wines at all of the different places. We bought a few bottles to bring home - one was even named "Carrie"! We had to buy that one!

So many different wines to try....

Be sure to cleanse the palate between wines.....

Enough said!

We just HAD to go to this winery because of the name!

So many wineries, so little time!

We stopped for lunch at a brewery and had some great sandwiches and beer!

It was a perfect vacation! MJ's mom is here with us until next Thursday and we are keeping her busy helping us with projects around our house!

TTC update coming tomorrow!

The De.lls Part Two...

On the second half of our day in the De.lls, we went on a Duc.k To.ur. These are really fun - they are old WWII boats that go both on land and in the water. We went all through the woods and went in both the Wiscon.sin Riv.er and Lak.e Del.ton.

The boat in the water.

Hawk's Bill - look closely, you can make it out!

Piano Rock.

After the Du.ck Tour, we went back to the campground to hang out for a bit and then in the evening, we went to the Tom.my Ba.rtlett Water S.how - this is a "must see" when you are in the D.ells. It was a fun show of water skiing for the first half and then they had a juggler, horn musician, and pyrotechnics show during the second half. It was lots of fun!

The next day it was time to head to MN to visit MJ's mom - we made it with no problem and had lots of fun during the time we were there. We went out to eat a few times, MJ and her mom got manicures and pedicures, we completed her mom's "honey do" list, went shopping, and just relaxed. One day we went down to Iowa and visited with MJ's cousins and their families. I'll leave today's post with a pic of the crew!

The Del.ls Part One....

We got to the Wis.consin D.ells early on Saturday as we only had to drive 300 miles. We set up camp and had a nice fire before we went out for the evening. We didn't find any more stowaways in the van or the grill, so I think we left all of the mice in NY!

In the evening, we decided to go to a magic show. It was actually lots of fun and I am always amazed at the way they use light and mirrors, etc to create the illusions.

On Sunday morning, we did an Upp.er De.lls Boat Tour. It was a beautiful sunny day and just perfect to be out on a boat. We saw some beautiful rock formations while we were on the river and we made two stops where we were able to get off the boat and walk around for a bit.

The first stop was at Witch.es G.ulch. It was a winding path with little water falls and rock formations. There were also a few places where the rock was just barely wide enough for the walkway.

Stop number 2 was at Stan.d R.ock. It was really tall!

We also saw V.isor R.ock on this stop as well.

Here we are at the end of the second stop.

The D.ells part two will be up tomorrow- Duck tour and Water show.....

Miss Us???

Do you miss us yet???

We'll be back in just a few more days and can't wait to catch up on what has happened with all of our blog friends!

Not only will we have our vacation to tell you about, but we are also gearing up for our first TTC cycle since the miscarriage. I'll stop my BC pills on Friday and we'll be back in the swing of things next week. We are following the exact same protocol as last time, however, I am going to insist that we start the prog.esterone immediately following IUI. (We didn't start it until after the second beta last time.)

Off We Go!

And we're off on vacation! We are driving to Minnesota to visit MJ's mom, her brother, and his wife and kids. We are very excited!!

We are taking 5 days instead of 3 to get out there because we are stopping in the Wiscons.in D.ells to be cheesy tourists for a couple of days. We are camping the whole way out because there is nothing better than sitting by a campfire at night to unwind from a whole day in the car.

We are bringing MJ's mom back with us and we are going to camp on the way back too. Her mom is way too excited about it! We are going to take one extra day on the way back to stay in NY and do a Fing.er L.akes Wi.ne Tour - should be lots of fun!

I have cued up a couple (really, not that many!) of posts for while we are gone. We will have limited to no Internet access which really is a nice thing to let us just get away from it all. We'll have lots to update when we get back in a couple of weeks!

The Good and the Sad

The good:

We finished out summer job today. We were contracted until Thursday, but we got everything done by 3:00 today. The best part - we get paid for Wednesday and Thursday even though we don't have to work!

Summer vacation has now officially begun! We leave for vacation on Thursday - more details about that in a later post......


The sad:

Today would have marked 20 weeks in our pregnancy - half way through. There are days that the emotional wound is still so raw. We really, really miss our Chicklet. They say time heals all wounds, but this wound is going to take a long time to heal.

We get to jump back on the TTC wagon in 3 weeks. It's hard to totally invest yourself for fear of miscarriage again.

Tomorrow will be a better day!

School's Out for the Summer!!

AHHH, the first day of summer vacation -- or so you would think. Let's see - it is still raining and yucky outside, and to top it all off, we reached a scorching high of 68* today. We set up the pool almost a month ago and have yet to go in it. Maybe the rain could stop for an hour or two just so we could remember what the sun is like?

We both had to get up early today as I had to have some blood work, we both had meetings with the superintendant, then MJ ran some errands while I went to the vet to get MORE meds for Willy who has decided to sport a fever again. UGGGHHHH! I am so tired of him being sick - he was on the up and up when all of a sudden he had a fever Sunday and then again today. We are adding another antibiotic to his regime and hopefully that will help.

Tomorrow we get to celebrate with our favorite five year old Olivia at her Kindergarten Graduation. That will be lots of fun and we'll go out to lunch with her afterwards.

Looking forward to the possibility of some sun later this week and at least it is supposed to be nice on Saturday when we go to Bost.on for the day!

More of the Same

We'll start of with the big surprise of the day - IT'S RAINING AGAIN!!!! Seriously, it has been raining here forever and now it is supposed to rain through Thursday. We had to cancel our camping trip for next week - boo hoo! It is just miserable to camp in the rain, so we decided to just cancel the reservation.

However, we decided that since we aren't going camping, we need to still have something fun to do. So, we bought tickets to see The Co.lor Pu.rple in Bos.ton next weekend. We are going to go with my mom and it should be tons of fun!

Let's see, what else? Willy is MUCH better finally! We have to take him for one more blood check on Thursday and that will hopefully be the last one. The most exciting news around here is the fact that we have 1/2 day of school left tomorrow and then we are on SUMMER VACATION! Good times!

That's all from here.....

This and that.....

Willy seems to be better this morning - YEAH!!! I took him back to the vet early this morning and his blood levels have risen a bit since last night. The problem is that his platelet count is extremely low and the vet said that this can be deadly. So, we have put him on steroids for that and have to watch him for a few things. We go back on Thursday to check everything out again.

We have lots planned for the weekend too! In a little bit we are going to pack up the van with all of our treasures (read: junk) from the basement to have a yard sale with some friends tomorrow. Then we are brining the dogs to my parents for the night. We are going to see the new U.P kids movie tonight with friends, and then to have chinese food afterwards.

Looks to be a great start to a great weekend. And.................. Only 16 more get-ups until summer vacation!

We're BAAAACK!!!

We finally made it back home! We had a wonderful vacation, but it is always nice to be back in your own bed. The cats were VERY mad at us for leaving them for so long, and the dogs were excited to see us, though they wouldn't have minded just staying at the farm - they love it there! They are quite tired out though and are doing a good job snoozing on the floor!

Here are a few last pictures of the rest of our vacation. We went to the Prison Museum in Canon City while still in Colorado - it was actually kind of interesting!




Then, back in Minnesota, we complete the "honey - do" list which included trimming hedges, cleaning out the gutter, and a couple of other small jobs. We also got to spend a few hours with our niece and nephews. We went down to the school to skateboard and play and we all went out to lunch together. It was a great vacation!

Out of Commission

So, I am out of commission! I bent over to pick up a piece of paper on Tuesday at work, and my back went all out of whack. I have been walking around like Quasi Modo due to the fact that the top half of my body leans distinctly off to the right. You can literally see that my spine is not in line. Needless to say, summer vacation came three days early for me and not in a good way. I have made 2 trips to the chiropractor and have literally been laying flat on my back since Tuesday night.

MJ got me all set up today and I have my laptop resting on my stomach while laying down because I am going completely bonkers being in bed all of the time. One can only read and watch TV for so long without going crazy! We may even have to cancel our camping trip which would be a real bummer.

And, of course, in the midst of all of this it is time to inseminate on Monday. I went to the doc yesterday and all things look good, so I trigger tonight (give my self a shot to make me ovulate 36 hours later) and then we have an appt on Monday at noon. Reggie (the sperm) is waiting at the doctors office for us!

That's all from here!