Happy 2013!

We hope everyone had a fabulous and safe New Years! We had a wonderful 2012 full of new chapters and experiences, we're excited to see what 2013 will bring!

Enjoying our traditional Chinese Food New Years Eve Dinner!

Weekend Get-Away

As a Christmas present my parents gave Kevin and I a weekend in Denver, while they stayed and watched Luke. Neither of us had ever been to Denver so it was fun to explore the big city. Denver is only a 2.5 hour drive, it was a beautiful drive surrounded by the Rockies.
While in Denver, at first  we didn't know what do with ourselves being "kid free"- but we managed to figure it out. We had some yummy food at one of our favorite restaurants that we've missed since living in the country- The Cheese cake Factory-hmmm just typing it is making me hungry for their avocado egg rolls! We also did some shopping, saw the movie Les Mis and checked out the Downtown Denver Aquarium!
We had a fabulous weekend re-connecting and being just the two of us, as most of you may know we keep pretty busy with Luke, school and work. However, it was nice to come home and see our little monster!

Kevin checking out the Aquarium 

A "Butt-Flap" Christmas

We hosted Christmas with my parents here at our house this year. We were excited to be somewhere where you could look out the window and it actually look like Christmas. We got a nice snow storm the week of Christmas-so we had our first "white Christmas."
As a tradition in my family my mom and I made a homemade Tamale dinner Christmas Eve and opened our matching Christmas Pjs. My parents went "all out" and got us ALL, yes even the men in the family, onesie Pjs from Yellowstone-with butt flaps-yes, you read correctly BUTT FLAPS!
It was hysterical to see us four adults come out one by one modeling our onesies! Luke won the prize for looking the cutest of course!
Christmas morning we woke up and had Kevin's yummy homemade Cinnamon Rolls and hot chocolate as we opened presents. I was spoiled AGAIN this year by Kevin-he remembered a beautiful painting of the LDS Salt Lake City temple that I fell in love with when were dating. I attempted to equally spoil him with some wood working tools he wanted.
The best part of Christmas morning by far was watching Luke light up with each gift he got- he for sure  got spoiled and loved it! Luke's favorite toy is anything with wheels- and he got plenty of new cars other wheeled objects of every sort!

All of us showing off our PJs

Luke is loving his new cars!

Testing out his new race track!

My beautiful picture!

Loving all his fun gifts

Kevin's wood working stuff

"Oh Christmas Tree..."

This year we decided to try something new- get an actual Christmas Tree. The past couple years we did the fake tree thing. I grew up always smelling a fresh tree in our house- I was ready to give Luke that experience. As December 1st approached we didn't see any Christmas Tree Lots here in Laramie. I finally decided to ask around where people got their trees. I was surprised to find out that most people here go into the forest and cut their own trees down. Once again-another "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacattion" scene popped into my head- Ummm we're city folk, we don't know the first thing about cutting down a tree and I wasn't about to have a squirrel running around my living room.
We got lucky and finally found a "city slicker" friendly-Christmas Tree Lot! However we went on a nice Wyoming Windy day to pick one up and had it fall off our car on the way home-oh how the locals got a good laugh at the crazy people with Arizona plates trying to reattach the tree to our roof.
We finally got our tree home and began decorating-Luke was a great supervisor!

Luke and daddy putting on the lights

All decorated!

I Dub thee-Queen of the Turkey

This year was our first Thanksgiving with just us. In the past we joined in the festivities of either Kevin's family or mine. With still being sore from my surgery and Kevin not getting too much time off from classes we opted to not travel to family-which meant I was making Thanksgiving dinner!!!
I was pretty terrified of the thought of cooking a turkey on my own-I kept replaying the scene from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" of when Clark Griswold cuts their family turkey and just hot air pops out  (if you've never seen that movie, you're missing out on an American Classic!).
After gathering some recipes, going shopping and spending a majority of the day in the kitchen I got the best reward any wife could ask for- Kevin crowed me "Queen of the Turkey."
Although we missed being with our wonderful families, it was nice to be together as our own little family and start our own traditions. We have much to be Thankful for-it was nice to focus more on that aspect this year.

My First Turkey!

The spread

Luke's ready to dig in!

"Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times."

Well...I spoke too soon in my last post, correction the doctors spoke too soon!  Lets start at the beginning shall we?
On Friday, Oct. 14th I took a home pregnancy test that tested positive. As you can tell in previous posts we were excited to share the good news. However, something felt different- something in the back of my mind told me this pregnancy wouldn't last.
As I went to the ER with SOME miscarriage symptoms- they took blood and tested my HCG levels, they said I needed to come back to get re-tested to compare the levels the following Monday-yes, I had to wait out the WHOLE weekend with not knowing what was happening. Finally, it came to get my blood test again- as I waited to hear from the doctors office to make a conclusion they said its a waiting a game that can go either miscarriage or healthy pregnancy and I need to get tested every 48 hours to make sure my levels were on the rise. I went in for an ultra sound and the doctor couldn't see anything for sure- which he said was normal with how early I was (then whats the point of doing an ultra sound?) . I continued two more blood tests which resulted in a drastic drop in my levels- that was our answer -so we thought. The doctor called it officially- a miscarriage. By this point it officially hit us that this was real-this is happening.
By protocol-I still needed to get my levels tested til they hit "0" to make sure my body was taking car of things naturally on its own. I had a weekend between the the "official" call and when I had to get my test done AGAIN-durring which Kevin and I were able to grasp and coup with our reality. That Monday (a week since this all started), I followed the doctors orders and got a blood test. This time the levels went WAY up- past where they were before they dropped. We were soooo confused-what did that mean? My doctor suggested whats called "vanishing twin," meaning I was originally pregnant with twins and one isn't progressing. So wait-now I'm BACK to being pregnant?!?
As I continued with getting my blood tested for HCG quants EVERY 48 hours we felt we were on a roller coaster one minute we're up and one we were down-by this point I just wanted answers.
Finally- on week 3 of our roller coaster ride I got another ultra sound. This time, I was in a place in the pregnancy where something should've show up on the screen. As the doctor took his pictures and measurements he said there was nothing in my uterus-however, he did see something in my right Fallopian Tube.
The doctor explained that this happens randomly to some women- a fertilized egg gets stuck in the Fallopian Tube and starts to develop- however, once diagnosed the Ectopic pregnancy need to be removed because it can cause the Fallopian tube to rupture and cause internal bleeding which could be deadly if not treated. At that point, we didn't think it was too serious because I didn't have any pain to indicate any rupture. As Kevin and I looked at the calendar to find a good time to proceed with the surgery route of removal, the doctor popped in and said, "ok-we're good to go this afternoon." I immediately went into panic mode- I had 2 hours before I had to go into surgery-PLUS he explained that I would be OUT during the surgery and it would last for about 2 hours! I had never been "put out" before - so that added tons of anxiety!!!
We went home and I was panicking about who would take care of Luke while I was recovering, Kevin had midterms, my parents (the closest relatives to where we live) were in California on business - this was just not good timing for this to happen!
I was able to some-what calm down after I received a blessing from Kevin. We were blessed to have Kevin's mom fly out from Arizona to help us out-in which really was beyond a life saver- THANK YOU DEBBIE!!!!
The surgery went well- surprisingly, my tube had ruptured-but they were able to save everything important. The healing was painful, I wont lie. I'm still able to have children-yes, my chances of this happening again are higher now, but there also a high chance that everything can go perfectly normal next time. We're just glad we got answers and are off the roller coaster ride.