Stressful day of shopping and registering.

Today we went shopping in OKC with my parents. Mark's squadron Christmas party is this coming friday, and it's formal attire. Mark doesn't have a suit, except for his military mess dress and service dress, so we figured it was time he got one. We looked at Kohl's first because they usually have good sales, and they did. However, they didn't have his size anywhere. We looked at every single jacket in that store, and there were no 40L's. Anywhere. We were pretty discouraged, but luckily, later we went to a mall and had more luck finding his size. We started out in Dillards. That was a mistake. They had all their suits 50% off, but the cheapest one was at least $500, so they were still $250 just for the pants and jacket. Yikes! After making a few stops, we finally found a very nice suit at JC Penney's, along with 2 shirts and 2 ties for $220. We're both pretty excited about it. The next challenge was finding me something to wear to a formal party.... It seems like this weekend I all of a sudden look pregnant. And no, I didn't eat a lot during Thanksgiving. I'm definitely showing now so it made finding a decent outfit more difficult. I saw this really pretty, navy blue, long, halter top dress at Dillard's that would have been perfect, but it was $198. So yeah.. After looking at all the major department stores, we finally went to Motherhood. It was our first time there, so that was exciting. I had wanted to get a dress, but I found a pair of black pants that fit really well, despite my belly, and a nice white shirt, along with another shirt that I liked. I'm a little worried I won't be as dressed up as everyone else, but I'm not going to spend a bunch of money on a dress that I won't be able to wear a lot. At least with Mark's suit, he'll be able to wear that for many years.

Before the clothes shopping escapade, we went to Babies R Us for the first time. Needless to say, we were both completely overwhelmed. We wanted to look at the car seats and strollers primarily, and furniture, and other big stuff. I've had friends recommend getting the car seat of our choice, and then get the little strollers that are made for the car seats to fit into (they're basically just a frame of a stroller) and then get an upgraded umbrella stroller for when they're a little older. My only problem is, I don't like any of the cheaper upgraded umbrella strollers. I like Peg Perego's, but they're like $150, so that's really not saving us any money. I want the stroller to have the tray that goes in front of the child, to put food and drinks on, bc I've read that that is very useful, and none of the "cheap" umbrella strollers have that. We finally gave up and decided to look into it more and then update our registry online. We only registered for a few things, and most of them were expensive, so I'm going to try to update the Babies R Us registry soon and also start one at Target. We were kind of freaked out by the high prices too. I would LOVE to get a glider, but the ones at Babies R Us were like $500. YIKES! We're not going to have $2000 to buy furniture and strollers and car seats and pack and plays and high chairs and everything else you need for a baby. I knew babies were expensive, but it's still overwhelming. Maybe our 2nd trip there will be less stressful.

Happy Thanksgiving! (plus a few pics)

We had our 14 week appt yesterday. It was bittersweet, since I had learned the day before that one of my good friends had miscarried. She was 11 weeks. I always am a little nervous before our ultrasounds, but hearing about that the day before made me extra nervous. Luckily though, the blueberry is fine and doing well. It's the size of a peach now. It's heartrate was 154bpm (down 1bpm from 2 weeks ago) and it rolled completely over while he was doing the U/S. Here are the pics we got this time.

Arms and legs!!
Good profile shot!


I think this was taken at 13 weeks. Definitely starting to show.

In Amarillo, TX

Maxi pad

Sophia

Sadie and her bone, before she stole Ollie's

Ollie and his bone, before Sadie stole it.

The weinas testing out the running stroller that my parents got us. Only $100!!!

That's all for now. Hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for ALL of you!

Feeling better

The past few days have been a little bit rough. Friday (or maybe even Thursday night) I came down with my FOURTH bout of flu since being in Oklahoma. (Did I ever tell you how much I love this state?) I had no appetite and my stomach hurt pretty bad. I had a small fever and was achey and just felt gross. I pretty much didn't eat anything until Sunday night, although I tried to keep drinking water so I wouldn't get dehydrated. I lost 6.5 lbs over the weekend. But I feel better today now, especially this evening. This morning was a little rough, but I think I'm better now. I was worried that I was getting morning sickness instead of it being left over flu. Hopefully that's not the case.

In other news, I haven't had a headache in almost a week! (Knock on wood.) Hopefully the 2nd trimester (which starts Wednesday) will be headache free! I have been getting some acid reflux though I think. I've never had it before, but I seem to get it at night, especially when I lay down. Kinda gross. Sometimes my stomach feels a little weird, but that could be because it's getting bigger now and I'm just getting used to feeling the baby in there. We look at my belly all the time and Mark puts his ear to it to see if he can hear anything. I don't think he has yet though. =)

We have our next appt at 2pm on Wednesday to check up on my migraines. I'm hoping we'll get to see the blueberry again.

Mark ordered all the parts for our computer on Saturday and he's been anxiously waiting for them to get here so he can start putting it together. He's so cute. He spent a long time researching everything and weighing all his options, so I'm excited for him, and it makes me happy to see him so excited about doing this. Probably wasn't the best time to spend all the money on a computer, but it'll be okay.

My parents get here in 2 days and I'm SOOO excited. We have lots of fun things planned. More later!

12 week appt

Sorry I'm a little late on this. I had a migraine Weds and Thurs and we have been out of town since Friday AM(more on that later), so I am just getting around to this now.

We had our 12 week appt on Wednesday. First things first, the baby is doing well. I think I was measuring 12w2d - so 2 days ahead of schedule. We got to see the baby again, and hear the heartbeat, which was 155bpm. While we were listening to the heartbeat we heard this big thud. The baby had kicked it's leg out really hard, so we got to see AND hear it! Pretty neat. The ultrasound was kind of uncomfortable for me, because he was pushing kinda hard on my stomach, so I can imagine the baby didn't like him invading his territory. The dr. said we were going to have an active baby. It was really moving it's arms and legs around again. Mark was so excited to see the baby again and we both get more and more excited every time we go to the doctor.

I have had pretty bad migraines for the past 3 weeks. Last week I had 3 of them, and 2 of them lasted 2 days. When we got put into our little room at the doctors office, I sat on the table and cried. I was so tired of having my head hurt so much and nothing really helping it. Luckily Mark was there with me, and I pulled it together (barely) before the doctor came it. We talked about my meds and he said I had 3 options, none of which were really "safe". The first one is upping the Midrin that I'm currently on. I currently take one every 4 hours and he said I could start taking 2 when I felt a headache coming on and one an hour after that up to 5 in a 12 hour period. (Got that?) The second option is pairing midrin with an anti-nausea medicine, which is supposed to exaggerate the effects of the pain meds. The third option is to give me a nasal narcotic, but then you run the risk of getting addicted to it. And the fourth option is to, as a last resort, take Ibuprofen, which I guess is "safer" to take up until 28 weeks. I chose to just up my meds, but I'm praying that these go away in the 2nd trimester (after 14 weeks). I've heard and read that migraine suffers sometimes do find relief in the 2nd trimester so I REALLY hope that's the case for me.

Here's the most recent picture of our blueberry, although now it's the size of a peach!

I'll write another post (hopefully tomorrow) about our trip to visit our friends. I need to add pictures to my computer so I can post them in the blog.

Please excuse me while I brag a little...

I am fairly certain that I have one of the best, if not THE best, husband's in the world. Seriously, I know a lot of people say that, and it's great so many of us feel that way, but I think I snagged the best one. (Don't ask me how, I'm still trying to figure that out myself.)

Mark is an absolutely amazing husband. We truly are a complete team. We can clean our entire house in an hour flat when we work together (and usually we do work together). But on days I'm not feeling the best, he 100% picks up the slack. He'll cook for me, AND do all the dishes (which we have to do by hand since our stupid dishwasher doesn't work), AND do all the laundry, AND fold it, AND put it away, and vacuum and scrub the floors and toilets and showers, and he's the official cat box cleaner now that I'm pregnant. And he does all of that without me ever asking him to do anything. I know MANY of my friends husbands don't help out around the house half as much as Mark does, and my own dad never did half the stuff Mark does domestically, which is fine. Different strokes for different folks, but I definitely prefer it this way. Mark goes shopping with me without ever complaining or getting impatient. He'll go grocery shopping, he plans meals, sometimes he buys me romantic cards and leaves them in places I'll find them while he's at work. He's not all that mechanically inclined because he wasn't raise around working on cars, but he'll do all the research online for fixing our cars and then uses the base auto shop to do work on our cars, which saves us a ton of money. He's currently doing the research to build us a really nice desk top computer. He always treats me with respect, and knows exactly how to cheer me up or calm me down. I feel like I know him 100x's better today, than I did the day we got married. Things just seem to keep getting better. I'm so excited to see what our relationship will be like in another two and a half years.

I really don't know what I did to deserve such an amazing man to spend the rest of my life with. And I thank God every day for putting Mark in my life.

Thanks for reading. Just had to "vent" to someone. =)

And once again...

This week I've been feeling more pregnant for some reason. I still haven't gained weight, but most of my pants don't fit anymore. I've been having to do the rubber band trick on most of them, but that's not very comfortable and it makes them stick out kinda funny in the front. I had bought 2 pairs of maternity slacks, but they're still REALLY big so I haven't been wearing them. That might change this week. Today I bought 3 pairs of maternity jeans. Hopefully they'll last me throughout the pregnancy (and the following one(s) too). My belly is getting harder also. I've been really emotional this week too. I cry for no apparent reason, and then I get frustrated that I don't know why I'm crying, which makes everything that much worse. I have weird aftertastes now too. I guess it's always the same weird aftertaste though. It doesn't matter what I eat. Weird. And sometimes I pick up this weird metallic-y smell, usually in the mornings right after I get up. I'm still not quite sure what it is, but I smell it every morning.

On to other news... Mark's dates have changed, yet again. But this time it's different from all the other times. This time, the date actually moved up. This is MUCH better than it moving back, and in the long run, will probably be better than it staying the same it was, but I still freaked out about it. Mark's report no later than date is now April 20, and his start date in Phoenix is April 30 (up from May 21st). All in all, not much with our plans have changed though. We're still having our house packed up before we head home for our baby shower in IL on April 2nd. We'll probably stay in IL until the 9th, and then my mom, the weinas, Mark and I will make the 26+ hour (of driving alone), 1800+ mile trip from Galena to Phoenix, with a stop along the way to pick up the Jetta in Enid. That's the only part I'm a little nervous about. Thank God my mom is going to be there to help us get settled into our new place, and hopefully Mark's brother can come down to help also.

Mark starts a basketball league on Monday. He's excited, and I'm excited for him. It'll be fun to watch him play. He bought basketball shoes today, so hopefully they'll give him enough support so he doesn't sprain an ankle.

That's all for now. Back to watching "Made of honor".

More migraines =(

Last night was pretty rough. I had probably my worst migraine yet. My head hurt a little after work, so I laid down to see if that would help it. When I woke up, it was even worse, so I took one of my new meds for migraines. We had to go to our Financial Peace class, so we ran to McDonald's to grab dinner before our class. As soon as I started to eat, I started to feel sick (as in nauseas) and came my closest yet to throwing up. We sat in the church parking lot deciding on if we should go to the class or not, and I sat there and cried. I'm not really sure why I was crying, but I was. Damn pregnancy hormones. So we went to the class and my migraine got worse, and by the time we got home, I was sensitive to both light and sound. I took another pill and went to sleep with a cold washcloth on my forehead and a towel over my head and it was gone by the time I woke up (thank GOD). I still kind of have the residual headache from the migraine today, but it's tolerable. I hate taking medicines any time, but especially now since it could potentially affect the baby too.

I'm not really sure what's causing all my migraines, but I think I think my neck is all out of whack. The back of my head and neck really hurt when I or Mark rubs it, and it stays sore for a few hours afterwards. I have an appointment to get an adjustment on Monday. That was the earliest they could get me in, so hopefully I won't have a headache all weekend. I also think I need to get my glasses prescription checked. It's been well over a year since I've had an eye exam and things have been getting progressively more blurry, so maybe that would help too. I'm not sure.

I'm going to put a poll on our blog about what you think the baby will be - boy or girl - so make sure to go to the blog and vote!!



I'm really not sure what's causing the migraines. I think part of it could be that my neck is out of whack. The back of my head is really tender and sometimes hurts just to touch after Mark or I rub it for a while. I have an appointment with a chiropractor on Monday. That was the earliest they could get me in. I think I might also have my eyes checked again, because it's been well over a year since my last eye exam and I've noticed some things to be blurry lately, especially at night.



I think I might be having a girl. I'm really not sure, but between the headaches and my emotions being out of whack, for some reason I think it's a girl. I'm going to put a poll on the blog about what people think we'll have, so be sure to go and vote!!



Okay, my head is starting to get worse again so I'm going to go try to fix it now. Ugh..

Halloween, dinners and blankets

I'm 10w4d along now. The baby is the size of a kumquat, which is a little over an inch long. And the blueberry weighs less than an ounce still and is starting to grow fingernails and hair. I've still been really tired. I pretty much want to sleep all the time and it's hard to find the motivation to stay busy when I get home from work instead of laying down with the weinas. (I usually blame Oliver for this. Who wouldn't want to come home and snuggle with him? He's the most cuddly thing I've ever encountered in my entire life.) I usually lay down and watch TV, read or sleep, or some combination of the three, until Mark gets home from work and then I usually get up and clean or we go for a walk or we make dinner. I'm hoping that my energy will come back during the second trimester.

This weekend we went to a murder mystery dinner. Mark was invited to it by one of his co-workers and it was pretty interesting. You're given a role to play, and sometimes your character has knowledge about the details of the mystery. Throughout the night people are "murdered" and you have to talk to other people to see what they know and how they fit in to the whole scenerio. It's supposed to be a 1920's setting, and some of the people really dressed to fit the period. We had a good time and met some new people which was fun.

I think most of the guys in Mark's squadron know that we're pregnant now. It surprises me at how excited these guys seem to be about it. My co-workers rarely ask me questions about the pregnancy, but the guys he works with were FULL of questions for him when they found out. They asked when we were due, if we wanted a boy or a girl, what names we had picked out, if it was planned, how I was feeling, etc. They always have trick or treating in the squadron where people can bring their kids in costumes to get candy from all the flights. Mark talked about all the little kids for a good half hour after he got home. It was really cute. He seems to be getting more and more excited about this baby every day. He said that he wanted to dress it up as a blueberry for it's first halloween since that's what we call it. I thought that was a good idea.

I was at Hobby Lobby this week (my favoritest place ever) and I got a pattern to knit a baby blanket and some yarn for it. We'll see if I can actually figure it out. I need to start it soon or I'll never finish it before the blueberry arrives.

Mansions and migraines

This weekend Mark and I went to OKC to start some Christmas shopping, check out the baby section at Target, and see a movie. (We saw Eagle Eye, with Shia Lebeouf and it was pretty good.) We had some time in between shopping and the movie so we decided to drive around thru some of the rich neighborhoods in the city. Thank God Mark likes to do that too - we have a good time driving around and looking at all the nice houses and dreaming about our future. We were cracking up at how most of the huge, expensive houses had the McCain/Palin signs in their yards, and when you'd get into the "normal" neighborhoods, there would be Obama/Biden signs galore. It was funny how there was a definite shift in political parties depending on the "class" of neighborhood we were in. But anyway, we got some of our shopping done, and looking at the baby stuff made us really excited about this blueberry.

Late Saturday morning I got a headache - migraine actually. I tried taking tylenol for it, but tylenol does absolutely nothing for my migraines. I have prescribed extra strength Ibuprofen for migraines, but you're not supposed to take Ibuprofen when you're pregnant. So I took like 14 tylenol over a 48 hour time frame and I still pretty much had my migraine. This morning on my way to work I had a flat tire, so while I was waiting for Mark to come help me (he takes very good care of me), I called my doctor to see if I could take anything else besides tylenol since I was getting sick of having a headache. They surprisingly asked me to come in for an appt at 1:30 today. It kind of scared me a little because I wasn't expecting them to ask me to come in at all, and I thought maybe they thought something was wrong. I was already a "little" worried because my mom said that she didn't have any headaches at all the whole time she was pregnant and I have it in my mind that my pregnancy is going to be exactly like hers, even though that's obviously not the case. But I thought that because I was having a headache, that maybe that meant something was wrong with the blueberry. So I went to my appt by myself since Mark was flying. My blood pressure was 128/87 - it's high every time I go to the dr. He prescribed me some meds I can take for my migraines (hopefully I won't have to use them much) and then asked if I'd like another ultrasound. Of course I did!! So I got my second ultrasound and it was amazing. I'm pretty bummed that Mark wasn't able to see it, because it was so neat to see. Last time the blueberry was just a little ball. And this time you could see it's head and arms and legs and it was moving all over the place!! It's about 3 cm long and the heart rate was 167 bpm (last time it was 148). I just can't believe how much the little thing has grown in the past 3 weeks. And it was SOO neat to see it moving it's little arms and legs. It's hard to believe that thing is inside me and moving that much and I don't even feel it. I think I could be starting to show a little bit. I had to do the rubberband trick with my pants today for the first time and tight waists on pants are bugging me some. Here's the most recent picture of our blueberry. The head is on the left side and it's little legs are on the right side. And the little white dot that looks like it's on it's belly is it's arm. It was waving it all over the place!

On a different note, my mom told me today my parents are coming to visit us for Thanksgiving and I'm SOO excited! It'll be our first Thanksgiving with family since Mark and I have been together (3 years). In the previous years we've just Thanksgiving by ourselves or with friends, which was fun, but I always associate Thanksgiving with spending time with family, so I'm really excited my parents are coming to see us.

9weeks1day (worries)

Since I forgot to post this before, I decided to post it now before I forgot. This is the first test I took after I got back home from being with my parents for a week. =)

This week I've been slightly freaking out a bit. Right now, I know more pregnant people than non-pregnant people. Most of them are ahead of me, a few of them are behind me in their pregnancies, but I've been hearing many of them say how they feel SOOO pregnant. ..... That kinda freaks me out because in all honesty, I don't really feel all that pregnant. I seem to be more tired than normal and I'm hungry pretty much all the time, but sometimes I wonder if that's just all in my head. My boobs don't seem to be hurting as much, and I don't get my little cramps as often either. My clothes still all fit, and I know many people who's clothes were getting tight around 7-8 weeks. I'm at 9 weeks, and I haven't noticed a difference. My lower, middle back, like below my tailbone, hurts like heck, pretty much all the time, but I have no clue if that's pregnancy related. I assume it is, but I really don't know. I know I'm mostly worried bc one of my good friends recently had a miscarriage, and I'm scared that I'll have the same. It seems like there's more of a risk now that almost everyone knows for some reason. I'm sure it's all in my head, but I'm a professional worrier, so I've been putting my skills to good use lately.

I've also been worrying about what's going to happen in April and May of next year. Yes, I know that's still half a year away, but as I said, I'm a professional. Mark is done with his training here at Vance on April 1. However, we cannot move until around April 8 because he has to have landing currencies within 45 days of his start date in Phoenix (May 21). If we move around the 8th of April, I'll be around 34 weeks pregnant. I don't want to have to drive in a seperate car from Mark to Phoenix, so we originally were going to try to get a tow dolly or bar so we could tow the Jetta behind the Explorer. (U-Haul and those type places won't rent trailers or dolly's to Fords.) My dad wanted us to get something with brakes though, and even for a used dolly, it's like $800. So luckily my mom has agreed to drive the Jetta for us to Phoenix so I can ride with Mark. It'll be nice to have her there with us anyway bc she can help us find a place to live and maybe even help us get settled in some, depending on how long she can stay. Right now, the plan is to have the movers pack up all our stuff on the 1st of April, and then go home to my parents house the 2nd - 7th of April because my (our) mom(s) want to have a baby shower for us on April 4th. Then my mom can ride back to OK with us and we'll probably stay there for a day or 2 until Mark can get his flight done and then head to AZ after that. That's going to be a LONG time in the car though. It's a good 10-11hrs from my parents house to Enid, and then another 16+ hours from Enid to Phoenix. Ugh. Add a pregnant lady and 2 weina dogs into the mix and that's going to tack on at least another few hours with as many times as we'll have to stop.

I got my flu shot today. Mark got his last week, so hopefully I can avoid the flu this winter. (I had it twice last year, and it was NOT fun.)

Other than that, we went back to Chicago for Dave's wedding last weekend. It was good to see our families and Dave and Amy. It took us 13.5 hrs to get home though, which is not our idea of fun.

One more picture for you. These aren't all pregnancy tests, most of them are ovulation predictor tests.

Catching up on our pregnancy

Since the cat is finally out of the bag with most people, I'll post the few entries I was saving for after everyone found out we're pregnant. Here they are.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

So we’ve known we’re pregnant for 4 days now, and it’s still hard to comprehend. I just keep thinking “I’d better not get my hopes up yet, incase something goes wrong”. All last week when I was home, I had a pretty strong feeling that something wasn’t normal. I kept telling my mom that I thought I could be pregnant and she kept saying a probably wasn’t because if I was, I would definitely know. So then I began to doubt myself, and think that maybe I wasn’t pregnant, since I didn’t know for sure. I wanted Mark to be the first person to know, so I didn’t take a home pregnancy test until I got home from my trip. I really had to pee when we were driving back from OKC, but I was holding it so I could take the test when I got home. After I snuck up on the weinas when we got home, I took the test, and it was definitely positive! A little while later than night, I took another one, and it was also positive, so by that time, we were pretty sure I was pregnant. (I’ve taken tests for like the past 6 months and all of them were negative.) Monday afternoon I went to the dr for a blood test and it came back positive also.

We’re REALLY excited about this. I’ll be nervous until we get out of the first trimester though. I’ve heard once you can hear the heartbeat, the odds of having a miscarriage decrease quite a bit. Until then, I’ll probably worry quite a bit about that. I haven’t really “felt” pregnant. I’ve had some minor cramping occasionally, but that’s about it. So far, so good, but then again, I’m only 5 weeks along today. Our due date is May 27 and we’ll be 32 weeks and 2 days when we start our move to Phoenix. Good times! We’ve been trying to get pregnant for 7 months, and I’d gotten it into my head that it was just going to take us years, so I really still don’t believe that we could potentially have a baby in 9 months. Crazy! Mark is very excited. He talks about what life will be like with a baby all the time now. It’s adorable! He’ll start F-16 training 15 days before we’re due though… so we’ll see how that works out!

Monday, October 06, 2008 (6w5d)

Lately I’ve been really tired. I’m ready to go to bed by 9pm every night, but I’m usually wide awake by 7am. (And I get up at LEAST 3 times every night to pee.) Then usually by the afternoon I’m ready for a 1-3 hour nap, although I have yet to take a nap and wake up feeling refreshed. Usually I still feel pretty groggy and half the time, if Mark didn’t wake me up, I’m fairly sure I’d stay asleep until the next morning. It’s not fun being tired all the time, and it’s even more not fun taking naps and feeling even more tired when you wake up than when you laid down. Oh well. I’m sure this LO (little one) will be worth it.
This morning I had my first bout with morning sickness. I didn’t throw up, but I felt pretty crappy all morning. Half the time though, I can’t tell if I’m hungry or queasy. I’m hungry ALL the time. I’m usually snacking or eating about every 2 hours, although I’m trying to eat a lot of fruits and veggies so I don’t gain too much weight. Thankfully, I have the most amazing husband ever, who 100% picks up my slack when I’m not feeling good. This morning he cleaned the entire kitchen, finished 2 loads of laundry, and folded it all and put it all away, and made me lunch. He’s pretty much the best ever, and I cannot WAIT to see him with our baby. I know he’ll be an absolutely AMAZING dad. I just wish I was further along! Time seems to be dragging on, ever since we found out we were pregnant! If I was like 14 weeks along, and showing, and felt pregnant, it would be fun (and hopefully all the morning sickness would over by then too!)


October 10, 2008 (7w2d)

So I'm a HUGE wuss when it comes to doctors appointments. I have MAJOR white coat syndrome. I had my first ob appt today at 10:20 and all morning I literally felt like I was going to throw up. I couldn't fall asleep last night and when I finally did, I couldn't stay asleep. I was also really nervous bc I've never had a male ob/gyn, so that was a first for me too.

So I got there and my blood pressure was 158/89 and my heart rate was 105bpm. Geesh. At least now Mark knows I wasn't kidding when I said I was REALLY nervous. =) We got to see the baby for the first time, and see AND hear the heartbeat, which was 148bpm. I was excited to hear it also bc I didn't think that happened until 12 weeks or after. He estimated the due date to be around May 29 or 30, but he said that we would be able to give us a better estimate at the next appt.

We're really excited now. It seems so much more real now that we actually saw the baby and the heartbeat.

Oh, and they took my blood pressure right before I left and it was 123/83 and my heart rate was down to 82 bpm. =) Our next appt is November 11.

Camping trip

So Mark and I went camping this weekend. We were pretty ambitious and thought we'd camp two nights. However, that wasn't the case. After one night of sleeping on hard, uneven ground, with the weina dogs driving us both nuts and pretty much getting no sleep, by 10:30am on Saturday, we were all packed up and ready to go home. So.. we made it about 17 hours, which is pretty good for us. =) Anyway, here are some pictures from our short adventure.

Birthday bash and exploring

Last year Mark and I had a big get-together at our house on the weekend between our birthdays. We never imagined we'd still be here to host another one this year, but lo and behold, we were. The tricky thing was, most of our friends have already moved away, so we weren't exactly sure if this was going to be a "big" gathering, or a gathering of about 4 people, us included. Luckily, quite a few people showed up.

Mark works with quite a few guys our age, and quite a few of those guys have girlfriends or wives. He ended up inviting most of the students from his flight (there are about 20 of them I think), and we ended up having about 20 people show up, which was fun. Most of the guys that came, brought their wives or girlfriends and I met quite a few people for the first time. A lot of them are going to be in Mark's IFF class and some of them are going to be going to Luke with us too, so it was nice. I think part of the reason we were getting kind bummed about still being in OK is because it's really hard to watch all your friends move on to bigger and better things while you're still stuck in the same old "rut". But now that we've found more couples to hang out with, it's a little easier to be stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Yesterday Mark was feeling really antsy, and he really wanted to get out of the house. He ended up talking me into going to Guthrie, OK, about an hour SE of here. It's a really historic little town and had a bunch of antique shops. It kinda reminded me of Galena a little. We had a good time walking around and taking pictures, even though most of the shops where closed. We ate at the Stable Cafe, and the food was pretty good, despite the fact that there was a fly baked onto the outside of my potato. That was kinda gross. =) And there's a huge masonic temple there also. It was really weird to see this huge building, straight out of Washington DC, until Mark explained to me that the Mason's basically built DC too. (He's so smart!)

Presidential candidates and such...

I remember being in DC with my mom when I was 14 or 15, and being bored to tears in the National Museum of Art. I couldn't have cared less about art, and spending an afternoon looking at it, was on my top ten list of tortures. However, art interests me much more now. Same goes for politics. I am by no means an expert on anything having to do with political, but this presidential campaign definitely holds my attention.

Mark and I both feel that it's about time a democrat is back in office. Bush really hasn't done a whole hell of a lot during the past 8 years, and we feel it's definitely time for a change. I will be VERY disappointed if McCain is elected president, and it's kind of disheartening for me right now. It's a well known fact that most people in the military are republican, so most of our friends here are all for McCain. Add to that the fact that we live in Oklahoma, and you've got quite a few more Republicans around... That would be the day anyway, when Oklahomans would elect a black president.... And to top it all off, it seems as if most of our families are voting for McCain. I've taken quite a few of those quizzes online that tell you who matches your stance on political issues, and every time it comes up Obama.

First and foremost, one of my main concerns is getting us out of Iraq. I don't feel it is our job as a nation to babysit other countries and this subject is near and dear to my heart since my husband will have to go to war for 6 months at a time. Granted, I know that's what he signed up for, but I would still be much happier if I didn't have to be by myself for 6 months and worry about him being in a war zone. Plus the fact that McCain can joke about it and sing "bomb bomb bomb Iran" just completely rubs me the wrong way. I'm 100% sure that's probably not something to joke about...

Another thing that I think is proof that McCain is a little old for the job is that he's never used a computer. Doesn't know how to email, never google'd something, nada. Name one major corporation in America where the CEO doesn't know how to use a computer. That just doesn't work, and I think it proves he's a little out of touch with reality. Besides, isn't he the one saying that the economy is just fine right now? .... It is?....

So McCain chose Palin for the VP. Uhh... wasn't his major complaint against Obama that he was inexperienced? So he goes and chooses someone who has even LESS experience than Obama??? What sense does that make? At least Obama chose Biden, who has a lot of foreign policy experience. He chose someone to balance him out. I don't think McCain did the same thing. Mark said - What experience did Bush have when he was elected? He ran 3 businesses into the ground and was governor of TX.... That's it.

Lastly, I'm tired of republicans trying force their morals on everyone else. Republicans in general, what the gov't to stay out of people's lives, unless it's about trying to force their morals on others - and then they want a law made. Banning abortion would not be right. I don't agree with people using abortion as a form of birth control at all, but I think banning it would be a huge mistake. Sometimes abortions are medically needed and I don't think it's the gov't's business to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her body. If gays want to get married, so be it! They aren't hurting anyone. I personally don't think it's a sin. I think that love knows no bounds and, while it might not be something we're all comfortable with, I don't think we should hold it against them. If we'd all worry about ourselves half as much as we worry about what others are doing, we'd be a lot better off.

We both feel that Obama is smart enough to surround himself with the right people and quick enough to catch on pretty quickly. I do feel that this country needs a change, and we both think Obama is the best choice.

Doctors and stupid commercials

Lately I feel like I've pretty much lived at the doctors or dentists. In the past 2 months I've been to the dentists 3 times, been to the doctors 4 times, gotten my blood drawn 3 times, gotten a shot in my arm, and gotten 3 shots in my mouth. I should preface this by saying that and used to be TERRIFIED of needles, and I still am to some degree. The last time I got a tetnus shot (in 1996) I almost passed out afterwards. I hadn't been to the dentist in almost 3 years bc I'm scared to death of them also. My 2nd time at the dentist here was not fun. I was sick to my stomach I was so nervous and sat in the stupid chair and cried before they gave me the shots. But the last time I went I wasn't really even that nervous at all and didn't even come close to crying. I used to freak out about needles of any sort but I have a "friend" on base now that is the phlebotomist (draws blood) and she knows I'm a big wuss. She's very gentle and really nice so I don't mind having her draw my blood anymore and don't get nervous about that at all. Yesterday I went to the dr and decided I should get another tetnus shot since it'd been 12 years and I initiated it, which is a HUGE step for me. I was a little nervous but the actual shot didn't hurt at all, my arm just feels like it's going to fall off now, but it's getting better.

Last Thursday my inner arch on my right foot hurt a lot - kind of more on the side of my foot than the bottom. I couldn't walk on it at all, and Friday it was some better, but I decided to go to the dr yesterday bc it hadn't gotten any better. Turns out I have tendonitis pretty bad. He pushed on points up past my ankle and it hurt like hell! So he put me on steriods to try to treat it and said if it's not better I get to go to a podiatrist for it. I've also been having trouble breathing lately. I constantly have the urge to yawn, but I can never catch my breath, so I'm always gasping for air. This usually happens in August and September for me. So it turns out I have some sort of seasonal respiratory disease (asthma) and he gave me an inhaler for it. But I don't like the inhaler. It takes nasty and kinda freaks me out some, but it does seem to help. So I'm still in one piece, barely. I have my last dentist appt on Monday and I'm going to the DO (dr of osteopathics aka fancy chiropractor) on tuesday to get a kink in my neck taken care of. It's a DAMN good thing I'm on Tricare (military insurance) because I haven't had to pay for anything at all so far. Military benefits are very nice.

Today we were watching TV and I saw this commercial for Klondike bars that completely pissed me off. There was this guy and his wife or girlfriend or whatever sitting at this table by a sidewalk. They were having a deep conversation and this "hot" girl walks by and the commentator of the commercial says that the guy deserves a Klondike bar because he didn't take his eyes off his wife to check out the hot girl. I was like "What?!" You've got to be kidding me. He doesn't deserve a reward for being a decent man and paying more attention to his wife than someone 15 years younger than he is that walks by, and if he did check the girl out he deserves to be smacked upside the head! I'm SOOO thankful that my husband isn't like that at all. I don't think I could deal with that at all. That commercial really made me mad!

August update

Today we bought Mark a new bike that we're pretty excited about. We got him a nice Trek 7100 multitrack. It's just like my bike that I got a few years ago, except mine is the 7200. We tested them out and went for a 5 mile bike ride to Braum's for lunch with our friend, Jessica.. Mark scared the crap out of me by almost crashing it once, but luckily he kept the bike upright, he just knocked the chain off. If I had done what he did, I would have done a face-plant in the middle of the street. I told him that's why he's not allowed to ride the bike without his helmet.

So we got the money for the bike, by selling our old keyboard for $350. We were pretty excited because Mark put it for sale on Craigslist.com and we got a call about it 10 mins later. She wanted us to call her if we dropped the price... That wasn't going to happen. So another guy called a few hours later and bought it for our full asking price. So it's nice to have the keyboard sold and it's really nice that Mark has a bike now. Now we need to get a little trailer for our weina dogs. I really want to get one that we could one day use for kids, but in the meantime, use for weina dogs. I think they'd like to go for bike rides with us. We're excited to use the bikes in Arizona - I think they'll have nice trails there.

In other news, we've started collecting quite the plant collection. I've never been much into gardening, but we got a little hanging plant for outside our front door. I took good care of it and it's really big and pretty now. So then we got a big pot of a variety of plants and that's taken off too. So then I decided to get a few indoor plants last week. They're doing good too, except the damn cats chew on them and Max knocked one of them off the windowsill yesterday. So now I've put tape all along the windowsill, hoping that they won't like the sticky stuff on their feet and will leave them alone. I'll try to take pictures of them sometime soon and post them.

We've also discovered that Sadie howls. If you get her really excited (by talking fast and in a high pitched voice to her) and then squeeze her, she'll howl. It's hilarious and she's really loud!! We'll have to video it sometime. We got her running around the back yard like she usually does yesterday. She just takes off like a bat out of hell and runs and mach 3 in no specific direction. Sometimes she even jumps over Ollie in the middle of her runs. Hence her nickname - Crazy. She's pretty cute.

That's all for now. Mark's playing his stupid flying video game and it makes me sick (as in motion sick) to watch it. Ugh.

Places we'd like to travel

I thought I'd make a list of places we've been/ would like to travel to, just for the fun of it. The bold ones are the places we've been already. All others are places we'd like to see someday. Some of these places we've been to, but not together, so we don't count those as having been there already.



Disneyworld (x2)

Disneyland

Orlando (x2)

Florida Keys

Punta Cana

Caribbean Cruise

Brazil

Dominican Republic

New Orleans

Savannah, Georgia

Williamsburg, VA

Washington, DC

New York City

Myrtle Beach

Boston, MA

Cape Cod, Maine

Prince Edward Island

Montreal, Quebec

Niagara Falls

San Diego, CA

Los Angelos, CA

San Fransisco, CA

the Pacific Northwest

Alaskan Cruise

Colorado

Yellowstone National Park

The Grand Tetons

The Grand Canyon

Las Vegas (x2)

The Boundary Waters, WI

Mexico

Hawaii

Australia

New Zealand

Fiji

Rome, Italy

Florence, Italy

Pisa, Italy

Monocco

Cannes, France

Paris, France

Madrid, Spain

Innsbruck, Austria

Vienna, Austria

Prague, Czech Republic

Switzerland

England

Ireland

Scottland

Greece

Japan

China

Iceland

The beaches of Normandy

Budapest, Hungary

Barcelona, Spain

Southern Italy

A mediterranean cruise

Russia

Bordeaux, France

Belgium

Istanbul, Turkey

Bucarest, Romania

Thialand

Vietnam

Bangladesh

Sri Lanka

Madagascar

Cape Town, South Africa

Nova Scotia

Guatamala

Seattle, Washington

Vancouver, BC

Yosemite National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park

Zion National Park

Egypt

Denali National Park

Glacier National Park

Newschwanstein Castle


Hamburg, Germany


Lubeck, Germany


Munich, Germany

The Netherlands

Slovenia

Croatia



I'll keep adding to this as we go along and keep updating this as we visit more places. Should be interesting to see how many places we get to actually see. Feel free to tell us where else would be fun to visit.

Oklahoma is boring.

Again, not too much is going on here. (Surprise, surprise) I found out this week that 3 of my friends are pregnant! Crazy! I've been trying to stay active and lose weight. My swimming lessons are going well - Gail's a great teacher and she says I'm improving. Hopefully she's not just being nice. =) Mark and I are getting a little better at tennis. Sometimes we can actually hit it over a few times before one of us hits it way out of bounds or into the net. Our new racks work well and definitely help. This past weekend we went camping at Canton Lake with a bunch of friends. It was fun and nice to be by the lake, but it was WAYYY to hot to camp. We about roasted in the tent all night. We decided that we're not going to camp again until it actually gets cool at night instead of staying in the high 80's. The weinas were completely worn out afterwards and slept for almost an entire day when we got home.

I've updated our blog some, so if you get these updates by email, check out the actual blog. http://www.adventuresofm-squared.blogspot.com I've added a playlist and a slideshow of pictures. And as always, feel free to leave comments! Thanks to the 2 of you that actually do sometimes! Makes me feel like someone is actually reading this. =)

We got dates!!!

Mark went in to the squadron today and we found out that his IFF dates are Jan 28, 2009 - April ?, 2009 and his start date at Luke (in Arizona) for RTU is May 12, 2009. So this means we'll probably be moving to Phoenix in April of next year! Yay! But this does kind of pose a problem as far as Christmas goes bc I'm already asking for a week off to visit family and friend and go to Cathy's wedding in Sept and Mark's in Dave's wedding in October so that'll be another 3 days off of work. I know there is no way in hell that Charlie is going to give me a week off for Christmas.... So I can either start looking for a job now, or pretty much plan to be jobless for 4 months or so. I don't even know if I'll have a job after I take a week off in September so I guess I'll worry about that when the time comes.

In other news, I rode for the first time in over a year this weekend. I went riding with my friend, Gail, who has a friend here that has 4 very nice horses. It was so great to get back on. I hadn't forgotten much, but MAN, I'm sore today still (and I rode 2 days ago). The horse I was riding required a lot of leg to keep him going and the insides of my thighs are still feeling it. Gail also gave me a swimming lesson, which was fun and helped me a lot and Mark and I bought tennis rackets and balls. We've been playing tennis a couple times a week lately, so we're excited about not having to borrow the crappy ones from base anymore. We'll probably give them a try tonight for the first time!

PS - I've lost 4 lbs!!

mid-July update

So I'm getting worse and worse at keeping up with this thing! Not much exciting really seems to be going on lately.

We're still enjoying our new piano. I ordered 2 Lorie Line (my favorite pianist) books from her website. She just came out with a new one, so I ordered that one and one of her other recent books (as in sheet music books). I think I have all of them now except for 2 or 3. I think I'm going to get an autographed copy of her new book though so I'm pretty excited about it. Mark plays the piano more than I do and he's really good!! He's improved quite a bit and now he sees the reason I wanted a piano instead of a keyboard. It's so funny to walk into our office (where the piano is) and watch my fighter pilot husband play Fur Elise on the piano. He's pretty much the best.

My mom got me my tickets home for September today. I'm pretty excited about going home and seeing all my old friends, but I'm also pretty nervous about leaving Mark and my weinas at home. I think Mark and my relationship is a little different than most people since we both live so far away from both our families. When we move to new places, we only have each other and usually don't know another soul in our new place. So we get so used to it being us and always having each other around that it's hard to be apart. His 3 weeks of survival training was tough for us, but I had my weina babies to keep me company. But I'm excited to go home too. It'll be great to see my friends, some of who I haven't seen since my wedding (2 years ago) or more, and I'm really looking forward to riding bikes (Harley's) with my dad and playing my piano at home. I have to remember to pack all my sheet music.

It was kind of a trick getting a week off of work, especially with the big ordeal with me getting the month off to go to Europe. My immediate boss, Natalie, had said that she wanted to wait to present the idea to the big boss, Charlie, until closer to the time, but I told her I couldn't wait too long bc I had to get plane tickets and car rentals. So after asked her about it for 3 days, she decided that she'd just okay it and we'd worry about what Charlie thought about it later.... So that means that when he finds out (probably sometime in September) that he could very easily decide he just doesn't need me to work there any more and I'll be out of a job. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there and pray for the best in the meantime.

Other than that, not too much has been happening. It's been hot here lately - usually 95+, but at least it hasn't been as windy. I don't mind the sun and heat, but the wind gets old really quick.