MIA

Yes, I've been gone for quite awhile! Not gone entirely, though - I've still been keeping up with your lives. I honestly just haven't had time to get on here and write anything, and even now I'm thinking of everything else I need to be doing, but it's just been so long! So, quick run down of what has been going on over the past couple months, and hopefully later I'll be able to post some pictures of improvements we've made to the house, and our little baby Marley, who is getting so big!

In no particular order:
~ We re-did the front garden area of our house earlier this week. If you go here you can see what it was like before. Look at the second picture- three big UGLY bushes that had a seriously nasty fungus growing in them. Gross. My parents came down on Monday, and on Tuesday we tore the bushes out, took out all of the stupid lava rock that was in that area, cleaned the dirt up the best we could, and put in new stuff! I haven't taken a picture yet, but we have park bench, and stepping stones, and a beautiful Japanese Maple with gorgeous red bark, and pansies all around. It's wonderful, and it looks infinite times better. When I get a picture of it, I'll also take one of our kitchen, because I just realized I never showed you the finished version! My dad also made a fool out of himself by asking us if they made coffee without caffeine, so we got a good laugh at his expense, and now you can too!
~ Marley graduated from puppy school this week as well. I don't know if she really deserved it... but we were at the required number of sessions to get the certificate, so Yay Marley! She's still a menace, but she's learning. She thinks she's a lap dog, even though she's getting too big for that. She was only 6.5 pounds when we got her, and now she is almost 25! She's still tiny compared to most Shepherds her age, so who knows what type of dog she is mixed with.
~ After taking a break from fertility meds while we moved and got settled, we were finally able to start back up again. I'm now on a higer dose, and have done one complete cycle with the higher dose, that didn't work (meaning we didn't get pregnant - the meds did their job). We're now starting round two of this higher dose, and our 5th round overall. This may be my last round before moving on to other testing or treatments, so I'm praying this one is it! I almost decided to not try again at this higher dose because it really, really messed with my body and my emotions last time. Too many hormones! But, we'll give it one more try, and then I'm thinking of going to see a natural healer type person that helped my sister-in-law with a pregnancy related skin condition that no one else could heal.
~ We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we were losers on New Year's Eve, but still had a good time! I had Thanksgiving at my house for the first time, and cooked my first turkey (and it came out great!). We then went up to my aunt and uncle's house for a second Thanksgiving with my side of the family, and ate WAY TOO MUCH amazing food. For Christmas we went to that same aunt and uncle's house, and the whole family was there. My parents and sister, my mom's parents, my cousin's, and my other aunt and uncle from Texas were out. We also brought up Marley. :) Again, we ate way, way too much, which is pretty common at our family gatherings. My aunt is the queen of appetizers. We played my cousin's Wii, and my Papa played with us. It's hilarious watching your 80-something grandfather try to play Wii bowling! We also had a Reynolds family Christmas on Christmas day (I was lucky this year, and Kyle wasn't working!) with Kyle's parents and his brother's family. It was so much fun with Taylor and Ayla (my nieces). New Years we went over to Kyle's brother's house and had pizza (as a picnic on the living room floor, because that's what Taylor wanted) and junk food, and started watching the first Lord of the Rings because Kyle had never seen it. Well, we got through disk one, and by that point (10:30) we were all so tired, so Kyle and I went home and went to bed before midnight! Sad, I know.

So there's a quick update, and hopefully I'll find some time to post pictures of recent events and house improvements. I have one more week of Christmas vacation, and of course, I haven't done anything for school yet, and I REALLY need too. That's my next week project. And now, I'm going to go make bread in my new bread maker! :)

Happy New Year!