Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!! We had a WONDERFUL Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. As always, I was awed by the creativeness and generosity of our family. We love all of you! Thank you for making this another great Christmas.

It was especially nice to be around Grandma and Ron. I've missed you guys, and I can't wait until our next visit with you!! Have a safe trip home.

I'll leave you with a very cute picture of Jaydnn. This is her saying "cheese" for the camera.

One more week

'Till Christmas!! I am so excited. I just love Christmas. I've got most of my shopping done and everything that needed to be mailed out has been sent. Now I'm just hunting for those last few special gifts.

That's about all that's happening around here. I did get a cute picture of Piper by the Christmas tree. Actually, I think she was trying to eat the tree. I told her no, and this is the look I got.

Fun day turnned bad...

Last Saturday I decided to take the dogs to the dog park. It was Piper's first time and I wasn't sure how she would do. I remember Shadow's first time he hid under the picnic tables.

She did play, but only with a teenage boy and a full grown dog that weighed less than 2 pounds. She was scared of all the other dogs. She got lots of attention from all the people though. They all felt bad for her and she lapped up the sympathy.

Shadow was grumpy and had to spend some time alone in the tuck because he was showing aggression towards the other dogs before we even got in the gate. He calmed down and was let into the small dog area with Piper after a little while. Towards the end I probably could have let him in with the other dogs, because he was being nice to them through the fence, but I decided to leave that for another day and head home.

We were almost home, stopped at a red light when all of a sudden I heard a crash. The next thing I knew my head was bouncing off my head rest. My first thought was of the dogs. I put the truck in park and jumped out to open the back and see them, but it was locked so a went back and turned off the truck and unlocked the doors, all the while trying to call Craig on his cell phone. I opened the back hatch and both dogs wagged their tails and seemed happy to see me. So I knew they were okay. This was while I was on the phone with the 911 operator.

Luckily we are all three okay. I'm having some neck and shoulder issues that I'm working with a chiropractor on, but that's about all. The dogs are doing good, running and playing just like normal. Shadow was definitely shaken up the first night, he slept on the bed touching my legs the entire night, which he never does. But he seems fine now.

The Blazer is at the dealership getting fixed. Craig is not happy with the idea of having a car that has been hit so hard and repaired. So once we settle with the insurance company and get the loss of value from them, we will probably sell it and get something else. He was very disappointed that they didn't total out the vehicle.

A quiet house.

I don't know what I'm going to do with myself this week.

We've had such a busy last two weeks. Craig's mom, Marilyn, came to visit us the weekend of the 15th, then went to Phx for work during the week and came back the following weekend. We had a great visit and she and I even got to do some shopping. During which I found a new store to frequent!!

After she left I started getting read for Thanksgiving. Originally Craig's dad and brother were going to join us, but his dad got a cold and didn't want to travel, but Dene still made it! My parents and my sister and her family also made the trip from Phx. We had a great day lots of food and smiles. There couldn't be a more perfect way to spend the holiday.

On Friday we went up the mountain to play in the snow with the dogs while Dene was here. We ended up driving down the mountain some where it hadn't snowed and found a back road. We took that until we were fairly certain nobody would come down the road and let the dogs out to run and play in the woods. They loved it!! And we loved that they were pooped the rest of the night.

Dene left to go to visit their dad on Saturday and Craig left today to go to Atlanta for work. Now its just me and the pups.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Picture Tag

I've been tagged by my friend Kelly to:

1) Choose the 4th picture folder on my computer
2) Choose the 4th picture
3) Explain the picture
4) Tag 4 other people

Oh, I so wish that I could've cheated on this, but it's just not in my DNA. The fourth folder on my computer is 2008 pics and this is the 4th, picture in that file. Yep, you guessed it, this is from when we were house training Piper. Craig thought it was funny that she moved while she was going and decided to snap a picture of it before I cleaned it up.

I tag: Laura, Amy C, Michelle W and Michelle T.

Here we go again...

It's official, I am now on birth control pills as the start to our next IVF.

With Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's the time is going to go by so fast. I'm actually really excited about it right now and very hopeful that a fresh transfer will give us the family we've waited so long for.

So close, yet still so far away.

I really thought this was going to be our lucky month. My cycle was 32 days long and I was about 18 days past ovulation. I was so bloated my jeans wouldn't zip and for the last two days I was having to go to the bathroom quite frequently. I took a home pregnancy test Monday morning and it came back negative. I was shocked, I was so sure this was it. Craig suggested I call the doctor, so I did and they wanted me to have a blood test done, which came back negative as well. Then the old hag showed her ugly face. I really hate it when mother nature plays tricks on me, and this one was especially cruel.

I do have good news though. We are all set for our next IVF in January. As of right now our egg retrieval is scheduled for January 24th. I start birth control pills on Sunday this week and will probably start my meds the week of Jan 5th. Slow and steady this time. We'll probably get fewer eggs, but they should be better quality and hopefully I won't hyper stimulate and end up in the hospital this time. Which means we'll be able to do the live transfer, not only a frozen one!! This is very exciting.... we could have a 2009 baby/babies!

Not Finally or For the First Time Proud, ALWAYS PROUD

One of my blogger friends, Amy, wrote this on her blog, and I couldn't have said it any better myself.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Although I am not happy with the outcome of this election I can say with all my heart I AM PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN. I am not "finally" proud, or "since the win" proud, or "for the first time in my adult life" proud...I am always proud to be an American. I have a real problem with people who only support their country and show patriotism when their favorite candidate has been elected.....I have seen ALOT of this and it's just sad. With that said, watching history in the making is pretty amazing. God Bless America!

I whole heartily agree with Amy. It is so frustrating to hear people say they have never been proud to be an America. When I was in grade school they taught us to be proud of our country, my parents reinforced it at home, and I still get goose bumps when I hear the song "God Bless the USA." I have always been proud to be an American and I always will be proud. Our country was laughed at in its beginning and now it is the greatest country in the world. How could you not be proud?

Whoopi Goldberg was on the Rachel Ray show today. She said she felt like she was an American but always walking around with a suitcase. Now since a black president was elected she finally feels like she can put the suitcase down, because now she finally belongs here. Her people are finally Americans. WHAT THE HECK?!?!?

How many other countries could a dyslexic woman born in Manhattan, drop out of high school, become a heroin addict, marry her drug counselor, divorce him, marry and divorce 2 other men, change her name to Whoopi because she farts too much, work as a bank teller, a bricklayer and a mortuary make-up artist AND STILL...

... Become the first woman to host the Academy Awards on her own, the second African American woman to win an Oscar, be one of only 7 African-American actresses to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination, be one of only 10 individuals (one of only 4 of which have been women) to win the quadruple crown of acting: The Oscar, Tony, Emmy and Grammy, have over 4 different action figures modeled after her, be part owner of a country store/kitchen, own her own production company and become a millionaire???? The people of this country made her who she is today, and it wasn't only the blacks who did it, it was all Americans.

Happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween to all the ghost, goblins and gouls out there.

Be safe and have a great Halloween!

VOTE!

I know that many people are pretty set in who they are going to vote for. I'm not here to change your mind. The reason for this blog is to encourage everyone to go out and vote.

I have heard many people say they do not want to vote for the "lesser of two evils." While I do agree that neither candidate suits my views completely, there is one who is closer to them than the other. That person is John McCain.

If you are undecided, choose the main thing you want to see for the future of our country and pick the candidate who suits that the best. If it doesn't work out for you, then choose the thing that you want to see the country head towards the least and don't vote for the candidate who will bring that about.

Whatever you do, just make sure you vote. We have fought too hard in this country to make every voice heard. Don't let all the blood shed and suffering of our ancestors count for nothing.

VOTE!

New Puppy Pics

It's hard to believe that we've had Piper in our family for 9 weeks now. In that short amount of time she has grown from a tiny little 5 pound baby to a 20 pound terror. She thinks the can do everything and anything she wants.

She has been going to puppy class, which is really just helping me to organize what order to teach her things in and to make sure I don't overwhelm her with teaching her everything at once.

It's even harder for me to believe that my baby boy, Shadow, turned 8 years old. Here are some more recent pictures of our doggies. Enjoy!

I have no idea what happened here, but this picture just cracks me up. It looks like he's laughing.
Here is a better picture of Shadow, at 8 years old. See the gray around his nose?

These pictures are flipping on me when I upload them to blogger. But here you can see that Piper is now tall enough to stand over Shadow when they are playing.

Ha, ha, ha. This one looks like Shadow is about to attack Piper and that she is running for her life. Really, they are just playing and she turned right around and jumped on his head.

Here is Piper puppy at 12 weeks playing with a stick she found in the back yard.

And here is our little miss at 15 weeks old. She just learned how to jump on the furniture. Something we did not teach her and that she is NOT allowed to do. Doesn't bother her one bit that she gets in trouble everytime she gets up there. She thinks it's fun to tease Shadow from up on the furniture and it's really fun to leap from the furniture onto Shadow.

Here is Piper chewing on one of Shadow's big bones. They are really heavy, but she carries them around the house and chews on them as if they were just her size.

Paint, Paint, Paint.

We have painted every wall in the main part of the house and the bathroom. Bye, bye white walls!! I thought we were pretty much done. Then Craig reminded me we hadn't done the office or spare room yet. I didn't realize he was planning on those being done now, too. I can't say that I blame him, I kind of want to get it all done as well.

So, I picked a color for the spare room. A very light yellow. We've also decided to paint the furniture in there white. It will look very pretty with our crib when we are blessed enough to need it, too. I'm very excited to get this done. The room will look so fresh and new.

I'll put up some pictures when he have it done.

It's been a while...

I'm surprised at how long ago my last post was. I'm very sorry to those of you who check in on a regular basis, how boring that must have been for you.

Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year. I'm so glad I actually get to enjoy it this year! We've had some cool nights and mornings that have been perfect for opening up the house and getting the air circulating. Plus I just love the fall foods, colors and smells!

I'm also very excited because we are going to have company for a good portion of November! Craig's mom has a company meeting in Phoenix and will be spending the weekend before it with us and the weekend after with us, too. Then his brother and father will be in town for Thanksgiving!

That has given us the kick in the pants we needed to get our house completely back in order from all the time we neglected it while we had the store. I've been tired of our white walls for quite some time now, and I was finally able to convince Craig that we needed to do something about them. So we've been doing a lot of painting. We haven't gotten to the two spare rooms our the master bathroom, but those will come in their time, too. It's amazing how much junk accumulates when you don't go through it as often as you should.

I also had an check up appointment with our fertility doctor. I was due for my annual blood work and for a liver function test from the medication I have been on. While I was there he also did an ultra sound to see how my ovaries and uterus are doing on the medications. I am happy to report that everything looks great and it looks like my body is actually functioning as it should. It's about time, if you ask me. Hopefully that will allow us to get some better eggs when we do our IVF next year.

I hope that everyone is enjoying the fall as much as I am!!

Hawaii Trip.

We had a BLAST while we were in Hawaii this year! It was a much needed vacation and one of the best most relaxing trips we've been on.

I definitely underestimated the value of going someplace we had already been. Even though it had been 4 years since our last trip, it was nice to already know where the basics were and the easiest roads to get around on.

We did a lot of snorkeling, visited a coffee plantation, Volcano National Park, a winery, did some shopping and beach hopping (including the black sand beach), but the best thing we did was a night time snorkel trip with Manta Rays. It was so amazing to watch these huge creatures glide through the water and turn just inches from you. They were really social and seemed to enjoy having the people around. Unfortunately none of our pictures turned out, but we did get a copy of the DVD that was made that night, we are both on it, Craig more so than me.

I have uploaded all the pictures to our shutterfly account, but haven't gotten the chance to add captions or do any editing. Feel free to check them out, if you do not have that address its: http://www.craigandreneeoconnor.shutterfly.com/ the password is: 091203

Here are a few to wet your appetite:

10 Wonderful Years.

No, we haven't been married for ten years, but five years ago we just happened to get married on the 5th anniversary of when we started dating. We chose September 12th because that is also Craig's Grandparents and Great-Grandparents anniversary. Here is one of the first pictures of us together (December 1998).

One year later we were still going strong. We had a great December! We were entering Y2K, and where did we decide to spend it??? The Happiest Place on Earth: Disney Land!

For our final spring break we took a trip to Cali! We wanted to go to Magic Mountain, but it wasn't spring break there, so it was closed. We ended up at Universal Studios instead.

Then came Graduation and our move to Tucson. It wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Grand Canyon while we were still in the northern part of the state. Wouldn't you know it, Craig tried to throw me over the rim!!

I was a semester behind, so I had to go back to NAU in the fall and returned to Tucson in December. That's when we got Shadow. He was my Birthday/Graduation/Christmas present.

In July 2002 we were engaged...

... and September 2003 we got married!

We've done quite a bit over the last five years. Trying to start a family, opening and closing a business, we even made time to take a few trips.

Kona Hawaii September 2004:

Scotland September 2005:Sedona April 2006:

New Jersey November 2006:

Kona Hawaii 2008:
I can't say that it has been the easiest road, but it has been filled with laughter, understanding, commitment and most of all love. I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world. I look forward to seeing what the next ten years bring.

Hawaii Here We Come!!!

I am so excited I could jump out of my skin! We haven't been on vacation in 4 years! To top it all off we will be celebrating our 5th Wedding Anniversary while we are away.

We leave Saturday morning at 8:30 and won't be back until the 14th. I have all my clothes packed, our snorkel gear, digital camera, video camera and our new underwater camera (thanks Heather for finding that :) ) The only thing left is getting Craig's clothes packed, which I'll help him with tonight, then we're off!

I'll be sure to post pictures and maybe even some video when we return. Have a great week everyone!

Introducing Piper!

We had a very interesting week last week. Besides having time to actually clean the house and get things put away, we adopted a puppy! Her name is Piper and she is 8 weeks old. She got to come home on Wednesday after she was spayed.

She loves Shadow and thinks his toys are much more fun to play with than hers. I love it that she talks when she plays.

She even tried to lay down next to him to take her nap. You can tell from the look on his face that he is not too happy about this. He moved as soon as Craig snapped the picture.

All in all she is doing really well. She already knows what sit means and she scratches on the door to go outside. Although she doesn't always go outside to potty just yet.

Her big brother doesn't quite know what to think of her. At first he just ran away from her, which was pretty funny considering there is a 100 pound difference in their weight right now. He's coming around now though. He will play with her in little stints. Sometimes is scares her a little and she just lays down and watches him. I guess she is learning not to bite off more than you can chew.

Just for comparison, here is a picture of Shadow at about 12 weeks.

Our first REAL weekend!

This past weekend was our first 2 day weekend! Craig actually had Friday off, but we spent that doing deliveries and then I went out with the girls for dinner and a movie that night.

It was so nice not having to be anywhere by any certain time on Saturday. We spent the entire weekend watching the Olympics and cleaning up around the house.

We joined a new gym that has recently opened near our house. Craig is trilled to be able to go to the gym on a regular basis again, especially after not being able to go for so long. I never really enjoyed going, but I know now that I need to. It's the only way to keep away the diabetes that can come with PCOS. Having the knowledge somehow makes it easier.

Shadow has really enjoyed having someone at home to play with him all day long, too. Quite often I will end up with a ball in my lap while working on the computer or a wet arm from him licking my arm to get my attention. He has decided that he prefers his dinner between 5 and 6 instead of between 8 and 9 like he was getting when we had the store. Funny how quickly he can go back to his regular time after eating late for two years.

No news yet on the job front, but I am not pushing it. I still have a little bit of work to do to finalize out the books for the store. Then we will be in Hawaii for a week. I figure I can start the hunt when we get back. Craig is still working on getting me in at Raytheon. That would be ideal for both of us.

I would say we are adjusting back to a "normal" life quite nicely.

What's been going on?

The past three weeks have been a whirlwind. We decided to close our store and needed to move everything out by the 1st of the month. It was a very long and crazy week for everyone involved. Lots of sore and tired bodies, but we got it done. There is still a lot of paperwork to be done, which I am working on a little bit day by day. My goal is to have the majority of it done this week.

It is amazing how I was able to work so many hours for 2 years and only feel a little worn out, yet now that I am home just working on paperwork I am BEAT. Craig said he is feeling the same way. It seems as though the last two years is finally catching up with us.

We are still going on our Hawaii trip. We leave on September 6th, that's just 3 weeks away!! I thought I was going to be able to just pack and go, but now it seems I will have to do some shopping before we go. My 5 year old swim suite is starting to unravel on the bottoms and my best two bras gave out. One of them I might be able to salvage with new straps. So I will have to go shopping for a new swim suit and new bra both of which are my least favorite things to shop for. Why couldn't it have been my shoes that gave out? I love shopping for shoes!

Since I am now technically unemployed I am also looking for a job. Craig has given out my resume at work for a position that we both feel I would be a good fit for. Hopefully I will hear back from them soon. If I don't hear from them by the time we leave for Hawaii, I will have to hit the job search a little harder when we get back.

That is about all that is going on with us right now. Just trying to catch back up with having a real life again. It's an interesting transition, but one that we are both ready for.

New Proceedure

So this password thing didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to. It seems everyone needs to have their own log in and password.

Sorry for the hassel and THANK YOU for creating an account so you can continue to follow along with us!