Here we go again! (4 weeks)

I don't think it's any secret that Trevor and I miscarried last June (2011).  I was carrying twins and to those of you who didn't know, sorry you're reading it here.  It's sad, always will be, but we're doing okay.  Actually...we're doing great!  We're already onto round two!

Here's how it's gone so far... Oh, and I might add, we'll be putting all the mushy gushy pregnancy stuff here, so proceed at your own risk :)  I realize not everyone thinks that stuff is cool so I'll mostly be keeping it off my Facebook and the other blog.

Trevor got home on May 4, 2012, a couple days too late to give this baby stuff a try...or so we thought.  We literally got pregnant the day he got home.  This past week, my period wasn't coming, but I didn't feel any different and took a test (Dollar Tree tests are the best by the way-seriously, plus they're cheap!) and it was negative.  Still no period, took another test-negative.  Yesterday Trevor and I went to Jon & Moe's for their groom's dinner.  Trevor stayed up there and is golfing with Jon right now.  On the way home I thought to myself, just take another test, who cares they're only $1.  So I did.  Now I've gotten pretty good at creating lines where they aren't, but this was no hallucination.  I am pregnant.  I called Trevor and told him I had a question and I didn't want Jon or Moe to hear his answer so he moved to another room.  Then I just told him.  This is all very surreal because we thought we had missed the chance this month.  So I took a photo of the test which makes the faint line even harder to see and sent it to him.  Three photos to be exact.  No response.  I'm in panic mode.  So, I text it to Tosha who has become a pretty good line inspector herself.  She confirmed it-two lines!  Then Trevor responded and agreed (I thought for sure he would say he didn't see it).  Trevor even asked Jon (a pretty logical dude and an OB-GYN at that) and he saw two lines, too.  WOW.  This is happening.

So, for fun, I took another one this morning and it was just a tad darker.  For those of you who have never tried to get pregnant, peeing on a stick may become a hobby (especially at only $1 a pop) when your time comes.  I did the math and I'm exactly 4 weeks today.  I never knew how pregnancy was actually calculated until I was pregnant myself.  Mini lesson: day 1=the first day of your period, approx day 14 or 2 weeks=ovulation and by the time you can actually take a test and find out you're pregnant you're about 4 weeks along.

Naturally, with everything we've been through, I'm nervous!  But I already feel different this time around (which may or may not mean a darn thing), so I'm just letting myself be excited about it all.  No symptoms so far (in the 10 hours I've known haha) other than some very minor cramping.  And, yes, that's normal.  I already called to get a referral to the OB we had last time because she was super amazing all around.  My next big pregnancy task is figuring out how to hide not drinking at Jon and Moe's wedding tonight and Trevor's welcome home party tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

-A

Our First Garden.

This is our third spring in this house and we finally got around to planting a garden.  One of the things I loved most about this house is it already had a big raised garden.  The first spring I think we just got overwhelmed with everything else to do we skipped it.  Last year Trevor had just left on his deployment and I was pregnant and tired and sick and downright miserable, so I skipped it.  This year-no excuses.  I got $50 in Chamber dollars from our Board of Directors at work for Staff Appreciation and Trevor and I decided to just spend it all at Turtle Creek.  

First we picked out some flowers for the front of the house.  We got a little excited about the garden so we actually forgot to get flowers for the hanging baskets.  I'll have to go back for more.

Now onto the real planting, fruits and veggies.  We got a nice assortment of tomatoes (lots!), kohlrabi (lots!), bell peppers (lots!), red onions, eggplant, broccoli, strawberries, cantaloupe, summer squash and lettuce.  Trevor worked his butt off tilling on Monday so we just had the easy part to do tonight.  I let Trevor plan out the arrangement since he's a tad pickier about his straight, even lines and we got to work. 

 Arranging the rows.

We gave the garden plenty of water and now we wait!

P.S.  For those of you wondering, we haven't had a ground beef/frying pan argument yet, not even about how to plant a garden ;)

Treasure.

Is this post called Treasure because we have the best friends on the planet and we just treasure them so much?  Actually, no.  I mean, we do, totally do, but this post is called Treasure because that's what our friends' daughter has always called Trevor and it's so darn cute.  But let's go back to Thursday first...

This has been an awesome week off work and I love spending time with Trevor, but it's probably not the best idea, at least for us, to go from spending a year apart to being together 24/7 for 10 days.  And hey, Trevor hasn't really had any alone time in a year and that could make a person crazy.  So, I made use of my time off work and went to visit Angie.

Angie just moved in with an awesome couple and her roommates have two dogs.  A nine-week-old Golden Retriever and a three-year-old Great Dane.  He's huge but very sweet.  Angie and Collin were showing me around the house and when I looked out Collin's window all I saw was a big open field.  I asked Collin if he ever saw animals out there ("yes") and as I was looking around I saw one myself.  I said "Ooh, like horses??"  Nope, that was just the Great Dane.  We all had a good laugh.

Let's be honest though, he's gigantic!

Angie had two softball games so I went along to watch.  I'd say they're more of a "play to have fun" team, which is great because they lost their first game 35-0.  But everyone did have fun!

It was a good time.  Trevor ended up finishing the garage shelving then golfing with his dad and a few other guys-said that was a good time, too.

On my way home, I set out on a horribly dreadful shopping experience to try to find some baseball pants for Trevor.  Apparently I have no luck shopping for anything.  Shortly after getting home, Trevor and I were off to visit some friends, the ones whose daughter calls Trevor Treasure.  Nick and Trevor went to school together, although briefly, and will forever talk about the "good old days."  They wound up deployed at the same time (to different places) and Nick got Trevor started on fabulous slippers.  And I mean fabulous, the most girly pink with jewels with Princess written on them fabulous.  Nick married Amy and over the last few years we've gotten together every so often.  Amy has a blog and hers is what got me convinced I should just start one already.  They're both awesome-the kind of friends where you end up asking yourself why don't we do this more often? after spending time with them.  They made us a delicious supper, and we all just talked and laughed and the kids played and danced and read books.

Saturday was more fun with friends.  We had John, Mari and their girls over for more fun with friends we should definitely see more often.  Rowdy got lots of attention and loved every minute of it.  

I even told Trevor I didn't want to stay up too late since getting up early and going back to work Monday will be rough.  So, naturally we were up til 4am playing our favorite games (Catch Phrase, Mad Gab, Taboo and Apples to Apples to be specific).  

 

We mix and matched teams and it was an even competition no matter who was with whom.  Lots of fun had by all!  So, yeah, we do treasure our friends who are the best friends on the planet.

Staycation.

We're only half way through the week and it's already been an awesome one.  Yesterday, Trevor and I went grocery shopping.  We also got some water softener salt-I've gotten so sick of loading that and carrying it into the house it's nice to have a second set of [stronger] hands!  We laid around for a while then Trevor got to work on some garage storage.  It's not so much that we have a "honey-do" list, but more a "reorganize the whole house" list and that starts with getting stuff out of our spare rooms and into the garage.  Lucky for me I married a man who can build this kind of stuff on his own.

Stef and Tyson had us over for dinner last night.  We all filled our bellies (like, Thanksgiving full) and had lots of fun with the kiddos.  I must say, I think we lucked out when they decided to move to town.  We're looking forward to many summer get-togethers!  

Hadlee built tunnels and towers with her Legos, made us tea, and put her baby to sleep.

Porter was all over the place!

*******

Today has been a very productive day.  I got some ribs going in the crock pot this morning then Trevor and I made homemade beef jerky.  It's in the dehydrator still and should be done any minute.  I sent this to him when he was in Kuwait and always wanted to keep it all to myself, so I thought we should make some now that we can actually share it. 

 These shelves are going to be pretty sturdy.

While Trevor was hard at work outside, I got a lot done inside.  Randy, our neighbor, stopped by for a visit, too.  We just enjoyed our rib dinner, time for a relaxing night at home.  I keep wondering if this is what it would feel like to be retired-we're getting so much done!

Well folks, that's been the excitement of our staycation thus far!

-A

First Weekend Home.

It's been a few days now and it's already starting to feel like a blur.  After all the excitement of Friday, we had a really nice weekend.  

Saturday we didn't do much at all.  It was rainy much of the day so we sat around all morning.  Trevor made us scrambled eggs with toast and fruit for breakfast...and cleaned up.  Once the rain stopped, Trevor took Rowdy for a run.  

The shrimp truck was in town again so that made dinner plans easy.  We did FaceTime with Adam while preparing the shrimp.  We boiled some and did some scampi-style, delicious!  Again, Trevor cleaned up.  I went downstairs to change loads of laundry and fold clothes, came back up and the dishes were done-it's like magic having two people in a household!  Then we finished off the evening with some beers and a movie-perfect day!

Sunday we were ready to visit some people so our first stop was Trevor's mom and dad's.  We brought Rowdy and stopped at the dog park in Faribault on the way.  Trevor got to see their new living room set up (TV, couch, entertainment center)-big change from last time he was there.  Carson tired Rowdy out!

Christy stopped for some Chinese food and we all ate way too much.  Since we were in the area, we went to visit Adam, Parker and Elliot (Jamie was working).  The boys had fun chasing Rowdy around the house.  Trevor spent much of the last year playing ping-pong with any free time he had, so Adam challenged him to a game on their table.  I honestly couldn't tell you who won (can you tell I'm not the competitive type?).  It was getting late and we wanted to get back in time to stop at Dairy Queen so we took off.  Trevor would splurge on desserts on Sundays in Kuwait so much he started calling it "Dessert Sunday," except at first he accidentally told me (via email) "Desert Sunday."  Ironic since that's where he was, so the name has stuck.

I took the week off work, so as far as I'm concerned today is still the weekend.  Trevor needed new softball cleats for his game tonight, so we went to Rochester for some shopping.  We stopped by the Guest House to say hi to Lynn before meeting Mike at Roscoe's for lunch...to find out they're not open on Mondays, so we went to Newt's instead for some delicious burgers.  We found out the mall does not carry cleats, or running shoes in my size (I have big feet!), so that was kind of a bust.  Other than the fact that Trevor (a different Trevor who deployed with my husband) and his brother, Trent, and girlfriend, Kristy, were at the mall too so we stopped to talk to them for a bit.  We eventually found some cleats and awesome running shoes in my size, headed home, and I napped while Trevor finally unpacked his bags.  Looks like he's staying!

Now Trevor is at softball (won the first game, by the way) and I'm writing this after a nice, long walk with Rowdy.  So far, life is good!  It's all an adjustment, but good.  I'm getting used to hearing Trevor yell, "Um.. new normal question?" when he discovers something I've changed in the house (where we keep the towels or dental floss, for example).  Like we said in the reintegration post, there's really no such thing as "back to normal," but rather we have to find our new normal.  It's also become quite apparent neither of us is used to putting the toilet seat down :)  At some of the workshops we've attended they pointed out how, in some ways, deployed soldiers have no decisions to make (they don't decide what to eat, when to eat, what to wear, where to go or when to go there, etc.) and it may be a slow transition for them with many decisions to make at home.  It's interesting to watch Trevor choose what to wear, what to have for breakfast, things I don't even think twice about deciding, but that he is getting used to deciding all over again.  But, like I said, it really has been a great few days so far and I still have a week off work.  We're looking forward to some quiet time together as well as spending time with friends, and he sure came home at the perfect time weather-wise.

-A