Good news!

So in case you haven't heard the news yet..... I'm pregnant! I'll be 5 weeks tomorrow. We are really excited.... lol.... and terrified. :-) I have a doctor's appointment on January 13th with my first ultrasound so we are really excited about that. I tested positive on my pregnancy test when I was just 3 weeks, 1 day along..... which is really early. So I have this suspicion in the back of my mind as to whether or not I may be carrying twins. We'll find out on the 13th!

So in case you were wondering what we were going to do with the old guest bedroom.... well it will be the nursery!

Cookie Exchange

Last night's cookie exchange was so much fun! We had so many cookies!!! Yum!!! Here's our group picture and a picture of all the cookies to exchange.

Guest Bedroom

The guest bedroom is finally all put together! I had the bed repaired and I bought new sheets and curtains. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the curtains are striped, much like the decorative pillow in the middle of the bed. I also painted a little black table I had so that it matches the room. Again, you can't see it, but it's just on the other side of the bed.

Changes, changes

We bought a little bistro table and chairs for our "dining room". Isn't it cute?



Here's the green room all emptied out. We are making the old office the new guest bedroom.
Here's the old office. Looks different without the brown walls and ceiling, doesn't it?!

The fireplace is complete!

The fireplace is complete! We decided to forego the mantle as our space is limited and we didn't want a big mantle jutting out. Also, you can see that the step has been stained and sealed. Did I mention that our cats LOVE the fireplace?!

Fireplace update!!!

The stone is up! The wall is painted! The step is laid! The only things left are the mantle (should we or shouldn't we?); and the step needs to be stained and sealed.

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving down in Dallas. We made the 12.5 hour drive on Wednesday and came back on Saturday. It was so good to see everyone, especially Abigail. She can say my name now.... only it comes out as, "Ware-wah". We had a great Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, then got up at 3:45 to do our obligatory Black Friday shopping. We didn't buy anything big this year, but I got almost all of the shopping done. I have 19 nieces and nephews to buy for, you know!!! On Saturday we did some family photos and then headed home... getting in at 12:30am on Sunday morning. Phew!

Fire! Fire!

The fireplace is on. It's so beautiful! Of course the stone work is not complete and the wall hasn't been painted.... but the fire is on! I turned some Christmas music on tonight and with the fireplace going it really felt like Christmas time. Sigh....

Drywall is Up!

The first round of inspections is complete and the drywall is up! Yah!

Fireplace Construction!!!

Construction on our fireplace has begun!!! We are so excited. Here is the before picture....
And here is the picture of the fireplace with the frame for the walls. It's a 3 sided fireplace... we are so excited about it!

Las Vegas

Finally I have some pics up from our Las Vegas trip. We had a great time entertaining ourselves all weekend with the hope of winning big! Although we didn't win, we had a blast and we can't wait for our next Vegas trip! Here we are on Halloween night. Our costumes were very tame compared to what else was out there:

Sunday Football Day!!!! We staked out a great spot in the Bellagio sports lounge area. Here we are decked out in our Broncos jerseys:
Did I mention I was serenaded by Elvis?

October Snow!

So far we have about 20" of snow in our part of Highlands Ranch! And it's supposed to snow all day still! Here's me standing in our front yard:


And here I am flopping back into the snow. Look closely and you can see part of my closed eye and my eyebrow. I was telling Daniel to hurry up and take the photo because my face got buried in the snow!
Here's Daniel sitting on the bench in our backyard.
We also let the cats explore the winter wonderland. O'Malley was smart about it and wanted back in. Here he is getting stuck just before he turned around and came back in the house:

Here's Tiger checking out the bench:
However, Tiger decided a little snow wasn't going to stop him from escaping and he went bounding through the snow, making a bee line for the fence. Daniel had to maneuver quickly to catch him before he escaped. In the process he lost his shoe. Ooops.

Changes

Looking ahead to the next few months, I'm very excited about announcing some changes to my photography business. I think that these changes will offer more of what many clients want, without a lot of frill and extras that they don't want. I'm still trying to hatch out all the details, but stay tuned to some very exciting changes coming to Remember this moment Photography!

Getting on...

Things are finally normalizing around here. My headache is still ever present, but it seems to be lessening each day. One of these days, I just won't feel it anymore. Another sign of improvement is that I reduced the number of pillows I sleep with from 12 to 5. No kidding! I have to sleep in an inclined position so that I don't wake with a pounding headache. So I still sleep at an inclined position, just less of one. It's a wonder that Daniel and our 3 cats were able to squeeze onto the bed at all with me and my 12 pillows!

It's difficult to "take it easy" as my doctor has told me. I'm feeling a lot better and wanting to throw myself back into the thick of things, but I have to remind myself that I have unseen incisions in my head that are not fully healed yet. Gotta give it more time.

It's been a rough ride....

Okay, I'm ready for the roller coaster ride to be over with. The first couple of days home from the hospital seemed pretty good. I had a mild headache, but was coping well, all things considered. Then it seemed like I took two steps backwards. For the next couple of days I was in severe pain and discomfort and no amount of pain medicine seemed to help. I just tried to get through each hour. Today has shown improvement once again. Rather than feeling like my entire head is going to explode, I have a localized aching straight back between my eyes (the sight of my pituitary, and internal incisions).

My parents left today as well. I was sad to see them go. They have been a tremendous help and support to Daniel and I: cooking meals, cleaning, doing laundry, and getting me any little thing I needed. My sister was such a huge help when she was here as well. She even prepared meals and froze them so that we won't have to go without home cookin' while I recuperate. Thanks so much you guys! We couldn't have gotten through this without you!

Surviving....

That's what it's felt like the last couple of days.... surviving. The headaches have been worse and my days yesterday and today were pretty much spent in bed. My parents decided to stay in town an extra day to help take care of me. Thank goodness for them. Unfortunately though, they leave tomorrow. :-(

Hopefully the next two days will be better than the last two.

Back home...

I'm back at home now. Yah! Sunday night was a little rough, but last night I slept 8 hours straight in my own bed at home. There's nothing like being in your own bed. Of course my cats were all curled up around me, surrounding me with their furry love and affection. Still have a mild headache.... and probably will for a couple more weeks. But each day seems a little better than the last. I'm all congested because of the surgery and I absolutely am not allowed to blow my nose for 4 weeks! Yikes. Back to bed now for me.

Surgery

Surgery is over! Upon awaking in the recovery room, my first thoughts were, "Why did I do this?" I was in a lot of pain and was very uncomfortable. Not to mention that a room in Neuro ICU was not yet available to me and so I had to spend about 6 hours in the recovery area... which was very loud, noisy, busy, and bright. Not good things for someone with a bad headache. I finally got moved to ICU and was feeling better, albeit tired. Today has been better still. I still have a headache, and am tired from lack of sleep, but I got moved out of ICU to a regular room. I have been up and about walking, and even got a shower. Hopefully I will get to go home tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone for all your support during this time.

Back in the USA!

I hope that my last post didn't give the impression that we didn't do anything in London because it was too expensive. We spent all day long every day we were there, going from sight to sight. We got pictures of all the famous landmarks, and had we actually waited in line for any of them, we wouldn't have been able to see everything. We thought it best to do an overview tour for our first trip to London. Someday when we go back we will go inside some of the famous places.

Among other things, we saw Big Ben, Tower and London Bridges, The London Eye, The London Tower, St. Paul's Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, The British Museum, The Natural History Museum, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, The National Gallery ..... and many more sights. We went in the British Museum and got an upclose look at the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Elgin Marbles. We went through the National Gallery and saw a number of famous pieces by the likes of Monet, Raphael, and Van Gogh. We saw the musical Blood Brothers the first night we were there, and Billy Elliot the second night. Both were fantastic. We also did a river cruise on the Thames, and made a stop at King's Cross Rail Station (the site of platform 9 3/4 in the Harry Potter movies).

On the flight home, Daniel snagged us some Business class seats with his Premier United membership. Holy smokes! We could recline our seats until they were completely flat. We had so much space, we felt guilty. Not to mention we were treated like royalty by the flight attendants.

On my way to Hogwart's:

Tower Bridge:

Check out this link about our seats on the United flight. After clicking on the link, click on "Lie flat comfort in Business" on the left hand side to view what our seats looked like. suitedreams.united.com

All in all, we had a wonderful time in Great Britain!

London

Me and Big Ben!
That's Buckingham Palace behind us,... in case you weren't sure:



We saw the changing of the guard yesterday at Buckingham Palace. I gotta say, I was a little disappointed. Partly because there were thousands of people in one location, and partly because the guards did a whole lot of standing around. The video captures well the massive crowd. We were in the middle of it, with thousands more behind us. I held the camera up above my head to film that clip!

Also, London is extremely expensive! Rather than dish out a few hundred dollars to go into the famous buildings, we have opted instead to take pictures of the outsides, and spend our money seeing some London shows. Last night we saw Blood Brothers and thoroughly enjoyed it! We're hoping to snag some tickets tonight for Billy Elliot the musical.

York

York is such an interesting city! Here's a brief history:

AD 71, it was a Roman provincial capital, (northernmost in the empire). AD 306, Constantine was proclaimed emperor here. Rome abandoned England in the fifth century, and the Vikings took it over a few centuries later. A few centuries after them, the Normans destroyed then rebuilt the city, building a city wall on top of the 1000 year old Roman wall foundation. This wall that surrounds the city is over 3 miles long and is unique because it was not destroyed in the 1800's the way many of the medieval city walls were throughout the UK.

Here's a picture of the York Minster. It's bigger than Notre Dame! (Sorry it's hard to see. It's in the middle of this compact city and there's just no good angle!)

Here's a picture of us on the wall I mentioned.

Other fun facts we've learned on our journey here:

1. Restaurants don't know what Ranch dressing is.
2. Foreigners (non native English speakers) don't know that we're American. They can't tell our accents from local English apparently.
3. Breakfast comes with pork and beans.
4. Bacon is really Canadian bacon. So if you order a bacon cheeseburger, you will get a cheeseburger with some ham on it.
5. "Mushy peas" is actually on the menu. It looks like guacamole.

Up to Scotland and back....

What a fantastic trip this is turning out to be! Every couple of days we go to a new city to explore new sights. We are having a blast! After spending some time in Bath, we explored The Cotswolds, a region of villages from the medieval era. Then we moved on to Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, and a completely Renaissance city. We took a bus all around the town to see Shakespearean sights and finished the evening by seeing “Julius Caesar” by the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was incredible! We then took a train up to Edinburgh, Scotland. We saw Edinburgh Castle, as well as The Britannia, the royal family’s yacht (decommissioned in 1997). We visited the National Museum of Scotland, and hiked up a dormant volcano to get a view of the entire city and coastline, including the North Sea. Now it’s off to York.

In the UK

We arrived in the UK on Friday night and spent the first two nights in Bath. We have had a lovely time so far and have done so much already. We have already taken about a million pictures and what you see here represents just a few of the sights that we saw on Saturday. Sorry this is brief, but it’s late here and we’re exhausted! In one day we toured Stonehenge, cute little country villages, the Roman Baths in Bath, had our first English tea time, and took a dip in the modern day thermal spa. Phew! Stay tuned for more of our adventures!

Garden

Here are some pics from my garden. My pea plants have been producing lots of peas for me and we have enjoyed them with dinner numerous nights this last week. I had to peel back the bird netting because they were getting so tall.
Here's my wisteria vine in bloom:
And here's me with my lilies. Check out this crazy tall one!