One big fat catch up post. Really...it's big and fat.

So it's been awhile....it's been a long while. I'm must admit I'm a slacker. Actually I feel like it's been a fairly busy year thus far and has no hopes of slowing down anytime soon!

December....

A good month. I saw Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds for the first time in Vegas! Good, good times. We drove up on Friday and drove back Sunday, but it was well worth the short trip. I was sick the way home so that really sucked. I tried my hardest to not pull over to throw up, but I just couldn't do it. Just outside of Wickenburg I gave in. I don't know why I didn't want to. I felt like it'd be embarrassing...as if all the cars speeding by at 80 mph were going to know who I was. Silly me. I'm just glad I was sick on the drive home and not during the shows! Heaven knows if I was I would've been in my seat with a barf bucket...so really the people who were sitting next to me ought be thankful.

Christmas was good. The Fam went on Globes version of the Polar Express. It was fun! Since I have no children, when it comes to events like this, I tend to adopt a few from my siblings. Mandy couldn't make it so Dustin and I took up Jace and Ella. They were so excited and I think Jace talked the whole way up and Ella sang. Jace of course, loves everyone. Ella used to hate everyone but her and I are "fwends" now. Ella was so afraid of Santa but she put on her brave face when he came by. She tried her hardest and succeeded at not crying when he stopped to say hi.

BFF's

Also BFF's

Jos was not feeling the train. She didn't enjoy the ride much.

January...

The best month ever!! Ok, I'm not sure about "best month ever" but at least for far this year :) hehe.

First a trip to the snow. This really isn't the highlight. I actually don't love a trip to the snow...only ever so often. Once a year is good enough for me. Again, no children of my own so this post shall highlight Stacey's Family.

Off for a lover's ride.

What Jos did the entire time.

Psycho!!

What Rhett and Dustin did the entire time.

Sugar fell off the sled.

Ok so Rhett got out once or twice to play in the snow.

Nashville...

The 2nd weekend my parents and I went to a photography convention in Nashville. Of course, when we went It was freezing! 20 degrees and snowing! It never snows there, but hey what else can I expect? We all know if I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. Thank goodness the entire convention was inside one building so we only left a few times to go eat.

San Francisco...

Now to the good part of January. Last summer Erin, Jenni, Luci and I got togther and decided we should go on a "turning 30" trip. (actually I think it was Erin's idea originally) Anyway, our original destination was a simple one...Las Vegas. We just planned on staying off the strip and getting a nice resort to relax at and play. Then Southwest had a deal on flights so in a short last minute decision we decided to book to San Francisco! YAY! I had never been there so I was super excited. We left on a Thursday and flew back on Sunday. Getting there turned out to be a challenge. The weather was not on our side. Good old dry AZ decided to have a huge storm the day we were flying out. Jenni and I left early and it pored on us the whole way up. At about 8:00 Luci called and said her flight from Canada was cancelled. She was trying to get on another flight. Our flight was scheduled for 10:00ish...it didn't leave until 11:00ish. Then when we got to San Fran the winds were so high we had to circle in the air for 45 mins or so. Luckily we finally landed. Also luckily Luci got on another flight. She seriously got the last seat on the plane. Once we finally got there, it was such a pleasure traveling with these ladies and we had a blast! We did all we could in a few days. My favorite was going out to Alcatraz. They seriously have the best audio tour and I'm so not an audio tour fan. We were out there at night so it was kind of creepy! My other favorite was the cab ride after Wicked (yes we went to Wicked...again). This guy was being awfully crazy and we were super giggly. I'm sure he thought we were drunk. We get to the hotel and he says "that just made my night" haha. So funny. On the way to the airport we were already talking about what to do for 40!! I can't wait!

On the Golden Gate Bridge!

"Full House" houses!

Locked away for good!!! Oh we're bad criminals.

This guy jumped from behind his branches and Luci screamed like a little girl! It was pretty much hilarious.

I thought the moss wall was cool.

It rained...A lot.

So this is on Lombard street (That one curvy one) and I think I had to stop 50 times to make it to the top. It was so steep. I need to start working out again.

Waiting for Luci at the airport after a LONG day of travel.

Our Sign we made for Luci so she could find us. The "real" people with signs didn't find us too funny. We thought we were hilarious.

Februrary...

Oh February...the bad, the good. My wonderful, selfless, best example in the world, Grandpa Green passed away. Such a sad thing, but what a great week. He wasn't doing so well so they took him to the hospital. They were certain he was going so my mom and her brothers decided to take him home so he could pass on there, with family. They brought him home on a Wednesday. My sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles...everyone was at the house nightly. It was so much fun to be together. He held on until Friday around 10:15, he finally let go. His room was filled with family and we all cried...and even laughed a little. The entire week was full of tears and laughter, but what good times brought on by sadness! Our cousin Kate was down for quite awhile and I wanted to keep her here. We spent the following week practicing for a song the grandaughters were going to sing at the service. I practiced so hard for that song. Trisha broke the parts down so we could listen to them on our ipods and I did...daily. I was so ready until go time...I got through the first section and lost it. Oh my gosh I am awful!! Then of course it's like dominos. Once one goes, everyone else usually does. Luckily Mandy was the only one who took my bait. I did get it together to finish off...kind of :) Good thing Stacey's a strong Alto. Anyway, I am a lucky gal to have had a fabulous grandpa for so many years.

Time to Bust out the big guns....

So admist all of this, of course, is our constant attempts to have a child. We did our 4th IUI in December. Of course, it didn't work. I was really betting a lot on this one. Everything seemed lined up. The fibroid was gone, the meds were working good, my body was responding well, the little swimmers were good...everything just seemed right. I was so certain. I was so wrong! What crap!! I mean really!! What the hell!?! It hit me pretty hard, but I got over it...I have no other option really :)

I met with my Dr. again and he told me so far I'm unexplained and he has no clue why I'm not working. Our last option to see if there was something wrong was for me to have another surgical procedure, a laprascopy to check for adhesions, endemetriosos and to see if I healed properly from the incision to my uterus we did last time. I did that a month or so ago and it turned up nothing. I'm an officially diagnosed as "Unexplained Infertility" There is nothing that says I shouldn't be in working order. So what do we do now? We break out the big guns. We are moving on to In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF). This is some serious business. The cost of the procedure is about 15x what an IUI is and that doesn't include any drugs or "extra's" that are available to do. Basically I could purchase a decent vehicle...instead I'm taking a chance that I might get a child instead. It's the chance part that sucks. There are obviously no guarantees, especially since we don't even have a reason for why I don't work.

We decided to do an option they call a "Cost Containment Plan" That means we pay a flat rate (drugs & extras not included) and within one year we can do 3 fresh IVF tries and the following year we can use our frozen embryo's. In each "Fresh" try he will retrieve all the matured follicles from me (which could be up to 15 he thinks.) All of those will be fertilized in the dish. Some will mature properly there and some won't. We take the embryo's that look like the very best and use a couple of them right away. The rest that have continued to develop properly, we freeze. Anytime we go through the process of retrieving the follicles and growing the embryo's is considered fresh and has a higher chance of implantation. So we can do 3 of those in one year if needed. If that doesn't work after the first year, we can work off everything we have frozen. The chances with frozen working do drop and often some don't thaw properly so some embryo's are lost. If it works on the first try, sure we over pay by a few thousand dollars. If it doesn't work then we save a lot of thousand dollars on multiple tries. I'm not very confident the first time will work so I thought this was the better option.

I'm not quite sure when we'll start. The funds have got to be aligned and as of now we only have access (through an old line of credit I opened when I got divorced) to about 60% of what we'll need. I am anxious to get started, but of course I don't want to get too excited thinking that it's going to work. I've done that all to often.