weekend with the boys

For Shell's birthday, we got her a spa package and planned back in March to take the boys for an entire weekend. We thought it would be a better gift than pretty much anything else and she is such a busy bee that we knew some downtime would be welcomed. So this past weekend was the first time that we could fit it in with my travel schedule and Josh's work schedule. We got the boys on Friday night and had them until after church on Sunday. We had so much fun, but we definitely both zonked after church!! We were worn out!!!

So Luke and Kowe were excited for some visitors and they decided they needed to get groomed. Here is Lukey and as you can tell, he's a little unsure of what to expect.

Kowe Sue wasn't worried at all. She was ready to play and listened to the rules well. Aren't her little bows cute? Yeah, they only lasted about two hours...

So Friday night, I made homemade chocolate chip pancakes and after a trip to the neighborhood park, we built a tent for Griff and I to sleep in. They had a lot of fun building it with Uncle Josh.

Griff in the finished product.

We love our Uncle Josh!! The boys love playing with him. Things haven't changed, we still believe that I will be the disciplinarian in this family and Josh will be the fun one. Lucky me. That's okay though, it's still fun to see how much they adore him.

But I got to be the fun one while Josh helped some friends move on Saturday. I took the boys to the zoo to see the animals and to the park to play. It was pretty cold so we just visited for a bit, but Griff was sure to give us our fill of the neighborhood park TWO more times that day. He loves it.

Here is Linc with a goat. There were babies there who were born 4 days earlier and he loooved them. He laughed and laughed!

Then Griff wanted to inspect the sleeper.

And we got to pet the tiny pony. Just their size!

We (and by we, I mean Josh, me and the dogs...not the boys!) were exhausted by the end of the day! We had such a full day of playing and the Kowe was up all night worrying about Linc who was in the office in his pack & play, so she didn't get much sleep. But she was such a cute little mommy. Then Saturday night, she slept with Griff and I in the tent and she was SO good. She literally did not move from this position ALL night. And Griff had his arm around her for hours. Normally she is a little grumpy when she's in bed and doesn't like to be moved or jostled, but let me tell you that he is a BEDHOG and he wollers, but Kowe didn't mind one bit. It made us feel really good about the fact that we might someday have a permanent sleeping buddy for her.

We can't wait until we get them again! I'm sure Shell and Dan will welcome it, too!!

Happy Birthday Luke!

Lukey turned 2 on Friday!! Here are some pictures of his birthday celebration... Sweet boy to share his treats with his sister! I don't think she'd do the same.


He's so sweet.

Black Tie Dinner

CFS (the College at Purdue that I work for) is home to the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, which, if I might add, is ranked #1 in the nation. They have an annual Black Tie Dinner which is an entirely student run event, so that is how we spent our Saturday evening. This year's dinner was the 10th anniversary and we sat with one of the students who served on the board for the first 2, which was pretty neat. Let me just tell you that these kids did AMAZING things! I don't know as if I've ever been to such a fancy dinner.

The service was like a dance as they served in sync and the food was seriously out of this world! We ate and drank our little hearts out. We learned that we both like Rack of Lamb (whoduthunkit!) and I love Lobster Bisque...surprise!! They had a different wine pairing with each course, and add to that the several drinks we had at the cocktail hour, and let's just say that we felt good! I am going to get a menu from one of the students because we loved all of the wine, so maybe I'll post that once I get it.

It was really fun to get all dressed up. Mostly because I got to see this handsome guy all snazzied up!!...

This is my coworker, Wendi. One of my favorite people on earth. I somehow didn't get a picture when we took our office staff picture, but maybe I'll get it from one of the other girls. So Lora and Denise aren't pictured.
At then end of the dinner. Note that you can see a smidge of my tasty dessert!
Here is a picture of the centerpieces. The students went with a "Green" theme this year and the Horticulture Dept. helped them grow their own grass. They even sent some invites out in small pots of grass. Pretty impressive, indeed!
A picture of the students
After the dinner was over, there was a "coffee" hour, which involved Starbucks Liqueur. Josh obviously didn't partake (he hates anything to do with coffee, and more specifically, Starbucks), but I sure did have my fair share!! Below you can see the ice sculptures from which the liqueur was served.

Cheers!!

The evening ended with a great cookbook on pairing every kind of food imaginable with every kind of drink imaginable. The authors of the cookbook were keynote speakers at the event and they were kind enough to bring along some cookbooks. Then on our way out, we were each offered Starbucks Coffee Mugs, which, again, I was thrilled for and Josh made me carry both. :)

We are already looking forward to next year!

silly

Here is a picture of Josh being silly with the dogs on his lap. Kowe's yawning. Luke looks scared. But I think J looks so silly here...I think he might have been making fun of my "pose" that everyone likes to tease me about.

cherry blossoms!!!

So I ended up just staying in DC for 2 days (1 night), but had all afternoon before I had to catch a flight, so I spent it being a tourist. I was so bummed that Josh and I had to cancel our trip. I'd never been to Washington, DC, so I was looking forward to seeing all of (or as many of) the amazing things that I could on our trip. Since that didn't happen, I decided that I'd try to get as much in in one afternoon...which involved heels and sore feet, but a ton of great experiences! The Purdue event the night before was at the Library of Congress, so it was a good first experience and I got to see the hustle and bustle right at 5:00 on my way to a dinner meeting. And then the alumna that I met with on Tuesday is a curator at the Smithsonian of American History (which is currently closed...bummer!), but in it's backyard (almost literally) is the Washington Monument. So after lunch at a fancy french restaurant, I headed to the Monument, the new WWII Memorial, the Reflection Pond & the Lincoln Memorial. Then I headed down to the Tidal Basin and sat in a nearby park to enjoy the gorgeous and abundant cherry blossoms!! They were literally everywhere, and I could even see them before the plane landed.

They were EVERYthing that I expected and more! I loved it. And best of all, I was there right in time, because they were in full bloom and some had begun to blow off the trees. There was wind expected Tuesday night, so I was told that a great many of them would be nearly bare by the next day or two. Phew!! I made it!

This was a closeup that will now become my desktop picture. I love it.

Tidal Basin pics...

I rounded out my trip with a visit to the White House and a quick trip through and around Georgetown...mainly to get to the shopping that is down there!

I am looking forward to next year when (hopefully) Josh can go with me! All I kept thinking all day long was how much I wished he'd been able to come. I would have loved to have seen Arlington Cemetary & the Arlington House as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Plus, next year maybe we can get a behind-the-scenes look at Dorothy's shoes when the museum opens!

ahhh, baseball season!

How excited are we (me) for baseball?!?! Here's hoping that we can make it to a few games this year! First stop: the Cubs!! Hopefully.

shouting it from the rooftops

Can I just take a second and say that, for the record, I have THE most amazing husband in the universe? I don't say it often enough, but who does say those things often enough to the ones that they love? I feel compelled today to shout from the rooftops how appreciative of him I am. Of course, he annoys the crap out of me a lot of the time, and we have our tiffs, but at the end of the day, I just need to make it known that I couldn't have survived the past month without him. He is supportive in every way imaginable, especially when it comes to our fertility struggles. He is positive, even if his jokes often aren't exactly what I am looking for. He has been by my side at every ultrasound, check-up, follow-up, and painful procedure that I have had to endure. He's standing right next to me holding my hand. He won't even fathom missing any of it. Even the quick, 10-minute appointments. I can't tell you how much this means to me. There are a lot of husbands out there who wouldn't rearrange their schedules to make uneventful and often disappointing appointments. But he does. He asks questions when he has them, and he thinks everything through. He is taking an active part of everything. He gives his opinion and I value that more than anything. This is particularly tough because I know that half of the time, he would rather have me make whatever decision makes me happiest. But his level head is helpful because he always has a different perspective than me.

Best of all, he takes me for Red Robin and a Mocha Frappuccino and gets me chocolate to make me feel better. What would I do without him???

cuties

Kowe says, "Go Boilers!!"I think I was baby talking...it looks more like I was yelling at Lukey, but I assure you, I was not. He's a good boy.

Las Vegas

We had a pretty good time in Las Vegas, despite the fact that Vegas was not good to us in more ways than one. We didn't win ANY money, the basketball games (both Wyoming and Purdue) were less than impressive, and we found out that our first IUI did not work. So things could have been MUCH better! We could have won lots of money, saw Wyoming win (we'd have settled for the men or the women!) and gotten a positive pregnancy test. But none of those happened and we still managed to have ourselves a pretty good time.

It was great to see Travis & Lilian, along with Travis' dad and stepmom. Hopefully one of my trips to Texas in the coming year will lead me to Austin, so Josh can tag along and visit Travis & Lilian. We'll be looking forward to that!

We stayed at the Luxor and it was pretty neat. I guess we weren't expecting the pyramid shape on the inside, but it was really cool. Even our wall was slanted. We were on the 18th floor, so that was pretty neat. Here are some pictures:

This is the interior of the hotel from right outside our door. All the lights are obviously rooms, and the beams on either side are called inclinators, which were the elevators...only they don't go straight up...they go sideways and up!

This is the floor below with lots of little shops and food places.

Another view of the inclinators.

View of the pools from our hotel room.

On our last day, we decided we needed to be sure to get pictures of the front and we ended up goofing around a little bit. I tried, but for some reason, Josh would NOT get on this thing! :)

But he would stand on this guy. You can tell he's thrilled to be up there. I tried to get him to sit on the guy's lap, but again, he wouldn't oblige...

Josh is under there if you can squint!

Whoa! My new Pumas must have something special in them!

While Josh and Travis went to their 2nd game, I went to see Blue Man Group with Travis' dad and stepmom. We were less than impressed, but it was an experience. I only got 1 shot of when they send ALL kinds of paper from the back of the auditorium in a huge wave toward the front. And since we were in the 3rd row, we got a LOT of paper shoved on our heads! It was pretty neat, but I couldn't help but think of how much of a waste all that paper was, even if they say it is recycled. We also got some appetizers at David Burke, which is in the Venetian, right outside of the BMG theatre. The food was phenomenal! We got surf & turf which came served on a hot rock. Pretty neat, but I didn't take any pictures of that.

Here's where Josh and Travis spent a good deal of their free time. Who could blame them?! There were a million sports books all over the place. Unfortunately, J didn't have too much luck at any of them!

On Saturday, we went to the Champagne Brunch at the Bellagio, which was really good. Then we watched the fountains and went to see the Conservatory. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip, but it happened to be closed for season changes, so we didn't get the full effect. It was still neat!

Here is a (bad) picture from the theatre of Mystere. We really wanted to see a Cirque du Soleil show and we'd heard good things about this one. It was AMAZING!! Absolutely my favorite thing of the entire weekend!!! Josh loved it too, but I don't know how he could compare to seeing Wyoming play after so long!

In front of Bellagio after the show

We stopped by the M&Ms store and went through this funny little thing. We all know how much I love chocolate, so I was in heaven!! But we didn't buy a thing! We also went through the Coke store which would be really neat for someone who is really into that.

Goodbye Las Vegas! We had a great time, but we were definitely ready to get home to our pups, who were adorably groomed and excited to see us.