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.

channeling grandma ma

As most people know, my great grandmother was Mexican. We called her Grandma Ma. You would have never met a sweeter and more wonderful person. She was so lively and danced around with her castanets singing songs and being silly. And her house was filled with nic nacs. But the reason that we loved going to Grandma Ma's was for the TACOS!!!

She made and pressed her own taco shells and they were the most delicious things ever. But sadly, only my cousin Robin learned the art of making Grandma Ma's tacos. So we've been talking on and on about how we need to have taco night, and we had to miss the last one, so we were finally able to make it last Sunday and it was WORTH the wait, let me tell you! Robin and Tracey (our cousins) spent all morning getting things ready, making the taco shells and getting the rice and frijoles ready!! Even the frijoles were just like Grandma Ma's. Here are some pictures:

Here is Robin frying up the taco shells.

Shell waiting to eat. We even had Tang in a Sprite bottle, just like Grandma Ma used to do. I don't think I'd had tang since the last time I was at her house.

TACOS. They are seriously the best tacos you'll ever try.

Linc wasn't waiting on the other kids. He was a hungry boy! We didn't blame him...

Here's Tracey with all the food. Thanks Rob & Tray!!! I forgot to take pictures of everybody eating because I was way too busy stuffing my face. Yes, you can bet that every single taco was gone and we had to make more. It's tradition...you can't eat just two or three of these things!

M.I.A.

That's us. It's been a while since I've posted, but I thought I would catch everyone up on a few things. I never realized how many people read our blog until I hear about not updating! So a some updates on us:

1. Josh is still at Kohl's. He likes it. He's been traveling around and helping other stores here and there. He went to Wisconsin last month for a meeting and he seems to have a lot of respect from his boss and DM. That's always good!
2. I am at Purdue. My job has turned out to be everything that I'd hoped for it to be and more! The travel is pretty extensive (I spent a week in Naples earlier this year and then went to Phoenix for a few days), but I'm enjoying the opportunity to see parts of the U.S. that I may not otherwise get the chance to see for some time. And we're able to buy Josh's ticket and have him come along if it works out, so it's a great way for us to see some things together. Plus, I'm racking up frequent flyer miles left and right, which will come in handy on our personal vacations!
3. We're heading to Las Vegas next week to meet up with Travis & Lilian for the Mountain West Conference. The guys are really excited to watch Wyoming play. It should be a great time, and neither of us have ever been to Vegas, so we're ready for some warm weather!
4. After we get home from there, I have a trip to Washington, DC for work, so Josh and I are going to go out a few days early and see DC. I've never been and Josh has been a few times, so we're looking forward to being tourists for a few days.
5. We also have a family trip planned with Josh's parents to North Carolina (or is it South?), which will come at the end of May. So we're busy little bees!
6. Anyone who knows us knows that we're still hoping for a baby. It's turned out to be quite the obstacle! I'm pretty much an open book about it because I feel like you have to put your wishes into the universe, and the more they are out there, and the more we wish for them, hopefully the better our chances! (Kind of like the Secret a little bit.) Plus, having the extra prayers from our friends and family (and any random stranger, for that matter) can't hurt! So that does consume a big part of our lives, unfortunately. We are currently working with a Reproductive Endocrinologist (fertility doctor) and he has me on a drug called Clomid and we underwent our first Intrauterine Insimination last week. We are what we call 'cautiously optimistic' in that we really hope it works, but we try not to get overly excited because that makes the disappointment all the worse. I know we are going to be parents one day. And GREAT parents. We just have to be patient and wait for God's plan to fall into place, but that is easier said than done on any given day. We'll have a great story to tell our children, and one great thing is that they will know that they were loved and wanted SO much, long before they were ever conceived. Hopefully they will appreciate that one day.

In the meantime, we're trying to enjoy the freedom that we have with not having to tote little ones around everywhere (though it goes without saying that we would trade everything to have little guys to tote around). I know it's been forever since I updated the blog, so I thought I would give everyone the 4-1-1 on the Wright household. Unfortunately that's about as exciting as we get! I'll try to update more often, definitely with pictures from Las Vegas.

dog pics

The dogs are doing great! Kowe still gets a little feisty with Lukey, but he can take it. He's still a sweet, sweet boy, though he does like to bite you when he wants you to pet him...we need to work on that some more.

Other than that, they love to play and run around the house. Kowe is really loud when she plays and she growls and barks. Luke doesn't say a word or make a peep unless Kowe gets a little too rough. Once in a while he will make a few humph's here and there and it's really cute.

The picture to the left/above is Luke in his Christmas PJs. Kowe didn't get any because they were out of her size, but she got a pair of Easter ones that you will see sometime.





Another pic of Luke. See! We told you we were going to take care of that mullet!












Here is a pic of Kowe getting her Super Bowl treat. Luke gobbled his right up so we didn't get a pic of him.














Here is Luke getting his Valentine's Day treat. Look at his sweet eyes. :)












And finally, Kowe getting her Valentine's Day treat. They love these treats from a new cute dog store at Castleton.