Winter and Being Sick Sucks

But I’m going to do my best to overcome it and do something positive.

I’ve been stuck in a funk because I’ve been sick. A lot.

I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty healthy person. I got maybe two or three minor colds a year… the occasional stomach virus. The usual. No big deal. I get migraines, but those are knocked out by injectable Imitrex quickly.

I don’t know if it’s because my kid now shares all of his germs from daycare or what, but this winter has been brutal. I got sick two weeks before leaving for Key West in late November/early December. Then I got sick again a few days before leaving for Key West. On the plane, I thought my head was going to explode, and I couldn’t hear for two days after we arrived.

Then I came down with the flu on January 2^nd. It was like I got hit by a bus. I’m one of those people who rarely miss work due to illness… it’s something I pride myself on. Well, I missed nearly an entire week. I tried working from home and got a few hours in here and there. What I should have done was not attempt to do anything and just slept to get better. Three weeks later I wasn’t feeling much better, so I went back to the doctor. I ended up with a steroid injection in the ass, a breathing treatment, and a hefty dose of antibiotics. That finally seemed to knock the remnants of that crud out.

At the beginning of February, I ended up with either food poisoning or a stomach virus. Another day of work missed. Things weren’t right with my digestive tract for probably a week. It was not fun. Then we went to Arizona and I seemed to have recovered from everything! Then I came home. Last weekend I got to hang out with a bunch of girlfriends for our annual Galentines Day celebration. This time, at Turnbridge Point. The company and food was spectacular. And then I started getting stuffy and sore throaty again. Markface was also congested, so I am thinking that he was the vector of my illness yet again.

Last week before I started feeling craptacular again, my acupuncturist  mentioned that she was participating in the Food Stamp Challenge for Talbot County.

My plan is/was to give it a go. I was trying to get Jay on board with doing it too, but he said that he knew too many people that take advantage of the system. Including of course, members of his family (although to my knowledge this is no longer the case). I may have reported aforementioned person to the fraud office when they posted on Facebook that they could get people half price food. ;-)

Fraud notwithstanding, I can’t imagine having to feed my family for $33 per person per week. So my plan is to do it for as many meals as possible. The challenge starts this Sunday, on March 6^th.

I’m still trying to come up with my budget for the week, as ours will be a bit convoluted since Jay is gone 2 days of the challenge and will mostly just be eating my challenge dinners, since he doesn’t want to participate.

Fingers crossed that I will find the time and energy to blog about my experience. If I can finally stop being sick, I'm sure that will help a lot!

Week in Arizona

The pictures just don't do the Grand Canyon justice.

I'm planning to post more about my trip. Maybe. Okay, probably not.

But it was amazing. My SIL Colleen planned an awesome itinerary for us and we had a blast. Also, traveling with a toddler nearly 1.5 is not for the faint of heart. I'm glad that we don't have any other major trips planned with him for the next few months or possibly year, because he is a bit dangerous at the moment. 

Back to Blogging

I swear it's going to happen this time.

I never posted about our five year anniversary reunion in Key West. It was a bit of a bust, although parts of it were fun. The best part for me was the diving, even though the visibility wasn't great. We saw two dolphins and two rather large reef sharks at Looe Key. I'm looking forward to getting back in the water this year. We'll probably check out Lake Phoenix this summer to brush up on our skills. I would love to do a trip out with our dive shop to the Outer Banks this year, but we'll see how that goes. I don't know if I'll be comfortable enough to go to the depths that most wreck diving involve. Not to mention my dive buddy's excessive air consumption! But maybe a few weekends of diving at Lake Phoenix will cure some of our problems.

Here are the last few months in photos...

Markface eating rocks at the Waterfowl Festival

Our annual post-Thanksgiving walk to the persimmon tree (aka the permission tree)

Markface showing off his latest moves

We had a sweet van for our group from Miami to Key West

Ryan and Jay pushing Markface's stroller... this trip we stayed pretty far north, in the quiet White Street district. I liked being a bit of a haul from Duval Street, it made for some impressive Fitbit stats!

Markface being adorable at the Conch Republic Seafood Company

Markface trying to feed me something

Shark wrangler

This will forever be known as the Tomato Soup incident. It was one of the low-lights of our trip.

Markface passed out on Duval after the boat parade

Jay and Brian attempting to wash off a sandy Mark at Bahia Honda State Park

The flight home was much better than our flight down

Setting up our tree. Mark was trying to put a cracker into the tree

Feeding the chickens... Mark calls them cluck-clucks

One of his newest tricks - getting on top of the table

Jay took Mark on an impromptu trip to New York to see friends and family... this is in Long Beach

And we got a bit of snow a few weeks back. Mark was a big fan and probably would have stayed out all day if he hadn't gotten cold.

We are off to Phoenix tomorrow to visit Colleen (yay) and for some R&R. 

Plans:

Survive a 7 hour flight with an active toddler.

Visit the Grand Canyon.

Attend the Ren Faire.

Attend some Beer Week festivities.

Eat at Sassy's Cafe and visit Melody from Holiday Baking Championship.

Since I followed Steve so closely during the Holiday Baking Championship, I feel like I personally know everyone that was on the show. I figured that while we're in AZ, we definitely needed to check out Melody's place. The funny thing is that Steve and Rob will actually be arriving in Phoenix the same weekend that we are leaving. Sounds like there may be a bit of a HBC reunion going on out there. I'm sorry to miss the fun!

Markface's First Birthday

I've been wanting to post these photos for weeks and I am so happy that I finally have a quiet night at home to do it! Jay is working and I put Markface to bed early. Huzzah!

So, we did it. We kept him alive for an entire year.

We've been so busy for the past few months that I was tempted to say screw it and not throw a first birthday party at all. After all, he's not going to remember it. The first birthday party is always about the parents and the pat on the back we give ourselves for surviving.

Not gonna lie, that first year was brutal. I'm sure that each year will bring its own challenges, but this one was rough. 

There were many reasons not to throw the party on the date we decided to - it was Labor Day Weekend, we'd given everyone less than a week's notice, it was the day after we were attending a wedding, and Jay had to work the next day... among other things. The following weekend, we had TWO weddings to attend. We didn't have the "perfect" weekend to throw his party until nearly a month after his actual birthday.

So we said screw it, let's do it on his birthday - September 6th. 

On Monday, I sent my new friend Steve a message... was there any way he could do Markface's birthday cake for that weekend?

As luck would have it, he could. He asked me what I wanted to do... I said it could be simple and just have his name in the STAR WARS style font, or that he was welcome to be "creative" if he wanted. 

He's amazing, so obviously he went the creative route. 

"I was thinking Death Star," he said. 

The detail was just incredible.

"Oh, and you should do a smash cake, too."

These cakes were absolute masterpieces. And even better, they tasted awesome! I couldn't believe we had to actually eat them. 

The other really cool thing that we found out a few weeks ago is that Chef Steve is going to be on the Food Network's Holiday Baking Championship. It airs November 1st at 9 p.m. - make sure you tune in!

And my kid had to destroy his smash cake? Little did I know at the time that it was prepared by our own local celebrity.

He was actually pretty meticulous about the way he destroyed his cake. It was anticlimactic to be totally honest. First he ate the piping piece by tiny piece.

Then Dada ripped open the fondant so that he could get to the delicious inside... chocolate and vanilla.

He didn't have enough on his face, so Makayla (Aunt Brenda's granddaughter) smeared some icing on his nose. I was actually kind of happy at the lack of mess. I think it's pretty gross that parents purposely cover their kid's face in icing. It's sticky and just gross. Yuck. Not to mention that it's wasteful! Especially with a cake as great as that.

A day or two before the party, I realized that we were going to have a lot more people than our "low-key" planned event. I was expecting no more than 25 people. Maybe 30 people at most. We had over 50 show up! When I realized that the guest list was getting out of hand, I asked Steve to make some vanilla cupcakes. "Really, Lauren? You have a Death Star birthday cake, and you're asking for plain old vanilla cupcakes? "Okay! If that's what you want..."

He of course had to decorate our plain old vanilla cupcakes too. Which were amazing. I'm glad I got one before they were all eaten.

Here are more pictures from the party...

Twinsies!

We do what we can to get him to look up. He's always looking down - except of course when he's running or walking. Then he faceplants. A lot.

He looks thrilled.

With his Godfather Sean

Silly boy

Markface is all sugared up and on the loose... oh hey look, his tux has tails!

One last thing to mention about the party - due to the last-minute nature of it and pretty much not giving a shit, the food was terrible. We bought crappy pre-made burgers and hot dogs at the store, and I attempted to make baked beans for the first time. I used dry beans. They were awful. Thank God for the desserts (apart from Steve's cakes & cupcakes, we also had his Cannolios, which are amaaaaazing). Sara also brought cole slaw, and Jay's macaroni salad is always delicious... but the main food was pretty bad. We've fallen a long way from our grilled tenderloin with fresh horseradish sauce, raw oysters, mini quiches, fresh bruschetta on homemade baguettes and local cheese! And definitely no ice cream on fresh-baked cookies. I didn't even make pulled pork. Ugh. It was pretty embarrassing. Next time we'll do better... although maybe our poor performance will dissuade some guests from attending our next party. Ha!

I'm going to do my best to get back into blogging. Now that I'm getting more sleep, I hope to be back into it. I have so much to catch up on and we're also heading back to Key West for our five year anniversary in December. It's gone so fast! 

More to come soon, I hope!

The Countdown is on

Right around this time last year, Jay and I were in the process of getting our PADI Open Water certifications. I was also about to meet with my now boss for the first time.

It's incredible how much can change in a year.

I now have my PADI Advanced Open Water Certification as well as my FINRA Series 7 registration. For the record, the Series 7 was a lot harder. But my dive certification will keep me safer when it comes to breathing underwater.

We went to the Dominican Republic to celebrate our three year anniversary last December, and we brought home a parasite.

After we found out we were expecting, we of course rushed out to get a puppy, since the breeder in Maryland still hadn't come through for us. Speaking of which, I still haven't heard from him and it's been over a year now.

Loki is settling down, kind of. Okay, not really. Maybe a little. Part of the problem is that he's a high energy breed and pregnancy kind of takes all of that extra energy out of you. He is awesome as long as you keep him busy playing fetch or frisbee. We had hoped to take him for a second round of obedience training, but this summer got away from us.

So on to the countdown... if due dates are to be believed, I will become a mom in five days. It's all rather surreal and terrifying.

The nursery is ready, we have childcare for when I go back to work, my awesome friends have set up a food delivery schedule to get us through the first six weeks, and we have everything that we need.

I'm trying to get some rest this weekend, but it's not easy when you're 9 months pregnant and have to pee constantly. That and having a dog who constantly wants to play.

I suppose that I should get back to writing my thank you cards... and hopefully that elusive nap!

Wordless Wednesday

The problem with planning group vacations

At the beginning of the year, I was at Harry’s with my girlfriends sipping cocktails and having a great time. Since Australia was looming on the horizon, we were talking about vacations and wouldn’t it be fun if we could all go somewhere together!?

I have that timeshare in the Dominican Republic.

We all squealed with excitement. Let’s do it! December!

In the following weeks, lists were made. There had to be the perfect mix of people… we wanted no-drama, fun people. Folks were blacklisted. If you fought publicly with your boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse, you were out. Like a wedding, there were more friends we wanted to invite than we could accommodate. Even worse, we had to divide the list between us – Jay and I could only invite at most 5 people each. So we narrowed the list to those most likely to say yes. For me, that ended up being only the girlfriends (and their intended guests) present at Harry’s.

I made arrangements with a Shareholder Lifestyle Vacation Club friend to use one of her weeks to get a better deal (saving $180 a person on the all-inclusive fee). The $1200 all-inclusive price (including airfare) made this trip a no-brainer. Cheaper than a week in Ocean City. Seriously, who could say no?

After careful planning, an email was sent to the chosen few.

There was a lot of initial enthusiasm with the first responses.

Can’t wait!

The wheels fell off the cart a few weeks ago. People who had given us verbal confirmations were now turning down the invitation. Initially, we weren’t concerned… there were others that we’d love to have. But those were also the folks we thought wouldn’t be able to make it for one reason or another.

I think - Maybe we’ll cancel it altogether, save our vacation time and go somewhere we really want to go next year, like Europe. Or maybe get back to Australia to see Nancy and Darryl. Get to see Uluru and maybe even Perth.

Then our friends found a good airfare. They asked me if it was still happening. We had six people (us, the other couple and two of my girlfriends) at that point, so I said go ahead and book it.

Four days later, I got an email from my girlfriends. They were really sorry, but they had an awesome opportunity come up for another vacation in September. Basically the kind of thing that was much more exciting than the Dominican Republic. 

Having done much of the planning with them, I was majorly bummed. However, my husband was seriously pissed off. This was their idea to begin with! 

Then there was a message from an invited couple who weren't able to make it because of a new job. They had a suggestion:  Ryan and Kristy LOVE to travel! We mentioned it to them and they would be interested.

Umm, okay but we didn’t invite them. They’re a lot of fun, but I’ve only hung out with them a handful of times. And of course we’re friends on Facebook. Could they be a secret disaster on vacation? Hopefully not. I sent Kristy a message on Facebook about the trip.

Count us in, this place looks amazing.

And then…

Please let me know when you guys get the airfare, I am not an experienced traveler. This would be my first trip out of the US. Thanks.

I know that I’m a travel snob. Especially compared to most Americans. I acknowledge this. But how can someone say that they love to travel when they’ve never been out of the good old USA?

Anyone want to go to Puerto Plata December 7^th-14^th? (I'm serious, we need at least two more people or it will be an extra $67 a person)

We'll save you a drink!

Or will we?