Life With My 1st Thanksgiving! (well at my house)

Ray and I hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner in our new home this year! I was super excited and nervous to make a turkey for the first time! I made the turkey, stuffing, potatoes and pumpkin cheesecake. Shawna made the candied yams and Rhonda made the green bean casserole and brought rolls. It was a wonderful dinner and it was great having it at our own home! I was still nervous the whole time the turkey was in the oven that it would be too dry or not seasoned enough but it turned out AMAZING!! The meat was soooooo moist! You could just see the juiceyness while Randy was carving and oh it just melted in your mouth!! My stuffing was also perfect! The mashed potatoes were perfect like always! :) Shawna's yams were absolutely delish! I didn't have green bean casserole, it makes me gag so I can't report on that one for you! ;-) I had some sparkling cider with my dinner while everyone else had wine or beer. Don't I look super homey stuffing my turkey? I hope you all had a wonderful Turkey day as well!

This year we were very thankful for the baby! What a miracle!

Life With Amazing Nachos

November 22nd was the 101st Annual Apple Cup! We had a wonderful day cheering on the victorious Cougars! We all made a little something to share and I made these nachos! Oh my goodness they were A-MAZ-ING! I did a layer of chips, nacho cheese dip, beans & taco beef then another layer of the same and then topped them off with tomatoes, avacado, sour cream & green onions! They were even good as left overs later that night when we got home! Below is the table of all the food we had for just the 5 of us...and of course we had a ton of leftovers like usual!

Life With 2 Positive Tests!

Yes friends...it is official! Ray and I are going to be parents!!!! As you know I had been going to the doctor and was on some pills. Well I took the provera which is for 10 days and by day 20 I still hadn't gotten my period so I called my doctor on Friday the 21st. I made an appointment for Tuesday and when I was talking with the nurse she asked if I had taken a pregnancy test I said no. I was kinda caught off guard since I hadn't been ovulating when I had gotten my blood done, I just never thought I wasn't ovulating due to being pregnant! So I took the first test Friday night and was shocked when it was positive and so I went out on Sat morning and bought another one! God is amazing! I went to the dr. on Tuesday and I got my first ultrasound! It was amazing to see the little tiny thing growing inside of me! I am 6 weeks and I am due July 22nd! If it is a boy his name will be Brandon Ray and a girl Elizabeth Anne! We are so blessed and it was truly a Thanksgiving to be thankful! We bought the first baby outfit last week that came with a matching blanket. Then the photo is of Ray and I on Saturday for Apple Cup! The Cougars winning was an extra special bonus to the day as well! I can't wait to share photos of my growing belly with everyone! (I can only fit into one pair of my jeans!!!)

Life With Gas Under $2!!!

So I am so extremeley happy about gas prices! It has been wonderful watching the gas station across the street from the property fall daily! I came to work this morning and it was $2.03 and when I left for lunch it was $1.99!!! It also makes me super excited because it is also making plane tickets cheaper as well! So far the price to fly to Montana is $50 less each way per person! I really hope it gets down to $100 each eay, that would be great for our trip!

Life in Long Beach

Ok so this blog is kinda a mess because of all the pictures so sorry about it not looking so great. I always have issues with the photos so if someone has a trick that makes it easier to move photos around I would appreciate it! :) So the first few photos are of our room. It is a WorldMark Resort and it was brand new as of August this year. Kim and Jason gave us this trip as a wedding present and we got to spend the weekend with Jason and Marlis. It was a one bedroom unit with a full kitchen and a patio with a BBQ. Extremely nice! The lamps were pretty cool and I loved that extra detail in the room for the beach theme!












This was a view from our balcony of the beach!











On Friday we went Horseback Riding first thing in the morning for a 2 hour beach ride. Jason was pretty mad at me since I made the reservation and he had a bad experience and wasn't too excited about having to go. Ray also had never been on a horse before so it was a new experience for him. Marlis was raised with horses so she was a natural on her horse! I had ridden a few times but it had been a long time. I was quite proud of the boys and myself for how well we did on the ride! I let mine run a little ways which the worst part was having my boobs fly all over the place. They were already super sore from all the hormones I'm on so that didn't feel good! Ray did a really good job for it being his first time. The funny part was at one point I was way ahead of them and I head the other girl in our group scream and all the horses started galloping. I found out from Ray later that his horse was the one that started everything because he started bucking and going crazy. Our guide told him that his horse was kind of retarded too...how sad! Jason did really well even though he had a horse that HATED having another horse near him. As soon as a horse would come up to pass him his would put his ears back immediately or start running away. We were soooo sore after the horse ride that we could barely walk! It was a very beautiful ride all the way down the beach!

After that Ray and I walked around town for a bit and bought our licenses for the clamming that night, along with a clam gun and buckets. We had lunch at Castaway's and it was pretty good. I had a clam chowder bread bowl and Ray had fish and chips. The clam chowder was no Morris' in Cannon Beach but it was definately satisfying. So there is a store there in Long Beach called Marsh's Free Museum. They have this Alligator Man on all of their marketing stuff and all over the store. It's pretty funny. The store was kinda strange because there were stuffed animal heads everywhere and that freaks me out! We didn't really find anything that day but continued to walk around town a bit.

That night we had dinner in the room again to save some money and then we went clamming on Saturday night. The only problem is that we didn't find any clams so we were frustrated! We went home and watched some Youtube clips on clamming and so we knew exactly what to look for the next night. We then played Scene It Squabble and the girls won the 1st game and Jason couldn't let that happen so we played a short 2nd game and they won cuz we got stuck in the Honey Do section forever!

We had to check out of our room on Sunday since we only had 2 nights but stayed with Jason & Marlis on Sunday night since they had 3. There was a murphy bed in all the rooms so we slept on that. On Sunday we walked around town and did some shopping. We also found a hat store and another store that had a bunch of hats & glasses and had a ton of fun 'dressing up'! We bought a few presents while at Marsh's for my dad and Joan. I think they will love them! :) After walking around most of the day Marlis and I went to find a seafood market to find something for dinner. We drove to Ilwaco which was about 5 minutes South and found a good place to stop. We bought crab cakes, salmon and prawns. We made pasta with the salmon and prawns, had the crab cakes and salad and bread. It was a delish dinner! :) We mostly hung out after that and watched TV and the Sunday Night Football game until time to go clamming again.

We left around 8:00 and we went farther South down the beach in hopes we would find some clams this time. Well first we got stuck in the sand and they all had to go out and push the car while I gunned it and drove to the hard sand. We searched and searched and searched for some holes but found nothing again! I was extremely frustrated! We had even bought a lamp at the store earlier to see better and that didn't work well! Just annoying that we couldn't find anything! Then when we got back to the hotel we were getting in the elevator and these 2 women came up with tons and tons of clams and we were talkign to them about how they found so many and we hadn't found any! Well, maybe next year! :)

When we got back Marlis and I went down to the hot tub while the guys played pool. It was so relaxing and it felt great on our sore muscles from the horse back riding. We were all pretty tired when we got home so we lounged until we all went to bed.

We headed out on Monday after we had cleaned up and did all the dishes. It was another long ride home and some winding roads so it was nice once we got back to I-5! I can't wait to go back again! It was a great weekend and I enjoyed spending the time with Jason & Marlis!

*again sorry about the post not being organized, the pictures are driving me crazy!*

Life With a Trip Over the Mountains

So Olga's birthday was on Wednesday and she said all she wanted to do was drive over to Wenatchee for a Sonic Cheeseburger! (This is partly where I got my obsession with Sonic, the other part was the first time I had it with Julie P) It has been a pretty rough week for her so it was a much needed break. So Olga & Jordan came and picked me up around 11 today and we took the drive over to Wenatchee!

We got to Sonic a little after 1:00pm and oh boy were we ready for the food! The first order we placed was all food and Jordan's M&M Sonic Blast. I had the Bacon Cheeseburger Toaster with fries. Olga had the #2 with fries and we also shared Onion Rings. Jordan had a cheeseburger, popcorn chicken and his ice cream. The first order was $28!!! Oh my goodness that is crazy talk! Then Jordan wanted a Cherry Coke so we ordered him the Route 44 size. This is the bag that our food came in! There were three regular to go bags inside this large shopping bag! Then after that Olga and I wanted a dessert so we both got a Cream Slush...I had Watermelon and she had Blue Coconut.

So we were very satisfied...maybe stuffed is more like it. On the drive back there were a lot of pretty trees but not really space to pull over so I stuck my hands with the camera out of the sun roof and got some pretty cool photos that way. I think they look pretty good. :)




We decided on the way back to go to Leavenworth since it was only 5 miles out of the way. Jordan was tired so he napped in the car while Olga and I walked around the shops. We saw lots of cute stuff but didn't buy anything until we got to Kris Kringl. We found a great wine shop that has the red headed wine but they didn't have one that I could buy...whatever. Then we enjoyed the hat store a lot! We didn't take a ton of photos but it was definately fun to look around! When we finally found the Christmas store we were super excited. I found a present for Randy for his bday and a Christmas present for Shawna. Then I found a sparkly hippo ornament with diamonds (not real) along his back and it was so cute and Olga got it for me for Christmas. :)

It was a long drive back since it started raining right as we were coming over Snoqualmie pass and it now gets dark at 4:30 which is when we were leaving Leavenworth. It was a very fun day and I truly enjoyed myself and the time to catch up with Olga!

Life at Dell.com Update

So Ray called Dell on Monday and talked to someone in India. He said this person basically read from a script and didn't answer a single question of his. All they told him was that they sent him a letter and to call back after he received that letter. They wouldn't tell him anything else over the phone. How retarded is that?? Well then we get the letter on Monday night and all it says was that they tried to contact us and didn't get through so they needed us to call them. That was it, that was all it said. And Ray remembers getting a message on his cell phone but it didn't say who it was from it just said to call them. So anyway, Ray called them back on Tuesday and finally got to talk with someone in the US! So the guy said they had the account on hold because they wanted to make sure it was us ordering the stuff since we had just placed an order. Which ok, that is nice that they are making sure it isn't fraud but it was still such a hassel! So then once Ray confirmed his identity the guy said they would resubmit the order for the computer today. Well it still wasn't showing up so I called myself and got transferred until I got to speak with Joel who helped me resubmit my order. He even talked me into an extra battery for traveling. :) So finally, we have everything taken care of. Our account is still there and we got the order placed but it really was horrible that it took 5 phone calls to get this resolved!

Life With Fertility Drugs

So after taking Provera for a few days to get my period started I went to get my blood drawn on the 3rd, 14th & 21st days of my cycle. My blood showed that I wasn't ovulating. So I went back to the doctor today and I am now on Provera again to get my period, Clomid to make me ovulate and Metformin which is a diabetic med but helps Clomid work better. I am also taking Prenatal vitamins since my doctor told me to start taking them. So many medications! So I read up on Clomid and it is the most popular fertility drug with doctors. It has been around for years. It said that 60%-80% of women who take Clomin get pregant in the first 3 cycles. That definately made me feel better on what I'm taking. The one thing that won't be fun in the mean time I'm going to be pretty nauseous. So once I start my period I take Clomid for 5 days and get my blood drawn on day 14 & 21 to see if I'm ovulating. If I don't ovulate they up the dose. If after 6 months I don't get pregnant the doctor will send me to a fertility doctor to see why it isn't working. So that is what is going on with me at the moment. Please pray that the drugs will work and we can get pregnant!

Life at Dell.com

So recently Ray and I purchased a new TV with a stereo system from Dell.com, they were having a great sale! We had $3,000 available on our account since we had paid off the laptop so we decided that it will be our Christmas present to each other. We got the TV and stereo and we love it! (I'm watching it right now.) So then last week we still had $1,900 available and I need a new computer. Taking this laptop with me to work everyday is very hard. This is a 17" screen and is extremely heavy and hard to lug around. Also, we could not even use it on the plane because it was too large. So since Dell was having a big sale on laptops I built a new one. It was a 15" and is about 3 pounds! When I purchased the computer our account said that we now have $1,100 available. Well last week I went online to check the status of the order and it said our account had $0 credit limit, $0 available & $0 balance. Well I would love to keep that $0 balance but I don't understand why it suddenly says we have no money available! So I went online last night again to check the status and it said the order had been cancelled due to our financing not being approved. This really doesn't make any sense to me at all! How did we buy the TV if we didn't have an account? But we do have an account! We have had this account for over 2 years! Well since the website wasn't working I tried calling and the financial department couldn't find our account. I tried by the account number and by the social and they said they couldn't find it. So then this morning I called Dell.com customer service, and of course talked to someone in India I'm sure. Well she couldn't tell me anything other than the fact that yes my order had been cancelled. So tomorrow Ray will have to call the financial dept to find out why we have no account anymore. And how was our financing denied when we've had this account for so long? So needless to say if they don't fix this tomorrow when Ray calls them Dell will be losing us as customers and hopefully anyone else that is reading this. I'll keep you updated. :)