Monday, September 27, 2010

Good-Bye Summer...

...hello Fall!

Otherwise known as my favourite season of the entire year. There's just something about having to break out the sweaters, and jackets, the freshness in the air, and the rich colours all around. I love getting out the cozy blankets that can be snuggled under in the evenings, and warm duvets to curl up under all night.

Just this week I brought out a spicy vanilla candle and let the whole house smell super yummy. Today on the agenda was breaking out the duvet for the winter. I think it will still be a little too early for me at least since peanut seems to be keeping me fairly warm while sleeping at night. I'm sure Andre will appreciate the extra warmth though.

We're getting ready for Thanksgiving around here as well. Last year Andre and I were holiday-dinner-hosting-dynamos after hosting Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, but this year Thanksgiving will be the extent of our hosting duties. I'm not a fan of hosting Christmas dinner, and will never do this again, and I will be too busy with a newborn to host Easter dinner this year. My mom has agreed to take over the hosting reins once again for these holidays. We also got news that we will be having house guests this fall! My friend Laura and her little girl joined us for a few days this summer, and she asked if we would be willing to offer them our guestroom for a few days again this fall. We're looking forward to it!

We've also been busy researching and planning all the things that will need to be purchased for our little peanut! For updates on all things baby related you can visit our baby blog at: http://ourlittleonemcg.blogspot.com/

Thursday, September 16, 2010

The Journey

I don't know why I was reminded of this yesterday while at work of all places. But I was and figured maybe I thought about it because I was meant to write about it and share it with someone out there who needs to hear it. Who knows, it could just be the hormones talking!

So when Andre and I were going through treatments I all but stopped going to church. I couldn't do it. Couldn't handle seeing all the families. All the new babies. All the families that were blessed, when I thought that somehow God had it out for Andre and I. Going through Infertility is hard. It tests your faith, your marriage, the very core of everything you thought you ever wanted out of life. Needless to say church was too hard. For some during the hard times they are drawn to church, for me, I feel pushed away.

Since finding out we were blessed with this incredible miracle, (Yes, even though we used modern technology to get pregnant, it makes it no less of a miracle for happening.) we have slowly started going back to church. Some days are really easy, others a little harder.

In our church the ministers usually take the whole month of July off for vacation. We went a few times in July, then we went back again the first Sunday the ministerial team (a husband and wife) were back from vacation. I honestly believe that I was meant to be in church that day, to hear the children's story of all things. That Sunday there was not one child in the place. Go figure, they didn't want to be sweating in church! The minister still did the children's story. He said it was for "the big kids".

Him and his wife had gone to Southampton that year to go cottaging. He showed a picture on the big screen of his wife standing near a beach fence with an expanse of sand and water behind her. He talked about how the sand was so hot that year. How when you walked over the sand to get to the water you kind of bounced from foot to burning foot, kind of howling. All the while getting closer and closer to the nice, cool water. He talked about that journey to the water. How painful and long it seemed in that moment, but how once you got to the water, it didn't seem to matter. In fact, once you got there you would totally do it again in a second. In the end, it didn't matter how hard and painful the journey was, it was always worth it in the end.

The tears started. I couldn't help it. Hell, now that I'm typing it out the tears are coming again! I couldn't help but think of every failed cycle. Every follie check when the tech would tell me how none of my follies were growing. I thought of every needle during that last cycle, along with all those follie checks at the beginning when nothing was happening but I was told to keep going.

Then I thought of the day when we finally had one little follie. It was freaking amazing. I then thought about that morning when I saw those fainter than faint lines, then the next morning when I saw those words that I had been dying to see.

In the end yes, our journey was hard. I know that there are some out there that have gone, and are going through worse. But don't lose faith, even though it is so easy to lose faith. Yes the journey is hard, but the end, the end is worth it.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Chicken Enchiladas

I work in a chiropractic office. The owner of the clinic and her husband have quite the vegetable garden every summer. Much more food than the two of them could possibly eat, so she brings in baskets of veggies for us and the patients to take home. I just happened to pick out a green, orange, and jalapeno pepper, and decided that was a perfect excuse to make up some Chicken Enchiladas for dinner.

We got this recipe from a Milk Calendar about five million years ago and it's one of Andre's favourites. Who knows, maybe it will become one of yours?

Chicken Enchiladas:

Ingredients

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1 green pepper, chopped
1 red (or orange pepper), chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped (optional)

Note: If using jalapenos, please be careful and use gloves when chopping to avoid having oils on your hands and then touching your face. Trust me I have done this, it HURTS.
1 cup salsa
1/2 cup water
1 tsp cumin
1/2 cup shredded low fat mozzarella cheese, shredded
Whole Wheat tortillas (about 5-8)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place chopped onion and garlic in skillet over medium heat.  Cook until golden.


Add chicken and cook for 3-4 minutes.


Add peppers, salsa, water, and cumin. Continue to cook over medium heat until most of the liquid has evaporated. About 15 minutes.


Fill tortillas with meat and veggie mixture, and a little bit of cheese. Roll. Place in 9 x 13 pan.


You are suppose to have some liquid left in the end of all of this to pour over enchiladas. I never have. Usually I just sprinkle the stray veggie mixture over, then add some extra salsa, then sprinkle with a little more cheese.


Bake for 30 minutes.


Serve with Mexican rice and salad, or side of your choice. If you're a tired pregnant woman like me just throw an enchilada on a plate and eat.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Resort Review

Okay, so I have some very strong opinions on the resort that we stayed at while in Aruba. Let me start by saying that this was our second trip to Aruba. We love Aruba. We love Aruba because it is out of the hurricane belt, the weather is always spectacular, you can drink the water right out of the tap!, it's so safe you could hop on the city bus right outside your resort and go shopping downtown, these are just a few of the reasons off the top of my head.

The first time we visited Aruba was almost 3 years ago. It was for our honeymoon and we stayed at the Riu Palace Aruba. Over the last three years we had met many other people that have been to Aruba and love it as much as we do. A number of these people have stayed at the Holiday Inn Sunspree. Some of these people will only travel to Aruba after visiting many other tropical destinations and when in Aruba will only stay at the Holiday Inn. We thought if these people will stay at this place every year then it has to be good right? Well, partially. The Holiday Inn was much more reasonable than the Riu, so we thought we would go for it, and stay at the Holiday Inn.

Throughout my review you will find me compare the Holiday Inn to the Riu. This would be because this is the only other resort in Aruba we have stayed at to compare it.

Flight: Different carrier this time. The first trip we flew with Sunquest. This time our flight was through Canjet. What can you say? It's a long flight, between 4.5-5hrs each way. The food was better with Sunquest. The flight attendants were a little nicer with Sunquest too. Flight was on time going to Aruba, and was delayed over an hour for our flight home. This happened three years ago too.

Shuttle to Resort: AMAZING! We were in our shuttle bus to the resort literally within 30 minutes of the plane landing on the island. It was great. No complaints here.

Shuttle from resort to airport: DISASTER. It was chaos in the lobby, luggage and people everywhere, and it seemed very unorganized. To avoid the craziness we paid $25 for a taxi to the airport. I think it was money well spent, Andre complained about spending the money.

Check In: Organized. Above the desk there were labels organized via alphabet to tell you where to line up. We lined up and got our little booklet. Our key wasn't ready, so we went to have lunch, and came back an hour later to pick up our key.

Our room: We requested a king sized bed and instead got two doubles. I wasn't terribly surprised. I really wanted a bigger bed than at home, but we're used to a double, so it was not biggie. The room was clean and had a fridge to store our snacks and water, and satellite tv. We also had a balcony with two chairs and a little table.
My biggest complaint with our room was the proximity to the elevators. There was only one room that separated us from the main elevator. We would hear this elevator all night, every night. If it wasn't for me not wanting to pack up everything, I would have demanded they switch our room. Looking back, packing up our stuff would have been totally worth a good night's sleep. Live and learn.

The food: Hmmm, I think I'll start with breakfast. Breakfast was good. They had everything from fruit and cereal, to juice and eggs. They had everyone covered for breakfast. The one issue is that the island does not have skim milk. Their idea of "light" milk is 2%, I did not drink a drop of milk the entire week because of this.
Lunch-It was okay. They always had to meat choices. A fish (all was good except for the Mahi Mahi, way too fishy tasting for me), and a meat. The only time they had chicken was when they had chicken legs. I have not eaten chicken legs since I was five. I don't like dark meat. Otherwise they were always serving beef or pork. Only one day did they have turkey breast. There was always a rice or potato and veggie, and pasta and kiddie options as well.
Dinner-SUCKED!! I don't know whether it was the selection (or lack thereof), the cuts of meat, or what, but it was bad. Bad, bad, bad. Everyone that we talked to felt the same way.

The A la Carte Restaurants: The reservation desk opened at 8am, we never had a problem making a reservation for either the Cafe Di Vinci (Italian) restaurant, or the Seabreeze (outdoor grill) restaurant. Cafe Di Vinci was horrible. Service was slow, and the food just horrible. Andre's chicken was overcooked and tough, my lasagna was 1/2 cheese, and too rich to finish.
The Seabreeze was wonderful. The ambiance was wonderful sitting overlooking the beach and sunset. The food was always great, and the service good. We ate here three nights.

Hut Reservation: The towel hut opened at 7am. Andre would be in line every morning by 7:15 with our towel card to get fresh towels and reserve our hut. I love how this resort reserves huts. There is a board with a map of all the numbered huts. You pick a hut based on location (or availability) and they put your room number beside the hut number. It was so great to get a hut everyday. We also had the same hut, which was close to our room. I think this is the fairest way to get a hut.

The Pools: Honestly we didn't spend much time at the pools. The resort was crawling with families, and we just aren't ready to have to deal with cranky, hyper children yet, so we stuck to the beach for the week. From what we did see though during our travels during the day was that the pools were small, but there seemed to be enough loungers, and and adequate amount of shade available. The huts around the pool were first come, first serve. There were two pools, one for the kids, one for the adults. Every time we went by the pool, the adult pool was crawling with kids.

The Beach: Tons of huts, beautiful sand, beautiful cool water. It was great. It was our home the week we were there. The hut reservation process was super easy and organized, so we always had shade while we were on the beach making my stay that much more comfortable (Andre says "Thank GOD!!!"). There were always plenty of loungers available as well.

Evening Entertainment: Crappity, crap, or non-existent.

Casino: Didn't go.

Miscellaneous Complaints/Comments: There was no bottled water supplied with the rooms. When we visited the front desk she told me this was because you could drink the water right out of the tap. Well that's great, but because the water lines don't run that deep, the cold water from the tap is luke-warm. Ewww. Thankfully we had brought our Clean Kanteen's from home, but you would've had to buy bottled water otherwise. We bought a litre bottle of local bottled water, and between the three containers always had cold water available for the two of us.

Overall Opinion: Andre says that he would stay at the Holiday Inn Sunspree again in a second. I'm undecided. I think that if you're going to pay the price to stay at an All-Inclusive resort you shouldn't have to eat off the resort (like we did one night) to avoid the shitty dinner buffet. The buffet is included with the price, and as such you should be able to enjoy it. We weren't the only guests that felt this way. The beach is awesome though, much better than the Riu, and more expansive than most of the other resorts that we walked past.

So there you have it. My review of Aruba!

Summer Vacation 2010

AKA Babymoon 2010 has come and gone.

We left on Monday July 26th and returned very late on Monday August 2nd. It was great to get away, but like I have told a lot of my friends this vacation will be my first and last during the first trimester of any pregnancy. We booked this vacation before we got our fabulous BFP, and the dreaded morning sickness really didn't start to kick in until the week before we left. The Thursday before our departure was a horrible day m/s wise. I ended up calling in sick to work because I had a huge bout of nausea and heaving and being a massage therapist, I just cannot physically do my job if I'm running to the bathroom every 5 minutes. It's just not going to happen.

After a call to Mother Risk (an absolutely AMAZING resource for pregnant Canadian women out there) I had some very practical advice to help with how I was feeling, and I had been told that I could take Ginger Gravol up to a maxium of twice daily to help with the nausea that I was feeling. I rested for the rest of the day Thursday, and then woke up Friday feeling well, just as shitty as I did the previous day, if not a little bit worse. I made a quick call into my RE's office, talked to the receptionist, and the angel that she is, got the dr to call in a prescription of Diclectin. This has proven to be invaluable. The only problem was the for about the first week of taking it I was pretty much a zombie. Thank goodness I was on vacation and I could sleep the hangover feeling off in the mornings.

So armed with my Diclectin we headed off to sunny Aruba. Now let me start by saying that it was a great vacation. I mean how can you not have an amazing time when your job is to sit on the white sand beaches looking out over a turquoise sea? The only issue was timing. Let's face it, if you wake up feeling like ass every morning, and your day is ruled by the accessibility to washrooms, keeping hydrated, eating snacks every 1-2 hours, and keeping cool, so you don't overheat and feel even crappier, it kind of takes the fun out of the day sometimes. I think if we had planned this same vacation during my second trimester, it just would've been better. Normally we wouldn't care so much about how long our excursions were. This time I would only be gone for about 4-6 hours. That is about how much fluids and snacks we could bring with us.

Even though Andre was amazing and got up early every morning to secure a hut close to our hotel room, that shelter sometimes just wasn't enough, and two afternoons I had to come back to our room to cool off and rehydrate. I felt so bad leaving Andre by himself on the beach, but really there was nothing I could do. I couldn't risk over heating and getting dehydrated.

In the end hindsight is always 20/20. I will recommend to anyone out there who is pregnant, or TTC, wait until you are out of your first trimester before planning a big vacation. When spending a crap load of your hard earned cash, you want to enjoy yourself 100% of the time, not just 60% of the time. If you wait out those first few months, you'll have a better idea of how you feel, and what you're comfortable doing throughout the day.

I will end this blog entry with some pictures of Andre and I from sunny Aruba.



Entering our resort

Me (and peanut) on the beach!

Andre on the beach.

The beach to our right from our hut.

A stunning Arubian sunset.



Andre and I at the Beach