I feel like it's been so long since I last posted that I don't know where to start. So, I'm just going to jump right in.
Journey to Baby:
I last wrote about this in January of 2015 and here we are in April 2016. I am not pregnant, I did not have any miscarriages, just riding the crazy emotional rollarcoaster. The last year involved a handful of tests, some with great results, others with less than ideal answers. Next month we have an appointment with the fertility specialist. I am excited and nervous about this. Excited to hopefully get pregnant and grow our family, nervous about getting pregnant and growing out family (ha!) and nervous that this could get expensive. Kevin and I have talked about what we are and are not comfortable with and hopefully this experience is a good one. Maybe this time next year I'll have a little baby (finally) who knows!
Student Loans:
DONE! I paid off my student loans in November! One of the best feelings ever!. I paid them off twelve years early and I am SO HAPPY that these are DONE DONE DONE!
Aunt-hood: I have shared about my adorable nephew on this blog a few times and I'm happy to announce that he has a little sister! That's right I now have a nephew and a niece. I am the oldest of three girls so I'm loving all things baby girl right now. There is so. much. pink. and I thought I would hate it but I don't; it's the best! My sister asked for the sake of her children's privacy not to share photos of their faces online. We have many friends who are foster parents and they cannot share faces and names of their foster children online so I take the same "rules" with my niece and nephew. So you will just have to trust me when I say that are the cutest!
Vacation:
We went to Disney World in the fall! (Yes I am little in love with Disney World) I was actually writing a day by day recap on the blogger app on my phone but I never got past day three. This is was my second time to Disney in three years but if felt like a completely different vacation. Highlights included: Keys to the Kingdom tour (AKA backstage tour at Magic Kingdom), fireworks at Magic Kingdom and Epcot, lunch reservations at Le Cellier in Epcot, swimming in the hotel pool, my second time flying, the buffet at BOMA at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, dinner at Raglan Road in Disney Springs, etc. etc. etc. maybe I should write up that full Disney recap. Kevin said this was the last time we will go to Disney for awhile, he would like to see some other things. However, if I am still not pregnant this fall, my mom and I might take a trip to Disney (shes never been!) (I am aware you can go to Disney World while pregnant, for me it would be the money that is the deciding factor (see expensive fertility specialist above))
Home:
Not much has changed around our house. We just went to IKEA a few days ago and I currently have my feet resting on a real coffee table. We also purchased two bookshelves and a standing mirror but we haven't assembled those yet. I had tonsillitis this week, which pretty much took all of my energy. We have some projects we'd like to accomplish around the house this summer. Getting the backyard trees trimmed, mulch, touch up paint, etc. We even talked about having the bathrooms re-done or re-finishing the basement but those large and not 100% necessary right now projects might have to be put on hold (again see expensive fertility specialist) We did talk about selling our home this summer. We would eventually like to move into a four bedroom house with a full basement. Right now we live in a three bedroom house with a partial basement. I would also like a larger dining area as ours is rather cramped. We live in a standard nineties suburban neighborhood where every house is one of the same five floor-plans. Well a house that is just like ours (it's even the same color) and was bought a week before we bought ours, well they just sold that twin house for significantly more than they bought it for (and we bought ours for a similar price.) That equity had me pretty tempted. I think I would like to build our next house. I even have a floor-plan picked out if I were to build in the new neighborhood that's going in just down the street. However, after crunching the numbers the new house would cost us more than what we are paying now and in all honesty, our house is plenty big for two people and two cats. I mean it's a three bedroom house and we aren't even using the extra bedrooms. So we decided to stay in this house a little longer. I do think if you buy a house you should plan to live there for at least five years (at least that's what I think Dave Ramsey always said when I used to listen to his radio show religiously) and we've only been in this house three and a half years so far. I love my little home sweet home and I hope to continue to make it my own until it's time to move on to the next home sweet home.
Personal:
Last summer my Grandma (my mother's mother) passed away rather unexpectedly. I don't think I had cried so hard in a long time and this March my Grandpa (my father's father) passed away after a long period of failing health. It was hard. I've never been so sad and when I think about them still I get tears in my eyes and I probably always will. My Grandma always had my mom's fine china on display in her dining room and now it's on display in my kitchen (my mom doesn't really have a place for it) I love thinking of her every time I see it. The same thing can be said for my Grandpa (or Papo as I always called him) he was a very talented artist and I have a couple of his paintings displayed in my home. I absolutely love them. I will cherish these things forever.
Anything else? Probably, I can usually find something to talk about, whether it's the books I'm reading or my thoughts on cooking (I still don't like cooking) but I think that's enough for now. I hopefully won't wait so long to post here again. I hope everyone who reads this is doing well and enjoying every sunny day that comes your way this spring.
-Sam