Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Birthday Weekend Mini-Vacation!

My 28h Birthday was the 14th and Rusty arranged for a little mini-vacatin to North Carolina. It was so nice to just get away for the weekend and RELAX!

We left on Friday (the 11th) to make the six hour drive to Lucama, NC where we were staying with our good friends Alex and Freddy. We took our time getting down there, making a couple stops along the way.

Friday evening we went out for Italian food..... yummy pizza and then for some frozen yogurt. That night we spent just talking and making up for lost time.... we all share a love for Disney, so there is never a dull moment in coversation :)

Saturday we headed to the Smithfield outlets to do some shopping, we found some goodies and of course had an awesome lunch at Zaxby's. I always feel like I eat ALL weekend we go to NC, I can't help it.... I have to eat all the food that I can't get in PA!

Saturday afternoon I spent some time reading and took a two hour nap.... I rare event for me, but much needed. We then headed out to eat at El Tap for some yummy Mexican food. I thought we were just going as the two couples, but Alex arranged for a suprise birthday dinner with my friends from college. It was so GREAT seeing everyone.... it has been too long. Here is a picture of everyone at dinner, thanks again to everyone who took time to come to dinner!



We then headed back to Alex and Freddy's house to hang out and play some games, we found a newlywed game online which turned out to be a good time, Ha!

Sunday morning we headed back home but not before we got our fix of Bojangles.... yummy in my tummy (so wish there was one of these in PA!) We then met Kati and Billy outside of DC for lunch, it was good catching up.... it also had been too long since we hung out!

All in all, it was an awesome weekend followed by Monday off for my actual birthday. We met yup with Julie and Danny for lunch at Red Lobster and then just hung out/relaxed at home... nothing too exciting but very relaxing, which is just what I was looking forward to!

Sunday, January 6, 2013

2012 Year Review

Happy New Year! I have been a very bad blogger in the year of 2012. I think I only did like three posts all year long! I am jumping back into blogging and hope to be much better in 2013.

2012 has been a very rough year for me.... more on that a little later. I am hoping and praying that 2013 will be a bit better- although it has started off a little rough so far! I was hoping to have this post done around the 1st of the year but on the 2nd I woke up with the stomach bug and spent the next few days in not so lovely shape and recovering! Then my poor fur baby girl, Sophia, hurt her back again (a flare up from her previous back inury in November when she popped a disk out in her back)- needless to say we have to keep her on bed rest for the next couple of week- which is not easy! Thank god she has to take pain medication which helps to keep her sleeping- a lot!


Back to the main reason for this post- my 2012 Yearly Review. I thought since I was such a bad blogger for the year, I would do a recap of each month to catch you up on our lives.... nothing too exciting but at least we would all be back on the same page. I am not sure how many readers I still have left, but let me know in the comments if you are still reading along!!

January

- Celebrated my 27th Birthday on the 14th with a movie and dinner date day/night with Rusty
- Rusty's uncle passed away on the 23rd from an accident. HIs death was very hard on us and our family. I think its hard when you have no time to "prepare" for the persons death- he was not dealing with an extended illness and was only in his 50's- We miss you Uncle Kenny!

February

- I reached a major goal in my weight loss! Still working on my final goal but I was proud to have reached one of the major goals along the way
- We are not much of valentines day junkies but we did have a nice dinner at home, just the two of us

March

- March is when things starting to go down hill for myself, related to my health and my struggle with endometriosis. I ended up having to have surgery to remove some of the lesions, howerver, it was found during surgery that my lesions are mostly inside my reproductive organs and could not be removed. My condition was much worse than what my doctor was hoping for and expecting
- I spent much of the month recovering from the surgery and disussing my options moving forward

April

- Was the month of birthdays in our family- three birthday parties, three weekends in a row. We started off with my nieces's, Hannah, 2nd birthday party- Minnie Mouse themed. Next was my nephew's Alex's 1st birthday party followed by my other nieces's, Ava, 3rd birthday party, - princess themed.
- We ended the month with Rusty suprising me with a date day in the inner harbor in Baltimore. Completed with an awesome crab cake dinner, walking around the harbor with the beautiful weather, and ending the day with tickets to go see the braodway show Mary Poppins. It was just what I needed, I am not sure how he always knows just what to do to make me feel better ;)

May

- Started off with me tripping over Snickers at the top of our steps and taking a fall down ten steps- rolling head first to the bottom! I ended up with a broken left wrist and a badly bruised leg.... and a lot of pain! I was actually very lucky since I hit my head/neck/back the whole way down.... It could have been much worse. I spent the next couple of months in a cast followed by 4 weeks of physical therapy to get my wrist back to "normal"
- To end the month, I started my first non-hormone therapy injection- called Lupron. It is a nasty injection that I had to get monthly for the rest of the year, in hopes to shrink some of the lesions in my reproductive organs. The injections tricked my body into thinking that I was in menopause- including all the symptoms: hot flashes, insomnia, mood swings, anxiety, fatigue..... let me tell you, it was a whole lot of fun! I told you this year was not very kind to me!

June

- Poor Sophia's allergies hit her very hard this month and she ended up with a severe hot spot on her tail.... she had to have her tail shaved and had to wear a cone around her neck for about one week until it was able to heal. You would have thought this was the end of the world for our little diva ;)
- We spent a great deal of time out on our deck at night, listeing to music and watching the stars. Trying to relax our minds and body from the stress of the above months!

July

- We celebrated Rusty's 32nd Birthday July 3rd, Rusty had to work on his birthay due to the holiday the next day but we celebrated that evening with dinner at his favorite mexican place and dessert at Chili's!
- We traveled to Southern MD for Nicci's wedding- it was an awesome time! It was great to get away for the weekend and re-connect with some of the best friends a girl could ask for! I miss my college buddies all the time- I wish we all lived closer so we could hang out more!

August

- I went on a weekend beach trip with a friend from work to Ocean City, MD. I had not been to the beach for about 3 years.... it was nice to finally see the ocean water again, even if we didn't have the best weather!
- I had my 4th injection of Lupron this month and was full blown into the symptoms, making it a very long and HOT summer but I was determined to stick with the injections with hopes that it would bring positive outcomes!

September

- Was a very slow month, nothing too exciting happened. We enjoyed the last bit of the summer out on the deck, one of our favorite past times is sitting out on the deck at night with the radio playing and candles just enjoying the view!

October

- We got new cell phones: Samsung Galaxy III- we love them! They take awesome pictures, which I promise to post more on the blog after this post!!
- We celerated our 4th wedding anniversary, howerver, I was sick with bronchitis, sincus infection, and double ear infection: talk about Happy Anniversary to me!
- Rusty's brother was able to score two tickets to the Cowboy/Ravens game in Baltimore, if you know my husband you know he is a HUGE cowboys fan. He was so excited to go to the game with his brother. That morning at 2am, Snickers had a seizure. Once of the scariest things I have EVER gone through in my life- I thought that he was having a stroke or worse. We ended up having to take him to the Vet ER in York- only for them to not know what exactly was going on with him. Thank god our regular vet is family member and she saw him on Sunday and ran some blood work and determined that he had a seizure. We still are not sure of what caused this, but we thank god every day that he has not had any more! I made Rusty still go to the game, but needless to say he was not really able to enjoy himself fully due to the stress on his mind.
- I celebrated a good family friend, Gail's, 60th birthday at a tea room. The ladies tea was a great time- I want to go back to another tea party!!!

November

- We started off the month going to Rusty's brother's band, Liguid Lucky, first concert since they got back together this year. They are an awesome band and its always a good time watching them
- Sophia injured her back on the 12th- we are not sure exactly how she did it but she popped one of her disks out in her back. Our vet thinks it might have happened when she jumped up or down from the couch or bed but luckily it went back in but she had to be on two weeks of bed rest and some pretty strong pain medication to get her through the worst of the inury- poor baby! It was not a good year for our pups either....
- I received my last Lurpon injection, they did some image studies which showed that there was no improvement from the injections and the lesions actually got worse. I was crushed- I had 9 injections and went through all the symptoms for what seemed like NOTHING. My doctor was unsure of what direction to head next and wanted me to ses a specialist which was arranged for December 17th
- Rusty and I went out for our yearly ritual of black Friday shopping- I am happy to report in 24 hours we got all of our Christmas shopping done (other than gifts for each other!)
- On the 30th we left for our Disney trip for eight wonderful days.... one day just the two of us and the remainder seven days was with Rusty's mom, brother and sister in law and their kids, sisters in laws sister and her husband and two kids, and our sister in laws parents.

December

- We spent the first week in Disney- We stayed at Disney's Old Key West with our family and had a WONDERFUL time. The weather was great!!! I didn't want to come back to the reality of the real world...
- When we returned from our trip, I went to see the specialist only to find out she too was not sure what direction to head next. We were running out of options and things were getting bad, quickly. I was informed that more than likely I would need to have my uterus (the worse of the organs due to the endometriosis) removed and that I would not be able to carry my own children.
- This was the worse month yet this year. I have kept a lot of this "hidden" because simply put.... its hard to talk about. But I need to start healing... which means that I need to accept what is happening and part of that includes talking about it, I am hoping it will help more me along in the healing process
- We celebrated Christmas with both of our families and of course the pups- who we made sure got extra spoiled due to their hard year as well
- We ended the year celebrating New Years Eve with our best friends- Danny and Julie.. We went out to dinner and came back to our house to hang out- awlays a good time

Well- there you have it, our year in reivew! I told you it was not a very good year for us! I am hoping and praying for a better 2013. As far as my endometriosis is concerned- I am meeting with two specialist coming up this month- I am hoping for some more answers and a more detailed plan moving forward. My wonderful husbad, Rusty, has been a rock for me through all of this- supporting me every step of the way. I am not sure what I did to deserve such a wonderful person in my life! Thank you to all of my other friends who have all texted, called, sent cards, etc to support me along the way: you all are wonderful and know who you are!
Sorry again for being so bad at blogging this year, I really hope to get back into blogging on a regular basis this year!
Happy New Year!!