Back From the Dead

The three amigos (us) left for vacation on July 15th. But this was no normal vacation. You know, usually people post these amazing pictures of their family laughing or laying on a beach or actually uh...RELAXING? Yeah, that was NOT our vacation. We drove almost 7 hours to Taylor, Arizona where Titan whined almost the entire way. Titan's adorable little cousin decided to barge in on his nap time, so of course- he cried and whined for an hour after that. My in-laws live in an old adobe home (which I LOVE!) but because it's an older house, it has no AC. Middle of July + Arizona+ No AC = kind of toasty. But we always love to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa Hargrove, Uncle Trent & Jeremy, Mylee & Rikki. We made homemade Mozzarella, rode the 4-wheeler with Titan, and visited Derek's other family members in Taylor and Snowflake. We drove to Sedona, AZ a few days later and we found that Titan had developed something called Thrush. He had white spots EVERYWHERE in his mouth and he was in terrible pain. I felt so bad for him, but MAN- I did NOT want to hear that awful infant cry for one more minute. He spent every night of our vacation waking up at 1:45. Or 4:00. Or 5:30. I don't know about you- but Derek and I like our sleep. Our full, uninterrupted, peaceful sleep. So naturally, we had had it. Dr. Guggedahl (yes, like the Goo Goo Dolls), Titan's pediatrician, called in a prescription to the Sedona Walgreens. Because we don't have insurance, the lady at Walgreens said that it would cost between 98 and 100 dollars. WOW. Derek and I talked it over- because obviously that is a large amount of money, but of course we wouldn't leave our baby high and dry with this terrible condition so...we got him the medicine. When we went to buy it, it was only $17.99. How crazy! We were being blessed. I was ridiculously nauseous from the windy road into Sedona, Titan was whiney and Derek was tired. We were supposed to head to Las Vegas, Nevada to finish our vacation at our friend's house but decided it was too much for us. And if we needed to head back home on a whim, we'd be at least 12 hours from home. So we detoured over to Phoenix just to spend the night, then took off the next morning and came all the way back to beautiful El Paso haha. We were wallowing in self pity at first, but did everything we could to still act like we were on vacation. We went out to eat, saw a movie, walked around, swam... we lived it up! We "stay-cationed". And it was probably the most relaxing vacation we've ever had. We loved it.

In the mean time, there are 2 other exciting pieces of news:

1. I had an ultrasound done yesterday and I am.....NOT PREGNANT. I know you're probably thinking "of course you're not". But honestly, all signs pointed to yes.

And last but not least...

2. Derek has finished his time at Unishippers. He decided it wasn't for him anymore- and is now playing with the idea of joining a branch of the military to either make use of his Chinese & Japanese language skills, or to become a helicopter pilot. I love him so much- he has always looked out for me and for our little family and I'm glad he's discovering careers that will satisfy him and help him live up to his potential.

And this was our long, hopefully-not-that-boring, pictureless update from the last couple of weeks.

: )

WTF (Not the bad F)

I think I might be officially broken.

My family is full of lemons. (Sorry guys, but you've said so yourselves.)

Now, for a while, I've often wondered if I was pregnant again. (I know! Don't judge!) I have an IUD so I don't have my monthly visitor, and my pregnancy test came back negative BUT you can have a false negative so who knows. I never really had heartburn until I was pregnant and I always had headaches throughout my pregnancy. Lo and behold, both of the symptoms began as well as feeling um...movement?...in my tummy. Weird. Needless to say, I'm still unsure if I'm pregnant, but I'd be fairly far along and it's probably wise if I find out. That IUD can't be healthy for a fetus.

Two, my teeth. Thanks mom for never drinking milk and depriving me of my calcium. : ) The McInnes side apparently has deep grooved teeth and guess what? So do I! So, I've had 3 teeth filled in the last 4 months and now they're hurting again. Gross.

Three. This is the reason for the WTF title on my post. My shoulder is 100% WRECKED. Not too long ago, I had this ridiculous amount of pain in my right shoulder. Just to tell you how terrible this pain is, my arm will fall if I try and lift the jug of milk up past the point of my elbow to put it back into the fridge. ??? Hmm. Well, tonight I think I have finally found the reason for this pain. Ready for this? Band Hero on the Wii. Yes. We had a little popcorn and Kool-Aid party with my family at our apartment tonight and we played Band Hero. From vigorously strumming that Wii guitar, my shoulder was pooped out. I guarantee this is the reason for the messed up shoulder.

Four. A while back my right index finger had pain from the middle knuckle, almost down to my wrist. What a random place for pain. I strongly disliked this. My mom thought it was arthritis. At my age??? I'm like Benjamin Button!

Five. I had to have an ultrasound in my upper right thigh to check for Arterial Thrombosis because one day my leg hurt and after about 3 days I was walking like I had a rod in it. (I looked like a fool and it killed to walk!) Turns out it was a swollen lymph node. Hahaha- see? These are just getting funnier! Why in the world would someone my age have all this STUFF?! AAAAND, in 2008 I was sent to the hospital to have an Upper GI and a Colonoscopy for internal bleeding. Apparently I was on the brink of stomach cancer. Eeho.

Now that I think about it, I'm seeing a theme here. It's always on my right side! So maybe I'm halfway broken. I'm broken vertically, down the middle. Weird. Anyway, I'm not sure the reason for all of this nonsense but I know I've learned one thing from it all. You have no idea how much you appreciate a body part until it is out of commission. (Or TOW UP, as we would say).

Appreciate your well functioning bodies, all you non-potentially-prego, non-Benjy Button, non-lemons, you.

A First To Everything!

So sorry, still haven't found my SD card adapter for the Mac- so here I am, blogging without pictures from my camera. But I wanted to blog about our first big purchase and I found some pictures on the internet.

Derek drives a Suzuki GSXR 600 (Very cool, I know! Wish I could drive that heavy thing!) and I drive a 97 Honda Civic. Oh, but it's the luxury edition, guys so it is EQUALLY as cool as the GSXR. (Joke.)

Anyways, this summer has been a hot one. There have been times I take little Titan out of his carseat and the back of his head is soaked because there is no circulation in my car. Being newlyweds (ish) and now having a baby- we are of course, tight wads. But that has paid off (no pun intended) big time because we have just bought ourselves a... drumroll... NISSAN PATHFINDER.

We love it. And we made sure if it didn't have rear AC, we weren't even going to look at it. So now Derek has a GSXR, I have a Honda Civic and TITAN has a Nissan Pathfinder. We sure hope he is happy : )

Finally : )

Well guys, we've finally moved in to our new apartment. Can I just say that it makes a gigantic difference having a room your child can call his own? (Well, he doesn't technically speak yet. But I can call it his own for him). Speaking of speaking...I've been teaching this little guy to say "mama". My MOM even teaches him to say "mama". And guess what word he says? Dada. WHAT?! He says Wow, Dada and Baba. I'm aaaalways saying "wow" to him and I'm always calling him "baby" so that would explain the wow and baba but, dada? Lucky Derek! As much as I joke here, it actually makes me feel good that he said Dada first. Derek is such a great hubby and dad.

Another thing:

Happy Fourth of July! I've often stopped and thought about how ridiculously lucky (I mean BLESSED) we are to live in the United States. I learned in a seminary class in high school that if you:
1. Are in a family whose parents are NOT divorced
2. Live in a house
3. Have 2 or more cars in the driveway AND...
4. Live in the United States of America
You are among a whopping 1 % of people in this world who have all of these things. Makes you feel a little luckier, doesn't it?

Here's to America and here's to freedom, guys. And it came with a gigantic price tag so make sure you thank those who paved this way for you!

P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures. I have an adapter that transfers pictures from my SD card to my Mac and it's somewhere in a box. But when I find it and get a chance to put pictures up, I will!

The End Is Near!

Tomorrow we move into our new apartment! So I am sure my family is VERY sad that we won't be: 1. Taking up space in their garage so they can't park their car 2. Eating their food since we depleted our stash before we left 3. Keeping everyone up with little Titan deciding to randomly cry in the night for various reasons 4. Making little messes with toys and bibs and the Bumbo and food and who knows what else.

Sorry, guys. We will miss you also. But we are right down the street. Ha.

Oh and P.S. Jordan pitched a tent tonight. He will be sleeping in the backyard. See? They're so sad we're leaving tomorrow!!! : )

But in all seriousness, thanks mom and dad for letting us hone in!

There Is Not A Fitting Title For This Post.

There are hardly words for how the night went. Either none of you prayed for me or I'm being cursed. Probably the latter. And it's probably because of the intense bad feelings I harbor for the people across the border that cramp my style every single day here in El Paso, so I probably deserve it.

And so, to avoid profanity (because using those words are about the only way to fully explain how horrible last night was) I will not be telling you how awful it went.

The End.