Decision

I guess a few of you are waiting to see what we decided for fertility treatments. The choice was pretty obvious, as we don't have 10 grand. I have always felt God leading me to an IUI, so I will be having the surgery on April 12th.

In the meantime, we will be praying for a natural miracle. It was unclear whether he wanted me to do more rounds of Clomid, so right now we will not be doing anything before the surgery.

I am really not stressing about this. I know God is in control, and when the time is right we will have a baby. When I really think about it, I worry and stress, so I just try to put it out of my mind.

Orlandio Recap - Epcot/Monday

Originally, we didn't plan on going to Epcot, but I am glad we did. We got up at 8:30 to finish packing up. We checked out, stored our bags and grabbed breakfast at the resort.

Much to my surprise, all of Epcot is NOT inside the ball. I honestly thought the entire park was inside that giant white golf ball. It wasn't until a I saw a map a couple days before we went to the park that I realized that it was like a regular park, outside. In fact, there is NOTHING inside that ball. Eric was shocked that I thought that, but I have always thought that, and it is still hard to believe! Haha!

At Epcot we started with the rides. We went on the Space mission on, the test track, and a tour of their green houses where we saw some really innovative ways to grow food! I would love to try some of them!

We got a Fast Pass for the Soarin' ride, but it was 3 hours away, so we started checking out the country pavilions. They are all really well done. I loved the shops that had items from the countries. It wasn't the generic Disney stuff.

We had a delicious lunch in Morocco, one of the best meals we had I think!

Me in Mexico, this hat was only 15 bucks!:

Eric in Norway:

This is in Japan. You could pick out a clam, and this lady would dig out the pearl and they would put it on a necklace for you. She made it a big production making us clap and cheer and stuff. It was pretty cool!

This is the only picture of the two of us that is not a self portrait! A nice lady offered to take this picture when she saw Eric taking a picture of me!Our fast pass for Soarin' was for 3. We thought we could quickly go on the ride before we caught our bus, but at 3:15 we were still in line with no end in sight, so we had to leave. Our shuttle back to the hotel was booked for 3:55. We just barely made it back to the hotel before our shuttle left.

We had a bit of a wait before our flight, because we got to the airport early. Our flight was uneventful, and it was suprisingly warm when we got back! I was really expecting it to be colder. Thankfully, our car started with no issues and we got home at 1:30.

It was a great trip. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to go to Disney World, and I am looking forward to taking my children there one day!

Orlando Recap - Animal Kingdom/Sunday

We got to Animal Kingdom at around 9:30. It was a fairly short bus ride because our resort was just outside of the Animal Kingdom enterance. I really enjoyed this park. It was like a really awesome Zoo! I especially loved the Asia and Africa sections, they really made it feel like you were there with all the decor and music and stuff.

The park was only open until 5, but we had plenty of time to see everything we wanted to. It is a smaller park, and there was not a lot of waiting in lines. My favorite part was seeing this baby giraffe on the safari ride, for sure!

In the evening we went to Downtown Disney for one last time. We spend some time browsing and shopping. We went to an Irish restaurant pub for supper. Eric got fish and chip and I got a really yummy raspberry salad. For an appetiser, they served a sweet bread with reduced Guiness beer with sugar and olive oil. It was so delish, but Eric and I didn't know what it was until after we were done eating it and asked our server! We would never have guessed that. They had live music pretty much the whole time too! After that we headed back to our resort and packed up our bags as much as we could and tried to get to bed earlier.

Orlando Recap - Universal Studios/Saturday

We originally planned to take a bus to Universal Studios at 8 am, but we stayed up a little late at Downtown Disney the night before, so we called and changed our bus ride to 9. The bus didn't show up until almost 9:30. By the time we got to Universal Studios and got into a line for the first ride it was almost 11! The first ride we went on was the Hulk. It was a really good rollercoaster with tonnes of loops and twists.

After that we went to Jurassic Park and went on the boat ride, with one very big plunge at the end. And we got soaked. It was a sunny day, which is why we left our sweaters at the hotel, but it was very windy. Making it very cold. And getting soaked first thing in the morning did not help! But, Churros really helped to warm us up!

After that we stood in the longest line we have yet, an hour, for the Harry Potter ride. We played a lot of rounds of Boggle on my iPod while we waited. Fortunately, the ride was the best one at Universal, so it was well worth it. Here is Hogwarts:

They had it all set up with the town, Hogsmead, that is in the Harry Potter books. We went on the dragon rollercoaster and walked around that park for a bit longer. We didn't do everything we would have liked because we knew we would run out of time. There are two separate park at Universal, so we headed to the second one. We watched Animal Actors On Location, which was probably one of our favorite parts! It is amazing what they have trained those animals to do, especially the cats!
Most of the stuff at the second park was 4D shows or ones that made you feel like you were in the movie. We were at the park right until close and we didn't get to see everything we would have liked. We could have easily done another full day there with all the stuff we missed! I really enjoyed this park, it was not geared to children as much as the Disney parks are.

We had to run to catch our pre booked bus back to our hotel. We had to pay 19 each for the bus there and back, because it is not a Disney park so we had to book a non-Disney bus!

By the time we got back to our hotel we were both exhausted, so we changed into some warm clothes and had supper at our resort. I had a bath with my new bath bomb and we tried to get to bed a little earlier so we could get a earlier start the next day.

Orlando Recap - Disney's Hollywood Studios/Fridays

Friday morning we slept until 8:30 again, and didn't really rush to get out the door. We had breakfast at our resort. I had a chocolate croissant and it was AMAZING! It is so hard to find good ones here at home. We got the Disney's Hollywood Studios (HS) at around 10 am. We saw these two ladies when we entered, they were pretty hilarious!

The very first thing we did was go on Eric's two favorite rides, The Tower of Terror and the Rockin' Rollercoaster. I really liked the Rockin' Rollercoaster, but it was far to short of a ride! After we did those a few times we explored the rest of the park. Most of the other attractions were shows, rather than rides. There was a lot of behind the scenes/special FX sort of shows. This is me in fake San Fransisco:

This is Eric in fake New York:
None of the buildings are real, they are all facades, and the skylines in the back are like huge cardboard cutouts, although I am sure they are not cardboard, but you get the idea.

We got to see everything we wanted to see. I really liked HS, it was family friendly, but there was lots of stuff that adults could enjoys as well. We orinigally planned to spend our 4th day back at this park, but because most of the attractions are like shows, we would just be coming back to spend a day going on Tower of Terror and Rockin' Rollercoaster and it just wasn't worth it. We did decide to go to Epcot after all.

It rained this day, as you can tell from the pictures it doesn't look very warm, AND we did not bring our sweaters! We did manage to hide in the Toy Story line for about 1/2 and hour and didn't get TOO wet. I really liked the Toy Story ride, it was kind of like a video game and they tallied the scores at the end and showed you who in your car won. We would have went again if the line wasn't so long!

The very last thing we did at HS was go to the American Idol Experience. I really liked it, because it was real people up on the stage singing. They had judges there, and you got to vote for who won! The winner got a golden ticket to get to the front of the line at any American Idol audition! The girl Eric and I voted for won, but they were all pretty good!

The park closed at 7, but because the Idol thing went a bit longer, we were not out of the park until 7:15.

We went back to the hotel and relaxed for and hour, then header to Downtown Disney. We shopped around a bit and bought some gifts for family. I found a bath store called Basin that had bath bombs, so I bought a few to have some baths back at our hotel! We had supper at the Rainforest Cafe. It was really good food, but it was our most expensive meal by far. After that we decided to eat a little cheaper because it was crazy to spend almost $100 a day on food! Eric at RC:

We got to sit beside a really cool salt water fish tank! It was entertaining!

Orlando Recap - Magic Kingdom/ Thursday

We woke up at around 8:30. We grabbed some Mickey waffles for breakfast from our hotel, then hopped on a shuttle to the Magic Kingdom (MK).

I was not wowed by MK. Like I said in my previous post, it was definitely geared for kids. One thing that suprised me was most of the rides were like stories or experiences, so you really didn't want do do them over and over again. We just HAD to go on the teacups.
This is me on Tom Sawyer's Island on the barrel bridge! It was pretty rocky!
They had lots of character bushes like this, they were so cool.Eric and I on the train that goes around the outskirts of MK.
We did not stay quite till the park closed, probably until 6:30. We were both pretty wiped, so we went back to the hotel and watched TV and napped. We were planning on going to Downtown Disney, but we decided to just order in a pizza instead because we were both so tired!

After supper we decided to go swimming. Eric walked to the main building to fill up our mug (if you buy a mug you get free drink refills for your entire stay), and I hopped in the pool. I fully expected it to feel as warm as the night before. But I guess because it was a warmer night, the water felt so cold! I was freezing, and by the time Eric got back I just hopped out of the pool and we went back to our room and went to bed.

Surgery or IVF

Today was our appointment at Heartland. Like usual, it did not go as planned/expected/hoped for.

To start it all off, it was snowing and blowing like crazy. My auntie called me early in the morning, while I was still sleeping, and informed me that the roads were terrible. She advised me to stay home, but I called Eric to see if he could get off work early so we could get going. But he wasn't able to get away any earlier, and the drive in was very slow. We were 30 minutes late, but I had called to warn them so thankfully they still saw us.

At first Dr. K wanted to send me for and HSG, until I informed him I already had one. Then he told me he wanted to try a few months of what we were doing. Then Eric told him money was no object, (which it obviously is, but we wanted to move on and Eric wanted to make that clear), so then Dr. K decided that I needed to go for surgery.

He will not let me do an IUI without doing a surgery. He said it is either surgery or IVF. He wants to do a laprascopy and ovarian drilling. I am very nervous of surgery and I am not excited about doing it. It is fairly minor surgery, and I would only be at the hospital for a few hours. But an IUI is $2500 and IVF is $10,000. So we have a decision to make. As of right now, I have surgery booked for April 12th. We have a lot of thinking and praying to do.

Selling Out

I have decided to stop selling Lia Sophia jewelery, so I am selling all of my samples!

Click here to see my Facebook album for pictures and prices!

I will be adding more items over the next few days. Everything is 50% or more off, with no shipping or taxes!

Recap - Downtown Disney

I guess it is time for a recap! I had a fantastic time in Florida. I wrote lots about the conference, so I won't write any more about that.

Wednesday the conference ended, and Eric came that night. I took a taxi from my first hotel to my second one. We stayed at the All Star Music Resort. I was not really expecting it, but it was like a huge complex. I guess that is why it is called a resort and not a hotel! There were 8 separate buildings from the main one, and ours was one of the furthest back. I checked in and dragged my bags to our room.

This resort was definitely a downgrade from the first one. The conference hotel I stayed at, the Fairfield Inn, had a king size bed, a fridge, free Wifi, and a free breakfast that included fruit, bagels, fresh waffles, sausage, hash browns, eggs, yogurt and juice. Oh, and I can't forget the hot tub! The Disney resort had two outdoor pools, but no hot tub. We had two double beds, no Wifi or computer access (there was an internet cable in our room, but we have no laptop!), and we had to pay for all of our meals.

Also, when you are in Walt Disney World it is like it's own town. And if you have no car, your only transport is the Disney buses which only take you to Disney stuff. Or a taxi, but that would have been crazy expensive to get anywhere. Because of that, we had to eat ALL of our meals either at the resort or at a restaurant. We would have really loved to get some food from a grocery store, it would have been a lot more affordable!

I had quite a bit of time to kill, so I headed to Downtown Disney to check it out, there was a free shuttle from the hotel. Downtown Disney is a bunch of Disney and non-Disney shops and restaurants. It is in Disney World, but it is not a park so there is no admission. And everything is open until 11, while most of the parks close at 7 so it gives you something to do in the evening.

Anyways, I went to Downtown Disney(DD) for about 1/2 an hour. I wandered around some shops, but headed back cause I didn't want to miss Eric's arrival and leave him wondering where I was! It took about 20 minutes to get to DD, and 25 minutes to get back. I got back to the hotel at 7:30, but Eric didn't arrive until 8;30ish. It was pretty pumped to finally see him!

We both hadn't had supper, so we went to DD for supper. We decided on The House of Blues. I got a steak and Eric got Jambalaya. It was amazing! Probably the best meal we had for the whole trip! After the meal we browsed the shops a bit, but they were closing.I got some really cute socks from Little MissMatched. And yes, there is socks for adults there, I made sure!

When we got back to the hotel, we checked the pools and the one closed to our room, the Piano Pool, felt warm! Almost like a hot tub, but not quite as warm! So we went swimming for a while and then headed to bed.

Well, this is WAY longer than I thought it would be, so I will cut it off here and write more tomorrow!

Just A Note!

As you might have noticed, there was no posts for a few days! This was due to a lack of Wifi, and a computer the whole time we stayed at the Disney resort. And I tried restuarants and stuff, but nobody had it. And you are kind of stuck without a car, and the buses only take you to other Disney things! Lol!

BUT! I did blog every day on my iPod, I just couldn't load them! So last night at the airport I finally found Wifi and posted everything. And this morning I corrected the dates, so they are now showing as published on the day they were writted! Which is a few posts below this one!

They are short, because typing on an iPod Touch is time consuming. I am planning on writing a longer post sometime soon to recap the whole thing, with more details!

Bath Necessity

I have decided I really need one of these. Reading in the bath for extended periods of time is hard on the neck, especially cause our tub is tiny. It's a rough life, I know. ;)

Doesn't this one look lovely?
This one is massaging! I didn't even know those existed! And it is only like $25 bucks! WELL worth the investment!
Or you could get a full body one! Not massaging, but it would keep me from touching my gross tub. And I think it was only like $6!
Ok, so obviously I don't NEED one, but it would be fantastic!

Animal Kingdom

Today we went to the Animal Kingdom, and of course, I loved it! I mostly liked the Asia and Africa sections. They were decorated so well and made it feel like you were there.

There was not slot of rides there, actually it was more like a really awesome zoo! The safari was probably my favorite part!


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Universal Studios

Today we went to the two Universal Studios parks. We originally planned to get there when the park opened, but we stayed up late so we decided to go an hour later. By the time the bus got to the park, it was almost two hours later!

We did not have enough time to do or see everything. I really think you need at least two days to so them justice. But we did get to the main things we wanted to see.

My favorite attractions today were Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey(although the line up was crazy long), Disaster, and Animal Actors On Location(of course)!




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Hollywood Studios

Today we slept in a bit, then headed to Disney Hollywood Studios.

I really enjoyed that park, there was a lot of really fun stuff to do. Most of the stuff was shows to watch, and we went to most of them.

My favorites were the Toy Story ride/game, American Idol Experience and the Rockin' Rollercoaster!

I will write in more detail when I get home!

Tomorrow we are going to Universal Studios, and hopefully I can find some Wifi!


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Magic Kingdom

Well it seems my new hotel does not that Wifi, so I will probably have to post this late!

And it will be short cause I am on my iPod.

Today we went to the magic kingdom. It was pretty good, but definitely geared towards kids. My favorite things were Space Mountain and the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor.

We saw Jennifer Hudson there today, just walking around! I thought it looked like her but I wasn't sure until someone called her name.

Tomorrow we plan to go to Disney Hollywood Studios!


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Last Day Of NAVC

Last night I did not end up going to the Florida mall. It would have been $35 each way for the taxi, and $70 is just too much for a ride to the mall! Instead, the hotel staff directed me to the Orlando Premium Outlets, which is kind of an outdoor mall with lots of great prices. It was only 1/2 mile away and cost 8 to get there and 4.40 to get back!

There was a lot of stores that I wasn't interested in, and because I wasn't really looking for anything but dress shoes, I didn't go in alot of them. I did need a winter jacket, but I obviously was not planning on getting that in Florida. But there was a Columbia outlet, so I checked it out. And sure enough, they had winter jackets! The first one I found was really nice for $140, $50 for matching ski pants. I thought that was a pretty good price, but decided to look around more! Well I am glad I did, because that was probably one of the most expensive jackets in the store! I found a few racks with already marked down jackets, where you could take an additional 30% off the lowest ticket price. To my delight, there was 3 jackets I liked, and they all happened to be my size! Two of them were the last ones of that style left on the shelf! They all fit great, but I a pretty grey one with a removable liner. It was last ticketed at $59.99, so I got it for just under $45 including tax! That is probably one of the best deals I have ever found. I was planning on getting winter jacket when I got back home, hoping they would be on sale. But I highly doubt that I would have found a Columbia jacket for that price anywhere!

I also bought some size 11 flats. They are usually pretty hard to find, most places stop at 9 or 10. Or if they do have that size they are over $50 and I have to order them online. Well this cute pair only cost me $36 thanks to a coupon book I got for free from my hotel!

So I did only buy two things, I really wanted dress boots for the winter, but the ones I found that I really liked did not come in my size. It sucks cause I could have gotten them for $36 too....

Today is the last day of the conference. I have one or two more short lectures I would like to go to, and then it is off to check into the new hotel. I am still not sure how I will get there.... I will probably just suck it up and take a taxi.

I would also like to see if I can figure out how to get to the airport. I would really like to suprise Eric and meet him there, and it would mean less waiting around for me! :) He should be sitting on the plane right now, so hopefully he won't read this and it will still be a suprise! His plane is due at 7:01, so that gives me exactly 4 hours to get there.

Killing Time

Today I have a super long lunch break, almost 3 hours. Elanco put on a free Tech's lunch, so I got to eat warm, yummy food and listen to a talk about fleas instead of eating sandwhiches that have been there for a few days. I will spend my $15 allotment on other junk today!

Anyways, that only took an hour. Then I wandered the trade show, but the one here at the Mariott is WAY smaller than the one at the other hotel, the Gaylord Palms, so I have pretty much seen everything. And I don't want to bus over to the Gaylord only to come back here 1/2 an hour later for my next session. So I will blog...

This morning I got up early again, because there was some ultrasound courses I really wanted to go to. I have already decided that tomorrow I will sleep in a bit, cause when Eric gets here we will be waking up early to make it to the parks when the open, so we can utilize every single second that we have!

This afternoon I have two more sessions, then I am planning on figuring out how to get to the Florida Mall for shopping. I don't have much to buy, I just want to go mostly to browse.

Then tomorrow Eric arrives!! I am so excited!! His flight is supposed to get into Orlando, but it will most likely be late because of de-icing and stuff. I am hoping to see him around 8, but with waiting for the shuttle and stuff it might be closer to 9. I would be great if he got here ealier, then we could go to Medieval Times for supper! I know he has been there before, but it would be fun. Someone told me it starts at 8:45, but now I just read 7. But that might just be when the doors open. I will have to call for more info I guess!

Rainy

Today was my first full day of the conference. I woke up early, had a waffle for breakfast and made it on time for my first session at 8 am! I went to four different classes in the morning, spend most of lunch talked to a few people at the table I sat at and browsed the trade show a bit. In the afternoon was the dental radiology lab, which was extra. It was very good, and I leart alot and now I can hopefully be able to use our new machine at home!

This evening is a free Styx concert, but I am not sure if I want to go. I am pretty tired from the day, and I don't have much interest in that band cause I don't know any of their music!

Today it poured rain here, which is okay cause I was indoors the whole day! When I looked at the forcast last week, it called for rain Tuesday and Wednesday, so it is a day early. I am hoping that means that come Thursday when it is time for Disney World, it will be all sunshine!

An Adventure!

I am safely in Orlando, praise the Lord! But it was not without a little bit of excitement!

When I checked in at the Winnipeg airport, they let me know my flight was delayed, but I should still have enough time to make my connection. So Eric and I grabbed lunch at Harvey's, which he was pretty pumped about. Then when we were going to the washroom we ran into the West Jet flight attendant and she told me that the flight had been delayed even more and I would miss my connection to Orlando.

I had two options, fly to Toronto and stay the night, they would pay for the hotel and give me meal vouchers, or take a flight the next day at 1pm directly to Orlando. Eric and I decided that I would fly to Toronto, because he had to go back to Riverton to work and that would leave me with no way back to the airport the next day! At least in Toronto I had a place to stay, a ride to the airport, and dinner and breakfast paid for. So that is exactly what I did!

My flight left at 10:15, but because of de-icing, we left almost an hour later. I though I would have the afternoon to attend the conference. But between the de-icing, getting my bag, waiting for the shuttle to the hotel, check in to my hotel, and then shuttle to the conference center, it was already 4:30 and I had missed the whole day! Oh well, I just registered for the conference and got my package. Then I grabbed some supper cause I was starving and hadn't eaten since breakfast! It is really akward eating alone, people stare at you. There was another girl eating alone that I should have made friends with. Actually, they even mixed up our food and we had to switch!

After I ate, I went back to the hotel. I watched TV and sorted through what seemed like hundreds of pamplets and handouts in my welcome package. Then I found the gym and worked out for 1/2 hour on the eliptical and bicycles. I was going to go swimming, but the pool is outdoors and it is a bit chilly at night to swim, so I went in the hot tub for a while. It was empty, and I got bored quickly and left. I showered, read, watched TV and figured out what classes I would attend the next day and went to bed.

I had set my alarm, but I must have done it wrong cause it did not go off in the morning! So I slept through the first two classes I wanted to go to! I grabbed some breakfast at the hotel...they have an amazing selection, and then headed to the conference. I spend the morning at one conference center, at lunch there with a nice group of ladies, and wandered the trade show there.

Then I hopped on a shuttle and went to the other conference center and went to two classes there. I wandered the trade show there for two hours and still didn't see it all! It is gigantic! You could spend a whole day checking that stuff out! There is alot of cool products available though!

I went to a cocktail and hor d'heurve reception, but it was akward to be alone so I quickly ate a bit then left.

Now I am at the VIN cyber cafe, and after this I will head back to the hotel for the night. I will probably work out again, read, watch TV then get to bed a bit earlier so I can go to the first thing in the morning classes tomorrow!

I Love Auto-Tune

I saw the original a long time ago, it is so funny. But it auto-tuned makes it funny in a whole different way!