About a month or so behind as usual

Well as usual I have plenty to blog about but just not enough time to sit down and write anything out. So here I am playing catch up with all that has happened in the past month. I know I know.... I am horrible at this... but at least I am not as bad as Kim(lol sorry I couldn't resist!) In the past month I have entered my 2nd trimester of pregnancy, took a nice little get away to Las Vegas, got ready for Christmas and had Christmas, equipped with a Christmas marriage proposal and a trip to the horse races! So it's been an eventful month! So take a load off for a while and catch up on what I've been failing to share with all of you over the past month.

So I finally entered my 2nd trimester of pregnancy, not that the 1st trimester was even that bad for me. I guess I should really count my blessings because I have a lot of girlfriends who are a few weeks behind me in their pregnancies and they have been really sick during their first trimester and I haven't had one issue at all. With the exception with a little heartburn, which I've now developed in the late evenings in my 2nd trimester, I've been sickness and ickness free thus far in my pregnancy. (knock on wood, I still got a long way to go... by the way.. I am 17 weeks pregnant now) In fact, I was starting to get a little worried that maybe something was wrong with the baby because I wasn't feeling all the crap that all the books say your *supposed* to feel while your pregnant, but I had my 15 week check up and the babies heartbeat was nice and strong (155 BPM to be exact) and the Doctor said everything looked great with the baby and with me. I've only gained 7lbs so far, which the Doctor said was good, because you should gain 1/2lb to 1lb every week, so at 7lbs, I am just fine. I swear to you though, the 7lbs I've gained, 5 of those blessed pounds have got to be in my face! I am not kidding you! I have been naturally cursed with a round face and chipmunk cheeks to begin with, so you add a few extra lbs to that already round face and I look like my father. I am not even joking! I look like my father only with longer hair and less eyebrows, I can only fear what I will look like at nine months pregnant.

I've started to get that little pregnant lump, but to me, it doesn't look like a pregnancy lump, it looks like a "I've cancelled my gym membership and started guzzling beers and porking out on greasy cheeseburgers and Hostess Cupcakes" gut! I am not at the "cute" pregnant stage... I am at that stage where if anybody who didn't know I was pregnant saw me they said, "Oh wow.. she's gotten a little chubby hasn't she." Although, I am not sure I will ever get to that "cute" pregnant stage. I see all these cute little glowing pregnant women and I highly doubt that will be me. With my skin acting up and the 49 year old man bloated face I envision myself looking something like the Stay Puff Marshmallow man in the final months of my pregnancy. Although Michael seems to think otherwise, I think he's just being sweet(like any SMART man would be when his woman is pregnant) but he says I look beautiful and he can't even tell I am pregnant and that he can barely see my belly. He even went as far as to ask the Doctor if I was gaining enough weight, because he thought I was underweight..... Remind me to give that man a big kiss when I get home.

Although I have found one enjoyment with my overactive hormones during pregnancy..... Yes.... the sex drive. Now, I've been told there are two types of pregnant women... One's who enjoy sex while pregnant and the others who don't enjoy sex while their pregnant. I happen to fall under the first category. (although my sex drive really has never been a problem to be honest with you) But I think I am a little on the freakish side... meaning I feel like a 13 year old boy who's just discovered his first woody. I am not even kidding. Poor Michael must think I need to be going to some sort of therapy for sexual addiction issues or something. It's pretty bed when we crawl into bed at night and Michael goes to curl up with me and I start attacking him and he goes, "Baby, can't we just hold each other tonight?!?" Hold each other??? No dammit! I've got some raging hormones and you should be lucky that I'd rather rape you than scream at you... take it while you can get it man!!! LOL

So far my first 4 months of pregnancy have been a breeze, so I am not really complaining. We are scheduled for our 18 week Ultrasound on the 12th of January(10 days from now) to find out if we're having a boy or a girl. Everybody keeps asking us if we've thought of names yet, but to be honest with you, it's hard to think of names if you don't know what your having yet. I think once we know what we're having then it kind of gives the baby a better identity to name him or her with. So we'll get on the baby names just as soon has we know if our kid has a hot dog or a cheeseburger! LOL

So a few months back, before Michael and I knew we were pregnant, we had planned to go to Las Vegas the first weekend in December. My grandparents and Aunts and Uncles go every year at that time, because the Rodeo is in town and granted they don't actually go to the Rodeo, they do shopping at something called "Cowboy Christmas". Now I've never been before, and I actually didn't really think it'd be my cup of tea, but I had some time off left to use before the year was over and spending a few days with the part of my family I don't see that often in Vegas would still be fun(Keep in mind this was back when I wasn't pregnant, so I thought I'd be hammered for 4 days straight...LOL) So it was going to be nice to get away for a few days and let me tell you we had a blast(even if I couldn't drink.) First of all, "Cowboy Christmas" doesn't mean that everything in these convention centers is Cowboy affiliated and I found that out as soon as I walked into the Hilton convention center and was blinded by all the bling... I was in heaven. Every cute purse, jacket, jewelry you name it covered in bling called my name as we walked down these isles. I am not joking, if I had the money, I easily could have dropped about 20 grand in the first 1 hour we were there(and that wouldn't have bought me much either because this stuff was definitely NOT cheap!) LOL... We found out we weren't exactly at a "swap meat" in Fontucky when a booth filled with fur jackets called my name, or maybe it was the sales girls who called my name after they saw that gleam in my eyes and the death grip on Michael's arm as I all but drug him to their booth. So of course I had to try a few of them on. Good lord they were beautiful and so smooth and soft.. if I had one of these I would do nothing but wear it on my naked body and walk around the house all day... just naked and in my real fur jacket. Now all you P.I.T.A people can kiss my ass if you start lecturing me on how wrong fur is. You just put one of those luxurious jackets on and imagine your naked body cloaked in it.... the illicit fantasies that followed shall be left unspoken on blogger.com.... but you get the idea! Anyways, I could see Michael's gears in his head turning and he's thinking the same thing I'm thinking.... this stuff is being sold at a Convention Center in Vegas, these have got to be some sweet deals for sure... this jacket couldn't be more than $300.00 bucks. So he smiles at me with this... "I am totally going to cave and buy this for you because I love you that damn much and your carrying my child so that makes you deserving of that much more special of things" look and asks the sales girl.. "So how much?" And just like she was selling discount granny panties at the local TJ Maxx, she says "oh it's just $4,000"..... $4,000 bucks!!!! Yeah right!!! So Michael all but ripped that luxurious piece of heaven off my back and kindly told the lady that $4,000 would buy a lot for our upcoming baby and he hustled me out of there faster than a whore walking through church. So much for my real fur coat. But we did find a faux fur jacket that was equally as cute and much much cheaper that Michael did buy for me as an early Christmas gift, so I was a happy camper. Although I am deathly afraid to wear it on account that it's white suede with fur on the sides and I am so scared I might spill something on it... LOL... So I am careful when and where I wear it.

With all of the running around Michael and I had done the first couple weeks of December and the fact Michael had a business trip to Denver as well, we were kinda late on our Christmas decorating and shopping because we flat out didn't have the time. So the day I dropped Michael off at the airport for his Denver trip(the weekend before the weekend of Christmas) and pretty much kicked out all of the Christmas shopping I needed to do. To be honest it was really hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit this year. The economy hasn't been too kind to the plumbing industry and business has been really slow, so it really makes it hard to get all jazzed about a holiday that costs so damn much. I really envy those in other industries that haven't felt the effect of this dwindling economy like we have. To be honest, I am a little fearful for our family business, especially out here in the desert. I pray every night that business picks up and that all those damn general contractors start paying us the money they owe us. I especially worry for my dad, I can see the stress on his plate and it's not healthy, he's got a lot riding on the success of this second business out in Palm Springs and if it fails, he and my mom could possibly lose everything. It's a very sobering thought and it's very scary, I am really hoping this new year turns things around financially. So anyways, that stress of business made it very difficult to be jolly this holiday season. But Michael, after getting home from his trip to Denver, made an attempt to lift my holiday spirits by surprising me by putting up all the outside Christmas lights and taking me to go get our Christmas tree. So that helped a little bit.

We had a nice Christmas, which was spent running around too too much, like we did last year. We had Christmas early with Michael's mom and his niece Mandy on the 21st, since both his mom and Mandy would be out of town on Christmas. We then spent Christmas Eve with Michael's friends David and Janeen and their son Jacob in Hollywood and Christmas day we spent with my parents and both sets of grandparents and my Aunt and Uncle. Michael, of course, went overboard as usual on the gifts for me and bought me a really nice video camera and the bad ass Kitchen Aide professional mixer I had been wanting for sometime now. At the end of the afternoon at my grandma's house, when all the gifts were opened, I got handed a professionally wrapped box from Michael. I thought this was strange since we had already exchanged our gifts at my parents house that morning. So I opened the box and there was a letter on top of another wrapped box. The letter told me to open the next box to find a treasure, so I opened the next box.... another letter and another wrapped box. This went on for a bit until I got down to this tiny battery box, which inside I assumed was my Christmas gift(mind you every member of my entire family is watching in anticipation as to what was in this box) so I open the battery box, and it's just another letter. But this time the letter says, "This is the last box, it's sad but true, but take a seat so I can propose to you" and at that point Michael got down on one knee and pulled out my engagement ring. It was really sweet. He was a little emotional during his proposal and every member of my family was in tears, but it was definitely a wonderful Christmas surprise. I was so happy my family could be there to witness it. It will definitely go down in history as one of the best Christmas' I ever had. The next day even, I had to work all day, so when I came home Michael had made me a candlelit dinner equipped with roses and a thank you card thanking me for saying "yes"... LOL as if I was going to say no to him.. LOL... He's such a sweet guy! I am so lucky.

The Saturday after Christmas since my Aunt Robin and her husband Casey were in town, and it was opening weekend at the horse races at Santa Anita, my parents, Michael and I and David and Alex decided to join them for the horse races and boy did we have a blast! My Aunt spent the majority of her life, (with her husband prior to Casey) in the race horse industry. Her ex husband was a very very VERY wealthy man in New Mexico, who owned a dairy and many race horses, so this was her element. So because we were on her turf we got to meet some race horse owners and trainers, and we got a table up at the Frontrunner restaurant and we even got to meet some jockeys! We didn't win very much money though. Michael and I WOULD have one the pick 4... which was if you picked the winners of the last 4 races you won $300,000.... if that stupid horse in the 7th race, Oil Man, didn't freakin blow it! Damn Irish horse! I am never betting on an Irish horse again, I think he had a little too much to drink before his race. Alex and I even got our picture taken with Alex Solis, who is apparently the Jeff Gordon of horse racing... hell all I know is my Aunt Robin walked into the jockey room and all but ripped this poor 5 foot tall jockey out of the locker room so he could take a picture with me and Alex.. she pretended like she knew him, but she really didn't, but he was polite anyways and allowed us the picture. The only down side of the day was one of the horses in the 7th race went down and went down hard. He was leading the race and something caught his eye coming out of the turn and he tried to jump over the railing and went down. The jockey was pretty hurt and so was the horse. They made it look like the horse was ok, because they walked him in to the trailer for the fans sake, but one of my Aunt's trainer friends told us they had to put the horse down once they got him back to the stables. I hate that part of horse racing, it's really sad, but like my Aunt said, who was in the business for many years, it's the unfortunate part of the game, and she had lost many horses and the sting never went away. In fact, she beat the shit out of one of her jockeys on the racetrack, after the jockey caused the horse to go down and got a $10,000 fine and watched the horse she oversaw training on since it was a baby, die on that track, I guess it's just apart of the business. Other than that little moment, we all had a great time at Santa Anita and went on to a loud drunken dinner(while I drank lemonade and laughed at everyone) at Outback.. it was a great day!

So it's now the New Year and Michael and I brought it in kinda mellow on account he wasn't feeling well, but it was nice to kick back at home and play some Wii. This weekend we're off to Prescott to visit his nephews, which I am really looking forward to, because I love Prescott! So that's about all on my monthly update, I am going to try to not wait so long before I post again.. LOL... but we'll see how well that'll work out!