Has The Day of Miracles Ceased?

We are finally pregnant! It’s kinda obvious from the video, but it’s nice to be able to say it. Justin and I are SO thrilled we’ve hardly been able to keep it to ourselves. We are somewhere between 14 and 16 weeks along. . . we’re not really sure just because we hadn’t been counting the days or keeping track. Honestly, I’m in a little debate with the doctor over it. He said last week that I was 15, but my ultrasounds say the size of the baby is 13 weeks, so somewhere in there is about right. It puts my due date around the middle of April.

Some of you may know that Justin and I have struggled with infertility. After trying some of the more common treatments, we worked with a fertility doctor when we moved to Arizona to do IVF in May. This did not result in a pregnancy. We were devastated and decided we were done “trying,” and that we would pursue adoption. After years of counting days and marking calendars, we stopped. So we lost track of things and all of the sudden it seemed like I should have started, but I hadn’t. We wondered if the IVF drugs were still in my system and affecting my cycle, and that coupled with a crazy summer with my sisters’ wedding, Justin’s applications to residency, and increased hours for me at work, a few weeks went by before we began to be suspicious.

I purchased a pregnancy test and it took me at least a week to take it because I was so nervous to potentially be disappointed yet again. But it was positive. So then I called my fertility doctor to see if the IVF drugs could be affecting the pregnancy test. They wanted me to get a blood test to verify, and when they called me with positive news, we were shocked and elated. We had our first ultrasound that week, and I think we were 7 weeks along at that point. We continued having ultrasounds every week with our fertility doctor until week 13, and we were able to have them all recorded which is kind of fun.

I have enjoyed a fantastic first trimester! I have not been very sick; just a little bit of sour stomach if I neglect to eat every hour or so. I have been a little tired, and emotional, but honestly I have felt pretty good. It’s been fun to see the subtle changes in my belly, and even though I have not gained much weight I can definitely tell my pants and shirts are getting a little tight.

We just feel so blessed! When I asked the fertility clinic nurse how often she sees patients conceive on their own after failed IVF she told me that it does happen, but it’s pretty rare. “It’s a miracle,” she said. We echo that sentiment wholeheartedly! And we are just excited and thrilled for this amazing gift!

Key West Trip

It's been a few months since we went to Key West and I am finally getting a post up about it. We spent 3 days and 2 nights in Key West and enjoyed every minute of it. We flew directly into Key West which we have never done before. We had an amazing room in a spectacular hotel on one of the only beaches on the island. The weather was really nice although not quite as warm as Phoenix at the time (this was back at the beginning of March). But the beach and water were so beautiful, and that is definitely something we love seeing. Every evening we had some famous Key Lime pie from the Key Lime Pie Factory. Seriously, if you haven't had Key West Key Lime Pie, you have been missing out! That's why we had it every night while we were there! We went deep sea fishing one morning as well. We caught over 20 fish; nothing huge, but we were quite busy pulling them in for a few hours. We spent the afternoons at the pool/beach. The hotel staff brought out popcicles and we enjoyed tropical drinks by the pool as well. It was so relaxing and fun! One morning we enjoyed crepes at a little french restaurant on Duvall Street which were amazing. Justin had Nutella with ice cream and I had cream cheese with raspberries. . . not the healthiest breakfast in the world, but I gotta tell you, they were amazing! We have tried to duplicate since then and have come close, but it will be one of those places we have to visit when we go back.

IIDA Couture Fashion Show 2009

Over 600 spectators take their seats at the Phoenix Art Museum, slowly coming to a silence. Models in the back room fix last minute make up and hair, anxiously waiting in line. The music starts playing and the spotlights turn on. Taking one more deep breath the models step out onto the runway one by one. Sounds of cheer echo through the space and a sea of flashbulbs illuminate the atmosphere….

This past February, my company participated in the IIDA Fashion show! 34 design firms and 34 furniture and finish vendors teamed up to create couture outfits using at least 90% of a vendors’ product and using the color chosen for them from the Color Forecast 2009.

Our team was initially given a fabric vendor and we immediately got to work planning the outfit. We had a lot of designers on our team and so a lot of opinions kept our meetings interesting and in the end I think we ended up with a very unique outfit that we were all proud of. The skirt is a bunch of "Scales" that we cut out of shiny vinyl fabric. Tracy did some magic creating a unique shape to the skirt and adding tulle underneath for some coverage. I sewed the top which was admittedly the most boring part of the outfit, but necessary :). The wings were the most controversial and challenging to pull off, but I think Darby was right; they were not "too much". It helped the outfit stand out against others and I think Bonnie, the model, totally worked it on the runway so it ended up being awesome!


One week before the runway show, another design team dropped out leaving a major vendor without an outfit. A few designers, including myself, volunteered to put together an outfit and get it down the runway and back. The color chosen for this outfit was “Gypsum”. We designed assymetrical cascades of "3-D Knit" fabric and attached to that were plastic pucks that we "be-jeweled".

The "pucks" are a part of an architectural system which is called a "raised floor" which is basically a floor system that sits on top of a normal floor and allows massive amounts of electrical and cabling to go under it and pop up through the floor anywhere, so the round "pucks" you see all over the skirt of the dress are the stanchions that hold the floor up. If you look at the purse, you can see that the actual floor tiles are triangular shaped and they fit into the pucks just as you see on the purse. So the pucks were painted "gypsum" and then jewels were attached to the center of each of the pucks (either placed top side up or bottom side up).
I basically sewed the whole dress which included a few nights of sleep deprivation, but a decent finished product considering I was making it up as I went along. The pucks, painting, purse and be-dazzling were done by the rest of my amazing team!

The day of the event we showed up to the Art Museum and gave a few local beauty schools the opportunity of a lifetime; CRAZY hair and make-up! Huge eyelashes; loud eyeshadow, and poofy hair was everywhere! And what is a fashion show without prizes and winners? Well, judging was based on the quality of the dress, commitment to the vendor’s fabric and color, and lastly, how the models worked it on the runway! I had to drag myself down the runway; not just because this is totally out of my comfort zone, but mostly just because the dress weighed like 20 lbs.

While neither of our outfits took top honors, it was a unique experience to feel the adrenaline of walking down the runway solo in front of 1200 eyes and flashing cameras, and claps and everyone focusing on you and your outfit. It was terrifying, and a blast! Wish you all could have been there!!!!

Boat Show

We went to the boat show this weekend. . . we like to dream! So, we were hanging out outside by the wakeboard rail as we snapped this pic. It was cool to watch pros ride the rail and do their crazy tricks. We also saw a bunch of cool yachts and a house boat that you can buy. We may never buy those but they are fun to see!

Justin loves boats. . . so we made our rounds to all the different brands to check out what they have and whatnot. We got to chatting with a guy who owns a Nautique (brand of boat) and he just comes down to the boat show every year to help the Nautique dealer. So anyways, we are chatting with him and a couple of guys walked by and one of them recognized Justin from college so they got to chatting for a moment. While they were chatting, the Nautique guy asked if we were from Utah because Justin had said where he went to school and as it turns out he is from Utah. SMALL WORLD. . . . and getting smaller. . .

So the guy from college was in a bunch of Justin's classes because he was a bioengineering major and as it turned out he works in prosthetics. He noticed right away what I should have noticed getting in and out of boats with the Nautique guy for the last half an hour; the guy had a prosthetic leg. As it turns out, the guy had been run over by a Nautique when he was 14 years old and his leg had to be amputated. So that was kind of a crazy connection, and then these two gals walked by who knew the two guys Justin knew from college. One of the ladies also knew the Nautique guy from who knows where, and it was like this huge random group of people all being connected in some random way! It was so funny! You never think you'll see people you know at a giant convention center in the middle of Phoenix, but we did!

I never win anything!

In September I heard about a little national design contest at work. We sell a certain brand of furniture, and that brand/company was having a little contest to see who could design the coolest "open plan" with a certain line of their furniture. I wanted to enter, but I never win anything, so I put it to the back of my mind and at the end of my list of things to do. So, as it turned out the economy sucks and we were kind of slow at work. The design entry was due October 31, and I didn't have much to do the week the entries were due, so I decided to try my hand at a unique solution. I ended up staying a little bit late at work to finish, and the girls I work with were giving me a hard time for not going home, and I said, "Well, I'm not going to win, but I don't want to lose because I didn't even enter!" So I turned the thing it, and didn't think anything more about it.

A month went by and the economy got worse. Our company was experiencing some layoffs and our department hadn't had any. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the President of our company, hurridly came up to me and said, "I need to see you in my office." And he started walking away. Well, my heart just about skipped a beat; I automatically assumed I was in for it; my job was toast! So I nervously called out to him, "Is it a bad thing?" And he said, "No, it's not a bad thing at all, it's a good thing." Weird! Well, I went to his office where he had the speakerphone on, and he told me he had so and so on the phone from the furniture company, and she gets on and says, "Kathryn, you won first place in the design competition!"

I was floored and thrilled! I knew when I entered that there was a nice little prize for entering; I don't think I would have entered without it! So the prize was a free all-expense paid trip to Whistler, BC; Key West, FL; Kiawah Island, SC; or Santa Fe, NM. I decided then and there to make it a gift for Justin for Christmas. So I knew I had to keep it secret for over a month; what a challenge! When I came home that day it was really hard not to say anything to anyone! I had told Justin that I entered the contest back in October, but he didn't really remember which helped my cause a lot! To make it more of a "present", I had some friends help me make a movie that I gave to him Christmas morning.

We spent the Christmas holiday with our families and so on Christmas morning when he opened the gift from me, a DVD, he was skeptical. “What is it?” He asked me. I told him we had to watch it all together, so my whole family gathered around the kitchen table to watch this DVD on my laptop. He is thinking to himself, “What crazy thing has Kathryn cooked up this time?” (Justin usually doesn’t like surprises, particularly ones that I spring on him in front of my whole family).

So the DVD starts out with the question, “Where do you want to go?” So immediately he starts thinking that I have planned a trip for us and I am spending a lot of money we don’t have. So the DVD goes through video and pictures of the four locations and then at the end it says again, “where do you want to go?” And there is a pause, and he’s thinking, so how did she come up with these four places, and this is a stupid gift because she knows we wont really go. So the next thing that comes up on the screen is, “We won a free trip. . . so where do you want to go?” And he looks over at me, and he’s like, “How did we win a free trip?” And I asked him if he remembered me telling him about entering a design contest back in October. He vaguely remembered, and he asked me with a totally incredulous look on his face, “So, you won?” And then he got really excited. He is a pretty laid back person, but all of the sudden he wanted to know more about the places we could go, and when we could go and all the details. When we went to his parents’ house he wanted to show the DVD to everyone, and all through the break while we were visiting family and friends he was talking about it and trying to decide which one he wanted to go to the most. It is SERIOUSLY the most perfect gift that I could have given him! It’s EXACTLY what he wanted, so in the future I do not know how I am going to be able to top this Christmas present!

By the way, we are going to KEY WEST! Woo hoo!!

Desert Botanical Gardens

In December we went to the Desert Botanical Gardens with our friends. They have an exhibit called "Luminaries" every year, and this year they were featuring blown glass by Chihuly which was basically "planted" in the ground with the cactus and other desert plants and with lights shining on them or in them. VERY COOL! We donned our coats and ventured out in the 50 degree cold. I was amazed at how many different ways the glass was formed, the colors, the uniqueness of each piece, and just the enormity of the exhibit. . . it wasn't just like 4 pieces, it was like 30 different exhibits. . . . well, I cannot describe it, hopefully the pictures can give you a tiny idea of how cool it was. . . although they do not do it justice either. Our friends have a little girl and she was in this stroller that happens to have a steering wheel and a horn which, whenever we were on the trail behind some slow-moving centenarians, she would honk the horn and yell, "move it!" It was hilarious! Luckily nobody was offended! All throughout the gardens there were all different kinds of musicians as well. There was a renaissance quartet playing all manner of odd instruments, as well as traditional Christmas carolers, and everything in between. It was a very unique and artsy experience. While Justin wasn't quite as excited about the whole event as I was, and I don't think he is too excited about going again next year, I am so glad we went and had a chance to see this very cool exhibit!

I'm so proud!

Justin has started his first rotation working in a hospital with a doctor who is totally my style! They had surgery on Friday and she used the laparoscopy camera to take this shot, and then she gave it to him after. I love it! So you get to see my handsome husband in his work duds and finally "on the job." I am so thrilled he is enjoying his rotation and that it finally feels like the hard work for the last two years is turning into something he will really enjoy.