Catching up - Some of the Wiens clan come for a visit

The first weekend in June, Kyle's sister, Deneen, and our nephew, Nathan, came to visit us from NM. The weekend was a whirlwind of activities and the time flew by, but we had a great time while it lasted.

After picking them up from the airport we strolled around Boston Commons.

During our stroll we discovered a little bit of hockey fan support for the Bruins during the Stanley Cup.

That night we had dinner at a local favorite pizza place, Regina's. The food was fantastic. We followed it up with a stop at Mike's pastry shop, which we ended up visiting a few times over the next few days. I think that may have been Nathan's favorite part of the trip. We did run into a little bit of trouble after dinner. There were severe storms in the area that night. MA even ended up having a tornado touch down. Needless to say, the rain was pretty intense and we waited in the subway stop for Kyle to bravely get the car for us.

We spent the next day driving up the North Shore, towards Hampton Beach, NH, to spend the afternoon with an old friend of Deneen's, Mary Rae, and her family. Sadly, I don't have pictures of the time we spent together, but we walked the Hampton boardwalk, went to an arcade, and had a wonderful afternoon all around.

Rockport

 The next day we went back to Boston and spent time at the science museum.

After the museum, we walked down to the harbor and toured the USS Constitution, which is a must if you visit Boston.

Sadly, the aquarium wasn't open by the time we got there, but we were greeted at the front door by some of aquarium's residents.

One of our biggest adventures was our trip to the Patriot's Gillette Stadium to see the US men's soccer team take on the World Cup winners, Spain. We underestimated the time and traffic to get there and missed a little of the game. That didn't diminish the experience though. We were in the 4th row from the field by one of the goals. The game was sold out with about 65,000 people in attendance. We also couldn't ask for better weather. The only down side of the game was that most of the crowd seemed to be rooting for Spain. Totally threw me off. I was saddened that the USA team didn't have more support. USA did lose the game, but it was a wonderful experience.

This was my sad attempt at a soccer ball cake. I think my sugar flowers came out much better than the cake.

 The top activity of the trip:

Catching up - Part 1

It has obviously been forever since I posted a blog entry.  I will attempt to get this blog caught up to the present prior to Logan's arrival in January.  So, in my next few posts, I am going to give a whirlwind tour of our lives between May and now.

To start with, there were a few more adventures in MA before we made our journey back to NM. Kyle and I spent a weekend in Boothbay Harbor in Maine. We stayed at the Topside Inn Bed and Breakfast and really enjoyed the quaintness of the town. We spent time reading in a fabulous nook right outside of our bedroom, played a few games, and walked around the town.

On May 29th, Kyle and I were lucky enough to spend a few hours kayaking around the Boston Harbor. It was a great way to see the city from a different perspective.

USS Constitution

We got to go through the lock between the Boston Harbor and the Charles River.

These jellyfish were everywhere.  First time we have ever seen so many outside of an aquarium.

Habitat for Humanity

I was so excited to share our baby news that I forgot to post my photos from Habitat for Humanity. I only got to volunteer for 1 day, the day after I found out I was pregnant. It was a great day though. This particular build is an all woman build. Well, we had some manly help around, but the women did 95% of the work. I helped build a wall and put in some foundation work for a porch. I highly recommend volunteering in your area.

We built the missing back wall in this photo.

Here is our new wall, about to go up!

They had two houses going at once and this one got some 2nd level flooring put in.

Extra! Extra! Read all About it!

For those who want to know our fertility story: 

Not everyone knows that Kyle and I have been trying to get pregnant for 6 years now (Well, Kyle hasn't tried to get pregnant, but you know what I mean). We have jumped through many hoops, too. Kyle was tested twice and looked great (He's so pretty). So we switched the focus to me. I had tons of blood work taken and was on progesterone for a long time. I took my temperature for years. I had endometriosis surgery. Then we did an Intrauterine insemination. Nothing was working. When we first arrived in Massachusetts, I got on thyroid medication that my new fertility doctor thought might help. After some amazingly expensive blood work that was supposed to be inexpensive, I decided to leave my fertility place, but continued the thyroid medication. My next thought was to seek out acupuncture, as every fertility place here seems to have an acupuncture partner. My web research seemed to suggest that many people had been having luck with acupuncture. I called around and spoke to a few acupuncturists. Since I was looking to improve my health overall, thinking that might improve my fertility odds, they recommended Chinese herbs. They said herbs would be more beneficial than acupuncture in my situation. So, with nothing to loose, I started seeing a Chinese Herbalist 8 weeks ago. I gave up caffeine and switched to 100% water. I see my herbalist every week and get herbs specific to where I am in my cycle. I continued to chart temperature and other body functions. We got a digital ovulation kit that tested LH (luteinizing hormone) and Estrogen too. Well, apparently that was all we needed. On May 2nd we tested positive, and that afternoon my blood work confirmed it. We are still very early in the pregnancy (only 3 weeks in). Apparently there is about a 20% chance of miscarriage through the first 8 weeks and then it should drop to about 5%. If we make it through the first trimester we should be good to go. That is our story. It was a long road, and we are so glad that we have been able to see that plus sign on our pregnancy stick.

Franconia Notch

On our last day of our Bed and Breakfast weekend, we drove along Kancamagus highway to Franconia Notch State Park in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The drive was beautiful, and we wish we would have been here during the fall.

After entering the park's main entrance, we pulled off into a trail head parking lot and discovered the Falling Waters Trail. From the very beginning of our hike we thought we might be in trouble as there was snow on the trail. Sure enough, the whole hike was full of snow. Eventually, we decided to go ahead and turn back. Before that decision was reached, we did get to enjoy a number of beautiful water falls.

We certainly hope that we can come back here before we leave. Of course, we keep saying that abot every place we visit.