A Little of This and A Little of That

Alisha says: As you probably know by know we are not ones to sit around when there are adventures to be taken. The past few weeks have been no exception and have included:
-Two trips to St. Edwards State Park, one for a walk/hike on a drizzly day and the other for some mountain bike fun on a beautiful sunny day.

 -A visit to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture of the Pacific Northwest. The museum is located on the UW campus so I walked up to meet Dave after work and we checked it out with some free passes that I got through the public library system. It was an okay museum with a few interesting things.
-On another drizzly day we visited the Asian Art Museum with free library passes and found it to be a much more interesting museum.

 -We took a nice hike to Cedar Butte in the Snoqualmie area before eating thai food at Araya's, one of our favorite restaurants.

-Last Saturday was a fun trip to Duthie/Grand Ridge for some more mountain bike action.
-And our Sunday morning stroll was a walk around the trails to the beach at Carkeek Park.

Spring Has Sprung

Alisha says: There are blossoms everywhere right now in Seattle. It is so beautiful. One of the main attractions for blossoms are the cherry blossoms on the University of Washington campus. We checked them out last week and they were pretty but today I took a picnic lunch up to campus to meet Dave and all I could say was "WOW"! The blossoms are at 100% and look amazing. We also checked out the Suzzallo reading room in the library on campus which looks like a room straight out Hogwarts where of Harry Potter might do some studying. Pretty fancy!

The ones below are from a week earlier:

Dave just finished up winter quarter and is done teaching for the rest of this academic year. He now will be focused on his research a bit more. To celebrate the end of the quarter we took an afternoon trip on Friday back to Galbraith for some more awesome mountain biking. We put the extra hour of daylight that we gained earlier in the week from the time change to good use. We took Chris and had another great afternoon shredding the trails. Then on Saturday Dave actually had to administer his final for both sections of his class. Who has ever heard of a final being scheduled for a Saturday? But, that was the time slot that he was assigned. Anyway, it didn't really matter because the weather had turned rainy. We still got out for a walk along Lake Washington in the afternoon.

A new braid that I tried. I think it worked well and looked cool.

IVF Part 4 : Transfer

Alisha says:
March 18, 2015

Yesterday was TRANSFER DAY! It was such an exciting day. I woke up a little restless but feeling excited. We got up and went for a nice run through Ravenna Park. Then Dave did some work while I got ready. It was St. Patrick’s Day so I wore a new green shirt for extra good luck. We then went on a special brunch date to Portage Bay before heading to the clinic. At the clinic we met with the embryologist to sign some more waivers and who showed and gave us a picture of the two embryos that were going to be transferred and said that they both looked great and had the highest rating. Then I was given a valium and taken back to the transfer room. Everything went smoothly and the whole process took less than 30 minutes. After the embryos were put in they showed up as a tiny white speck on the ultrasound, kind of crazy because they are so tiny. After everything was done I was moved to another room where Dave was brought back and I had to stay lying down for 15 minutes. Then Dr. Johnson/Jo gave me some post transfer instructions and we were sent on our way. Compared to the egg retrieval, the transfer process is a total breeze. I felt great when we left but was told that I need to act like I have a cold and take it easy for a few days. That is the hardest part because I feel fine but considering what it took and cost to get here, I will be a good patient and do what they say. Ann Romish from the ward is such a sweet kind older lady that I go with to children’s hospital knows what we have been going through and brought us a delicious dinner of corned beef/cabbage/potatoes and carrots for St. Patricks’ day and so that I could take it easy. She is such a sweetheart. Now we just wait some more. I have a blood test in three days to check my progesterone levels and then a blood pregnancy test in two weeks on March 31^st. The progesterone shots have been going okay, I’ve gotten much more comfortable with them. They do make you sore though.

The white speck are the embryos, well the embryos are in the white dot, they are actually too small to see but you see medium in which they were transferred. 

A Perfect Day

Alisha says: After our last mountain bike outing I couldn't wait to go again and was so excited for the trip that we had planned for the weekend. It really turned out to be a perfect day. On our way out of town we stopped at Top Pot Doughnuts which supposedly are the best in Seattle to test out the theory. I have to say that they were pretty tasty and the perfect high calorie snack to eat before we hit the trails. We then drove north by Bellingham to Galbraith mountain where there is a system of about 50 miles of trails. We hit the trails under blue sunny skies for over 3 awesome hours of single track bliss. We ate a late lunch at a great little cafe where they use local fresh products.

On the drive home I suggested that we detour just off the freeway in Mount Vernon to check out the daffodil fields. Dave wasn't sure what to expect or what I wanted to see but was impressed by the huge fields of bright yellow daffodils that go on and on. Definitely a great side trip, they were gorgeous. I kept saying over and over that it was a perfect day and we had so much fun. Before we were even home we were already plotting a time when we can head back for some more mountain biking fun!

Daffodils for Days