happy holiday week!

I'm very, very excited about this upcoming week! So many things to look forward to...first and foremost, my daddy and step-mom are coming down from the Midwest for Thanksgiving! I am definitely a daddy's girl and I miss him very much. Since I moved south (almost 5 years ago--wow!) I've only seen him a few times a year and that's just not enough. He's come down for Thanksgiving the past three years and I love getting my daddy all to myself and I love hosting Thanksgiving! My dad is a work-a-holic so it is nice to get him away from home so he can relax. And, as I mentioned, I LOVE hosting Thanksgiving! I love to cook, I love to host people, I love to plan and schedule and go crazy with it all. And Thanksgiving provides the perfect opportunity for all of that. I get to plan not only our Thanksgiving menu but the menu for the whole week while they are here--and we tend to indulge a little bit more with our menu when we have guests ;) I get to plan a massive shopping list, a cleaning schedule, my Thanksgiving meal making-schedule...ahhhhh Sharpies, lists and legal pads...I'm a happy girl! Just in case you are curious, here is the menu for the week once my daddy gets here:

Wednesday
Breakfast-out to Cracker Barrel...my daddy loves it and they don't have Cracker Barrel's back home
Lunch-ham and swiss sliders in a poppy seed mustard sauce, chips and dip
Dinner-out to our favorite little local bar/grille...they have the BEST sweet potato fries!

Thursday--THANKSGIVING!
Breakfast-pumpkin bread
Lunch-Appetizers: creamy crab dip with grilled bread, pumpkin pie dip with gingersnaps
Main: turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, mac and cheese, sauteed green beans, hot fruit salad, rolls, stuffing Dessert: chocolate cheesecake and pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream

Friday
Breakfast-eggs, sausage and hashbrowns
Lunch and Dinner-we will be over at our friends' house to watch the Iron Bowl and will be snacking on leftovers and appetizer type food

Saturday
Breakfast-baked oatmeal with apples and cranberries
Lunch-bacon and chicken wild rice soup
Dinner-out to the local pub to celebrate my dad's birthday


I'm also looking forward to vacation this week...working for a university has a few awesome benefits and holiday time is one of them! We are off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And hopefully we close early on Tuesday! I need a break from that place...a few days off to rest up and gear up for an insanely busy December.

I'm also OBVIOUSLY looking forward to our IVF meeting on Tuesday!!! I can't wait to find out what our protocol is, our schedule, talk more about our chances of success...ahhh it is all so overwhelming but so, so exciting. At the same time, I can't believe we are here. I can't believe we are really about to (and have to) do IVF. I'd be completely lying if I said I didn't think it would ever get this far. Even through everything, I always thought I'd get pregnant through some less invasive procedure. And I guess I did and maybe could again, but the whole waiting out the season thing is just too much for me to take.

Yesterday I had a crazy thought...I actually thought I was pregnant. I woke up feeling a little off and SUPER thirsty..just like last month. Of course my first thought was "I'm PREGNANT!"...then I realized I'd had at least 6 glasses of wine the night before and surely that would account for me feeling off and being thirsty. The Coach still thinks I'm pregnant because of the irony of it all...we finally decide to do IVF and BAM!...but I don't believe it any more. The wine has worn off and sanity has returned. It hasn't happened in over 2.5 years on its own and only once during a seriously heavily medicated cycle, it WON'T happen on its own.

On that note, the note of my craziness, I need to get started on my cleaning schedule! My daddy will be here in T-2 days! Woo-hoo!

Have a fabulous Holiday Week!!

xoxo

The Coach's Wife