It's 2013.. time for an update!

It's been a while.. again, I know. I don't even know how many people read this - so perhaps these posts are not missed anyways. If you have, then say so - just post a comment - because then it will entice to me do this more often! Sometimes it's nice to just ramble on - but I'm afraid I don't always have positive things to say.. so sometimes, I do the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all"... if I start this will end up far too much emotional baggage, so instead.. we're going to stay positive.. because that's what 2013 is all about! Stay positive and have hope..


A quick update..


I'm so glad 2013 has arrived, 13 isn't always a lucky number - but for us, we are hoping it is lucky! I won't ramble on and on about why 2012 wasn't the best year in the books, but if you know me at all, you know why it just wasn't! If there was anything positive come from it, it's that Neil and I made it through the first year of marriage AMAZINGLY- we hit the ground running from the time of our wedding to now with tons of life lessons, and some really great times and some really sucky times! One positive thing, is that it has brought our marriage stronger and turned my amazing supportive husband into and supercalifragilistic support, and an encouraging voice and open arms always beside me that was exactly what I needed when I needed it. So here's a shout-out to my wonderful husband, you are my rock and I seriously may have went to the nut-house without you - never stop loving me the way you do - I love you.


Other then that.. well, I'm addicted to PINTEREST. Like I am seriously addicted. I love the recipes, I love the DIY projects, I love it all. You'll find me under Ashleigh Milliner-Cowan - follow me if you like! I seriously want to do everything DIY with the help of my husband.. I could turn the insides of my home upside down with all the ideas!


We have some nearby travel plans that we hope to do before spring - we greatly miss Mandi (Neil's youngest sister), who I can PROUDLY say, is in Ottawa working on her masters. We hope to visit Ottawa for a weekend in the near future. We also profoundly miss our friends in Michigan, Natalie & Erik. They are seriously the busiest couple I know right now, working always on their education - seriously jealous of your brains you two! The planning of our wedding had us visiting them in Michigan often, and due to the fact we bought my dress there - upped our visiting times there by more then double the usual. I would also love to visit my friend Julie, who is doing her residency in Ohio right now - I would love to visit there as well! So many travel plans, and that doesn't include camping this summer.. which I cannot wait for!!


Speaking of travelling.. I am dying to go back to Mexico, I want to relive our honeymoon all over again! It was the most amazing resort, with amazing staff, delicious food and clean facilities! So questions.. when you find a place you loved, do you tend to return again and again, or do you try other places with great reviews? It's not a in place plan that we return right now, but I would love to sometime.


Two of my very dear friends are saying their marriage vows this summer, with their wonderful husbands-to-be. I cannot wait to watch Lindsay & Graham as they promise to be together forever! Then two weeks later Neil and I have the privilege to to stand beside my life-long friend, and her amazing man to watch them vow to love one another until the end of time... Meredith & Sonny, we cannot wait!! I just love weddings so much! Ours was the most amazing day of my life - and I think once you're married a wedding is so much more then the dresses, flowers, decorations and food.. at least that's what I think!


I also wanted to put a quick word in about how proud I am of our dear friends, Andrew & Jessica on their big move today to Cairns, Australia as Andrew starts his 5 years at dental school. Just before Christmas, Andrew asked Jessica to marry him - and I couldn't be happier for the couple! This is just the beginning to the rest of their lives together and no better way to start this amazing journey, then to do this amazing 5 year adventure together. I couldn't be happier to see my friend Andrew, so happy and in love with such a bright, beautiful and amazing women! Oh, and speaking of weddings.. I am helping them plan their wedding which will take place next summer back here at home! I cannot wait to do this for this amazing couple!!


But seriously, I am so proud of ALL of our friends & family.. we have so many smart, successful friends & family.. and we have SO MANY WONDERFULLY SUPPORTIVE FRIENDS & FAMILY.. you all are amazing - you have been strong for us when we needed you, we could not ask for better!!


Well - I think that might be it for now . I wish you all the best for 2013 - Neil and I are hoping and praying this is "our year" and that many blessings come your way, and ours this year! If you pray, pray for us, if you hope, hope for us.. Love you all.. xo

summer slipped by..

I cannot believe how fast this summer slipped by .. I worked a lot, and when we were off work together we tried to fit camping in. As you have read, we went to Meaford with Little Miss H in July and since then - I've not blogged.

Well you haven't missed much - it's been a busy summer, I worked a lot between my two jobs and that left little time for social time and camping trips - which is okay! 

However, we're catching up on over-due time together in September. We went back to Meaford {camping} for 4 days this passed weekend, and then went to Buffalo to go shopping before having to come back to work. We love going to Buffalo for the day! Now we're back to work but I'm on my "slow time hours" working only a couple days a week. I have so many projects that I want to get done at home, so I'm hoping to get those under way in the coming weeks. 

Though it's been quite a while since I blogged, I really do not have a heck of a lot of things to tell - no new news in the fertility journey {yet - hopefully soon!} and I've been too busy to have anything else exciting happen to share.. that's sad!! 



Oh, one project I am going to attempt is to make this wreath.. I looks/seems fairly simple - so I have most of the materials I need at home - so one of these days I'm going to try to tackle this. So pretty!!

http://www.subfertilefrugalista.com/2012/09/fall-felt-circle-wreath-video-tutorial.html If you are a blog follower, this chick's got some pretty cool ideas and is very frugal {duh, her name!} and is super awesome blogs to read. I am a huge fan!! 

She is also going through infertility which is what brought me to reading her blog and now I can't get enough of her creativity and projects she tackles! Love it!!




Anyways - I think that's all I have to say for now.. hope all is well in your life. 

Until next time.. <3

Our Girls Day Out!

A week ago today, a few girls and I travelled to St. Jacob's to take in the Farmer's Market and Antique Stores - we had a blast! My feet were killing me by the end of our big day, but it was well worth it. If you know me, you know I love old stuff and I already have enough in my house but I could not help but pick up this awesome re-purposed window jam cupboard - I freaking love it and fell in love with it instantly! 

I also would like to share Jamie-Lee's amazing hats she tried on - she's likely going to kill me if she ever reads this blog, but for the time being.. for your own enjoyment.. check this out!! Aren't they purdyyy.. 

We also had wee Archer along for the day, he was so well behaved and kept competing with Eric (I'm such a bad Auntie and didn't get a picture of Eric) - both boys were angels, and Mary Beth was such a well behaved girl too. We had an awesome day with the kids. Here's Archer completely pooped out on Mommy! 

 Amanda found this cute little toy vacuum cleaner with my favourite gal and quote "I'm no Suzy Homemaker!!" Love it - I may go back and buy it - it's so cute!

That sums up our amazing day! We're doing it all over again July 19th if you want to join us! We're a ton of fun and know how to find good deals! haha! 

bouncing baby boy..

Our cousins from the Cowan side, Tori & Rudy, welcomed their first baby together into the world yesterday morning. Zander was born at 0621 on July 4th, 2012 and the perfect peanut size of 7lbs 2oz. Mommy and Daddy are doing great and big sisters Kennedy and Autumn, and big brother Trent are loving Zander to bits! 


Congrats Rudy & Tori, we are so happy for you guys and cannot wait to watch little Z grow up! 

Today's Garden Update.. GROWING!!

my thumb is getting greener.. go me!

My garden is turning out pretty awesome this year. My mother is an amazing gardener, and so is my Grandma - so naturally I want to be too. Last year with the wedding, well - let's say it started out well and ended poorly. I planted a lot of pumpkins and gourds for decorating at the wedding and those darn vines ended up completely taking over my garden.

Well another item that has helped out a lot, is that we bought a little rototiller. This thing has made keeping the weeds down a breeze, and so much easier to have to weed within the rows instead of the whole darn garden!

You might also be impressed to know, I have "year two" potato plants growing with abundance. I "may" have forgot about digging them up last fall, and then this spring with Neil was rototilling he said there was a lot that got thrown about with the rototiller. Well, let me tell you that this is the way to plant potatoes! I have nearly hip high potato plants growing now - I have no idea when I should dig these brutes - but I am thinking within the next month I will have one heck of an early harvest of potatoes! 


We also planted a bunch of other veggies.. you ready for this? Potatoes (obviously), decorative corn, sweet corn, zucchini, english cucumber, green beans, sugar snap peas, peas, carrots, beets, radishes, broccoli, green onions, hot peppers, green peppers, red peppers, plum and big boy tomatoes, romanine lettuce, green leaf lettuce, spinich, buttercrunch lettuce, and a big herb supply. Woweeee! I'm a green thumb!! I took this picture a couple of weeks ago. 

I will take another today to show you the difference!


I was down to spend the day with Haley while Dale had surgery last week, and we spent the early part of the afternoon at Ikea and the later part of the hot afternoon in the pool - she is so much fun! 

Neil and I also went camping last weekend, for what is likely our last trip in our tent trailer. We have actually upgraded to my grandparents 5th wheel camper, which is awesome! So if you're in the market for a tent trailer, ours is for sale! We went to Meaford, and it was a beautiful weekend.. here is our Lenny-girl all tuckered out from playing in Georgian Bay all afternoon. She loves the water!! 

I love Meaford, one of my most favourite camping places.. amazing sunsets, warm water for swimming, Lennox friendly park, and close to my family.. love love love.. 

We're going camping again (in our new quarters) for our next camping trip, really looking forward to going back to Meaford again and joining my Aunt & Uncle, and Grandparents there! 


Last but certainly not least, I tried curry this passed week at home and we both loved it! Keri had made it one night I was there, and the rice(see beside - we did not use spinach or raisins, we used corn it was good!) and chicken were amazing! I would make this again and again, it was a big hit in our house. I'm just going to post the picture of the recipe I used as I don't have time to post it - it's really good, and if you haven't tried curry - this is a good place to start as I "didn't like it" until I tried Keri's when she made it. So go ahead and give er' a whirl.. urgh I cannot get this picture to upload the correct way, hope I don't hurt your neck. :( 

Thanks to all who read my last post and for all the sweet comments and personal messages. I am thankful for the support and the outlet to be able to talk about it. 

Something worth talking about..

Well, I have thought long and hard about how I'm going to do this - and it's not easy topic to talk about, and most people could not possibly understand. Though, having started going "through this" now, I realize that it's absolutely astonishing how many other people are in the same situation as we are. 


When we were dating, the questions everyone asked.. "when are you getting engaged?" "married?" "Are you going to move in together?" Then you get engaged, and it's "when's the wedding". The wedding is over, and now it's "when will you have kids?" 


If you know me at all, you know I adore children. From a very young age, I wanted more then anything to be a Mom. I had nothing other then what a perfect example of what a mother should be, growing up with my mom and my grandma's close by - I always had a constant example of an amazing mom, and I want(ed) to be that person. 


Something worth talking about.. getting pregnant is not all that easy. We're seeing a specialist for fertility. The amounts of people in that office every single day is staggering. I absolutely feel like we're NOT the only ones going through this. It's been a eye opening experience. When I first got the referral, I was sad, upset and just wanted for us to be a "normal" couple. Then once I started talking about it, I learned about friends, family and people I grew up with - people our age, going through the exact same thing too.  


Not everyone shared stories of people they knew who also received help getting pregnant. Not everyone was supportive. Some were surprised, shocked and asked questions or made statements like "you obviously haven't tried long enough" "maybe you're not doing it right" and "why do you need to go there, you're so young?" - well as much as those were not what I had expected, I realize - the majority of people have no what to say, and have no idea what it's like to be "us" - "us" meaning, the percentage of couples who do need to get a little, or a lot of help to become pregnant. 


So the long and the short of it was, that we did try before we got ourselves in to see the specialist. It's not just like something you sign up for, it's a referral process and it can take time. 


When I was 19 years old, I began seeing a family doctor that I worked with at the hospital. After assessing my overall health and well being I brought up some concerns, and she brought up some of hers. Mine were my extremely heavy & irregular periods, that I had a hard time losing weight, I never felt like I had a whole hell of a lot of energy, and a year prior to that I had a very painful ovarian cyst that had ruptured. 
It didn't take long for her to write up a requisition for me to do some blood work, and an ultrasound. She followed me closely for about 6 months, and then it was decided I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). She told me that that time, that I have a high probability of needing assistance through medications when it came time to start a family. Obviously at 19 that wasn't exactly in the "near" future plans, but of course it's always been in the back of my head. For the sake of consistency, I was put on birth control for medical reasons. 


And 8 years later, here we are. 


It's not my intention to broadcast our story in great detail. If you have questions, just ask. I'm not hiding anything and willing to talk (you know me) about my experience. I may from time to time share some things on here. The point of me sharing our story, is because people need to know there are many people in this world who are wearing the same boots as me right now, some hide it - some share it, some choose to share with close family and friends. 
We shared with close family & friends, until now, but in order to receive support and awareness for people struggling with infertility, our friends and family needs to know that the amounts of couples needing help is staggering, and with these statistics it is more than likely in your family, or group of friends may need the same support we are getting now. 


I really feel like this is something that is worth talking about. Hope you didn't mind. :)