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I took a day off on Friday and Greg and I headed up to the cabin for a nice 3 day weekend away with family. His parents, sisters, hubbies, kids made it up there. It was fun, cute, adventurous, beautiful, gross, nightmarish all in one. Our weekend recap below:

Fun - we went up late Thursday night, and on Friday woke up to hit golf balls at the driving range, and with pointers from everyone on how to hit the ball, I hit some pretty ones, some super ugly ones, and didn’t make contact with the ball at all at times. I wore my elastic jeans for the first time and it’s amazing the room it gave me for my tummy. I almost look slightly prego here (I’m at 12 weeks now!):

Then we headed to have lunch overlooking the golf course and it’s beautiful views (Tahoe Donner golf course), and I had a portobello mushroom burger and it was pretty yummy with it’s balsamic vinegar sauce and enjoyed eating lunch with April, Justin, Tyler, mom, dad, and Nathan

closeup of baby Tyler

mom and dad

Nathan checking out the menu

me and Greg with golf course behind us

Then we came back, and crashed for a bit (everyone is sleepy or sleeping in this pic)

Cute -  Baby Tyler

Greg’s mom did great with golf

Greg’s dad taught me how to swing at the ball and showed me how to golf

Jon, Justin, and Greg golfed well, l and I didn’t get to get a group picture (thought about it in retrospect) so I’ll move onto the next day. It was a fun day of golfing with everyone! My first time:)

Adventurous - day 2 we took the rhino, lexus, and dirt bikes to a trail to get some scenic views… Greg was the driver of the rhino, and I was his useless navigator, and mom rode as a passenger in the back

Jon, Justin, April on the dirt bikes

We started on the open road

Nathan, dad, Les and Tyler in the Lexus

we got to Sardine pass and saw a scenic lake view

Baby Tyler

Nathan riding with Auntie April in the back of the rhino

Leslie took over April’s dirt bike

And we headed into the wilderness again

Justin, Leslie, Jon, me and Greg decided to take the rhino and dirt bikes all the way home (everyone else was going to meet us at the cabin in the Lexus because it wouldn’t be able to make some of the narrow road we were going to go on) - and on our way back we stopped by another lake view and took pics

Jon and Les (that’s dirt from the dust from the road on Jon’s face, not face hair. hehe)

me and Greg

Then we went into some brushy areas like below, some were even narrower than this, and we were hit by lots of brush. This was the gross and nightmarish part. We took a little stop at one point after we went through the brush, and Greg noticed a fluorescent green worm on him. I have a MAJOR phobia with worms. I HATE worms. Out of anything that crawls and squirms, WORMS are the GROSSEST. Anyway, Greg was playing with the fluorescent green worm in his hand (nasty) and I was really grossed out. So, I asked him - Greg, check my back and see if there are any worms on me. So, he found a dark brown inch worm on my back. YUCK!!! And of course he shows me how inch worms move on his hand. Thanks hubby… really thanks. Anyway, I looked at my seat before I sat down, and there were about 5 worms on the bottom of the seat!!! WHAT??? yes!!! ew!!!! EWWWW!!! EWWWW!!!! So, I asked Greg “Can you PLEASE take these worms off the seat? i can’t sit on this!” and I kept brushing at my body to make sure there weren’t any other worms on me. So, I get back into the seat, and we encounter more WORMY TREES/BRUSH

So, there’s no way around it obviously, and we have to go through bushes like that again, and they’re hitting us and the rhino because the rhino is wider than the road (Greg got whipped by a branch and a welt formed on his arm, that’s how much we were getting hit). So, I looked down… scared I might see worms on my lap. Guess what? LOTS of WORMS (fluorescent green and brown) SQUIRMING ON MY JEANS!!!!! I started SCREAMING and freaking out and trying to brush them off my pants.  Just up ahead, I saw Les, Jon, and Justin waiting on their bikes for us to catch up to them. Having a bit of pride, I squelched my screams, and kept brushing at my pants. They didn’t hear me freaking out, but boy was I freaking out…

anyway, after we got through the NIGHTMARISH brush area (I won’t be doing that again anytime soon) - we saw pretty views and waters…

And I kind of sort of forgot the pain. That was the longest ride ever (total rhino driving distance was 60 miles for the whole day). I think it was about 2 hours or so of riding back to the cabin the last 20 miles. It was cool experiencing it once… ONCE:)

Doll version of Kona for baby - we named it Mocha:)

On Saturday, we came home in the afternoon to find that our perfectly healthy doggie was squinting his eye. He looked like he was in a lot of pain, and kept pawing at his right eye. So, I was so worried about him because he looked like something was in his eye. Greg and I held him down, and we tried to put eye drops in his eyes, and he fought us and wouldn’t let us! He always let us put eye drops in his eyes in the past when he had an infection, so I knew something was really hurting him. Come Sunday, I saw he was continuing to paw at his eye, and I also caught him outside rubbing that eye on the grass possibly trying to dislodge whatever was in there. I made him stop that and had him come inside, and monitored him so he couldn’t paw his eyes or rub his eyes too much and injure it further. So, first thing this morning (Monday AM), we took Kona to Banfield (part of Petsmart) and they had us leave him so that they could sedate him and check his eye out. They called back a few hours later to report to us that he had a “detached retina”, and he had to be taken to a specialist for possible surgery. We googled it and turns out if you have a detached retina, you have to take all sorts of tests to find out the cause and surgically repair the eye because it causes blindness.:( So, Greg and I discussed the possibility that this surgery was going to cost about $3000 (hopefully not more) to get Kona’s eye fixed. Both of us were a little pained with knowing how much it was going to cost, but we were going to do it if it meant that Kona could keep his eyesight.

So, Greg took Kona to the opthamologist a little past noon, and he called me about an hour later to let me know what was going on with our little furry baby (who’s 63 pounds now, btw, so he’s grown quite a bit). Anyway, so Greg said… do you want the good news first, or the bad news first? I wasn’t sure, and just wanted him to tell me… and he said to choose. So, I said… “ok bad news first”… so he said “Kona is blind in his right eye”… when he said that, I totally teared up :(. I was so sad our doggie was partially blind. Even as I write this now, I’m tearing up!!! All this stuff was running through my head wondering if it we should have taken him to emergency vet Saturday night, could he have possibly injured it more when he rubbed his eyes on the grass, or did he scratch his eye to blindness the past couple days with his paws, or if there was any way we could have prevented this.

Greg somewhat answered my other questions next. He said that Kona had quite a bit of scarring in the back of his eye, so looked like he had been mostly blind in that eye since he was a puppy. So, he wouldn’t need to learn to readjust to his surroundings being blind in one eye, because most likely he knows how to function that way. The other news was, because he is already blind, all we can do now is make him comfortable while he heals from the eye irritation. His eye was inflamed, and the specialist thinks that Kona bumped his eye into a branch or something to injure it. But because he can’t see out of it already, he’s only prescribing pain killers and numbing eye drops to help him be more comfortable while he heals from it (no surgery needed). Also, the injury won’t affect the vision of his other eye (the lighter colored one). Kona has 2 different colored eyes, but I could always see his pupils dilate and shrink in the dark eye, so I think he could see partially out of that eye. Right now, it is a sure thing that he can not see out of that eye anymore.

So, ever since he’s come back, he’s been sleeping a lot. We’ll be giving him pain meds 2x/day and numbing eye drops a couple times a day to help his eye be more comfortable. That’s my update on our first baby. We love him to death. Here’s a pic of sleeping Kona I took yesterday, but fit with this post so I’ll post it here:

Kona has been such a positive influence in our lives. Even if I’m in a hormonal rant and rage (normally caused by work related stress), I’ll call to Kona to come over, and he’ll come over wagging his tail, and a smile on his face (he always looks like he is smiling). And I’ll pet him, and he’ll wag his tail even more so happy to be with me, and I just want to hug him! When Greg and I come home from being out, he’ll hear the garage door open, and he’ll run out and greet us with his tail wagging uncontrollably. We’ll say “Kona!!!” and he’s so happy to see us, he’s panting and smiling and wagging his whole butt. It just makes us so happy to come home to him. While I’m working sometimes, he’ll put his chin on my arm to say “hi, pay attention to me please” and I’ll give him a rub on his head, and he’ll shimmy backwards and then put his chin back on my arm as if to say “hi again”… and I’ll always say “you’re so friggin cute, love you”…

Now that I know for sure he was mostly blind in that eye, a lot of things do make sense to me when I look at things in retrospect. Kona had a hard time catching treats and dolls, but he could catch if it was directly thrown at him, but not if thrown sideways, most likely due to lack of depth perception. We thought he was just being lazy. When he would run at the property (long distance) he kind of slants towards the left a bit, and that’s probably because all his vision is in one eye. We just thought he ran funny. Now I notice that when you call his name while he’s lying down with his good eye closer to the ground, he lifts his head to look at you.  Sometimes, he would bump into things, and we’d call him a clumsy doggie. Now we know! We’ll still think it’s cute if he bumps into things by accident, and perhaps it really is because he is clumsy :)… but all these things make Kona who he is and we love him so much:)

I love puppies! Vaun got a new 10 week old puppy named Ollie (short for Oliver) yesterday. He’s a black purebred cocker spaniel. Sooo cute! Of course we had to take lots of pics of him!:)

A black and white pic:)

Just a few pics from Yosemite (taken by Greg)

It’s cool how cloudy skies make for some interesting pictures:)

I don’t know what’s up with me, but I got sick again!!! I had some major diahrrea (sorry tmi I know) a couple nights ago and early yesterday, and I was unbelievably sick yesterday. I hardly ate anything, and had major body aches. I was feeling terrible overall (I worked for 3 hours and had to go home to lie down). I also felt super cold at first and couldn’t get warm no matter how many blankets were on me, and then super hot later on while sleeping. But it was the body aches that were terrible.

Anyway, after pretty much being bedridden for most of the day yesterday, I ended up canceling my flight back to Sacramento. I’m in LA still and just trying to recover. Today I feel a little better after taking some Tylenol last night and relieving some of the aches. I was able to eat some oatmeal today (big improvement) and I weighed myself this morning, and after 2 days of being sick like that, I’ve lost quite a bit of weight!!! The last time I weighed myself pre-pregnancy on this same scale, I’m 4 pounds under that. That makes me worry about starving the little baby… so trying to eat as much as I can hopefully today (slowly though since my tummy is still sensitive) and tomorrow to gain some nutrients back.

My immune system is so whack!!! I don’t know if I ate something wrong, or it’s the stomach flu - but I hate being sick like this. Besides just feeling like crap, I have all this paranoia it’s harming the baby. Hopefully, this baby is resilient and can endure mommy getting sick all the time! 2nd time in a week! Geebus!

Anyway, with the last minute change in plans, I missed out in going to Yosemite which had been planned the last couple months with friends. I guess in the end it is better, because I’m still in the process of recovering (feel better today) but am sad I’m missing out! A picture hubby sent half an hour ago taken at Half Dome (with his iphone)

I’ll live vicariously through his pictures:).

Have to say my family has been pampering me while I’ve been ill, and it’s been nice:). My mom bought all sorts of organic fruits and veggies, and made me some delicious food that I can stomach. My brother indulged my craving for CPK salad by having lunch with me there today and shopping a little at 3rd street (like 10 minutes) afterwards. That part is nice I get to spend more time with everyone. Well, I guess all things happen for a reason, and maybe it just wasn’t meant to be for me to go to Yosemite this time around. I definitely want to travel a lot more before baby comes. I guess just not this wknd:)

I just felt like writing a few things on here regarding Greg… I wasn’t sure if I was going to write it out for everyone to see, because I try not to be too sappy (just not me), but on some occassions I guess it is ok to express a little, right? He really is so supportive and sweet during this pregnancy, I can’t even begin to describe how much I appreciate him. He vacuums all the time, he makes sure I have dinner that I’m craving, but the thing that really gets me is that every morning he used to make me coffee with creamer, all ready at my desk before he left for work. He made his own coffee in his mug, and I would get to my desk to start work and there was a steaming mug of delicious coffee waiting for me. Such a loving gesture, I don’t even know how describe how touched I felt. So once I got pregnant, I completely cut out coffee out of my life. I figured if I’m going to consume any caffeine (you’re allowed a little), I’m going to consume it in the form of chocolate, because Susan told me that eating chocolate in pregnancy creates happy babies. I want a happy baby, so I’m going to eat chocolate over coffee. Anyway, so I also read that if you eat an apple a day in your pregnancy, it is good for the baby in that it reduces the risk of asthma. Something to do with phytochemicals and flavinoids or something like that. So, we bought a bunch of organic apples and I had been consciously trying to eat one everyday saying I had to eat it to help baby be healthy. So, you know what he does? He cuts up apples and leaves it at my desk for me to eat every morning. I never asked him to do that, he just does.

I mean seriously, I can’t even put into words how much it means to me. I just felt taken care of, you know? It’s such a simple gesture, but something that really makes me so happy.

Father’s Day is approaching really fast, and my baby’s daddy is really working his way up to getting a nice gift :).

I just wanted to say a few words to just show my appreciation towards him. Poor thing caught a cold and is all congested and sneezing all day long today. I’m flying out to LA tomorrow morning to be there for a night (and flying back next day) and I will definitely miss his attention. He’s probably happy he gets to play lots of video games tomorrow night, and isn’t as sentimental as me. haha!

Anyway, weirdest thing - both Greg and I got really sore throats last Saturday night (mine was so bad that night, I hardly slept due to the pain). The next day, we ended up not doing any of our plans, and I slept in all day long because I hardly slept the night before and was feeling under the weather. I must have slept 20 hours. I dunno, a long time. Anyway, Greg slept a lot too, but his cold turned into a full on crazy cold and mine just kind of tapered away. My sore throat went away around Tuesday (Greg’s too) and he’s sneezing and congested now and sounds really sick. For me, I’m feeling ok… I wonder if it has anything to do with being pregnant? Just some random thoughts.

ok I digress. This is how my brain works these days. Complete randomness!

I’m in week 9 now - woohoo! Time really goes slow in the first trimester for some reason Often times, I still can’t believe I’m pregnant, except I get tired very easily. Baby is measuring at exactly 9 weeks at 2.32 cm. It is starting to grow arms and legs, and as my doctor said - looks like a gummy bear. This ultrasound was taken today:)

Baby’s heartbeat is pretty fast a 179 bpm, and a lot stronger because it’s actually formed a heart now instead of just blood flowing per the doctor:

I can still wear my jeans, but it gets tighter towards the end of the day. I bought myself a maternity band (thanks D for the rec!) so I can use it when I need to. Also, bought my first pair of maternity jeans, because I liked the wash. But, right now it’s still a bit large for me to wear.

I didn’t really gain much weight. I actually lost a pound since my last visit. Not sure why. The doctor says I should gain on average about half a pound to a pound a week, and if I’m not gaining weight to maybe increase my calorie intake. I do have an aversion to meats though and am concerned I’m not getting enough protein for baby. Trying to find ways to get the protein creatively for baby. Anyway… that’s my update for today! I gotta run, but wanted to share more ultrasound pics!

Yesterday, when we looked outside our yard area, there was a family of Canadian Geese. Momma goose, Papa goose, and baby geese - they sure had a lot of babies…

They were diligently on the lookout while their babies ate:

Closer pic of baby geese:

Greg was taking these pics, and Kona came over and they saw him and they all ran away… was pretty cool to see them while we could!

So, I’m in week 8 of my pregnancy. I experienced my first bout of morning sickness today. It hit at around 10am and it felt like motion sickness (the way I was nauseous). I was so busy at work though, so I just worked through it. Didn’t throw up, but did feel a need to gag a little and wanted to lie down. As soon as I got all my urgent stuff in, I took an hour nap from 1230-130 (not a very restful sleep), and came back to work. But, I felt a lot better after I took that nap though. The nauseous feeling is gone now. woohoo~

My mom hardly had morning sickness when she was pregnant, so I figured I probably wouldn’t have much of it either. I’m really glad about that. But the one thing she did have was a big baby with a big fat head (me). I was 8.5 pounds at 2 weeks early according to my mom, and that is big for a first time baby. I remember when I was a kid and we would go to this dentist that would drill our cavities without novocaine (so wrong!!!) and the pain was awful! I would say - “mom, it hurts so much! I hate the dentist! Don’t you think it hurts?” and my mom said “Once you have a baby and go through that kind of pain, what you thought was painful before is not really pain… after having a baby, nothing compares”… :O

So, what did I learn? Babies with big fat heads will hurt and traumatize mommy forever. So… hello epidural! woohoo~

So, here are 10 frivolous/random thoughts that run through my head…

1) Hope baby isn’t too early, because it could potentially be a Christmas or New Years Day baby. I would ideally like it to be born as close to the due date as possible (as of now 1/10/10) so it could have a birthday after the holidays. I may not get out of bed the last few weeks to try keep baby inside me. ehehe

2) If baby is anything like me, it will have a big head!!! Ouch. I kind of hope it will take after Greg who was 5 lbs and 4 ounces (3 weeks early), then I could just pop baby out and make it look easy… but I just know it’s going to have a gargantuan head.

3) When the baby grows up, it will probably be tall. If it’s a girl, hope it gets Greg’s metabolism, if it’s a boy wouldn’t mind it getting mine. Hope it gets Greg’s 20/20 vision.

4) I think the baby is going to be more Korean because I am craving SPICY food. I love spicy food. Hate creamy food. Have an aversion to Udon recently (I ate that maybe 4x in a week, week 5 and something must have happened to make me develop an aversion to it) - but physically, I have a feeling baby will look exactly like Greg. It will be a mini Greg!!! Mark my words - this will happen!

5) I’m convinced Kona knows something is up with me. Maybe he smells pregnancy hormones and doesn’t know what it is and why there is a change. But he follows me around everywhere ever since I got pregnant. It’s really cute:)

6) What do we do with Kona when baby comes? I think we’ll keep them in separate rooms for the first 3 months. I was thinking of banning Kona from coming upstairs (the room adjacent to our upstairs will be baby’s new room), but that would make him confused and sad, and that makes me sad:(. But then again, at least he’s not completely banished from our house, right? My dad thinks Kona should be outside for at least a year. But having a doggie in the house will build stronger immunity for the baby. Yeah!!!

7) Weight gain - I gained 4 lbs or so already in 2 weeks. That’s what happens to pregnant women who don’t get morning sickness!!!  But after the initial gain, I’ve been at a standstill, so that’s good. I hear up to 5 lbs entire 1st trimester is max you should gain.

8)Going to try to take pics of my tummy weekly. I wanted to do it starting beginning of week 8, but it’s already mid-week 8 now and have not done it. Pants feel tighter. Think I’m bloated.

9) I’m learning how sweet Greg can be. He’s very thoughtful in getting me food that appeals to me, and trying to help me around the house. Although, I wish he would clean Kona’s poop more. It bothers me more than it bothers him, and I end up doing it after asking him several times with no results. Hope this is not a precursor to what it will be like when it comes to the baby’s dirty diaper!

10) I’ve heard people should wait to have kids after they’ve been married, and I’m starting to understand why. Aside from enjoying life together - the real reason is probably because being pregnant is like pms on steroids. You get some major hormonal days sometimes. I know I’ve overreacted on things a few times, and if Greg didn’t learn how awesome I was the past 1.5 years (joking), then the mood swings might have confused him. Sometimes I get tired, sometimes I overreact, sometimes I just want to lie down - and it’s so different than I was before that he knows that it’s just hormonal, adjusts to it, and takes it in stride. Definitely makes things easier!

Just a couple pics of the reception area at the winery at their wedding this past weekend (Greg took these)… I thought the setup was gorgeous!!

Just this for now. Will update more later:)

I have a couple ultrasound pics already. My doctor was super cool and I got a chance to see little baby:)

At 6 weeks (the time the u/s was taken for fetus’ age is shown on the bottom right at GA which stands for Gestational Age of 6 weeks based off the first day of my last period), the baby was measuring at around 6 weeks and 3 days at 0.57 cm, which was great. The measurements have a plus or minus error of 3 days, so if it’s around that it is good. At the 6 week mark, the baby’s heartbeat was at 116 bpm, which is normal for that early and we were pleasantly surprised to be able to see it on the screen:). I saw a small fluttering, and that’s when I started to believe that maybe I was really pregnant. It’s weird to know that something is growing and living inside me. It’s so weird and surreal!

I went back to the doctor’s office for a follow up visit at 7 and half weeks (luckily was able to schedule at lunch break), and baby measured exactly around that time again. Baby doubled in size, so that’s probably the reason I’ve been so tired! I haven’t had morning sickness, so I’ve been very lucky. Just a little more tired than usual. Here’s the 2nd ultrasound pic at 7 half weeks:)

The baby’s heartbeat was a 161 bpm a week and half later. A nice strong heartbeat:). I was very happy to see that. Baby is 1.35 cm, the size of a bean. Greg took a little video of us listening to the heartbeat!

Just sharing what we’ve seen the past week and half. Crazy times…!