Merry Christmas!

23 weeks, you guys. This is for real. :-) AND we've been feeling him kick a lot! Baby J is already trying to play soccer. 

The three of us are headed to a real NFL game!

Merry Christmas to all!

21wks

Valerie and I did a 5k this morning!

21 weeks preggo today. 

Gateway group!

At the start (that Christmas tree man beat us, of course)

Midway shoe-tying with baby Jesus

At the end! We did it in 50 minutes. Certainly much worse than my time last year, but I was giving myself an hour, so 10 minutes faster than my goal! Yay, baby J! He's now done a sprint triathlon and a 5k! (And I'm not signing up for any more events until after April!)

Yaaay!

Week 16/17

I turned 24 and sweet husband surprised me at work with roses!

Jen was a wonderful host and Amanda's baby shower was DELICIOUS. I made Grand Raspberry Trifle (Martha Stewart recipe). Kelsey's awesome cheesecake bars are in the background. 

 Bobbi made chocolate chip cookie cake!

Week 18

Week 19

In case you can't tell, that's a penis and a face!!! Yaaaay! Baby boy Jeong is half way here!

Crepes

I made these: http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/16383/basic-crepes

Added a tsp of vanilla and tsp of sugar. 

Mixed wet ingredients first, then dry. 

Used mango, peach, and raspberry jam filling. 

Husband loved them. I thought they were okay, but I'll def make them again. I would have liked them better with chocolate and powdered sugar instead of fruit. :-D

Yep, ate em in bed. :-D

New Pics

We forgot to take one for week 13. Here's week 14.

We were travelling over the weekend for week 15 - went to the beautiful Spencer-Roughton wedding! 

Week 16 back at home - bam! 

We should find out the sex of the baby within the next four weeks!!!

Happy Halloween!

My prayer today is this would be increasingly true in my life. Jeremiah was facing intense persecution and mockery, and yet: 

If I say, "I will not mention Him, or speak any more in His name," there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:9 ESV)

Weeks 11 & 12

My dad came and built Scooby a dog house. We think he might actually use it while we're gone. 

Shin made ddeokpoki and Val and I made kimbap like good Koreans.

Week 11

We went out with Val to a Mexican restaurant to celebrate her 21st bday.

Week 12.

In the Oven

I made some really good Almond Joy cookies and wanted the recipe somewhere I could refer back to. I've included a picture which is the one with the original recipe. My cookies looked nearly the same, but I forgot to take a picture of my own. Yuuuummmm. 

Almond Joy Cookies

(Recipe from a Facebook share)

Preheat oven to 375

2.25 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

.5 tsp salt

.5 cup butter

.75 cup white sugar

.75 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1.5 tsp vanilla

2.5 cup chocolate chips

1 cup sweetened coconut

1 cup chopped almonds

Grease cookie sheet (or put down parchment paper).

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars, beat in eggs one at a time, add vanilla.

Stir in dry ingredients until well mixed. Then stir in chocolate chips, coconut, and almonds. 

Drop by tablespoon on the cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes. 

I got at least 48 cookies out of this. You can certainly half the recipe (I actually halved it from a recipe calling for even larger measurements!).

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Also, we're doing the thing where we take a picture of me every week. Here's week 9. A grape baby was inside me.

And week 10, with a kumquat baby inside me. 

I don't like the idea of filling this blog with pictures of me, but since I do want a visual record with easy access, I guess this is what I'll be doing. Soon I'm sure it will all be pictures of Baby J and no one will even remember what I looked like before. Anyway, I'm still feeling good (no stomach problems whatsoever), just sleeping a lot more. I haven't gained any weight yet, but it's not due to a lack of delicious cookies!!!

Bart Is Gonna Be Mad

Photo Credit

On Tuesday, August 27th, Valerie and I drove to Tuscaloosa, AL for the Backstreet Boys concert. We were very excited. We got to Tuscaloosa well before the concert started because we were having dinner with a friend of mine from high school, Stephen, and his wife, Lily. I brought Lily a “Smart Start Parenting Kit”, which is an information packet assembled and distributed by my work for expecting and new moms. It was sweet to spend time with them catching up and learning all about their 6-weeks-away baby, Eli. I loved hearing their stories and was majorly relieved because Lily seemed so happy in her pregnancy and not physically miserable (she calmed a fear of mine that all pregnant women are miserable all the time). We ate at a delicious Greek restaurant and then they dropped us off at our concert. Val and I had an AWESOME time, Backstreet was back and it was larger than life. We got home around 1:30am – totally worth it.

I went to work Wednesday morning and had a normal day, I was excited again because my friends, Ryan and Joy, were coming to visit us with their toddler, Hosanna, and were (of course) bringing their 3-weeks-away baby, Haddon. Work was good, but I had some slight itchiness about my wrists, ankles, and hairline. I could see little bumps and assumed I had been bitten by something at the concert. I asked Valerie about it, but she wasn’t itchy at all. It was weird, but no big deal. Ryan and Joy arrived shortly before I got home from work and Shin cooked a fabulous dinner for all of us. My boss had lent me some toys for Hosanna to play with and they were perfect. I was so pleased to have a non-miserable, totally enjoyable toddler enjoying my home (they calmed another fear of mine that toddlers are unpleasant all the time). As the evening progressed I noticed that the bites had grown to covering my thighs with bumps. I rubbed some Benadryl cream on them during the evening, but just thought I’d gotten into some chiggers or gnats. I took a hot shower before bed because I felt dirty with all the cream I’d been rubbing on, I now had bright red itchy bumps all over my armpits and neck. After talking with my mom, we deduced I had hives (one of the worst things you can do with hives is to take a hot shower!). I took 2 Benadryl before going to sleep like the internet recommended, I awoke in the middle of the night itchy, and took 2 more.

Thursday, August 29th I woke at 6:30am to a completely red, horrifically swollen face and body. I was kind of terrified. What if I was contagious and gave something to Shin, Ryan, Joy, and Hosanna?! What about Joy’s baby? I couldn't get my rings off, my lips were swollen, and my eyes were swollen. I immediately looked up the number for the 24 hour clinic near our house, I called ahead to tell them I was on the way. I walked in to the clinic and the nurse said “wow, you are having an allergic reaction!” She comforted me by saying she had this type of reaction with allergies, but I was still scared. In the back of my mind I was thinking I could be pregnant... and what if the hives were related?!?!

Fortunately, there wasn't anyone at the clinic waiting before me and I was able to see a nurse and doctor fairly quickly. They confirmed that I had hives, but we couldn't ever pinpoint what had triggered them. I had to take a pregnancy test before they would prescribe anything and that’s how I confirmed I was pregnant! It was great news, and the doctor reassured me that he did not believe the baby was the cause of the hives. I must not have seemed very excited because I had to reaffirm to the doctor that pregnancy was good news, but I really wished it was the only thing I had to worry about at the moment. With my whole body itching and all my limbs painfully swollen, I’m sure I wasn't as enthused as I could have been.

Once I had been given a prescription, I called Shin out in the parking lot. I told him he was going to be a daddy and he said “I told you so!” (he’d been predicting it for over a week). He was making breakfast for Ryan and Joy while on the phone, so they found out right away. I had to wait outside my OB/GYN’s office until they opened so I could get their blessing before I filled my prescription. Thankfully the office opened just 30 minutes later and the nurse confirmed there was no problem with my prescriptions and pregnancy. I got my medicine and was able to get my rings off by the end of the day. We called parents (now grandparents) and other close family and a few friends, but decided to keep the news to ourselves until after meeting with the OB. We didn’t really know how far along I was or anything about the pregnancy, and wanted to share more once we were a little more confident.
-

Yesterday we went to my first doctor’s appointment.We’d done so well to keep our little secret just among family. And then one of our good friends from church walked in for her appointment. When Paige found out why we were there, one of the first things she said was “Bart is gonna be so mad!” and laughed; I am SURE she speaks the truth. We were called back shortly afterwards. I got an ultrasound and we for really, real saw Baby Jeong inside me! It even twitched while we were watching! We found out that I’m 8 weeks along and due on April 19th. We think this is wonderful news. And that Bart will just have to get over it.

My Tri

Most of these have been on Facebook, updating the blog for grandparents! The tri was AWESOME! I'm so glad I did it and all of my equipment worked and the planning was sufficient. I totally praise God for getting me through, the biking was a really sweet time of worship as I had amazing pastoral views. My run even had butterflies criss-crossing my path. :-)

Also, thanks to Shin for getting up at 6:30 with me, driving me to the event, prepping my bike, photographing, and driving me back home!

 

My hope and dream was to finish in 2 hours. My official chip time was 1:52:25!!! Yaaaay!

July

July is gone! Yikes! I guess time flies when we're having fun. :-)

Valerie's been playing and coaching a lot of soccer (although a recent sprained ankle put a damper on that).

Shin's been doing lots of home improvement projects: new shelf, new wiring system for surround sound, new doorbell, new peephole. Had a new fence installed. Our next big project: installing laminate flooring!

Scooby and I walked around the block the other night. It was lovely. Unfortunately my non-working life has been consumed with school (not pictured). I'm excited to take Scooby for more walks after Thursday's final summer final... For those of you wondering, this is what I'm doing when I get off work: http://www.sciences.aum.edu/departments/political-science-public-administration/master-of-public-administration

Theoretically I'll graduate (with a certificate in nonprofit leadership) in winter 2014. Yay education!

I'm excited about August. My fall class doesn't start until September, so August shall be AWESOME!

Still can't shake the jetlag

After the wedding, we stayed at a house in Haleiwa on the North Shore. We LOVED it. So relaxing and we lived across the street from the ocean!

We had a surfing lesson with Ash from www.hisurfschool.com and it was awesome! It was a ton of fun surfing and Ash and Kalai were great teachers. 

Then we ate subpar shrimp out of this questionable looking shrimp truck that several people recommended. 

We got some highly recommended but also subpar shave ice and then walked around this beautiful church cemetery. 

We stopped to stare at a sea turtle. Katie pointed this spot out to us on the way to Haleiwa bc one or more turtles comes ashore here to bask nearly every day. Very cool to be so close!

We visited North Shore Christian Fellowship (www.calvarychapelnscf.com) which was recommended and we loved it. The free hotdog, watermelon, and apple strudel didn't hurt.

We took a dusty trail with a cool breeze to Ka'ena point, the western-most tip of Oahu. And I saw a cool, dead frog.

We snorkeled at Shark's Cove one day, visited Waimea Valley and swam in Waimea Falls another day, and snorkeled at Pupukea Beach our last evening.

One day we visited Dole Plantation and we both saw pineapple plants up close for the first time. Also, had highly recommended and delicious Dole Whip (pineapple softserve)!

We enjoyed quite a few nice meals in our lovely home. This was our last breakfast and I think it was my favorite with our Hawaiian honey on Hawaiian toast. :-)

We had to say goodbye to our favorite kitty, Gizmo, at our house. And we headed off to Pearl Harbor and then the long trip home!

Aloha!

I was the matron of honor at Katie's wedding, so we HAD to go to Hawaii. It. Was. Amazing. 

We saw sea turtles our first day! They were just hanging out by the sidewalk!

We had jetlag, so we visited an early morning fish auction. These fish were ginormous. 

We got to play with Hoku at Dolphin Quest! Did you know dolphin stomachs feel different than their backs? I didn't. It was so cool!

Got to reunite with college friends at the Gao open house, rehearsal dinner, and Katie's raucous bachelorette party (at local coffee shop).

And then spent the next day helping this beautiful friend and her wonderful husband get married. I truly was honored to be a part of it all!