Does anyone know exactly why I'm not allowed to eat mangoes while preggo? The in-laws just dropped by and brought food and one mango, which i snatched up and sniffed.  But they said they only brought one because I'm not allowed to eat it and it's for PB only.  Is it one of those hot/cold/chi things?  How can I even tell which foods/fruits are hot/cold...because not all fruits are hot/cold...just mangoes?  Either way, I'm still eating it...I already ate a ton in Hawaii anyway hahaha.  My digestive system was SOOOOO good in Hawaii (I know, too much info) because we had a HUGE plate of fresh fruit every morning.  Anyway...if anyone can shed some light one this for me, it would be much appreciated.  What else am I not supposed to eat....like in terms of Asian thinking (obviously not the alcohol, too much caffeine, etc)?

I google it...apparently, it's supposed to cause miscarriage or something?!  That and papayas...which I also at a TON of in Hawaii.

Incidentally...Western medicine lists mangoes as an excellent fruit to eat while preggo because of it's high iron and vitamin content.

*see protected*

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

So we bought this Mallory the Monkey toy for Baby Bear in Hawaii as his/her souvenir from the trip...we thought that since it was hawaiian themed, that it was local souvenir type thing (like the stuffed animals in the gift shops).  But i just saw it on the Babies R' Us website...and for almost HALF the price.  Man, I feel stupid now. hahaha.  We even made a special trip to their mall just to get it (we saw it the first time we went, but didn't buy it).  Oh well, we also bought Baby Bear a t-shirt that says something about all his/her relatives being a bunch of "coconuts".  i don't think they'll have that at babies R'Us.

Oh, today, a stranger asked me how many months I am.  I guess I'm really showing now.  Although, it hasn't been enough for people to offer me their seats...or even move their bag off the EMPTY seat next to them so I can sit down (I HATE that)

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

The front desk people made me a normal pre-natal visit for today instead of the full anatomy ultrasound.  So we don't know the sex.  ARGH.  The next available opening isn't until next Friday.  So we have to wait another week. we were SOOO looking forward to it...PB was pretty devastated...he couldn't speak for a few minutes.  He said this was worse than losing in the annual bball tournament he plays in with his friends.  Coming from him, that must be pretty bad hahaha.

So next Friday we'll know.  At least it was scheduled for 7:30 AM, so we won't have to wait all day to find out.

How friggin cute is this baby carrier?!!!  I love the gender neutral color.  I'm not a fan of the pastel blue/pink themed stuff (unless it's a free hand me down...then i'll take any color!!!!).  Everything we choose so far is some shade of khaki/brown.  Sounds boring...but can be easily spiced up with some bright greens/yellows, etc!!!  Anyway, i like the honeycomb motif the best.  Honey for Baby Bear....get it!!!?  Actually, PB and I refer to money as "honey"....tee hee.  So we'll say, "gotta go to work and bring home the honey for BB", "we need to save some honey for BB".  so it's totally fitting!

I told people at work today...I had no choice since I'm starting to show for real.  And then in became like 20 questions...like the same 20 questions from each person.  Reminded me of why I didn't want to tell in the first place.  But everyone was really happy for me...and everyone was shocked and said they had no clue (unless they were lying).  Then they started the belly touching.  I don't like the belly touching.  I am not a touchy person to begin with...except with PB.  Unless you are a really good friend, I don't like to touch people (aside from hugging)...and I don't like when they touch me.  (This is also one big factor why the MD route wouldn't have worked out for me).  So every time a hand goes out towards my belly, I have to brace myself and tolerate people touching it.  It's hard.  I instinctively want to take a step backwards. 

t minus two days until we find out if Baby Bear is a he Bear or a she Bear!!!

*edit* I finally got a chance to look through some of the hawaii pics.  A lot of the scenic ones came out hazy because of the thick vog (fog caused by volcanic ash/smoke blowing over from another island) we had for most of the 2 weeks.  But my favorite pic so far is this one we took of a peacock at the historical Menehune village we visited.  Here it is...straight out of the camera....man, can those things honk loud!

We're home!!!

Sigh, back to reality.  We had a semi-bad flight back.  Our leg from Phoenix to Philly was supposed to be 3h 45 min....i don't know what happened, but it took 5.5 hours (we left on time).  I'm not sure if the pilot was new or what, but he did quite the job landing the plane.  First, halfway through the descent, I see the flaps on the wings go back to the down position and I was like, oh no, we're going back up.  And sure enough one second later, the pilot throttles and pulls the plane up.  It felt even worse than when the plane first takes off because at least you're going from flat to up.....we were going from pointing down to going up.  I seriously felt my brain shift.  You know it's bad when there was a collective "WOAH" from everyone on the plane.

Then he tries again....and for some reason couldn't line up the plane with the runway...so we did a series of like "S" turns....so like a left turn, immediately followed by a right turn...even coming into the airport, he was still "S" turning....i was like OMG....if we land in the river, I will be SO pissed.  But we landed okay...thank God.

Pictures to come...we have almost 2000 hahahaha.  i have to go through them.

Aloha Kauai....

Today's our last day here...we fly out tonight...but our flight's not until almost 11 PM, so we still have the whole day.  We will miss it here....but we can't wait to be home...in our normal abode, in our normal bed.  It's pretty tiring to have to plan out the whole day, every day. 

Two more days....

Until we have to leave    Today, we arrived at our third accomodation on Kauai.  Our one night stay at the Marriott was fantastic.  It's easy to see the appeal...but I think the novelty of it would wear off pretty quickly for me.  We mostly enjoyed the big pool....that's basically all we did there.  But there were guests there who basically just sunbathes on the pool decks the ENTIRE day.  How does one do that without being bored out of their mind?  Just lay there...and not even swim....just bake in the sun.  BTW...there are a LOT of people out here who should NOT be in the sun for one more second...they look like cooked lobsters.  Ironically, those are the same ones that lay out day after day.

Anyhow, this last place is a small B&B on the North Side.  It's pretty isolated and just a few miles from the start of the Napali Coast.  The house (and all the other houses around there) is built on these 20 feet stilts...so they're Tsunami proof...hardly a comforting thought.  We can walk to Tunnels beach (which we won't...we will drive the short drive)...which is supposedly AWESOME for snorkeling because it has a reef system that can be seen from space.  It's also that same beach where that teenage surfer got her arm taken off by a shark.  We're still going to go...and stay VERY close to the shore.  eek.

The best part about this place is that the owners are animal lovers.  We didn't know until we got here, but also in residence in this house are 2 cats, 1 dog, 1 chinchilla and 1 parrot.  That's all I've seen so far...the animals seem to keep popping up.  Well, the bad thing is that I'm allergic to cats....like pretty badly.  oh well..i just have to make sure they don't rub up on me

Need some career advice/opinions.....

*see protected*

Shave Ice....

Today, we tried the famous Haiwaiian shave ice that people have been raving about.  We read all the reviews and went to the best one on the island.  And I must say that I think the Taiwanese Tsua Bing (I have no idea how to spell that) is sooooo much better.  Maybe I'm just biased because it's what I'm used to...but I love having all that stuff on top.  The Hawaiian version was still good...but a little too reminiscent of a snow cone to me.

I accidentally shorted us one night of accomodations in between our switch from the south to the north shore.  It was actually a misunderstanding...I was talking in terms of nights, and they were talking in terms of days.  Anyway, I realized it yesterday and PB decided to see if he could priceline us a night at a nice resort for $150.  And it WORKED!  For one night, we'll be staying at the Marriott resort of 12 the price.   woohoo!!!!

One more week of paradise...then back to the grind...which I am NOT looking forard to.

I got a bug bite on my eyelid yesterday.  We tried to visit the botanical gardens here (which are GORGEOUS), but had to leave after an hour since I was being eaten alive by the bugs.  So far, I haven't gotten one bug bite, and in one hour, I got 10.  For those of you who remember that camping trip many years back when my face was attacked by a hoard of mosquitos (it was the only part of me exposed)...and I woke up the next morning with two swollen eyes and was quickly nicknamed Bug-eye girl for the rest of the trip............well, Miss Bugeye girl returns.