Baby Kicks, Pear Picking and Dinosaur Hunting!

First, the baby update:
Our little girl (maybe) has been getting bigger and stronger so very quickly.  She kicks me all the time, especially in the evenings when I am relaxing at home.  She is usually pretty quiet at work, but I have a fun thing to share with you all.  On Tuesday, Jonathan brought my lunch to me at school.  He was telling me about his plans for the evening and the baby started kicking like crazy!  I think she recognizes Daddy's voice!  My books say that her hearing is very well developed by now and she is beginning to open her eyes so she is much more sensitive to light and sounds.  She may even be able to recognize mine and Jonathan's voices!  It is so exciting to notice how she grows and changes.  We are now 27 weeks.  I start my third trimester next week.  The pregnancy seems to be going very slowly and very quickly at the same time. We will be a family of three in just three short months!

Now for our adventures and some more pictures:
This past weekend, we had many adventures! On Friday we went pear picking in Wakasa Town.  On Saturday we went to the Dinosaur Museum in Katsuyama, Fukui (about 3 hours northeast of where we live) with two of our friends from Obama.  And on Sunday we went to Kyoto for some tasty falafel and the open air flea market at Kita no Tenmangu Shrine!  Whew!  We forgot to take pictures in Kyoto, but we documented our excursions from Friday and Saturday. Enjoy some photos!

 It sprinkled for a few minutes so we had to take shelter under our umbrella.

 Above is the Fukuisaurus, discovered in our prefecture!  Below is the Fukuiraptor, also discovered here!

Love you all!

Laura, Jonathan, and baby!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Today is Jonathan's 25th birthday. Happy quarter of a century, love!

I made him a cake! And homemade icing (Jonathan had to help with the icing, though)!
Photos below:

Love,

Laura, Jonathan, and baby!

September Update & Laura loves Jonathan

Hello friends and family,

Sorry I have been so bad about posting recently.  I have been tired and struggling with morning sickness (again) and did not want to type up all the whiney posts I was composing in my head.  I have thrown up 4 times in the last 7 days (at work all times) and I am just so ready for fall to come.  I hope if I can just power through September, I will be able to make it.  I think my nausea is being aggravated by the heat (temperatures in the 80s and 90s every day) and my seasonal allergies, but I cannot take any medicine because I'm pregnant!  The recent bouts of morning sickness have not been nearly as bad as they were back in the first trimester (I am able to eat a bit more than just toast and crackers, and I have been keeping my prenatal vitamins down), but I am just tired of feeling so crappy.  I really need to start doing those prenatal yoga tapes because I can feel my stamina and muscle tone deteriorating every day.  I won't have the energy to deliver this baby if I do not get my act together and just push through the negativity and self-pity I have been stuck in!

I am truly happy to be pregnant and every single time our baby kicks me I stop and smile.  She is kicking all the time now, usually a couple of times per hour, but sometimes I think she is napping in there so I will go a while without feeling anything.  Or perhaps she is awake but still too small and is kicking me in the back or in my tummy fat, lol.  I love her so much already and I love Jonathan more everyday now that we are becoming parents.  I am so so so very lucky to have Jonathan in my life.  He is the best man I could ever hope for.  I am trying to hard to recognize when I am "pregnancy crazy" so that I don't freak out about little things, but he is just so patient no matter what I say or do.  He takes care of me emotionally, spiritually, physically, and financially (although I try to take care of myself in all those areas too).  He does more than 60% of the housework: cooking, doing dishes, cleaning, and taking care of the garbage. I totally owe him a dishwasher when we get back to America. And a maid. We enjoy cooking so I think we can skip the chef. I am sure that once the baby comes, I will have a new person in this world that I love completely and unconditionally to a degree that I never thought possible, but I already love and appreciate her more than I could ever imagine because she has shown me that I made the right choice when I married Jonathan. If the first 2 years of marriage and 4 years of dating before were this good, then I cannot wait to see how great the rest of our lives will be. 

Everything in my life is changing in a big, irreversible way, but I couldn't be happier.  Heartburn, vomiting, nausea, bladder infections, backaches, homesickness (is there such as thing as "momsickness" where you miss your mom?), fatigue, and a lack of interest in doing anything outside of our apartment aside, I would not have chosen any differently if I could go back in time.

I love you all and thanks for bearing with me.  I am making a 25th week of pregnancy resolution to be more positive in my thoughts and words so that I can have the power and energy to overcome the little bumps in the road. Life is only going to get harder and busier from here on out and I want to enjoy the magic and little miracles around me every day.

xo
Laura, Jonathan, and baby

Here are some recent photos. Link to babymoon photos

Boy or Girl?

So we went to the doctor today for our 24th week check-up and ultrasound.
He takes a screenshot and says,
"Well, here it is."
I said, "What are we looking at?"
"The sex."
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Which one do you want?"
"Either one is fine."
"Girl, maybe. We will check again next time to be sure."

Hahahahaha. So we have a "girl, maybe."  I find this hilarious and I hope you do too.

Also, our baby girl is still too shy to let us have a 3D picture of her face, but we got an awesome profile shot of her trying to touch her toes. So cute!

We will post pictures... eventually!

Love you all,
Laura, Jonathan, and Girl Maybe

International Visitors

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
We love and miss you all! I would love to see you and show you around Japan! Unfortunately, your winter breaks line up exactly with the time that I will be 9 months pregnant/taking care of a newborn. Babies come on their own schedule that is outside of my knowledge or control. Aside from the 2 approved visitors during that time, I encourage all international visitors to consider a trip during the fall or spring. Please consider this humble request!
xoxo
Laura & Jonathan

Ultrasound photo

Here's a picture of our baby! The head is the prominent feature in this ultrasound printout, with some of the spine visible- oooh creepy! We felt the little dude or dudette's first kick on Saturday in the evening after Laura had eaten a strawberry crepe. Since then, Laura's periodically been stopping mid-sentence to tell me the baby kicked, where I'll rush over to try and feel it, but, of course, s/he won't do it.

Also, we're 20 weeks today!

We have an appointment tomorrow to determine the sex of the little hitchhiker. We'll let you know soon whether you should start conditioning our unborn child to like blue and footballs and trucks or pink and princesses and dolls with an age old display of rampant consumerism. Haha JK LOL. Not really. But seriously though, you are going to buy our baby a ton of stuff, right?

I'm doing well; I have a break from work for a few weeks to relax and enjoy summer. We're going to go on a babymoon soon and enjoy all the foreign food Osaka has to offer and watch movies. We'll post later to let you know which box our baby fits in!

Love,
Jonathan (and Laura)

Two Years in Japan

Hello folks,

Happy Monday! It has been a busy past few weeks here in Fukui. Jonathan, Grainne and I went to visit the lovely Jen in Aichi prefecture last weekend. We had an excellent time shopping, eating delicious food, and enjoying city life. We met up with Mrs. Deguchi and Ashley, some friends from Ohio University for an Italian lunch in Nagoya. After that we went shopping and got some cute clothes, foreign food, and new beauty products. For dinner we had Indian food with Ashley's friends and then we went out for karaoke. Sunday was a lazy day where we did a bit more shopping and we got Starbucks coffee.

Jen came back to Ohi with us on Monday. She stayed until Thursday morning and we got to do a lot of fun local things together. We went to the beach, visited a temple, and also went to a library/art museum/creepy puppet house. Mostly we just hung out and enjoyed each other's company. It was a fabulous start to summer vacation. I took Monday - Wednesday (the 25th-27th) off. I believe this is Jonathan's last week of work for the summer. He gets most of August off. Yay! I am back at work after another busy weekend.

Group A of the new ALTs came to Fukui Wednesday night. Thursday after work I took the train up to Fukui city to meet them at the welcome BBQ. The BBQ was a lot of fun, and it was great to see all the northerners again. Friday was their second day of orientation. I had to be there for the "Settling In Workshop" to introduce them to the South (Reinan area). There were 6 new southern ALTs so Lucia and I had our work cut out for us. I focused on the Obama area people and Lucia focused on the Tsuruga area people but it always feels like we don't have enough time to cover everything. They are very interested in learning about the area and always have a million questions. I remember those days...

So the coolest part of the orientation situation this year was that I got to meet Conor's successor. Her name is Rebecca and I already like her a lot. We have been talking via facebook for over a month so I already knew we would get along well. Our supervisor and another person from the Board of Education came up to Fukui City to pick us up and bring us back to Ohi on Friday around 1PM. We got some paperwork done and she is out right now doing more paperwork and visiting our schools. On Saturday the new Obama area ALTs, Grainne, Jonathan, and I hung out and had okonomiyaki for dinner. On Sunday we all hung out again and were joined by Lauren and Ryan, a pair of veteran ALTs from Obama, for the Obama festival. There were food booths, music, a stage, and a number of dancers and performers. The fireworks festival is tonight (Monday) but Jonathan, Rebecca, and I have a BBQ with our Board of Education so we cannot go. Luckily, Ohi town will be having its fireworks festival this coming weekend so we will not be missing out too much.

So, in conclusion, we were very busy! I am feeling a lot better now that the worst of the morning sickness is over. I only threw up once last week. I suppose I am not quite ready for medium salsa and guacamole chips. Especially since I took my prenatal vitamin with them instead of taking it with something mild right before bed. So as long as I limit my spicy food intake I have been eating almost full portions at my meals. Yay! The baby is getting bigger. I know this because my belly is getting bigger, haha. Apparently my uterus is the size of a cantaloupe now that I am 5 months pregnant. Pre-pregnancy it was about the size of a pear or an avocado. Ha!

I cannot wait to feel the baby moving around in there. Sometime over the next month I should be able to feel him/her. Also we may know if the baby is a boy or a girl in less than 2 weeks. Yay! I am still worried and nervous about the pregnancy, but I am starting to feel like the baby will be coming into our lives soon. The pregnancy is almost halfway done! I had a dream the other night that we had just gotten back from the hospital and Jonathan was feeding the baby. He asked me to take over and I realized we only had the one spit-up cloth. I panicked because I felt like we were so unprepared for the baby to actually be here. When we were planning for the pregnancy, we spent a year researching about the physical, emotional, and financial realities of pregnancy in Japan. I bought books, read blogs, and spoke with foreign mothers and fathers living here before making the decision. I spent so much time and energy planning for the pregnancy but not as much time planing for the baby! I know that it makes sense to wait until the 3rd trimester to buy baby stuff and all that, but I am feeling a little restless having to wait to make the proper preparations.

Well that is all for now. I will try to post again this week. It seems like I have a lot to say if I wait over a week to post, lol. Also, pictures! Sorry about the delay I will put them up soon.

Love,
Laura (and Jonathan!)