Home in Seattle .... and sick

After what felt like the longest day of traveling, we're back home in Seattle....where the weather is just as cold as when we left Florida if you'd believe it! Shortly after my last post, the weather took a sudden downturn and now Florida's temperature is so low that citrus crops are at risk and even a state of emergency was declared by their governor. I think the day we left, temps were in the 50's with a low in the 40's...and getting even colder.

Anyway, it's nice to be home, although just a couple days after returning, I caught a cold and now I've just been laying at home, in my PJs and sweatshirt non-stop crying "woe is me" with a box of Kleenex and cup of tea next to me at all times. That said, it's really nice to be home and I thought I'd reflect on the things I love about this new home...and just being in a house in general (as opposed to our condo)...in no particular order:

• I love that I can lay on our bed and see a gorgeous view of Mt. Rainier from our bedroom window
• I love not hearing drunken party-goers late at night on the weekends
• I love that we don't have to separate out our recycling (previously, still had to separate glass from other recyclables at the condo) and that we now have a separate bin for Food & Yard Waste! It really helps in cutting down on the amount of things that go into the actual garbage.
• I love that friends can visit and not have to worry about finding parking
• I love that there's much more room for storage
• I love that we each get our own office now
• I love the deep soaking bathtub in our master bath (note from previous post - I'm still trying to be careful and not soak for too long...but I do love my baths!)
• I love that Matt can watch his football on Sundays in the basement and I don't have to hear the sound of the sportscaster in the rest of the house
• I love not having to deal with the slow elevator from our condo anymore
• I love not having to deal with some of the more annoying other residents at the condo
• I love that since it's a house, UPS & FedEx will just leave packages on our doorstep, instead of me chasing down their post-it-notes and ultimately having to drive down to South Seattle to pick up the package
• I love having a garage and not dealing with getting soaked on while bringing things in from my car

I'm so eager to really get settled. Over the holidays, we got a fancy new closet system for our master closet so over the last few days, we've really started to put our clothes away. Once I get myself a desk (we had 1 previously, which is being used by Matt now) and perhaps some more bookshelves, I think we'll really be able to start unpacking boxes.....and then clear the nursery room and actually spend time thinking about baby stuff! Eeks. My 3rd trimester is going to begin in about 2 weeks and time is going to fly by.

Welcome to 2010!

Happy New Year y'all! Whether it was out partying til dawn or simply staying at home with loved ones, I hope it was a good one.

As you know, we are in Key West right now where the weather has been absolutely fabulous -- sunny and in the upper 70's. We spent the last day of 2009 laying on the beach and reading which was so relaxing. Despite putting on 50 SPF, my sensitive pregnancy skin still got sunburnt...argh.
We then got the obligatory photo next to the Southernmost Point buoy down the street from us, wandered around for a bit and then had our New Year's Eve set dinner at Martin's on Duval St. We were really looking forward to this dinner after reading some good reviews of the restaurant; however, the food was a slight disappointment considering the price. It really just felt like all the food was made in batches and then just re-heated under an oven or something. It wasn't terrible...but for $95/person, I expect some really good food! On the bright side, our server was excellent and we really liked the service we got. Dinner ended around 9pm so we had a good 3 hours to wander up and down Duval St before the stroke of midnight. It's really fascinating to see how much of a party town Key West is...very much reminded us of Bourbon St in New Orleans as the theme of the evening seemed to be people up on rooftops or balconies throwing colored beads down to the crowds below in various spots. The whole stretch of Duval was closed off to cars and just full of people all night. In the south end, there was a carnival setting with cutesy games, bull riding and dunking. Right next to that was the big drag queen gay bash outside the largest gay bar on the block, with a huge red heeled shoe underneath the 2010 sign.

Further down the street was another huge bash under the Sloppy Joe's bar with a huge conch shell underneath the 2010 sign. In between there were bars open galore, cigar stands, vendors selling beads and blinking lights, etc. Quite an eyesight. Since we are staying at the very south end of Duval St., we choose to spend the stroke of midnight just south of the big gay bash so that we could easily escape the crowd and return to our room right after "Auld Lang Syne" was sung.

I am soooo glad we are staying at the south end of Duval St where it is much much much more quiet, yet still very conveniently within walking distance of all the interesting sights of Duval St (which is just a little over a mile long end-to-end). We get the peace and quiet that we wanted out of this babymoon, yet have easy access to all the fun if we care to. I have to admit that it's not quite the same being down here in Key West while pregnant -- I can't really indulge in a glass of champagne or my favorite frozen cocktail. Oh well. But it really is beautiful down here. I'll leave you with a picture of the gorgeous Key West sunset.

Pregnancy Adventures: Things I did not know about pregnancy before I got pregnant

Just found out today that our friends Nate & Marissa are expecting, due in July---yay! This got me thinking to writing a brief post about things I didn't know about pregnancy before becoming pregnant...many things I discovered earlier on but couldn't talk about since I was still in the "non-safety" zone of the first trimester...so hopefully I can jog my memory a bit here. Now, there were a few things I knew about like how you shouldn't smoke, drink alcohol, etc...and some things I learned through some of the few friends that have had children in the last couple of years...but there are a number of things that I did not know until I got pregnant, got the "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book, and really started learning about the do's and do-not's of pregnancy. Here they are:

• No more hot baths. I knew that pregnant women weren't allowed in hot tubs based on all the signs posted around hot tubs...but I never really translated that to hot baths. Now, I LOVE my hot baths...but once I started asking about it, my OB was like "well, try to keep the belly out of the bath" or "keep the temperature not too hot". I'm like "what? what's the point then?" Now, I know there are many opinions on this...and like with almost any of the "do-not's" of pregnancy, it's more about doing things moderately and not excessively. Still, I can't help but worry about the temperature of the water when I take a bath now and try my best to just keep it short and not make myself sweat too much.
• What I shouldn't eat/drink. Now, I knew about things like tuna, raw sushi, alcohol, etc...but these are the food items (that I care about) that I didn't realize I had to essentially remove from my diet during these 9 months:
  • Lunch meat (this is one where I try to be "moderate")
  • Hot dogs (I'll admit I ate one German sausage while visiting Leavenworth)
  • Alfalfa sprouts (wah--salads and sandwiches aren't as good w/o sprouts)
  • Oysters (in retrospect, this should have been obvious)
  • Bananas -- this is just a Chinese thing---my mom and aunt practically ripped a banana out of my hand over Thanksgiving...I'm not really sure why bananas are banned. Again, this is something I'm more "moderate" with.
  • Caffeine -- I really had no idea about this. In reality, the advice is no more than 200mg of caffeine a day (a standard tall latte at Starbucks is about 75mg for reference) As a result, though, I've basically stopped drinking coffee (which was really tough for me initially) and have just substituted with an occasional chai latte or uncaffeinated herbal tea. It probably doesn't hurt to chill out on my bad caffeine habit anyway.
  • Unpasteurized cheese -- I LOVE cheese. Now, I have to look out to see if any cheese is pasteurized or not. Fortunately, most cheese in the U.S. is pasteurized...but what in the world do pregnant women in France do? Again, I'm sure this falls under the "be moderate" category...but it's not like there are any major cheeses I love that I can no longer eat. I just find myself paying more attention to it.
  • Items with "raw eggs" such as hollandaise sauce, tiramisu, mayonnaise. This is another "be moderate" for me....but again, most of these items are things I rarely indulge in anyway. Supposedly, pregnant women should also avoid runny eggs (such as sunny-side-up) but again, I tend to eat scrambled anyway so haven't thought much about it.
• Don't touch the cat litter! This is one that's worked in my favor. Pregnant women are susceptible to an infection called Toxoplasmosis. As a result, when you're pregnant, ladies, time to tell the husband to pick up after the cat.
• Dyeing your hair. Here's another "be moderate" for me -- but supposedly, pregnant women should be careful about the amount of hair dyeing that may do during those 9 months...and if you are to do it, better to do highlights rather than all-over hair color. I would also throw this into the "hold off on this during the 1st trimester" category but otherwise, I'm sure it's fine. Again, I have no plans for this.
• Lighten up on that reflexology! This I'm a bit bummed about. There are apparently pressure points in the feet that can lead to premature contractions...as a result, MOST massage therapists will either totally NOT touch your feet...or they will only give it a pretty light massage.
• Got acne? Just deal. Now, I knew that Accutane was forbidden during pregnancy...but I figured that I'd just dab the occasional salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide over-the-counter acne treatment when I'd break out...but apparently, those are things I have to be careful with (not enough conclusive studies I believe...so some would say this is just hogwash). I think this also falls under the "be moderate with" category but I've just been too worried to choose my vanity over the baby's health.....and that lovely "pregnancy glow" that women get? Well, ladies that have a history of acne--expect it to get worse!

That's about all I can think of for now. Now, I'm not sitting here avoiding everything like the plague and truly take the advice to just do things moderately...but it's been really fascinating for me on this journey to learn about what pregnant women should or shouldn't do, can or cannot do, etc.

Only in recent weeks have I finally started feeling her kick...and just in this last week was I able to physically feel her kicks on my belly. Just a few days ago, Matt was able to feel her kick for the first time which was so awesome. The kicks come and go and they vary from a very light tickling feeling to a big jab right in the middle (it's a weird feeling, kind of like a major gas burp but in the wrong place and obviously without the gas) It will be eerie when she gets big enough that I can start actually seeing waves of baby movement on my stomach.

I still have a weird aversion to meat, particularly in the evenings. The feeling comes and goes but at times, the taste of meat can make me absolutely nauseous. One observation I made, though, was that I can almost always eat meat when made with an Asian-like preparation, such as Thai or Chinese...but for example, I wasn't able to eat much turkey during the Christmas dinner because it just sat with me the wrong way. I still can't enjoy a good steak and can only eat beef when it's stir fried with broccoli or chow fun it seems. Strange eh?

I'll sign off this post with a lovely baby picture of our friends Betina & Justin's recently born daughter, Madeleine Poppy, who came to this world on Dec. 19th---she's so cute!

Hello from sunny Florida!

Happy Holidays from Florida! It is so nice to be experiencing some sunshine down here...the weather has floated between the 60's and 70's...and will hopefully get warmer when we head down to Key West next week for New Year's. We spend every other year down here with Matt's parents who have a house down here. It's been a relaxing vacation so far and pretty easy! It actually started off with us taking public transportation to the Seattle airport for the first time ever-- a combination of bus and lightrail: the bus stop right in front of our house drops us off inside the downtown bus tunnel where we get off and just wait for the lightrail. Total cost--$1.75 (free for me since I already have an ORCA card through work). Sweet! Door to door -- about an hour..not bad! The flight went without a hiccup and then we were in Florida.

Of course, we had mortgage related drama...AGAIN...the day before leaving. I don't know how we coincidentally got ourselves into this predicament (remember, the day before leaving for Thanksgiving break, we had to sign papers for the house). Well, I refinanced the condo and the closing for that happened the day before we left. Around 4pm, I finally got a phone call saying "can you be in Kent in an hour?" Sheesh. So off to the bank I went, got a cashier's check, quickly stopped by the grocery store to pick up food and random gifts for a white elephant potluck we were attending later, and then off to deal with rush hour traffic down to Kent to sign papers. When all was said and done, we turned to each other and said "well, hopefully nothing goes wrong tomorrow since we're on an airplane all day!". Sure enough, I got an email in the morning from the escrow company, frantic because they realized they forgot to have Matt sign ONE document. One document! I then called them:

ESCROW: "are you at the airport?"
ME: "yes, but my flight is leaving in an hour"
ESCROW: "what airline?"
ME: "Southwest..but I'm not dealing with security again"
ESCROW: "our notary will go to you....hold on..."
[pause]
ESCROW: "okay, we're just going to email the doc to you and have you sign and scan it back"

Thank goodness that was acceptable! There was no way we were going to deal with leaving security just to meet a notary to sign one document with our flight leaving in an hour! Once we got to Florida, fortunately, Matt's parents own a printer/scanner so we were able to take care of everything that night. The next day, we got the official "YOU'RE FUNDED!" email--damn straight I better be!

All in all..very happy with the rates we ended up getting: 4.5% for the house and 4.625% for the condo (and keep in mind, I had to refinance it AS an investment property) All is well!

I had the walkthrough the tenant also and I think it went okay. I felt bad as he did notice the semi-crappy job on the walls (I decided not to paint as I thought spot painting with random "looks-like-generic-off-white-wall-paint" would just make it worse) I left him the walkthrough inspection papers...so we'll see what he writes when I get home and see the mail!

Anyway, I need to wrap up as we're leaving soon..afterall, it's football Sunday and apparently the Patriots game is not playing on local TV so we've got to leave the house...and I think Matt's mom is going to spend the afternoon with me in Venice. I just want to soak in some sun.

Onto new digs...

Whew! What a weekend with our move. We started bright and early at 7am with the professional movers who were awesome and moved so fast. Despite that, the whole move still took over EIGHT HOURS (yikes!). We just have so much stuff...it's going to take forever to unpack! We have our basics: master bedroom setup, TVs turned on with cable, and wireless internet flowing already. Our focus this week: unpack and prep the condo for the new tenant who will move in this weekend. It's eerie looking at this condo that I've lived in for 6 years -- my first place -- standing so empty the same way it looked when I stepped in the first time. Fortunately, there's not much left to do -- the cleaners and carpet cleaner came today. All that's left is touch up paint and random dings...which I honestly have a fear of dealing with. I've never been great with spackle and paint...and it's just one of those things that I can't bring myself to pay someone to deal with (the little odd jobs that is). I'm hoping this tenant doesn't mind my amateur-ish job of cleaning up the walls.

Already we're noticing subtle differences in living in this new house, such as how much quieter it is at night and just how huge the house is. We have to literally yell at each other in order to be heard on different floors---we've already separated our TV watching so that Matt can watch his football full on downstairs while I'm comfortable in the family room watching whatever I please. The most noticeable difference are the people in the neighborhood when going to the grocery store. Gone are the homeless teenagers, drunken all-night partygoers and that same heroine addict that we saw wandering up and down our street all the time. Here, there are just lots and lots of families and children everywhere.

We just met our next door neighbor tonight who came over with some chocolate chip cookies to greet us--I don't think I could invent more ideal neighbors for my parents to love: a Chinese couple with 2 young children, the woman speaks Cantonese (from Toronto) and they're both in the medical industry. Nice!

Can my life be any busier right now?

Sorry I've been quiet -- it's just been so darn busy! Well, since my last post, we DID close on the house on time (woo hoo!) although there was drama til the very end. When we went to sign the escrow papers, I signed the first two pages using my regular signature. At that point, the escrow lady said, "You should sign your entire whole name" (including middle name), even though it's not my real signature. For the rest of the documents, I did...and she didn't think it was necessary to re-sign the first 2 pages. I should've questioned her on that.....because the next day, WHILE we were in Vegas, I got a frantic call from her telling me that I needed to resign those pages AND that I needed to sign them on legal paper. Great -- that's easy for me to do at my parent's house in Vegas. Fortunately, I found a UPS store nearby and for approx. $2, I was able to print out the pages, sign them and re-scan them at the right size. Sheesh.

Thanksgiving was great as usual -- lots of family, tons of eating Chinese food and just overall relaxation. One thing we did which we hadn't done in a long time --- Aaron and I took our cousins to Circus Circus, which was our favorite casino to go to when we were children because of the child-friendly arcade. It was incredible how different it is compared to when we used to go there but there were still a lot of the classic games. We probably spent nearly $20 playing the "roll the ball into the blue/red/yellow holes so your horse can move as fast as possible" game so that our cousin could win a huge stuffed cow to take home. Mission accomplished.

Since returning, I've now also kicked off another loan process...moreso, I'm finally refinancing the condo since rates are awesome and we're going to hold off on selling it for awhile. Back to scanning tons of paperwork....

Our big move to the house is this coming Saturday (when we've hired the movers) and we've just been packing like crazy ever since. Although our "official move" was last Saturday -- per my parents, the 5th was an auspicious day for moving and the 12th was a bad day. To make it "official", Matt and I had to go to the house and bring in a houseplant, a container of rice, boil some water and then announce together "we've moved in!". Hee Hee. We had to spend half the day there anyway because we got deliveries from Sears, Macy's and Crate+Barrel that day--yay! Our master bedroom is setup and looks awesome now...which is great in that when we do move, we don't have to stress about putting the bed together in order to fall asleep that night. (our current bed will become the guest bed) I'm taking the day off tomorrow to complete packing---feels so close but there's still so much random stuff! I guess the good thing about packing and moving is the forced "have I worn this in the last 2 years? do I really need this?" We have trash bags full of clothes that are going to donation now. What's crazy is that we have a huge storage area full of boxes of stuff that we packed away for the purpose of putting the condo on the market---so in a way, that helped minimize the amount of packing we have to do now.

On top of all this, we have 1 week after moving out to prep the condo for the new tenant!!!! I have cleaners and carpet cleaners scheduled...and all that remains is random paint touch-ups...oh, and preparing some sort of move-in checklist.....oh, and making copies of the keys. I will miss this condo -- lots of great memories here. Most of all, I'll probably miss living right in the heart of the city, being able to step out onto my balcony and see the Space Needle and all of Capitol Hill walking past me. Given, we aren't moving far away and are still in the city of Seattle...just in a quieter, more residential area.

Lastly, we actually have some very exciting news to share, which I've kept very quiet on this blog: we are expecting a baby girl on April 26, 2010!!! Yup, I am now a bit over 20 weeks pregnant (half way there!) and it has been such a journey. We are completely thrilled over the news and can't wait to have a lil' one in our arms. The pregnancy so far has been wonderful: absolutely no morning sickness (apparently ~60% of women will experience morning sickness---one coworker of mine due 2 weeks before me threw up 5-6x/day and has "only" been throwing up 1-2x/day during the 2nd trimester--eeks!!) and my energy level has surprisingly remained pretty high. The only weird things for me were sensitivity to smells (during the 1st trimester, walking into the cafeteria just made me want to gag) and occasional food aversions (a filet mignon tastes like rubber to me---a filet! and I LOVE steak!). In the last couple of weeks, my belly finally "popped" and I think (I hope) I transitioned from the awkward "man, did she eat too many ho-ho's?" to the "wow, she's obviously preggers" phase. As a comparison, here's a picture of me at 20 weeks (this week) compared to when I was 6 weeks:



Also, here's a recent ultrasound photo -- this was taken at 17 weeks, 4 days (so right before Thanksgiving):


I have another ultrasound coming up next week so if I get a better picture, I'll post that too. That will probably be my last "full body" ultrasound...because the next ultrasound is somewhere in the mid-30's week? Anyway, the point is, the baby is big enough after 30 weeks that it's too big to fit within an ultrasound photo.

So now that I've spilled, this blog will soon become more and more filled with pregnancy stories and then soon baby stories. Don't tell me I didn't warn you!

So you can see: there's a lot going in my life right now! Buying a house, finalized a loan, refinancing the condo, learning to be a landlord, packing and moving and oh yeah, making a baby at the same time! It's all crazy and but it's all wonderful wonderful and I'm enjoying every step of the way!

Things are looking up

Just a brief update -- as of last Thursday, got the deposit and lease signed with the oncologist! Matt and I are ecstatic about this tenant and hopeful that he will stay with the unit for awhile. We met his two sons who are the nicest, well-mannered kids---which helped with our fear of rowdy boys bouncing around the place. What's even better: our new tenant was trying to break the lease on his current apartment (he's moving because it's much too small for him) and lucky him: 2 days after giving notice, his landlord already found a replacement tenant! So because of this, our tenant moves in literally 1 week after we move out --- no double mortgage payments!! We were prepared to possibly be paying 2 mortgage for 1-3 months, so to not have it be an issue at all is a huge bonus.

All that remains is closing on the new house. The loan documents were approved by underwriting late Friday so hopefully this goes to escrow first thing tomorrow morning and we can sign all the documents during the day......which we need to do because we leave first thing Tuesday morning for another Vegas Thanksgiving!