Not much change

I’m half way through week 14 and not much has changed since my post 2 weeks ago. I can still fit into all my pants and most of my shirts. I have started taking a cocktail of Unisom/vitamin B6 that is keeping the nausea at bay. I still had a couple of bad days this week, but seem to be back on track today. All in all, it is nice to have some energy again and be able to get things done throughout the day.

Steve’s parents, Steve’s oldest brother Mark and Steve and I went up to Whistler a couple of weekends ago. Although I didn’t ski since I hadn’t discovered the wonderful Unisom/B6 cocktail’s full capability yet, I was still able to enjoy the beautiful snow fall and crisp fresh air of Whistler. Steve got two good days of powder snowboarding in and really enjoyed getting out of the house. (As you can probably guess, I’ve kept him pretty cooped up that past couple of months).

Our condo is still in escrow and the close date is set for the 30th of this month. We are both pretty excited about this and just looking forward to being rid of the condo. Don’t get me wrong, the condo was a great first place to own, it’s just hard to rent or own up here with a mortgage to pay in CA as well. We do have a realtor up here and have started looking for houses (not condos!) to buy. We found a house this last weekend that met none of our criteria but we both fell in love with all the same. The big selling point was the saloon on the side of the house and the creek running through the backyard. Although the house was small, it was located on 1.15 acres and the price gave it huge potential to make it into more of what we wanted in the future. Unfortunately, we are 5th in line to bid on the bank owned house. So if the first bid falls through, then the rest of us will get a chance to put our strongest bid forward to see who gets the chance to own such a wonderful piece of property. In the meantime, we will continue to look. More and more property comes on the market all the time, and all though sometimes I feel like we have a deadline (September 18th to be exact), I know with patience and prayer we will find the perfect house for us.

We're Pregnant!

So I had been planning on telling you all about our travels up to WA and all the new and exciting things we are experiencing up here (like wider parking spaces!). Instead, I've been laying around most days feeling pretty sick and watching all six seasons of Lost and other various shows and movies. Turns out being pregnant can take a lot out of you. That's right, I said it, pregnant, with child, knocked up! 12 weeks today to be exact with an estimated due date of September 18, 2011.

I will do my best to keep you all informed on what's going on for the next seven months of this pregnancy. Oh, and other various things happening in our lives such as our house being in escrow for the second time. Turns out banks only give loans to people with at least a 2 year VISA and our last potential buyer only had 18 months left on theirs. Very disappointing, but things are looking up now that we are in escrow again (and hopefully for the last time). We are also beginning to look at homes to buy up here in WA specifically in the Gig Harbor area.

All in all we are doing great and both very excited about becoming parents by the end of this year.


Ultrasound taken earlier this week (week 11). Labels by Steve for ease of understanding.

Tainan night market

So a couple of the guys from work offered to take me to the night market in Tainan.  Apparently it’s the 2nd biggest (behind Taipei) in Taiwan and a big deal for the locals.  It was a lot of fun and a bit of a culinary adventure as well.

William and his friend picked me up at the hotel and he let me drive his scooter!  Even more surprising, he hopped right on back.  White guy, in Taiwan, 1st time on a scooter, at night, with a passenger, trying to follow another scooter, through crazy traffic.  Yeah, it was good times.

After we made it to the market (without incident), they said I was a good driver but was slow.  By slow they mean, I stopped at red lights (even if there wasn’t cross traffic), did substantially less weaving through scooters / cars / pedestrians / road cones / bicycles / lampposts, and didn’t generally ride the snot out of all 100cc’s of 2 stroke glory.

We parked in the biggest scooter parking lot I've ever seen.  The picture below is less than half of it and only one of the lots around the night market.

Part of the market where we first ate.

That’s me, William’s friend, William, and Johnson.  Johnson’s girlfriend took the picture.

What we’re eating is oysters and egg with some noodles in lots and lots of brown gelatinous goo.  It wasn’t bad actually, but I could have done with less of the goo.

At this point they decided that it would be fun to get me to eat all the local ‘favorites’.  First up was duck blood soup with fishballs.  This is supposedly the 2nd weirdest local food according to some CNN show they had seen and liked to quote.  It was kind of like tofu and really not as bad as they had me thinking it would be.  I didn’t go for seconds though.

After that it was some nut or bean thing that looked like a jester hat.  These were pretty good and I had several.  I took a picture of the sign too so hopefully Alan can tell me what they are.

I don’t recall the details but i believe I finished it.

Then I had a gun pastry that was quite tasty.  Other options were a motorcycle, an elephant and a pig.

This pastry was filled with strawberry goo and pretty good.

Number 1 on the CNN weirdest foods list in Taiwan.  Pig’s blood flavored rice pie with a peanut and cilantro covering.  On a stick.  Fortunately I mostly tasted the cilantro.  This one had me a little worried because none of them got one and they wanted to take a picture of me eating it… 2 bites was plenty.

I’ve had Mexican food in Korea and Singapore, but this burrito was something else.

So this was tiny little snail shell things that you had to suck the snail out of. Mostly really salty and kind of a gross texture.  Plus they get stuck in your teeth.  I only had 3.

Carnie games!!!!

When we left, I figured I should have William drive so I could test my theory about which was scarier, to drive a scooter in Taiwan, or to be a passenger on a scooter in Taiwan.  The latter for sure.

The hog and the local beer.  Yes, it really is called Taiwan Beer.

They stuffed me with some more food at the bar and then we saw a several hundred year old temple and headed back to the hotel.

It was a lot of fun.  Next time you’re in Taiwan, you should check out the night market and eat some weird food.  None of it was really as bad as it looked.

taxi on empty

What's the protocol here: I can see my taxi's gas tank is on empty and it doesn't seem to bother the driver at all. It's probably moot because we're in the boondocks with no gas station in sight, but do I try and point at the gauge or pantomime filling up with gas? Or do I just go with my current plan of hoping the gauge is broken and not worrying about it?

Cute kid on a scooter.

Talk and scoot

I just saw a guy on a scooter pull out his cell phone and wedge it between his cheek and helmet and never even slow down.

This is my first day in Taiwan, but that seems about par for the course.

New Front Tire

Apparently, when you order a motorcycle tire online, they think packaging is unnecessary.

first run with five fingers

I bought a pair of Vibram Five Fingers over the weekend and this morning at the gym was my first chance to run in them.

The running motion is very similar to the really thin soled shoes I’ve been running in most of the year, but seems to be even more of a lower leg workout than usual. More toe action I guess.

My feet were a little sore right on the ball of my foot (the first contact point) so they’re going to take some getting used to and but I like them so far.

Accidental Vacation Day 13

We made it down to Orlando to meet up with Jon and (very pregnant) Erica. Jon being the freelance photo journalist and all made this video of our canoe trip.

http://vimeo.com/15337256

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening hanging out with Jon and Erica and then they took us to the airport bight and early Sunday morning for our flight back to CA and our vacation was over.

It wasn't the trip we originally planned, but it was a lot of fun none the less and we're thankful we had the opportunity to relax and wander the country together.

Accidental Vacation Day 12

We left Savannah and headed down to Florida today.  There were no roads along the water so it was kind of a boring drive.

Our hotel was 50 yards from the beach so we went down for a swim after arriving in the afternoon.  That’s Val in the background behind my left ear enjoying the beach (before the bugs started biting her).  Florida has lots of nasty bugs turns out.

Turns out it’s really difficult to take a self portrait while body surfing.  This is the best shot I got.

Neat beemer with sidecar in St. Augustine.

St Augustine has a fort that is apparently the 1st or the oldest or something like that.  Pretty cool either way.  We got there in the evening after it had closed so unfortunately we couldn’t get in.

The walls of the fort were made of shells and sand.  I’m kind of surprised it’s held up so well for so long.

We think this wall was used for firing squads.

They had a furnace that was used to heat up the cannon balls before they were shot at wooden ships.  I guess if you can’t sink them, you may as well burn them.  Or the burning aided in the sinking…

Fishing boat.

Draw bridge.  :)

What kind of crab hangs out under the sidewalk a few hundred yards from the beach?  This one I guess.

Water wheels look fun at night.

St. Augustine was pretty touristy, but as we walked around and got off the main roads it was more quaint and fun.  It would have been nice to spend some more time there.

Accidental Vacation Day 11

We got kind of a late start today and grabbed Chick-Fil-A for lunch on the way out of Charleston since our friend Stumbo said we had to try it.  As advertized, it was pretty good and the people were super nice.

El Cheapo gas.  They kick high prices!

Sonny Perdue welcomes us to Georgia.

They have police crossing guards in Georgia.  I guess there’s not much crime.

We had some good southern BBQ for dinner and I tried an Orange Blossom Pilsner mostly for the novelty of a light beer that was 11% ABV.  It was pretty good though.

After dinner we walked over to the Savannah Jazz Festival which is in it’s 29 year.  That was really fun.  The music was great and it was a perfect temperature outside.  We only watched 2 of the 3 bands but would have stayed for the last one if we had chairs.  Sitting on the grass get tiring.  It seemed more like rock/bluegrass than jazz, but it was good either way.