23 weeks

How Far Along: 23 weeks

Size of the Baby: the size of a large mango (can't eat this one, karina!), 11.5 inches, 1.1 lb
Weight gain/loss: after Hawaii? Probably gain :) It's hard to tell with all the swelling the flight caused
Sleep: I slept SO GOOD in Hawaii. It was awesome. I think that bed was just way more comfortable. I slept very deeply and woke up early feeling refreshed, except for one night I had a terrible nightmare (don't remember it now, though). Since getting home, I'm having trouble sleeping again. Since I can't sleep on my back or stomach, I end up on my sides, but I think it's putting too much pressure on my shoulders because I wake up with some weird aches and pains :-\
Best Moment of the Week: Well, we were in Hawaii! They're all good moments. It was such a wonderful way to celebrate our marriage and a great last hoorah before baby comes.

Movement: I got my wish! Little one will no longer hold still. Kick, kick, kick all the time. So much kicking. Some of these kicks are well-aimed and I will instantly need to go to the restroom. Some feel like cute little nudges and wiggles, but some are sharp and make me jump! Other people are now able to feel them, too. Hans has gotten to feel a bunch and I love watching his face while he feels the baby moving. At some Halloween events this weekend, several of my friends and a few of my young women got to feel movement. And little one has even woken me up two mornings! It seems that's when baby is most active and will just kick away until there's no use trying to sleep anymore. I got to say, it's not the most comfortable, but I still find it comforting because I know that baby is strong and growing and that makes me happy.
Symptoms: Most have actually died down, which is nice. Still have crazy awful heartburn, but this is the new normal. I have to go to the bathroom every five minutes. It's ridiculous. And I've gotten a few charley horses, which are always fun! I did get super nauseous one night in Hawaii and had to go lie down in the car while Hans, Karl and Christina had dinner. Haven't had morning sickness like that in a while... fortunately I was able to sleep it off and felt fine the next day.
Food Cravings: Onion rings, pineapple, banana bread, milk
Gender: a surprise! I love when people ask "What are you having?" I just answer "A baby!"
Belly Button in or out: In, but stretching...
Anything making you queasy or sick: Refried beans, salsa, flying, I think the heartburn is causing a lot of nausea.
Labor Signs: None
Wedding ring on or off: Well, off, but only because I don't travel with my ring. I have a fakey from Macy's that I wear for traveling.
What I miss: Still really missing sandwiches, especially roast beef. In Hawaii, I really missed being able to eat fish, too. That was hard - they have so many seafood options there! Every place we went had amazing looking fish, lobster, crab and shrimp dishes. I had Mahi Mahi one night (Amazing!) but that was it. I want to go back when I can eat as much seafood as I want.
What I am looking forward to: Oh, I'm not sure! I've been looking forward to this trip for so long that now that we're back, I'm just trying to adjust. I am, however, looking forward to cooler weather and the holidays. It's a wonderful time to be pregnant - It's not as hot (seriously, I don't know how women do the third trimester during a Texas summer...) and I like that all the holiday festivities and preparations keep me distracted and help pass the time so I don't sit here going "Ok, 23 weeks 1 day pregnant... 23 weeks 2 days pregnant... 23 weeks... oh, nope, still two days."
Nursery: We've been gone... soooo.... nothing. :) We plan to put up crown molding this week and then I'll do a halfway-there type blog post about it. And we really need to order a crib.... it's on my to-do list.
Emotions: Pretty euphoric. Can't feel too bad when you're in paradise :)
Stupid things I have done: Mmm.... probably either the hiking Waimea Canyon or the climb to Queen's Bath would both qualify as stupid. Also, on our first day at the beach I didn't account for my swollen belly enough where sunscreen was concerned and ended up with a little burn strip right across my baby bump. Oops!

Some videos

What vacation recap would be complete without a few videos? Don't get too excited... they're not anything special (well, I do like the dolphin one...) but they do give some pretty excellent perspective that's broader than what we were able to capture in photos.

everything else =)

Some other stories from our trip that didn't really have photos to go with them:

• Monday we were doing some snorkeling and Hans pops up out of the water, looks at me, and flashes his left hand my direction saying "You're going to hate me..." His ring finger is bare. Again. That would be wedding ring number three. "Why were you even wearing it???" I asked. He just said it didn't feel loose and he thought it would be fine. Grrrr. We're not-too-hopefully glancing around the water near us and discussing purchasing ring #4 when we hear some guy 5 feet away shouting "Anyone lose a wedding ring?" I have no idea how that guy managed to find Hans' ring in the ocean, but I do know that Hans might be one of the luckiest people I've ever met 
• One day, we were at Poipu beach with Karl and Christina. The preggos were beached and not moving while the boys did some snorkeling, until they ran over to tell us they'd found a big sea turtle! We ran out there with them thinking we were going to miss the big guy, but nope! He hung around and snorkeled with us for probably close to an hour. And he was massive! Probably close to the size of me. And completely unconcerned by the people hovering right around him, but trying not to disturb him. So cool. We also saw turtles, two of them, on two more occasions. I think it was the same two turtles that we saw on two different days. In any event, it was pretty sweet to swim with da turtles.
• We had this blue guidebook for Kauai that recommended checking out a site called the Queen's Bath. I thought it was just a pull off on the side of the road and we'd stop for 15 minutes, check it out, and move on. What I didn't know was that it involved a pretty decent hike over some lava formations to get to it. We were so not prepared in our flipflops to be climbing over all these rocks. But when we finally got there, we found this very secluded little pool, carved out of some huge lava rocks that has just a little outlet to the ocean - so it feeds in water and fish at high tide and makes a neat little swimming hole when the tide goes out.

Lots of sunsets! We kept looking for the "green flash" but never saw it.

To get to the Tunnels beach, we had to park a ways away and trek along the beach. That part of the beach was fairly difficult to walk on... with each step, your feet sink down several inches and you just kind of slog along. So you look down a lot, to make sure you're putting your feet in the right place (I found that putting my feet in the footprints Hans had just made meant I didn't sink down as much...) But since you're looking down, it's not very difficult to nearly run into monk seals. Apparently, they feed until they're stuffed and then haul themselves onto the beach to rest. So this little guy may look injured or something, but he just has a full belly and wants to lounge on the beach :)

Hans thought the roots and vines covering the side of these cliffs were pretty neat.

Doesn't this kind of look like someone cut us out and pasted us on this background?

Queen's bath pool

Chickens!!! I had heard that Kauai has chickens and roosters everywhere, but I had no idea just how many that meant. They are EVERYWHERE! You can hear them all the time. They roam restaurants, hotels, beaches.... seriously. Everywhere. When we were hiking in Waimea Canyon, we knew we were getting close to the hike entrance when we could hear crowing again. Never seen so many chickens. Don't understand it.

A bump picture! I was both surprised and glad that I could still fit into my normal bathing suits... I think if we went a couple weeks later, that wouldn't have been true, but they worked just fine. 

We had our last dinner at the Grand Hyatt... you can't beat their view!

The whole restaurant has this Japanese theme going and there are koi ponds and waterfalls and torches everywhere. It was really beautiful

Hans was very excited about his steak.

Another bump picture! This will have to suffice for my 22 week picture since I didn't get to do a chalkboard while we were gone.

It's hard to take pictures of yourselves - you end up with tiki-torch devil horns.

This place Kalaheo Cafe was probably the best food we had on the trip. They didn't have a great location or ambiance, but the food was way better than anything else we had and way more affordable. The cobbler made baby and I both very happy.

Kauai has it's own ice cream factory (think their version of Blue Bell). It was within walking distance to our condo and we ate there almost every night for dessert. This was on our last night, as we headed to the airport. We were very sad to leave!

Napali coast

This was probably the highlight of the trip. The northwest side of the island is known as the Napali coast, and it's pretty much just sheer cliffs. No roads go through it. You can hike it, but it's a very strenuous 22 miles. Otherwise, your only options to view it are via boat or helicopter. We went with Capt Andy's catamaran and it was such a blast.

I guess at this point I should also add that Hans' older brother, Karl, is in the army and stationed on Oahu. When he found out we were going to Hawaii, he and his wife bought tickets to hop islands and spend a couple days with us. We thought the catamaran trip would be a good thing to do together!

Hans enjoyed the beginning of the trip... It was 5.5 hours long and the first 3.5 or so were pretty smooth sailing, but the way back was turbulent. Hans got very, very sick and spent most of the way back hanging over the boat's back railing. Karl and Christina both got a little queasy and much to everyone's shock, I was fine. I think after four months of morning sickness, my body was like... I got this.

Hans, his brother Karl, and Karl's wife Christina (she's also pregnant!) We were able to see a bunch of dolphins (video to come!) and flying fish.

The captain threw bread near Christina and the fish swarmed her. She turned around and went right back to the boat!

We snorkled! Not for long... it was a little rough and murky. But we tried!

Comparing baby bumps... the cousins will only be about six weeks a part! Christina is due April 6.

We kept wanting to take a photo of the brothers for their mom, but they refused to just take a nice picture.  They have to make funny faces! not nice. Sorry Karin, we tried.

Our fancy last dinner together at Josselin's Tapas. I think everyone else was a little underwhelmed, but I really loved it!

So glad you guys could pop over and spend some time with us!

Waimea Canyon and exploring

Beaches aren't all that Hawaii has to offer! Only something like 10 percent of Kauai is accessible via road... the interior of the island is largely uninhabited and there's a huge canyon, often referred to as the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. It starts about 4,000 feet up and goes down dizzyingly far.

There are many, many hiking trails and we consulted a couple maps and guidebooks (and the visitor's center) to figure out which one to take. I was pretty active pre-pregnancy, so I figured I could handle something moderate. And really, it wasn't bad. But I do think Hawaiians have a different definition of "moderate"! It was pretty steep, but had some amazing views! Only three miles, the rocky terrain took us a couple hours. I was wiped by the end! And in my workout clothes, my bump was pretty apparent. I think I got a few looks from other hikers... looking at the bump than up at me with an expression like "seriously?! you thought this was a good idea?" Yes! I do. And it was fun.

View from the lookout before we started... we had no idea, haha.

The start of the Napali Coast

Hans is ready to go!

No, I'm not sunburned. This is what happens to my face when I workout.

This was the waterfall we hiked to... it was kinda puny. We heard from other hikers that many waterfalls were dry. Sad!

We enjoyed a nice little picnic lunch here, though.

More beach exploring - this is Salt Pond beach. it has some neat rock formations, but it also has a lot of homeless dudes...

Hannapepe swinging bridge... i did NOT go out there.

Hans was really into the panoramic feature on his phone... we have several of these :) this is Shipwreck Beach... that cliff over there on the left is supposedly where crazy dudes jump off, but we didn't see any.

One day we explored the North end of the island... this is Tunnels Beach. Hans couldn't get over how crazy it is that you have these giant, lush mountains right next to the beach.

Spouting Horn... a neat little natural blow hole right by our condo.

Old Kaloa town had the quirkiest little statues...

Thanks to the Powells, we tried out this delicious pizza place. One of the best meals we had on the island!