3rd Appointment

Today I am 15 weeks and had my 3rd doctors appointment. Again, it was another short one. It started out with a finger prick to make sure that my iron levels looked good and they did. I have had great iron levels throughout the whole pregnancy!

Like I mentioned before we rotate doctors at the practice I visit and today I had another new face, Dr. Riddle. He was very nice and I really enjoyed my appointment with him. To start out the appointment I got to hear the heartbeat which is still good and strong. Then the Doc felt my abdomen to make sure the baby's home, aka. my uterus, is growing nicely. Everything looked good and he actually showed me how I can now feel the uterus by pushing on my stomach. He let me know my first trimester screening tests all came back good. That is a great thing since this test looks for indicators for Downs Syndrome and other genetic abnormalities.

After the appointment I headed to the front to check out and thought I was out home free, but no, she sent me back to the lab to get more blood drawn. I was again told that I have tiny veins that are super hard to find, but the tech did a great job and got everything done on the first try. Besides my left arm looking a bit like a pin cushion the appointment went really well and everything with baby and mom looks great!

For those of you that enjoy my size updates at 15 weeks the baby is now about 4 in from head to rump and weighs about 2.5 ounces. They said that this is about the size of an apple. Finally a nice common fruit that I know!!!

There is a lot to look forward to at the next appointment. We will get to have our growth ultrasound which checks out all the different parts of the baby to make sure everything looks good and healthy.

Mommy thinks...

Since we find out in less than a week (provided we have a cooperative little one) what the sex of the baby is, I thought I would go ahead and throw out there what I think. I am now totally convinced that it is a boy. There are several things that make me think this and many of them are a bit personal to blog to the world about but most of my symptoms are consistent with the old wives tales about having a boy. For example the heart rate was 134 and they say the lower heart rates are usually boy (totally unscientific). Also when I was looking up old wives tales one of the sites said that the most reliable old wives tale was Mother's Intuition. It said that Mom's are right in guessing the sex of the baby about 70% of the time. Funny huh? Well it won't be long until we find out if I fall in that 70% but I am so convinced that I am right that I would have a hard time believing them if they told me otherwise. Don't get me wrong, we don't have a strong preference what we want one way or the other, we would be ecstatic either way, it is just that I really feel like it is a boy. We will see!

Goodbye Hawaii, We will miss you!

We spent the morning of our last day on the beach before we had to head to the airport. One last time to get the sand in our toes and the wind in our hair! It was funny because I had my first experience with "pregnancy brain" the night before. I was SURE that we had all day Friday left in Hawaii and then we would leave Saturday for our flight back to SC. Good thing I double checked, because when I did I found out that our flight left on Friday not Saturday. I was pretty bummed because I was mentally losing a day of vacation but we made it to the airport and home safely.

Hawaii- Day 6

We started our day early to go on a tour of Pearl Harbor. We ended up picking a great day for a tour since it was the only cloudy morning we had the whole week. It was an early morning since the tour bus picked up up at the hotel at 6am! They said if you wait and leave later in the day you can be waiting in 3-4 hr lines. So off we headed. You start at the area you pick up the tickets at. It has a memorial to all of the submarines and crews we lost during the attack.

You then go over to a second area where you can tour a museum, then once your designated ticket time comes up you are ushered into a theater to watch a 30 min film on the history of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Once the film is done you get to board a ferry to take you to the actual memorial. The memorial is quite something. It is built over the sunken USS Arizona which was one of our biggest losses. There were almost 1000 lives lost just on that ship.

Here you can see the USS Arizona underwater. You can also see the oil that continues to leak from the ship even many years later.

This is what is left of one of the original gun barrels.

After the memorial we went to see the USS Missouri. This ship was commissioned slightly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the decks of this ship were actually the place where Japan surrendered in the waters outside of Tokyo. It was recommissioned later and also played a major role in Operation Desert Storm.

These are the documents signed by all the nations signaling the end of World War II.

More scenic pictures from the road.

Some of our good friends from Ohio actually spent the two weeks before we arrived in Hawaii. Shelby gave me some awesome tips on things to do, places to see, and good spots to eat! She recommended we eat lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise and get the onion rings. This was my favorite meal of the whole vacation! The onion rings were great and I had the best grilled cheese sandwich ever! Shelby, the pic below is for you!

More exotic birds of Hawaii- this time flamingos!

Our hotel was full of Koi ponds with HUGE Koi in them!

Brad posing with his new friend.

Kimber in front of some more birds... look closely... yup they are penguins. I had no idea that they had tropical penguins but I guess even these birds think Hawaii is paradise!

A walk down the beach.

And through the park.

Then on to the Luau! We found a great deal on a Luau next door at the Hale Koa. It is a hotel just for the military and we found ourselves there a lot with all the things the hotel had to offer during the week. This pic is of them taking the roasted pig out of the ground.

Then they demonstrated how to climb a palm tree. Pretty impressive! Look closely at the pic... there is a person up there!

Then of course singing and dancing!

Blowing the conch shells

What a great end to the week! We fly out to morrow afternoon so this was our last full day. We really got to both relax and do everything we wanted to do!

Hawaii- Day 5

The one thing Brad and I have been most looking forward to was getting a massage. Today was the day we had been waiting for! We had massages booked this morning at the poolside cabana. It was awesome! I got a pic of one of our cabanas below. We were able to relax with the sea breeze blowing and the sound of the ocean waves in the background. Heaven!

After the massage we went for lunch at the Hale Koa then went for a refreshing dip in the pool. After getting back to the hotel and cleaning up we took off for dinner at Duke's, a well known Hawaiian restaurant. It is on the beach so you can eat dinner and watch the surfers!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped and watched this Hawaiian band/Hula dancer. I love hearing the Hawaiian music all around it makes it seem like we really are in paradise! I thought it was funny because if you look closely at this pic you will notice that their instruments range from electric guitar to ukulele. What an eclectic mix!

Right down the street from our hotel we found these totem poles which of course made a perfect photo opp for Brad :)

We then went over to the beach for a romantic sunset walk.

We finally tried to get a pic together. Not the best lighting but we tried!

We had to go back to the hotel early tonight so we could get to bed early. Our tour to pearl Harbor departs at 6 am tomorrow!

Hawaii- Day 4

Today was an easy day. The definition of a vacation. We started out the day with breakfast at IHOP. I had some little problems with morning sickness the day before so we wanted to start the day off with a big hearty breakfast. On the way back we got this photo of the entrance to the hotel.

We spent the entire day at the super pool at the Hilton and just relaxed. It was wonderful! Then we braved the crowds and headed back to Cheesecake Factory (a little earlier) for dinner. Yum!

The Birds of Hawaii

Since we have been here we have seen so many interesting birds! For someone who doesn't really like birds, I have really appreciated the beauty of these creatures here.

My first encounter was this little guy who tried to take Brad's chair while he was up getting seconds on breakfast!

Then right when Brad was coming back to the table we had this pretty red headed bird land right next to us.

At Weimea Valley we saw some roosters. I had no idea these guys were so colorful! I also missed a pic of a chicken with its 4 little baby chicks.

Then on our way out we saw none other than a peacock strutting through the parking lot!

Hawaii- Day 3

We decided that this would be the day to explore Hawaii! So we rented a Jeep and off we went map in hand. We planned for our first stop to be Hanauma Bay which is supposed to have some of the the best snorkeling in Hawaii, but when we got there they had the road to turn in blocked saying the parking lot was full "DO NOT STOP" so we just kept driving. That was 9 am! Oh well! We stopped a few miles down the road and got some pics at a scenic point.

Then we got back in the Jeep and continued on our journey to circle the island. I tried to take the best pics I could out the window as we cruised by beautiful places.

Once we got half way around the island to the North Shore we got our chance to Snorkel. We actually ended up at a place our waitress from a couple of days ago told us was her favorite place for snorkeling. It was called Sharks Cove. Don't worry it isn't named that because of sharks, but rather because the cove is jagged like a sharks bite. We don't have any pictures since car break ins are pretty common in the area we rented a locker and locked everything up, including the camera. We really enjoyed the snorkeling here. There were lots of different kinds of fish and we even saw some pretty big schools of fish. It was a really neat area.

After expending so much energy we decided to stop for lunch at the Surfing Capital of the World in the Historic North Shore. We ate at a little mexican restaurant which was really good, but unfortunately the baby wasn't very in the mood for mexican and gave me a bit of a hard time.

Our next stop was Waimea Valley where we were able to hike through some beautiful wildlife and see a waterfall. We saw all sorts of different kinds of plants and it was really a beautiful place.

Finally we got to the top and to the waterfall. The lifeguard explained to us that it was freshwater and it was about 70 degrees. We were free to swim and enjoy it! Brad went in but I stayed on the sidelines since the life guard also said that there can be bacteria in the pond sometimes.

Brad is directly under the waterfall in these photos. What a stud!

Swimming back to the shore...

After the hiking we got back in the car and continued our drive away from the North Shore and back toward Honolulu. Our last stop was at the Dole Pineapple Plantation. On the way up to the plantation you just see fields and fields of pineapple plants.

This is how pineapples grow. I had no idea!

Me as a pineapple....

And in case you were wondering, here are the FAQs about pineapples. I know you all have been up at night just dying to get your pineapple questions answered.

At the end of this day we were utterly exhausted!!! We turned in the car, headed back to the hotel and hit the sack! We did SO much! Almost everything that was on our to do list got accomplished today. Since we did so much, relaxation is on the menu for tomorrow!