What's on our plate these days?

Hello, everyone!

October was a rough and tumble month, & it won't stop until the Christmas holiday.
Robby and I traveled up to San Francisco for my sister's baby shower during the first weekend of October. We compared bellies and traded pregnancy experiences. Robby and I made it to Bea & Eric's birthday party - bowling at Strikes! in Cupertino, a way-too-cool place for a not-too-cool city. A lot of over-stimulation, if you ask me.

Then we drove up to the Bay Area again a few weeks later for Robby's 5th year reunion at Stanford. That the first time I felt like a trophy wife. Throughout the opening social night, Robby dragged me around the Computer History Museum and announced that he got married and was having a baby. I was the living proof. He would point to my belly with a satisfied look on his face.

I got a chance to observe three fabulous teachers at Dorsey High ad reconnected with some old colleagues from 2000 when I was teaching there and getting my credential and masters. The campus is beautiful as always, and the kids are vibrant and energetic.

We visited a perinatologist and saw 3D images of our baby. That was a bit scary. It looked like a roughly sculpted figure from Rodin's Gate of Hell.

Robby's dad & stepmom came for a few days. Robby & his dad had a heated political and philosophical discussion/argument over Korean BBQ. & we took them to San Gabriel for $15/hour massages & a visit to my super-cool aunties.

Halloween was a blast. We spent the afternoon decorating our front porch with our neighbor Sandra's outdoor decorations. Robby threw on his Jesus costume & I dressed up as Juno (yeah, a lazy-man's costume). I kept a tally of the number of trick-or-treaters, and our total was 170!! Lots of princesses this year. My favorite costumes were the ones where the parents matched the kids. Robby gave kids over 10 a math problem, like 34 + 17. I was pretty disappointed that they were slow to calculate these double-digit numbers in their head. My niece is already adding double digits in her head and she's six! Originally, we wanted a quiet evening with a horror movie, but we ended up having 7 people over in our little apartment. We watched 28 Weeks Later (not bad) & the boys played knee hockey with a newspaper ball wrapped in masking tape. It was a fun evening.


On a sad note, my grandpa fell at home and fractured his hip, so my recent weeks have been full of visits to Orange County. For a 95 year old, he has improved dramatically since his partial hip replacement. I'm very proud of him. As much as he moans and complains, he has the will to survive this accident. He's still got a mighty set of lungs too. Hear him hell in his cantankerous way, and you wouldn't think he was in the hospital last week.

As for the bun in my oven, it's brewing nicely. I'm getting bigger much faster than I expected. Robby felt the baby kick for the first time last night. At first, he thought that the movement was an involuntary tightening of a stomach muscle, but I had to remind him that I haven't used my stomach muscles in months! Nope, that was the baby moving around. I feel it most when I'm sitting in a reclining position.

I hope you all had an eventful and happy October. Gearing up for Thanksgiving yet?