Christmas Trees, babies and maternity leave

This year marks Boo and I's third married Christmas

together. I think that my favorite tree will always be our first one

when we lived in Hawaii.

Here is our second one when we lived in Changwon

And this year's tree. Classy huh?

I made the star and everything.

This year we don't have a lot of extra space so

it is nestled nicely on our bookshelves.

Tis the season to have babies!

There are a lot of people who are due close to the time

of Baby Ha Jyn's arrival. I guess she is next!

My half nephew once removed and replaced.

(that's what I call my relation to him)

He is my Nephew and Niece Alex and Emma's Half Brother

Silas.

And my second cousin Owen!

Congrats to their new beautiful babies!

This week was also my last week of work.

I will go back to my job at the middle school around the second week

of march. Unfortunately I won't be able to return to my respite services job.

I am going to miss working with my kids!

Their Christmas notes to me were thoughtful and made me smile so I

took pictures so I could remember them.

In other new one of the wonderful people at our church gave us their

rocking chair. So far Juny loves it!

Stroller dream, Week 34, Thanksgiving, New crib and more

Boo and I have been searching for the perfect stroller for a long time now.
We like to go for long walks and I am going to work hard to get the baby fat off pronto
after the baby comes. So we knew that a jogging stroller would fit our style better.
Unfortunately the nice ones are freaking expensive! Finally we found one on Craig's list that we loved, it was almost new, great quality and Orange on top of everything else!
So we drove an hour and a half to buy it, bought it, opened up our trunk and found that it did
not fit! Big problem! I was so mad because I loved it!

But than today I received an e-mail from Aunt Ha ha and Ja Ja
and my Mom and Dad saying that as a Christmas/Baby gift they are getting us this.....
a BOB!!!!
The ultimate baby Stroller!!
We are so so happy for them to do this for us!

In other news I am now 34 weeks! Ahhhh
Over thanksgiving weekend we went
to the Monterey Aquarium with one of the
kids I am a Case Aide for.

My sexy body. Don't get jealous!

We went to the beach on Thanksgiving because we
heard there was 20 ft waves. It was pretty crazy.

Earlier we went for a walk and I decided
to buy a donut just in case I did not inhale enough
calories during the day. Shortly after I tripped on the curb, however
I am happy to say my donut survived without any injuries!

For Thanksgiving we were invited to Boo's
Professors house with some of Boo's classmates.
It was fun to meet them and brush up on my Korean.

I don't really like traditional Thanksgiving food,
but here there was a mixture of Korean and American
food making it the perfect meal.

In other news we were wondering how we would ever
be able to afford to get a nice crib.
The ones we were looking at were safe, but really ugly.
Randomly my student's P.E. Teacher Stacy asked me
if we needed a crib. Turns out she has had this crib
since her three year old was a baby but he never slept in it.
She said she wanted to give it to someone who needed it.
When we saw the crib I was so happy. We tried to pay
for it but she refused to take any money.
It is way better quality than we could ever afford.
It feels so much better knowing that the baby has a
place to sleep now. We feel so lucky to have such a nice bed for our baby.

November Reads

This Book was one of the best books I have read in a long time.
I picked it because it was a librarian's favorite pick for the month of November.
It tells a story of Pi who's family from India is on their way to Canada and die in a ship wreck.
Only Pi survives on the life boat with a Zebra,Monkey,Hyena and a Tiger. Eventually only Pi and the Tiger are left alive on the boat. It ends beautifully and with great irony.

I get to read everyday at work with my student for about 20 minutes.
During the silent reading time I have been reading Nancy Drew books that are on the
bookshelves. When I was little I LOVED Nancy Drew books. I remember I use to beg
my mom to let me knock a hole in the wall and look for secret passage ways after I read about Nancy doing that. Now I realize maybe Carolyn Keene was not the best author,
however she wrote books that got a lot of girls to read. The
one thing I hate about the books is that Nancy's best friend Bess is
always referred to as Nancy's chubby friend. Bess is always talking about
how she is hungry and wants to eat.
As a chubby girl I grudgingly could never identify with Nancy as
I felt I had more in common with Bess.

I read the Botox Diaries because I read a book by these
authors last month and found it to be a entertaining and easy read.
This one was as well.

Official Baby Name

We now have a new official name for our baby.We did love the name
헤빈 Hae Byn,

but when we realized that the baby's own grandma made fun of it we came to
the conclusion that many others would as well.
So now her name is......
손하진 Ha Jin
The name has a lot of meaning for us

하 (Ha) comes from the 하 in 하동 Ha Dong the wonderful village Boo was
born and grew up in. Boo and I both love Ha Dong, we are going to
buy some land in Ha Dong and
retire there.

The day we had our wedding party there.
One of the happiest days ever!

Picking persimmons there

Boo and Puppy Juny Ju in front of Boo's dad's
grave.

The 진 (Jin) comes the 진 in 진주 Jin Ju.
Jin Ju is the town that Boo's family moved to
after they moved from Ha Dong. It is a small busy town that
never changes. Boo's mom still lives there.
A temple in Jin Ju

Boo with his adorable Mom at her garden in Jin Ju

Boo's Mom and I in Jin Ju

Also as a nice coincident our Nieces names are
Yoe Jin

and Ha Bin so the name is also similar to theirs.

We are still brainstorming middle names
I like Haleiwa
after my favorite North Shore town in Hawaii
but Boo thinks it will sound strange.

We want the middle name to either represent a
city that has meaning or to represent someone with a
lot of character.
We are also thinking of Rosa
after Rosa Parks
Any other suggestions for Middle names?

Oops! And Juny Pictures

Juny has been extra spoiled lately.
I have been getting really bad leg cramps lately
so now Boo and I wake up an hour early every morning and
take Juny for a walk.

We went coat shopping today but instead came
home with a new friend for Juny Ju.

We also got a space heater because our house gets
really cold at night. Juny now has a new favorite spot right
infront of the heater.

I am thinking she might think she is human!

Now the Oops! Part. So yesterday Boo and I were headed out to the car
for church. We both got to the car and stood by it for a while. After a few moments we realized that neither of us were making attempts to open the car.
Than we played the "No YOU have the keys" game.
After about 30 seconds we came to the great conclusion that we locked ourselves out of
our house and our car!
We decided to walk to church and see if there were any ex-convicts there that knew how to
brake into a house. We go there and the one man who's job it is to install locks said he did not have the tools to help. However another man overheard the conversation and went to our house with Boo. With the help of our neighbor they were able to kick in the door. After church the nice man gave us the tools we needed to put our door back together. We had to sleep the night with the door partly opened while the wood glue was setting. This morning Boo put the door knob back on and it is as good as new!! Well almost!
Moral of the lesson...it's not a good idea to lock your keys in your house!

On second thought maybe I won't put my Dr. in a headlock

So last time I saw the Dr. I waited two hours for her to
tell me in three minutes that I gained to much weight.
Since than I have been picturing putting her in various headlocks and
giving her a good talking to.
WRONG thing to say to a hormonal pregnant woman!!
Today I had another Dr. Appointment. This time I prepared a dissertation
of comebacks should she say I gained to much weight.
I waited for over two hours again for another short appointment.
But this time she said I was going at a good weight gain pace, the baby's heart sounded great, my blood pressure was good
and that I was measuring right on. She also helped me cut in line to get my H1N1 shot today.
So even though I ended up being 20 minutes late I decided to not to go through with the headlock!
It is getting really close Sunday marks 7 months!
I like this stage of pregnancy because I am out to everyone,
I am visibly knocked up and should the baby be born tomorrow
everything is formed, small but formed. She would survive. But I am counting on two
more months of baking before our baby is done cooking.

October Books

I made A new goal to try and read three books a month.
It does not matter if they are lite reads, heavy reads, fiction,
books for work or what have you.
Just as long as I read three books.
The month of October I read four. So every
month I am going to post what I read. If anyone knows
of a good book PLEASE share I am always looking for a new read.


This one was pretty entertaining and a very easy read.
I liked it because it was like reading a Sex and The City episode.
Just mainly about three girls and their friendship with one another.

I did not know there is a movie out of this book.
It is about a troubled Pregnant American women who's
husband left her and little sister comes from California to
help her out. I liked all the French influence in the book, but the plot does
not really evolve in a way that really captivates a reader. A nice book to read on a
long airplane ride.

This book I borrowed from one of my friends at
swimming aerobics class. She was married to a Korean Man
about 30 years ago and so when she found out I am married to a
Korean Man she and I connected. The book was written by her friend
that she met while she lived in Korea. The book tells of her friend's experience
being married to a Korean Man when Korea was under Japanese occupation.
It goes into detail the style of house she lived in and how she lived in the Korean
country side. I really enjoyed this book and had seen some of the style of house she lived in while
I lived in Korea.

I finally finished the Book of Mormon again.
It took me way longer than it should have. This time I high lighted all
of the references of Christ in it. I liked reading it that way, it kept me more alert about what I was reading about. I can't decide if I should start to re-read it
or start reading the epistles of Paul in New Testament.
As always a great read!