Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Am-Nee-OOOOOHHHH

So this past Friday, Paul and I decided to get an amnio done. If you remember quite a while back, we went to get a quad screen done and the results were that Arjun would have a 1:182 chance of Down Syndrome. Though those are really good odds against downs (about 0.5%) I guess it's always been in the back of his mind. We figured, at this stage (36 weeks) we had little risk, and this would give us time to wrap our heads around the possibility of raising a special needs child before the big day.

We went into the clinic, mom was treated like a rock star because she interviewed there and they all want her to work there. So we did a preliminary ultrasound to make sure Arjun was ok, everything was healthy, and the doctor didn't see any signs of downs which was good. We got some 3D ultrasound pictures done and I think Arjun has Pauls nose and mouth!


I know it's hard to see ultrasounds, but I tried to line up their faces. You can see his nose and lips and he has his fist by his chin. Those little things are his fingers. 

The doctor then prepped me for the procedure. I let everyone know that I would be zoning out, and I did. I just concentrated on my breathing. It felt like a bad cramp, but it was over in no time. I was sort of scared to breath because I didn't want Arjun to move and get stabbed by the needle! 

They sent the amniotic fluid to be tested for downs and also for a fetal lung test to see if his lungs were properly formed. I think I've been freaked about his lungs because poor Paul has bad lungs. 

After the test, they had me lay around for 40 minutes to make sure Arjun was moving alright and that his heart rate was ok. 

We should have our results this friday!

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Airing Out Dirty Laundry...


Ok, so not as juicy as my title implies, but when you're pregnant, you start researching EVERYTHING, and laundry detergents are no exception. Recently, my mom has been wrapping our roti (indian flat bread) in kitchen towel to keep it from getting dry, but when I eat them, they taste like soap. So, I was already looking for a change. 

Since before I can remember, we have always used Tide Detergent, Downey Fabric Softener, and Bounce Dryer Sheets. That was my go to system forever, but after the food issue and the soon to come baby, I was in the market for something that didn't leave a residue. 

The first things to go had to be the Downey and Bounce, since it's that residue that makes your clothes feel soft. This residue also makes your clothes a little water resistant. Don't believe me? Take out the filter in your dryer (the one that catches lint) and run water over it. Even though it's made of mesh, there is usually enough of this residue to make this screen waterproof. If the lint in your dryer gets built up and trapped long enough, it can catch fire. Just a heads up!!

So with a fabric softener and dryer sheets out of the way, I just needed to find a soap that didn't make my food taste like Tide and wouldn't bother Arjun in the future seeing how I'm planning on doing cloth diapers. After looking through CD (cloth diaper) forums and blogs, I came across Charlie's Soap. CS has three ingredients: 

Goin' Back to Cali

Ever since this third trimester has started, I've been exhausted! I've just been flat out done, not tired in a sense, but my muscles and everything have just been tired. It feels almost like that day after you are sick, when your body feels like it was hit by a truck. I think it's a mix of not sleeping well at night (due to having to pee 1000 times a day or having to readjust because I'm not used to the new bump) and making a human. Luckily, for the most part, everyone is really understanding.

I know there are women out there that are still rock stars through the entire process, and I think they're amazing people, because this whole thing, has been taxing. The first trimester I was super sick, and now I'm super tired and have horrible back pain and pelvic pain, I don't know how they do it.

The Engagement

So the reason that we were going to California was for the Engagement of Pauls youngest brother Ricky. So, in Sikh culture, I was pretty sure that the only thing that happens is that the men in the brides family, come to the grooms house with a gold kara for Ricky, and then the guys from Ricky's family go to her house and take a box with bracelets and such, and tea is served and that is it. But this engagement was NO JOKE!

There was a prayer and lunch at the house, then a few hours later, there was a full on reception. I think I've just been out of the Sikh wedding circle for too long, but Indian weddings (which were already out of hand) are getting even more out of hand! I should have known it was going to be big when everyone kept calling it "the reception."

The party was beautiful, the bride to be looked amazing, the food was pretty good. It was a good time. It looked like Pauls parents and Parvinder's parents had a good time and that's all that matters! As big as this party was, the wedding is going to be outrageous  Can't wait, glad I don't have the headache of dealing with the preparations!



The Flight Home

On the way home, we took Allegiant out of Fresno, direct to Honolulu. The tickets were booked last minute and were only $199 a piece. Then you have to pay extra if you want to choose your seats, extra per carry on, extra per checked bag, and extra for snacks and beverages.

We got there early, when asked for our ID's we used our military ones and were pleasantly surprised to find out that if you are active duty military, you get 3 free bags (up to a total weight of 99lbs.) Since we didn't get to pick our seats, when we went through security, we asked the lady at the counter if she could switch us and she said she couldn't, but since it wasn't a full flight, we could try and switch seats when we got on.

So Paul went to the bathroom and they started boarding, I was pretty sure that we were going to miss our flight, but he came out in the knick of time, we were last to board and had our own row! I'm glad we had the extra seat between us because the seats on Allegiant, don't recline! Poor 6'3" Paul would have been miserable!

We landed safe and had a great trip!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Space A

So Paul and I are flying back to California for his little brothers engagement party. We decided that we would try to do Space A(vailable) travel. Basically, it's low or no cost air travel through the military. To sign up to be in the system, you have to send them an email the moment leave starts which is awesomely 12am.

So last night, at 12 am I clicked send on and email I wrote hours before. Then I went to sleep, only to have to be up 3.5 hours later to get ready to get to the Air Force base.

We leave the house around 4:40, grab me some McDonald's so I don't get hangry and make our way.

7:13 - they put out "the list" which ends up being the pre list. It's the list to make sure we are eligible for actual roll call or actually getting a seat.

7:56 - were on the list! Waiting for security now. We were 51 52 on the list. Luckily there were 73 open seats.

8:04 - made it through agricultural check of baggage. Of course there was someone with 9 bags of cut apples in his baggage... Also wearing opened toed shoes. There always has to be someone.

8:39 - got boarding passes, Paul grabbed his parking pass and is running to the truck to take it to long term parking. I'm twiddling my thumbs, hoping he makes it back ASAP!!

9:08 - We got through security, and headed out to the plane. We ended up traveling in a C5 Galaxy. It was HUGE plane!! It was so weird, there is a compartment above this main compartment where the seats actually were. There were 73 seats, and we were facing the tail which made take off and landing interesting.


11:00 - I woke up from my nap and our boxed lunches were being passed out. Ham and cheese on wheat, cranberry juice, water, a pear, cup of fruit and rice crispy treats. It was pretty good for $4.50! After eating, Paul kicked my butt at trivial pursuit AND Life (the game), as a little kid starred longingly at the iPad.

3:30 - Landed at Travis. It wasn't a bad flight. It was like a normal plane but REALLY loud. There was tons of legroom, there were restrooms. It looked like it was pieced together with scraps, kind of, but it was a pretty comfortable ride. No complaints, other than the crazy amount of waiting in the beginning.

So, these times are all Hawaii Standard. We landed at Travis AFB 6:30 local time, it was about a 5.5 hour flight. We left the base, got food, and headed down to Sanger.

12:30am (PST) - arrived home, got into PJs and tried to go to sleep. When I took my socks and pants off, my legs were HUGE! I had thankles. Like it looked like my thighs went all the way down to the floor. I have never seen my feet that swollen in my life. I immediately laid on the floor and put my feet up, did some yoga and went to bed.

*** So yesterday, I started a new prenatal. I ran of my One A Day vitamins. Every time I took them, I would get extremely bad heartburn. I just thought it  was my new life as a pregnant lady, so I just kept taking them. I researched a little more and decided I would try a natural vitamin. I picked up the Rainbow Lite prenatal and DHA. I didn't have heartburn at all and I also had no problem in the restroom in the morning, even with the lack of water the day before.


Friday, September 28, 2012

Another Month Down w27d6

There were a few things that I wanted to blog about today, so I figured I'd start listing my objectives first so that I stop rambling so much!! Here's what's up now that I'm 27weeks

Dr.'s Appointment:

So this week we had another Dr.'s Appointment. It's weird, last time we went, he added a week to what week we're actually on. On Tuesday, when the appointment was, I was 27w3d, when he checked my uterus, he said, "26..27..28... yep, 28 weeks, right on track!"Maybe he just means I have 27 weeks out of the way and I'm working on the 28th? Meh.

So I let the Dr. know that every once in a while, my heart rate will spike. I mean it's usually around 85-95, but sometimes it will randomly get to 145! The first time it happened, I was watching football and had a cup of coffee, both things that could make my pulse rise, but it happened again a couple times after that. So the Dr. did an EKG on Arjun, and he was hanging out, moving like a champ.

This was the first time that Paul could see him move. Needless to say, he was totally freaked out! I think that now we're in the second trimester, he's getting freaked out by the thought that Arjun is a baby inside of me.  Like he looks like a human and takes up a huge portion of my stomach cavity.



I mean, looking at that picture, I guess it is a little scary. Our little man is growing up so fast, lol. He kicks, and moves and he can blink and hear me. Right now, Arjun's favorite thing to do is punch and kick at my colon. Paul says, "he's already a pain in your ass!"


Grilling Adventures

So after the Dr. I told Paul that I would grill up some tandoori chicken for dinner. We have a Weber Gas Grill and about 6 months or so ago, the ignition button stopped working. I guess Paul would bypass this by turning on one burner, letting the bottom of the grill fill, then lighting it with a clicker lighter. So I thought I would turn on all the burners and give it a go. I started the grill alright, along with burning the tips of my eye lashes, eye brows, and singeing all of the baby hairs surrounding my face! I was so freaked out that I started crying, I was a mess! I'm ok, and it could have been WAY worse, but that was my last day ever using a gas grill!

Registry Nightmares 

I've been trying to work on my baby registry. It's hard to tell people what I need and want when I have no idea what I need and want! Luckily, sites like Amazon and Babies R Us, have lists that you can go off of, and categories of things you will need. I've put a lot of things on there. Things I think I'll need, things I think I'll want, things that would be nice to have. I put a lot of big ticket items on there, not so much that other people will buy them, but if we don't complete the list, we'll get 10% off of whatever is left on the list.

We do finally have some things that we could agree on and our parents have bought for us. We decided to go with:

Baby Cache Essentials Curved Lifetime Crib and matching dresser



Also we went with the BOB Revolution SE Stroller



And the Britax B-Safe Car Seat.



Cloth Diapers

I've been compiling everything onto the Amazon list , which is cool because I can link other registries to that one. So you just go to my amazon, and you can see my Babies R Us registry and my registry for this super cool local store I found called Baby Awearness. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before but I'm planning to go old school with Arjun. I'm planning on doing glass baby bottles and cloth diapers. As soon as I told Paul about the cloth diapers, he pretty much said he was out! The thought of scraping poop out of a cloth diaper, then having it sit around for a day or two, totally grossed paul out. To be honest, it was kind of scaring me having all of our disposable diaper dependent parent friends telling me that I was going to abandon cloth diapering in a heartbeat. I went online and I looked up diapering and it was all so overwhelming, and to be honest, I still didn't really understand the process, so I tried looking for a place on island that sold the diapers so that I could feel them and understand what I was getting us into.

I found Baby Awearness and we went in and were greeted by a super helpful worker, Jenny (I believe). She sat with us and we went over all of the packages of diapers they have put together, to make beginners diapering a breeze. The best part? Their packages were comparable to prices you would find online! Save money, support a local business, and get all the support I need with the process? Winning! So as soon as I go back and get some notes down, I'll start blogging about the brands of diapers I really liked!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

6ish months down.

We had our 5th month check up a few weeks ago, uterus is growing, Arjun is kicking and all is well!

My belly has definitely started to show. My boobs and belly are just getting bigger and bigger. The belly is what it is, but I'm not sure that I needed my DD boobs to get bigger! I never really spend money on myself when it comes to quality bras, so I thought I would treat myself to new Victoria secrets bras, which was awesome until they didn't fit anymore a few weeks after I got them! Super annoying.

Though this will be out first child, Paul and I already have a fur baby, our German shepherd, Klaus. I hope that Klaus can learn pretty fast that he is no longer the baby in the house and his new job is to protect Arjun.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Let's hear it for the boy...

So the most important person on this journey with me is my husband, Paul. We met some years ago, remained friends through my college, then his college, and when he graduated we reconnected and ended up erring married. He's a great guy and I always kinda thought we would end up together!

In the Beginning

So we married on November 23, 2009 and we really didn't have a lot of time together. I was teaching in south Florida and he was in army training in Virginia. There were a lot of a phone calls, texts and emails, but it wouldn't be until he announced being stationed in Hawaii that we would finally move in together and start our lives.



We were together about a month before Paul had to go to California for a month for training, he came back in february only to leave in April for a year long deployment in Afghanistan.



While he was away, we spoke nearly every day and we spent a lot of that time talking about when we wanted to start a family. We decided that we would try when he came home April 2012 and here we are!!

The Beginning of the Pregnancy

Since the beginning of the pregnancy, it's been kind of hard to coax some excitement out of Paul. At first he was pretty excited. He was excited to find out, to tell friends and family, just in general. After a little bit, he seemed to not be as excited. Now granted, the thought that I'm creating a new human being, a new person that wasn't previously on the planet, is the most crazy, amazing, awesome thought to me, Paul actually doesn't get excited about anything really. I feel like just because everything is crazy to me, that it should be to him too, which isn't really fair because he's not the kind of guy to get overly excited about anything (he's VERY even keeled, which is why he's my rock!), so why should this be different?

I know he has a lot of stress on his shoulders right now, so I totally understand his lack of glee. He just started a new job, they're already ramping up for another deployment (where he will be leaving not only his wife but 6 month old baby boy behind), and we just went from 2 people living on 2 incomes to 3 people living on 1 income. It's a lot for any person to have to think about and I don't know how he does it! He's a great guy. If he's half the dad that he is husband, we're an incredibly blessed family!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

To Run or Not to Run?

In the beginning of 2012, I decided that I wanted to train for the Divas half marathon. I knuckled down and started following the Hal Higdon training schedule, and when time came for the race... I over slept! It was devastating!! It started at 6am, I woke up at 6am and flew down to Honolulu. I was way too late to start so I just did the 5K anyway and then cried my entire ride home. Horrible. But as soon as I got home, I decided that I was going to do the Honolulu Marathon December 2012. I signed up for that and a 5 race readiness series.

That was in April, a few weeks later, we found out we were pregtastic, so no more running for me because I was CRAZY morning sick. Now that I'm in the second trimester, however, I'm getting the bug again. I'm feeling much better, not sick at all. I'm also feeling an insane amount of cabin fever!

So the first run of the series was a 15k. Mind you I've been laying around on a couch for the past few months, but I did it anyway. My plan was to walk/jog take it easy and just take my time. So walkers got to start early, we were off and I was just pacing with a pretty old asian woman. Everything was going great until the hills around Diamond Head. I tried to use the downhill slope and my momentum to help me down and save some time. I think it was in that stretch that the relaxin in my body kicked in and started to loosen the ligaments in my pelvis. I decided at that point, I would just power walk.



I walked as fast as I could still being somewhat comfortable, but it seemed like the whole world was passing me. The old people, the super out of shape people. EVERYONE. Around mile 4 Paul sped past me and it was around mile 5  that I could feel my hip flexors give up. I literally had to kick my feet forward in order to move forward. I kept looking behind me and the crowd was getting smaller and smaller. It was also around that time that I could feel my fingers and hands swell up (they sometimes do when I exercise, more so now then they have in the past). I just kept trucking, kept walking. Even when the truck collecting the race cones passed me, I kept going. Other people not racing were cheering me on, "Go number 354! You're almost there!!" I finally got to the end and the people there were excited for me (probably more excited to get to go home!) but I had made it!!

I walked towards the car in a crazy amount of hip pain and when I was almost there, Paul was walking back towards the race. I forgot my phone at home so he couldn't call to make sure I was ok. Paul finished in 1:47. I, on the other hand, finished in 3:00. DEAD LAST!! HAHA! I was very proud of completing it!



When we got home, my hip flexors were still seised so I couldn't really walk. I had to hold on to my moms shoulders to get to the bathroom and such. The pain went on through the next day but after that I was fine.

The next weekend was an 8K memorial walk for fallen soldiers that I told Paul I would do if he walked with me, which he did. We finished at about 1:20, or 20 minute miles and I felt a little pelvis pain but nothing like the 15K. I think I'll stick to 5K races because I feel fine to 3 miles, it's after that were my body doesn't like it anymore.

It's been so long!!

I think the last time I wrote we were supposed to get an ultrasound to make sure there were no signs of Downs since our quad screen gave us a chance of 1:182. Everything looks fine, but it was weird to me that right after the ultrasound, the doctor asked me if I wanted an amnio. Like just casually. There's a 2-4% chance of miscarriage with amnio, we only have  a 0.5% chance of Downs, not odds I was comfortable with. I think we're fine.

So lets fast-forward to today. Today mom and I are going crib shopping. It's pretty hard here in Hawaii. Why? Because everyone is pregnant and no one here carries a stock of cribs and no companies (amazon or otherwise) ship cribs to Hawaii! At least the rest of the shopping/registry gathering should be a little easier.

I've decided that I want to go a little old school with Arjun. We're planning on cloth diapers, glass baby bottles and cloth baby wipes. I feel like since I will be home I want to concentrate more on what is best for him and less about what is convenient for me. Mostly because I will have one child, and no job other than being his mom. Well that and being a wife ;) I never realized how much research there was to do in putting together a registry. With a wedding it's so easy! "Oh this looks pretty, this I may use, I need some of this," just walking around a Crate and Barrel scanning everything. Shopping for your child is different. You have to research everything!! "What is the best I can get for within my budget?"

Gah! So much. Well at least I've narrowed it down to my Amazon Registry:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/baby/ref=gno_listpop_br

and Babies R Us Registry:

http://www.toysrus.com/registry/search/index.jsp?_flowExecutionKey=_c7A211E1E-02DE-AF11-9057-644DE21010CD_k146B983C-D6F3-2FC2-4DDD-045358012374&overrideStore=TRUS

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Positive Quad Screen?

Part of the second trimester of pregnancy involves getting a quad screen. This is just a screening where I give blood, it's tested for 4 different things, and that gives you some information about the likelihood of Down Syndrom, Edward Syndrom or things like Spina Bifida or other neural tube defects.

So I got the quad screen done and a couple days later, the doctors office called and said, "It's not an emergency, but the doctor would like to talk to you early next week if you're available." I said ok, hung up the phone and called Paul freaking out a little. He told me to call the doctors office to see if the Dr. would just call me back and tell me whats up, they wouldn't. So I made an appointment to talk to him.

While I was waiting the longest 7 days of my life, I did some research. This was not a TEST, it didn't mean my child HAD Downs, it just would mean that there was some levels of protein that were a little off. Since we thought that the doctors dates were off anyway, we figured the levels they found in the screening would also be wrong and that it would be a false positive. I armed Paul with this information and Wednesday finally came. We went to the OB and were not surprised that the screen gave us 1:128 odds of being positive for DS. That's it... a mere 0.8% chance. We were ok with the news because we did our research and we believe there are other factors that gave us a high result.

The next day,  I went to pick my mom up at work and we got to play with the ultrasound machine. She, of course, looked to see the gender right away. "HE'S GOT A SCROTUM, HE'S GOT A SCROTUM!" She started to chant. He for sure is a boy, or a girl with a scrotum! We checked him out and he looked fine.

This past Saturday, we had an appointment at the OB with a sonographer and she said that the baby looked great and amazing. At the end of the appointment, we told her about the quad screen and she said everything looked good, but the only thing that she saw was a Intracardiac Echogenic Foci. She said that this happens to a lot of children, it also happens with DS children, so it's not really a tell tale sign somethings wrong. After doing research on that as well, it appears to disappear in the third trimester. Again, not worried. We have a more detailed doctors appointment with specialists next week. We'll see how that goes!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Michelle's Visit w17

My best friend Michelle bought a ticket to come visit me from Florida in March and the one thing she said was, "don't get pregnant before I get there!" So when I did get pregnant, I called her and told her I had some bad news. Luckily, though, she had Paul here to do the hard hikes, the drinking and the eating of great sushi.

TMI SECTION!!!

I felt pretty tired and sick when Michelle was here, but I finally got Zofran from my OB so that I wouldn't be so sick all the time. The only problem with that was it would stop me up. So I had to chose every day, do I want to eat today? Or do I want to be able to have a BM? I went from going a good 2 times a day to going once every 3 days.

The first day that I was able to go, after 3 days of not, it was so difficult, I remember thinking to myself, "if I can't pass this, how am I ever going to be able to push a baby out!?" Horrible, horrible, horrible.

BACK TO THE VISIT

So we did a bunch of different things while Michelle was here. We hiked Diamond Head, Snorkeled Hanauma Bay, went to Laie Point, Haleiwa, Polynesian Cultural Center (Saw Anuhea play), Ate great sushi, Udon, Ted's Bakery, Saw 4th of July fireworks off Waikiki Beach, went to Nashville's, Rum Fire, Mooses, Saw the people of the PX, went to the Pali Lookout, Hung out on Lanikai Beach, ate banana/mac nut pancakes, ate at Dukes, toured the Royal Hawaiian, and I got her hooked on poke bowls and got her to try her first spam: spam musubi. I think the only things we didn't do were Dole Plantation, the Sugar Mill and Matsumotos, but we do have to leave something for her to do next time!

Teds Chicken Sandwich
Michelle Rocking out next to a surfboard with her likeness on it!




4th of July Fireworks

The Beginning

So I should have started this sooner, but I really didn't think I wanted to post all of my awesomely miserable moments for everyone to read. After thinking about it, and reading some other blogs, I decided that I wanted to try and document these moments and miseries for my child to read one day. One day when my kid says something like, "I hate you! You're so lame! You don't even love me!" I will calmly direct them to this blog and they can read what I went through without once thinking about aborting them.

In the Beginning

Paul got back from Afghanistan on Easter, April 8th, 2012. We got pregnant on Easter, April 8th 2012. Somehow, though, I think there is going to be a HUGE wave of military brats born this winter because of the same thing. It will be our own little version of a "baby boom."

Paul and I had been talking about getting pregnant pretty much the entire deployment. We were planning out dates that would work for our careers, talking about names, but I think our plan was really just to let nature take its' course and when it happened, it happened; so when it happened instantly, it wasn't a huge, "Oh my god, what are we going to tell our parents!" moment, but we were still a little shocked it happened right away. I believe Pauls' reaction to me showing him the test was actually a high five, lol. 


The first thing I started to do was the math. Date of last period... when Paul came home... kind of off by about a week. But not being regular and a 'faulty' last period meant I was fine with that. "Is there something you want to tell me?" was the response I got from my best friend, which from what I hear, isn't a completely weird question to ask a military wife with a deployed husband these days (don't even get me started about these situations!). Though I was fine with the date discrepancy, I was a little worried that Paul would think something was up. I mean, not really, but still. "I don't think you would be stupid enough to have an affair so close to me coming home," I believe was his exact response. 

The second thing we did was take another pregnancy test. It was positive almost instantly. At this point we were sure, so I set up an appointment with my Family Doctor (who I had never been to yet) so that I could get a referral to an OB. I met my doctor, got a referral to the local military hospital (Tripler) and was on my way. (The military then outsourced my referral so I asked if I could go to a doctor that I chose, so I chose someone on Honolulu's Best list.) At this point, the main symptom I had was sleepiness. Until this point in my life, I could never nap during the day, it took forever to actually fall asleep. All of a sudden, I would get home from work, fall asleep till about 8, eat, sleep at 9 and sleep the entire night! It was so strange but greatly appreciated!

So I was off. Time to be healthy and incubate this thing until it was go time. About 5 weeks in, around May 7th (the second to last week of school) a new symptom, morning sickness. Morning sickness struck with a vengeance! I couldn't even sit up without having to throw up. Sitting on the toilet I had to hold a giant yogurt container to my mouth because squeezing in my stomach, I wasn't sure which end it was going to come out of. It was, to say the least, no bueno! So I ended up missing the last two weeks of school with my students, I didn't get to tell them I wasn't coming back the following year or anything.  I think the worst part of the whole MS thing was that I had to make it through a family vacation!

May 18th, Paul and I flew to Mexico to meet his parents and brothers. I figured, I feel horrible so I will just keep munchies in my purse and I'll sleep the 6 hour flight from HNL to LAX and OF COURSE I had the only noisy a-holes behind me. A loud little girl, an oblivious mother, and a grandmother, sitting across the aisle, who had her headphones on and was yelling to the mother in Japanese! I thought about throwing up on one of them. I should have.


We got to LAX, exhausted, and then found out we had a 6 hour layover. I slept on the ground as Paul watched our stuff.

Finally we got to Mexico. It was painful. I wanted to do so much there, but I couldn't because I felt horrible! I was sick and tired the whole time. We finally got out of there, got to California, and got to relax for a while until Billy and Mal came up and we road tripped down to San Diego. Before that though, Paul made me hike a 7 mile, 2000 ft. elevation hike to the top of a waterfall in Yosemite. Everyone was INSANELY patient with me, and we finally got down and we were pooped! 


The rest of the road trip was a lot of fun. Monterey Bay Aquarium, Highway 1, Hearst Castle,  Tar Pits,  Hollywood Sign, Sea World, San Diego Zoo. It was a lot, but I got through. The last night in San Diego, I felt really sick. The sickness was only worse on the flight home where I threw up twice on the plane and then hardcore when we finally landed in Honolulu. The worst part of being sick in public is the looks you get from people when you leave the stall. Yeah, like I got THIS wasted on baby bottles on the plane.