Locks of Love

For most of my life, I have had long hair. Boston was the first time that I was "adventurous" and cut it, with much coaxing from my friends Jamie and Sarah, to shoulder length, which at the time was a big deal.

We did a wedding slide show and William saw some pictures of me with long hair and commented how much he liked it and so I decided to grow it out again. William had been teasing me before we were pregnant that it seems that most women chop off all of their hair before having a baby and of course I said it wasn't going to be me. But, after a few months of not liking my long hair at all (it doesn't curl as well as my friend Inger's and so I could really only do it straight which was getting boring), I decided to donate my hair to Locks of Love. This was my first time donating to the organization and my sister Sarah has done it several times before so I decided that I would do it with her this time.

What is amazing was that I was able to get a FREE haircut. I cannot begin to say enough about the wonderful stylists at Barberia Salon. Mimi, my stylist, gave me an amazing haircut complete with layering which in the week and a half since it happened, I have been able to style on my own (which is saying a lot because I am not adept at doing hair).

Here is a before shot showing how long it was (excuse the wet hair as I needed to wash it before getting it cut)

The cut pony tail ready for donation
And, now for the big reveal
From the back- you can actually see my neck! It's so short that I can't even pull it into a ponytail, which is a good thing since I was sporting one of those every few days with my long hair since I didn't know what else to do with it
So far, I am "adjusting" pretty well to the change. It was weird at first to see my silhouette with short hair and also to wash my hair and have nothing there. But, it is definitely an easy cut to style- just a little round brushing, a few swipes of the magic Chi hair straightener, and it's good to go. I am shocked by how quickly I am able to "do" my hair and have it look decent.

Anyways, the jury is still out on whether or not this will be a permanent change. I really liked how my hair was shoulder length as it left me with plenty to do, but this is definitely very welcome right now.

Strawberry Recipes from the Web

I absolutely LOVE food blogs. I am mainly a baker and not a chef and so most of the recipes that I try are of the sweet nature. I bought several pints of strawberry's from the Los Altos Farmer's Market last week and had fun using them in some delicious recipes.

Strawberry Sorbet: The original post is about a Strawberry Basil Sorbet but that didn't sound appealing to me so I just left the basil out and it was delicious. My only suggestion is to make sure that you puree and pretty much liquefy the strawberries otherwise you will end up with hard frozen chunks in your sorbet. This was so good that we polished it all off in one night (at least now I have the excuse that I am pregnant!!)

Strawberry Country Cake: I have had this before and it was delicious and so I wanted to make it again. This recipe from Ina Garten is good, but here are a few tips. I halved the recipe to only make one cake and then I sliced that one cake in half and decorated with whipped cream and strawberries. However, you should DOUBLE the recipe for the whipping cream (and use powdered sugar instead of granulated) because otherwise it is a bit too much cake. I also didn't follow her recipe exactly because I didn't want to buy the actual lemons and oranges to make the zests and so I just used lemon juice but you couldn't taste the citrus like others have said.
Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream: the original recipe itself is from David Lebovitz who has an entire book about ice cream, sorbets, and the like and so I knew that it had to be good. And it did not disappoint. I made sure this time that I liquefied the strawberries (I didn't have quite enough as recommended in the recipe- a few had gone bad) but it was still so good. It was best in my opinion when it came directly out of the ice cream maker before putting it in the freezer to harden. At this time, it had such a soft, creamy texture with only the slightest tang from the sour cream. It was still good the next day, though it needs to sit out for a little bit before eating- which I am generally not patient enough to do so I just eat it when it is still hard- and it is still very good, though not quite as magical as when it first comes out. I am already dreaming of using this recipe with fresh PEACHES.

I was very happy that all 3 turned out because I have had some baking disasters with some recipes off the internet but these all did not disappoint so I thought that I would further share the love ;-)

My Internet Baking Debut

My co-worker, Jackie, is a great and budding photographer and so I was completely honored that she asked if she could take photos of me baking something to get some practice.

I warned her repeatedly that there is absolutely ZERO natural light in our apartment. She shrugged that off but when she came, she realized that our little place literally does not have any natural light. Yet, she handled things like a pro- the photographs of our kitchen and our apartment make it look 1000 times nicer than it really is. William especially was blown away by how good the photos turned out.

"The Red-Haired Baker and Her Cinnamon Buns"

Even as I look at her photos of the cinnamon rolls now, I have a craving to make them. I used my favorite recipe that I have posted about earlier which I highly recommend. However, I feel bad that my weird expression messed up her final shot- and we even went outside to take it in the natural light. I hope it tasted as good as it looked in these photos. Thanks again for the honor Jackie of showcasing my baking on your blog!

The Mystery Spot

After an ice cream pit stop at Marianne's in Santa Cruz (and I HIGHLY recommend the peaches and cream flavor- so light and creamy), we went to the Mystery Spot.

This is an iconic bay area landmark and you see it advertised everywhere through the signature bumper stickers that they place on the back of people's cars. My sister Sarah had gone earlier in the summer and had said how fun it was so I knew that we had to go.

For those interested in going, make sure that you book your tickets in advance- either online or on the phone. I called the morning of, at about 10 am, and they were sold out until 2:48 (they have tours every 12 minutes). We tried to go another Saturday without calling and we got there and it was sold out so I learned my lesson.

How to describe this place called the mystery spot. It was featured on the cover of Life magazine back in the 1940s due to its "unique gravitational anomalies" as they call it, as evidenced by this tree that straddles the gravitational line and has changed it's growth pattern due to it.

William prefers to call it, it's more optical illusions. The best though was that he was explaining to me how he thought one of the demonstrations worked and then our guide then dispelled William's exact comment with another demonstration. We think it is genius that they have their guides dressed in the same colors as national park rangers to help give them some additional authority.

It really was just fun to stumble around and test out some of these unique experiences. I did not participate in many of them since supposedly your sense of balance is thrown off during pregnancy and I didn't want to take the chance of falling. I just could not stop laughing because of how funny most people looked even standing around, like William is.

Sadly, this photo does not do justice to how incredible it looked to see William leaning backwards in the air yet was still supported due to the logistics of the place.

The only drawback to going on a Saturday is that the groups are very large and so you do not have the chance to try out all of the experiences yourself- we at least got to watch them be done by the guide and others. The house on the mystery spot is totally crazy with unique angles and slopes which makes for some interesting visuals. The guy on the end in the orange was actually super tall yet when placed in this area, he seemed to be about the same size as everyone else.

I loved that each guide carries around a level to show you that things, while they appear to be crooked, are actually straight, adding to the illusion of the mystery.

All in all, it was entertaining, but I am glad that we went to the railroad as well because I might have been a bit disappointed if we had made the drive all the way down for just the Mystery Spot.

Roaring Camp Railroad

Following my trip to Alaska where I rode the the White Pass Railroad through the Yukon territory (it was incredible- I can't wait to post pics!!), I am now very into riding trains. Fortunately, William, the trooper that he is, accompanies me on these adventures.

My co-worker Caroline told me about her steam train ride through the redwoods near Santa Cruz called Roaring Camp Railroad and I so wanted to do it. I did make the mistake of having us take the 1st train at 11 am because the fog and not yet burned off, but fortunately, we were able to see some blue sky for part of our ride.

I loved that you had to walk through a covered bridge, which seemed to transport you back in time . . .

We were able to see them fill up the train with water from the tower partially seen in the upper right hand corner. It is amazing how much they filled it with because we saw lots of steam sent off.

We sat in the open air cars at the very front right next to the engine. A word of warning though- this is the "splash zone" because you get pelted with water drops (not very bad but I was glad that I didn't do my hair that day :-)

I LOVED having the open air car because it provided you with the experience of feeling right in the heart of the forest.


Just look at how adorable our conductor is! He totally looks like something out of a movie. He was a wealth of knowledge who told us that steam trains in the west run on oil while steam trains in the East and Europe run on coal. There was a lady in our car who was a huge train enthusiast- she was wearing a t-shirt for the Skunk Train, another steam train, and she was filming most of the journey so that she could get some good sounds for her cell phone ring tone. She asked our conductor if this train recycles the oil and he told her that it was too expensive and that in fact, it was way too expensive to buy oil here in California given all the regulations and so they go to Nevada to get the oil. We loved just how completely honest he was about everything (I did feel bad for the lady because she did seem somewhat disappointed by his comment)

I was pretty ignorant about this as I literally thought that steam trains only ran on steam, but as I quickly learned, when they have to do a very tough job, like pushing a long train filled with passengers

in REVERSE up the hill, it needs much more power. The photo below of the black smoke was of this event.

The train travels through the redwoods but not on a circular loop. The train has to literally back up and down onto a separate track to go to the upper part of the redwoods. During these parts, we kept saying "I think I can, I think I can" because it was obvious that this train was working so hard to push everyone. The blue sky finally emerged on our way back to the station (evidence below) and I absolutely LOVED this whole experience.

The video below shows the steam coming from the train both from the top pipe for the most part but at the end of the clip- there is a huge release of steam from the sides to get rid of excess pressure before they go down inclines. There is also the iconic whistle.


And for people with kids who love Thomas the Tank Engine, they are doing a special ride out with Thomas next week. The ride is pretty slow and we saw the whole range of ages from little babies to toddlers to pre-school and it seemed that they all enjoyed the one hour and 30 minute ride (it is a bit shorter than that- they do give you one stretch break half-way through in the redwoods).

Pregnancy So Far

I feel extremely lucky at how my pregnancy has gone so far because given all that I had to do during the first trimester, I would not have been able to do it had I been super sick. That being said, I still don't know how I was able to get everything done for both my job and my class and requiring more sleep than usual (more for me- like 8 hours a night plus naps on the weekend) and I know that it is only through divine assistance from God and Jesus Christ that I was able to do it.

We had decided to let nature run its course and it decided to come a bit more quickly than we were anticipating. The best response was from my OB/GYN who when I first told her replied "Well that didn't take long!" We realize truly what a miracle this is, especially since my mother struggled for years before she was pregnant with me and I know so many others for whom this process is extremely difficult.

We found out Saturday, April 9th that we were expecting. William actually knew it before the test results came back. At this time, I was two weeks into teaching my class and working 40 hours. I was praying that I would follow the same course as my mother did during her pregnancies that she never got sick- she was just super hungry all the time. I was somewhat similar in that I was fine as long as I ate- when I didn't eat, that is when I started to feel ill and nauseous. There were several occasions during the first trimester when I would wake up at 4 am and would have to eat. This also meant this I had to carry around food- Wheat Thins were my snack of choice- at all times. We ended up telling our families quite early on because my dad came out to visit for several days and he would have known by my shift in eating habits (and the crackers) that I was pregnant. Since it was so early, my parents were not quite as excited as we had hoped- they were just making sure that things would progress with the pregnancy.

In addition to eating all of the time, my cravings COMPLETELY shifted. My whole life, I have LOVED and CRAVED sweets of all kinds. However, there was nearly a month where I did not want to eat sweets AT ALL. Instead, I wanted only fruit, yogurt, vegetables, and main dishes/salty foods. This was so unusual for me that one of my co-workers, Ashley, when she saw my change in eating patterns, she pulled me aside and asked if I was pregnant and I did know at the time and I didn't want to lie and so I told her that I was but not very far along and so she would have to keep it a secret. And she was a great friend and did. I was still impressed that she was able to detect that though as none of my other co-workers said anything about it. Apparently they noticed but just thought that I was getting "healthy" (not very likely if you are at all familiar with myself and William). Happily, the non-sweets stage was short lived and I could eat sweets again, though I still didn't crave them as much at first as before pregnancy. The sweets cravings are definitely back though now- particularly gummy candies.

Also miraculous was that I never had to eat during my lectures- something that I was concerned about because it is somewhat unconventional for the teacher to eat while lecturing, though it was very entertaining when Ms. Harrison would do that in high school with her yogurt and licorice while teaching us about literature. I would generally eat during my office hours afterwards, but never had to chow down in front of the class. All of this eating though meant that I was inhaling A LOT more calories than before my pregnancy. Thus, from our first visit at week 9 where it was confirmed that we were having "cyte" to the 13 week visit for the heartbeat check, I gained 3 pounds. I didn't think that it was all that much, but my OB/GYN said that was fine but when I saw her again AT THE END OF AUGUST that I should only gain 4 more pounds. 4 pounds!!! Wow- that kind of panicked me and so I have been exercising 30 minutes on the elliptical, 6 days a week since then and while my eating has slowed down, I still definitely have more of an appetite than before pregnancy and cyte does get hungry and lets me know so I have NOT DARED to get on the scale to find out where I am at. I'm over the stressing part and I am just letting my body and my baby tell me what they need and I'll work out the rest after the pregnancy. Breastfeeding is supposed to help with weight loss right???

However, even though I have been gaining weight, it has only been in the last 3 weeks that I have even started to "pop"- aka get a belly. Thus, and even still, though you can judge for yourself with the photo below (but I am sure that you all will just be nice), I still really look like "I'm just getting fat" rather than "I'm pregnant."
I am luckily still able to wear many of my pre-pregnancy clothes, thanks to the Bella Band (what a marvelous creation) but as of a couple of weeks ago, coinciding with when my tummy started to protrude, I can no longer button up my pants and so the Bella Band has been a lifesaver. There are some shirts that I can no longer wear because they are too short but I still have enough to wear to work. I am holding off buying maternity clothes for as long as I can so that way I don't get sick of them before the end of the pregnancy. I did buy one dress from Forever 21 that is empire waist and makes me look very pregnant, so I'm holding off until I'm farther along to wear it.

I'm lucky again that I am doing pretty well for the second trimester- I don't have the crazy 4 am have-to-eat times and I don't sleep quite as much as the first trimester (though I am still sleeping more than I was before pregnancy), but my acne has definitely flared up again. But all in all, I am very relieved that things have gone pretty well so far because I know many friends who have had a much more of a roller coaster during their pregnancies!

The Big Announcement!!!

I know that I have been completely M.I.A from the blog but it has been because I have been so busy with numerous things- particularly working 40 hours a week, teaching, work conference and other items, changing wards, trip to Alaska with my mom and sister (more to come on all of these)- but the one thing that has happily come into our lives during this period is that we are expecting our first child!!!

The first ultrasound photo at 9 weeks

Our little "gummy bear" according to my sister Sarah. We affectionately called it "Cyte" short for blastocyte or parasite :-) I was very relieved to know that it was only 1.

Then, last Wednesday, we went in for the big ultrasound where they do all of the measuring and finding out the gender. Of course we wanted to find out! But what we are most happy about is that little cyte is healthy and all is developing on schedule.

The profile pic (much more adorable than the front face pic where it looks like I have Skeletor in my stomach)

And, it is looking like (as there is always a little uncertainty with this), most signs are indicating that we are having a GIRL!!!

She should arrive sometime in the beginning of January. According to the ultrasound measurements, the due date is 12/2/2011 but our OB/GYN thinks that she will come on the original due date of 12/8/2011. Thus, she is around 20 weeks (or 21 ish) depending on which date you use

We are very excited and William is a little nervous, though starting to adjust, to the thought of having a girl. As he comes from a family of all boys and we only have nephews, he is more unsure about how to handle a girl- especially during the teenage drama years. I think that he will be fine. Many more updates to come on all that we have been up to now that I finally have some free time :-)