An overdue post

I am definitely a little behind now! I will post with mini headers to sort of organize this post.

17 Weeks
We are just a couple of days away from 18 weeks, but 17 still deserves mention! The past week or so, I have noticed I am becoming more sensitive to sights, sounds and smells. How so with sights and sounds? Seeing or hearing something remotely gross can cause me to start gagging. It's actually a little worse that what I experienced in the first trimester. It's manageable, but it's definitely a bit of a bother.

This might be TMI for some, but when they say that different stuff thickens at this point, it's true. I'm definitely blowing my nose and clearing my throat more often. Of course, being more sensitive now, clearing my throat sometimes makes me feel sick. Good times! I've also had some very minor nose bleeds, which I expected.

I wouldn't trade any of this for the world, though.

Buys
I bought two books when I went out with a friend (M--hello!) last week Sunday. I bought a baby book I had also bought for a friend when she had her baby. It's called, I Love You, Mommy, and is in both English and Korean. It's a Christian book, to boot! I wanted to also purchase I Love You, Daddy, but they were out of stock. I'll have to order it instead.

For myself, I bought a book on breastfeeding that I think is the same one another friend here has. It's so important to me, so I want to just soak in as much as possible early on. As much as I am on the internet, with pregnancy stuff, I prefer to have books to refer to for such things rather than having to search for them on the internet. It has probably saved my sanity on a number of occassions. Anyway, I started glancing through it when I got home that day and was seriously just like a sponge. Definitely glad I picked it up.

Thanks!
When I was with M, she gave us some of her daughter's old baby clothes that no longer fit, as well as her Bumbo! The Bumbo was on my list of things to buy, so I am especially grateful for that. We obviously still don't know if we're having a boy or girl, so if we can't use the clothes, I know some people who will! Thank you, M!

Last week, the mother of one of my students offered us a little baby bath insert that she had used when her little ones were, well, little(r). I've never really seen this style before, but who am I to turn down such an offer? Again, if we don't use it, there are plenty who would love to!

A Belated Birthday Wish
I had wanted to post on Friday but did not have the energy to do so. As such, we would all like to wish Sesame's Uncle Brian a belated Happy Birthday!

Much Needed Weekend Getaway
The past couple of weeks have been insanely busy for both of us, leaving us very exhausted and drained (hence my absence on the internet). We decided we needed a little getaway to refresh our bodies and minds, so we found ourselves in Incheon over the weekend.

Hee Suk found an AMAZING package deal at the Ramada Songdo Beach Hotel. It's not really on the beach, but that's okay. For under $150, we got a nice hotel room, two "cruise" tickets (we say cruise, but maybe boat tour is the proper term?), a buy-one-get-one ticket to InSpa World (a small waterpark) and perhaps most importantly, two tickets for the breakfast buffet.

The cruise was almost three hours long, which included a stopover on Palmido Island. It's only been open to tourists for 5 months now, and it was also used for the filming of Boys Over Flowers, the first drama I filmed for. We didn't know this when we made our reservations, but that was kind of neat. The ship was very nice and comfortable. We were actually probably two of the youngest people there, save for a few families! That has many stories in and of itself.

There were two problems, though, one of which I am sure you will all find hilarious since it didn't happen to you. People like to feed the seagulls this little shrimp chip snacks (which are really yummy). Hee Suk wanted to feed them, so I took some pictures. Well, the last bird he fed sent some projectile poop right at me, geting on my hand, arm and shirt. At first, I thought it was just the chip he tried to grab flying back and hit me. That was the force of it! I looked down to find otherwise, though. The staff helped get some wet wipes to clean up, and Hee Suk took me down to rinse my hands in the bathroom.

This was a mistake. The bathroom doesn't have a sink, first of all. It's outside of the bathroom. I waited to go in, though, and found that the toilet had apparently not been flushing for a few people. I nearly tossed my cookies, I couldn't handle it. It was really bad. I tried to go to the sink to rinse my hands, but even though it wasn't but, it was still too grody for me. We settled for pouring water out of our water bottle and letting me rinse that way.

Otherwise, it was an uneventful and very enjoyable trip. It was worth over $40, so we really did get a great deal! On the way back to the hotel, we found a really cute restaurant and decided to try it out. We had tabletop grilled eel and barbecue samgyeopsal (tabletop grilled pork), which our little one definitely approved of.

Other than that, the breakfast buffet was everything I had hoped for (the hashbrowns tasted like McDonald's hash browns!), and going for a swim was very nice and relaxing. Sesame also apparently found it relaxing, as he/she seemed to be asleep the whole time. We were very tuckered out by the time we got back home!

Taekwon Baby
Saturday night, we climbed into bed and wound up watching some of the really bad movie Forbidden Kingdom. For as much as I simply love Jet Li and the tale of Journey to the West, I did not love this movie. It was still fun to watch, somehow.

We were laughing at kung fu and whatnot, and Hee Suk started telling me stories of when he was little and studying taekwondo, and others wanted to study kung fu because of all of the movies out there at the time. Sesame took this opportunity to show Appa that he/she is totally all for taekwondo and has been training hard already. He has tried to feel baby moving around before, but his impatience has led to him giving up early. Well last night, he was finally able to feel our little Sesame! I am still just beyond thrilled for this. It was just a really special time to finally be able to feel our little one move around.

That's All, Folks!
That's about all I have for now. Hopefully, this refreshing weekend will have provided me with the energy I need to keep this blog cooking more again. We are about two weeks away from being halfway there! We're also just two weeks away from our next ultrasound, which is a big one. I hope that even if the tech won't give us a hint about whether we are having a boy or a girl, we will be able to figure it out ourselves. We'll just have to wait and see.

Our Heavenly Father, thank You so much for the opportunity to get away this weekend and just enjoy some time away with each other, helping us to relax and refresh ourselves from a very stressful past couple of weeks. Thank You also for the blessing of a healthy little one and for the great blessing of Hee Suk being able to feel him/her this weekend. As always, Your timing is perfect! Thank You so much, my Lord.