Eric's promotion celebration

After 2.5+ years of hard work, Eric was promoted (on schedule). To celebrate this special occasion, Julie baked Eric a banana-peanut butter-chocolate chip-almond bread (not following any recipe of course ^_^).

Julie's thoughts were: Eric likes peanut butter banana sandwiches, so he must like this interesting combination.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), the bread completely deflated in the center by the time Eric got home...

We celebrated this big milestone with our interesting-looking banana bread anyways ^_^

Baby's smell

The magical smell of babies...

According to Eric's co-worker, newborns have a magical scent that will trigger a change in the brains of new fathers. And make things click into place, transforming you into a loving father who wants to cuddle your baby.

However, the traditional smell of the baby usually referred to by new parents is the smell of used diapers. We did get a tip from one of our friends - the first poop of the baby does not smell.

Both of these comments will be tested in a few months. We will send updates (and feedback) accordingly ^_^

Baby names--> Sign Here ^_^

Eric got Julie a baby name book to get her creative juices flowing about names... or to avoid her from coming up with crazy non-traditional names.

To note all the names she is interested it, Julie got a hold of Eric's "Sign Here" post-its and went to town ^_^ ( above... the result of Julie's handy work)

PS thanks to Valli and Lou, we also got a list of famous cow names and cow breeds for reference ^_^

New theory on nursing

Another interesting picture Julie found in the July issue of Made. A new theory on nursing perhaps ^_^

New baby project

As a good mother-to-be, Julie started on the baby blanket for the little one. To follow instructions for once, Julie got a knitting book from the library.

After several attempts... the blanket still looks nothing like the one in the book... Julie started to doubt that they put in the right directions for the illustrated blanket -_-

Fun SF

SF is definitely a fun place to be. There is always something going on. The city is slowly growing on us. In the same week, we were able to go to a Giant's county fair...

Go listen to a free concert...

Wait in line for some upside down Ben and Jerry's ice cream...

And watch the fire department practice with a fire boat from our apartment ^_^

New Craving

From 2009.07.26 onsies and baby bump

Julie discovered her new craving ^_^
COOKIES!!!

Interesting glasses

Julie found this article on the July issue of the National Geographics... very interesting concept... not sure if we can get the teenagers to wear them though...

They look kind of like the BCG ( birth control glasses) from the military ^_^

HOT Florida

Thanks to William and Jen's wedding reception, Eric and Julie had a nice excuse to visit Orlando in the middle of July. Even though the weather was hot and humid, it really reminded Julie of summer in Taiwan.

After the wedding, Eric took Julie to... Africa??? Just kidding ^_^ It was Disney Animal Kingdom.



First we visited a " It is tough to be a bug" show.



Then we saw the fantastic Lion King show.



And remember " fish are friends and not food!"


Continue the theme of our around the world travel, we visited Tibet land.



follow by India.


A meer cat watched Eric munched on Mikey's ear.


Julie found her long lost friend... Mr. Potato Head



Sally, is that you?



And we had to take a picture of this extremely crazy structure in the middle of Orlando.

Julie says the darnedest things II

J: The meat-ologist says it's going to be hot tomorrow.
E: Do you mean the meteorologist? (grin)
J: Then what's a meat-ologist?!?
E: Someone who stands behind the butcher counter at the supermarket???

Gaston (Pronounced: Gassed-on)

Things they don't tell you before you get pregnant... Flatulence/slow bowel movement -_-
We often wonder where it is coming from and that if we have a son maybe we should name him Gaston ^_^

Luckily, Eric's been reading the user's manual of pregnancy: WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU ARE EXPECTING. (We highly recommend it.) Whenever Julie is anxious about anything, Eric is always able to find the answer in this book.

With helpful suggestions from our doctor, family, and friends here are a list of pro/cons of things we've tried:

Activia: works but more flatulence
bananas: kind of works but you can only take so many bananas
watermelon: more fiber but also more bathroom breaks
fiber supplements: Not interested in taking more supplements since we already have to take so many.
so... we will just let nature take its course and hope Gaston will move on.

Eric the economist

Being an economist, Eric saves on everything (or so says Julie; Eric says he optimizes).

One evening:
E: (cutting off a strand and handing it to Julie) Here is your dental floss.
J: Are you skimping on dental floss?
E: What do you mean? Isn't that enough?
J: I thought you said as long as I floss you'll give me as much floss as I want!
E: Okay, you want me to give you another piece of floss?
J: So what, I can tie them together?!?
E: That's an idea, but I was thinking you could just use the new floss like the old one...

Cravings

Thank goodness that our little bean has not been causing us too much trouble. However, Julie sure has lots of weird cravings and she is capitalizing on this to make Eric go on runs to the supermarket. (bing! with halo over her head) ^_^

We first started off with some ordinary pickles... (3-4 baby ones per meal).Then she found out that pickled jalapenos are even better because they have the sour of a pickle but they also have the spicy kick at the end.Then to go with the Jalapenos, she got addicted to burritos (with lots of fresh salsa and meat).
Of course ice cream is always on the top of her list ^_^ Eric was not very excited when he had to go out for a pickle and ice cream run late one night.

With the amount of burritos we are eating... we wouldn't be surprised if our little bean turns out to be a little Mexican jumping bean ^_^

Happy Birthday America!!

From 2009.07.04 fireworks

It was nice to be home for July 4th and be in the company of family and friends. Julie got to try out a higher ISO/slower shutter speed setting on her camera to capture the motion of the fireworks ^_^

From 2009.07.04 fireworks

An A+ family

We didn't know that with pregnancy comes lots of blood tests to check for any possible problem. After 10+ tubes of blood donation, we were happy to find out that our hybrid genetics will be a-ok. In fact we are proud to report that we are getting an A+ (Eric=A+ & Julie=A+ ==> baby=A+) ^_^