Our Babymoon in Cancun

Similar to a honeymoon, oftentimes couples take a trip before their baby’s arrival which is known as a “babymoon”. We had a few locations in mind: Bali in Indonesia, Hawaii here in US, and Cancun in Mexico. I didn’t want to wait too long to take our babymoon as I desperately needed a vacation, & plus, I don’t know if I would be able to enjoy as much (since I’m getting bigger and bigger!) haha.

I wanted our babymoon to be relaxing yet adventurous – while also pregnancy-friendly of course. We wanted to travel somewhere with nice weather for tanning and outdoor activities. We finally decided on Cancun in Mexico since I’ve never been to Mexico and Cancun sounds just lovely! 🙂 Justin did some research on the adults-only all inclusive hotel/resorts in the area, a few came up that we like and we decided on the Hyatt Zilara, which was an amazing choice and we were glad we picked this hotel!

We stayed 8 days 7 nights and the entire trip was super relaxing. We definitely got the Rest and Relaxation that we needed! Everything was top-notch, from the moment we checked-in, we were offered a free upgrade to a premium ocean-front suite with an exclusive booking of Chef’s Table fine dining, to 24-hour room service, a variety of dining options, unlimited alcohol and food. And of course the amazing ocean, tanning, gym, pool, couples massages/spa, daily hotel shows, and all the friendly staff who served us 24/7!

I will let some of the pictures speak for the amazing time we had there! 😀

Our upgraded premium ocean-front view suite 🙂

Who said you can’t drink alcohol (“VIRGIN”, of course) when you are pregnant! 😀 and I doubled-up on it! (me 24 weeks with baby sofia!)

Ocean view lunch after beach and tanning!

An evening stroll by the pool after dinner~

His midnight snack – strawberry ice-cream! I think he ate about 10 of these! LOL (Love this pic of J 😀 he seems so happy and sooooOooOo satisfied!)

Cancun 2014! We got sooOooo tanned by Day 3!

24 weeks and growing!!!

Fusion dinner ~ we were surprised that not only did they serve Japanese food and Thai food, but they also has J’s all time favorite dish – Han Nan chicken rice!!!

Even though I can’t do any extreme water / outdoor activities, we still managed to pick one excursion!! yay! We visited one of the new 7 wonders of the world – Chichén Itzá, which was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Mayans. It was a VERY HOT day! Give us props for keeping our lovely smile on!

After walking in the 100+ degrees heat, i was sooOOoo glad that we got to take a dive in the beautiful natural water cave @ Ik Kil Sinkhole

yup. i was swimming in there with no life jacket (100 feet deep) with little Sofia in me at 24 weeks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we ended our evening with a romantic Spanish-themed dinner~

yummy lamb chop!

After a few days of enjoying the beach, we decided to chill back at the infinity pool!

Babe enjoying the view and his drinks! sooooo relaxing!!

Drinks specially made for us by the pool bartender! so refreshing!

A special fine-dining experience @ the Chef’s table

We enjoyed the rest of our trip with more food, more alcohol (virgin for me of course), more tanning, napping in the cabanas by the beach, swimming in the ocean, meeting new friends, taking tons of pics and just RELAX!

We spent the morning dining by the ocean as usual the day before we left. We loved their mangos so much, that we asked the server if they could just toss in some mangos with our order.  Their exceptional service is over the top! We cant believe the breakfast head chef actually brought this out for us himself.  They didn’t just give us a few pieces of mango, but a mango along with strawberries fruit plate 🙂 The chef even invited us to go back the next morning to enjoy a special breakfast prepared by him. Too bad that was our last day!

The trip was amazing and we would definitely come back. Here is a pic we took at the entrance of our resort before we headed back home.  What a lovely babymoon and we enjoyed every minute of it!  🙂

Boy or Girl? How about a name we picked?? The BIG Day! :D

One of the many exciting moments during pregnancy has gotta be when you find out whether your baby is a boy or a girl. Some guess it’s gonna be a boy and some guess it’s gonna be a girl.

There are many myths out there in telling what the mommies-to-be will be having. Things like if you have rough morning sickness, you might be having a boy because of the hormone changes. Some counter that it might be a girl because your baby is picky in what you are eating.  Other might use the ring over the belly test, or some kind of traditional midwife beliefs or test.  If you talk to your mommy friends, they might tell you by looking at your belly. Some may say your belly looks rounded so it’s gotta be a girl, and if it’s pointy, you are likely to have a boy….the list goes on and on…  I mean, whichever one you choose to believe, the chance is only 50/50 right?? 🙂

We didn’t have time to do any gender reveal party, but we want to make our “gender reveal” appointment more special. So we decided to bring 3 balloons with us 🙂 One had “baby boy” written on it, one had “baby girl”, and the last one said “welcome baby”.

It’s quite cute in my opinion, we walked into the clinic with 3 balloons & our DSLR camera LoL. The nurses and other parents-to-be were all looking at us. Haha In a good way that is.

We asked the nurse to take a b4 pic for us & an after pic later 🙂 we ran through the detailed ultrasound & the BIG reveal came after!

Justin and I “somehow” thought we would be having a boy, for no reason, just gut feelings & of course we found out we are expecting a GIRL!!! 🙂 We had a name in mind all along (well, more like “I” had a name I liked since back in college for my future daughter. Luckily, Justin loves the name as much as I do).

Please meet our baby girl, Sofia Grace Hom. An ultrasound greeting from her to us! “Hi Mom & Dad” 😀

1st trimester recap + 2nd trimester begins :)

1st Trimester recap:

I’ve been very blessed with my 1st trimester, no morning sickness or weird cravings 🙂 But like most mommies-to-be, I was tired (some fatigue) and definitely demanded more sleep time and long naps towards the end of day. That really messed up my sleeping schedule at night 😦 I didn’t realize it at first, but producing a baby takes a LOT of energy from ya!

While I don’t have any morning sickness, I do have 1 strange pregnancy symptom – nosebleeds! At first, I thought it was the dry weather, but my nosebleeds didn’t stop, in fact, the frequency increased as my pregnancy has progressed. My Ob told me it’s ok and I asked some mommies in my support group who also experienced the same thing. Luckily, my nosebleeds was under control as I progress to the 2nd trimester! yay!

2nd Trimester:

As many have said, the 2nd trimester is the best, I’m not as tired as before and am starting to enjoy the little bump <3. It wasn’t as pleasant at first as I wasn’t showing, jeans no longer fit and you really don’t get a lot of happiness from shopping! LOL. I’m in between the “possible weight gain” look vs. the “could she be pregnant?” look.

At week 17, that’s when I started feeling “something”, some weird bubbles popping inside my belly, which I wasn’t sure what it was at the time. I thought it was my stomach rumbling, digesting or maybe I was just hungry. Which by the way, later I found out this is the 1st sign of baby movement 🙂 how cute.

At week 18, that’s when I knew “that’s it!”, it’s my baby, my baby moved!! 😀 Apparently others call this “flutters”, like butterflies moving.

Here is a pic @ Week 14 🙂 – baby Hom is healthy and is growing!

Our 1st Bump :D ~ The very beginning

By now many of our family and friends know we are expecting! 🙂 but we have yet to share any baby pictures and many of you have been asking. It might be too late to have a “We are expecting!” blog post, but never too late to dedicate a post for our very 1st bump! I figured I will just recap the beginning of our little bump’s journey and share a few early pics we took! 🙂

It’s been a crazy year so far, but we are very blessed to have a little one coming our way. It was quite a dramatic week when we found out we were expecting. Somehow I “kind of” knew something was off the week leading up to finding out. (with all the PMS’s that we women get).

It was a busy day at work, and it was so hectic that i didn’t realize until end of day that “it” wasn’t here yet. I told Justin that same night that I might be pregnant. But he didn’t want to have such high expectations at first. Just a few days later, we got the initial confirmation below LOL.

A few more weeks later, we were finally able to meet our little tiny peanut & heard the heartbeat! 😀 Picture below @ ~7 weeks

I can’t believe how fast our little peanut had developed in a matter of 3 weeks time. We went back to get another ultrasound @ 10 weeks, and here it is, you can see little peanut already grew soooo much!! You can see the head, the body, the hands and legs!!

Our little peanut is expected to arrive on November 26th right around Thanksgiving!! God is really amazing!

Our 1st Year Wedding Anniversary~ <3

A year ago today, Justin and I tied the knot on 10.10.10 in front of family and friends~ We can’t believe a year already went by~ I guess when you are truly in love, time just flies~

By the time you are reading this post, we are already half way through our trip to celebrate our 1st year wedding anniversary here in Chicago!!

Chicago is a fabulous & an amazing city and we are really falling in LOVE with it! (I’ve mentioned so many times during this trip so far that i wanted to move here! 😀 who knows we might try this out for a year or two!)

We wanted to say Thank YOU to everyone again (parents, family & friends) who celebrated with us last year ~ (i know many of you are still waiting for us to post our wedding pics from LA & HK ! i promise they will come soon!)

I (personally) want to say thank you to my hubby Justin for loving me, taking care of me & being so patient with me all the time! (babe i know i can be a tough cookie at times 😀 but hey, you still reached out to this special cookie from the cookie jar.. haha! ) Let’s look forward to many more exciting & amazing years to come! I Love YOU!

Here is a sneak peek of our trip so far~ stay tuned for more when we come back! 🙂

Our usual arrival pic wherever we travel ~ Chicago welcomes us! (Us looking very excited & touristy!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Us @ the Cloud Gate aka the Famous Chicago Bean

A Must Try Gino’s-East Pizza ~ You have not been to Chicago if you haven’t tried their signature Deep Dish Pizza!

Gino’s-East Pizza is where one of the Man vs. Food episodes was shot at~

@ the Field Museum~ Sue, the T-Rex

@ the Sky Deck Ledge,Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) ~ the 104 floors tallest building in the western hemisphere!

Us sitting on top of the world!!!!

Our Honeymoon In Maldives ~ Day 4 Our In-Ocean Villa Suite~

Saved the best for the last~ we spent the last 2 nights at the In-Ocean Villa where our suite was seated right above the water!~  We couldn’t have asked for more~ 🙂

We enjoyed our breakfast, snapped some pics and got ready to sail off to the other side of the island~

Morning Kiss to my hubby on his cheek 🙂 he kept it on all day long~ how sweeeet! muah!

Me in my Pink “Just Married” Tee & a matching Pink hat of course (thanks Thao & Mary for the pink hat)~!

The chapel on the island~ who doesn’t want to get married here!

Look! The In-Ocean Villa is just right ahead !

A boat ride away, we landed 🙂 The water is so blue & clear ~

Looking back from the Ocean Villas, the Land Villas are just straight ahead..

Lots of fishies !!! There were sharks too!

Much needed H2O when you are in the Maldives!

Now, a tour of our 3-level over the water In Ocean Villa ~

Day bed/sofa

Waking up in the morning facing the Ocean is absolutely wonderful~

His and Hers open bathroom sinks

How about a bath overlooking the ocean? 😀

looking back from the deck to the bedroom~

A non traditional netted hammock above the water~ i worried that i would drop my glass of wine into the water ~

A looong stairway leading us to the rooftop of our villa~

Another lounging area, perfect for sunbathing & sipping coffee in the morning.. the villa was too big for just the 2 of us ~ we didn’t even get to enjoy the sunrise on the rooftop 😦 but we will be back for sure next time to do that!

looking down from the rooftop, there is the infinity pool connected directly to the ocean~

There are sooooo much to blog about still, I promise there are more to come in the next entry~

Stay tuned~

Our Honeymoon ~ Day 3 ~ Chillaxin’ in Paradise!

Day 3 was simply amazing, we did nothing but chillax!

Gotta start the day right with a nice breakfast!  Buffet breakfast @ the Kuredhi Bar on the island.

What a view we have in front of us!

We felt so exclusive on the island because we barely saw anyone, felt like we have the island all to ourselves.

Me looking out to the lovely Indian Ocean~

Lucky to find a nice Japanese couple who walked by and took these 2 pics for us! (man, we need a tripod!!)

A GQ pose from J for me!

And I strike a pose for him in return!! 🙂

What’s next? We brought the Jersey Shore to the Maldives!   It’s G-T-L time!! LOL

GYM!

TANNING!

And… LAUNDRY!

Our water activity for the day — snorkeling practice to prepare for the day ahead!

OK! mission accomplished!

Next up? Getting dolled up for dinner 🙂

Here are some glamour shots! Words can’t describe how happy I was in these shots. I just felt so glamorous, so loved and so happy!

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves! & I guarantee you too can see how happy I was thru my smile 🙂

Awwwww……I love these pictures so much! ❤

We missed the sunrise, but we didn’t miss the sunset! We took tons of pics together with the magnificent sunset lighting~

Justin and I were joking about these pictures..doesn’t it look like we were on the Bachelor or the Bachelorette show? The final rose? LOL

We enjoyed a romantic candlelight dinner for the night @ FUNA, right above the Maldives blue ocean~

There’s no better way to enjoy the freshest Maldivian seafood than dining above the ocean, gazing at the twinkling stars above us and and hearing the waves of the ocean right beneath us~

I felt like I was a princess for the entire evening! 😀
Thank you my prince charming for making me feel so special! *muah*

Our Honeymoon Our Island~ Day 2 @ Angsana Velavaru Island

Day 2 officially kicked off our honeymoon!!

There are 1,192 islands in the Maldives, 80 of those with tourist resorts.  Meaning there are at least 80 resorts we could choose from!!  We opted for a 6 days 5 nights honeymoon… with the help from the online reviews, we nailed down our choices from 3 to 1.

Our final pick was the Angsana Resort @ the Velavaru Island! Just look at this amazing island where we called home for the next 4 nights in the Maldives!  We wanted to get the full experience of staying on this island, so we picked 2 nights @ the Land Villa with jet pool and 2 nights @ the In-Ocean Villa with our own infinity pool.  A very smart choice indeed! 🙂

Velavaru Island is also known as the “Turtle Island”. As we were told by our snorkeling guide, there were lots of turtles that came to this island to lay their eggs back in the day. They still do nowadays, just not as much.

Our Land Villa for the first 2 nights~

We walked into our Villa with very relaxing & soothing music playing in the background welcoming us, topped off with a nice turndown service. They also gave us some small gifts for each day we stayed, a fruit plate & a bottle of wine for us to kick back and relax 🙂

Direct access to the ocean & sand

A cute outdoor jet pool & rain shower head ~ yup everything is outdoor, restroom included! 😀 It felt like you were in the jungle!

After a round of touring the island, we grabbed a quick bite and chilled on the sand~

babe was enjoying his lunch 😀

We downed this mango mojito in no time!  Ahhhhh, so refreshing!

babe enjoying the stunning view !

Me posing for my very own photographer! 😀

We ended our 1st night with a casual dinner and a drum & dance show performed by the local islanders.

The drink in my hand is called the “Blue Maldives” OMG it was sooOooooo good!

you can’t go without fish for any meal here on the island!

more to come on Day 3 🙂

Our Honeymoon ~ Day 1: On our way to the Maldives

For those who didn’t know, our trip back home this time was jam packed!

We arrived to HK 3 days before our big day, had our wedding on 4/30, then off to china for a 4 days family trip with the in-laws.  Right after that, we headed off to paradise for our 6 days honeymoon.  Upon our arrival to HK from the Maldives, off we went again, this time headed back to our home in LA.  It was literally a non stop trip! Our friends & family said we were crazy!

Enough said, I’ll let the pictures speak to the start of our journey ..

1st stop: to KL airport in Malaysia, taking our connecting flight to the Maldives

On the plane and off we go….

we like the KL airport design, so modern & sleek!

after a 4 hours of flight from HK to KL, Male, Maldives – the capital of Maldives here we come!

Our plane arrived at night after another 3.5 hours from KL.

We took the boat to the Male island and spent our 1st night in Male @ the Shangri-la Traders Hotel to catch up some zzz.

But hey, we made it!

On the very next day, we took the boat from the hotel back to the airport, getting ready  to board the sea plane to our island~ We relied on all kinds of sea transportation to get around!

Hubby & Maldivian guy in the back.. he’s soooooo tan that you can barely see him!

Trans Maldivians Air, our Sea Plane to our island!

Our very own sea plane!!!

Here we go!!! Our 1st sea plane ride ever!

Male, the capital

On the sea plane, here are some aerial shots~ stunning view!

We are about to land on the Indian Ocean !!!!!!!!

We MADE IT!!!! 😀

That’s it for now and I can’t wait to blog more about our resort in our next entry!

Ciao ! 😀

Our Honeymoon In Paradise @ The Maldives

I’m soooo far behind in blogging about our 2 weddings 🙂 There are so many things i want to blog about.  Since we just got back from our honeymoon just a week ago, let’s start with that while i still have the taste of the ocean and sand on my palette!

How did we go about picking our honeymoon destination? We wanted to stick with the ocean, the island, be far far away & we wanted to pick somewhere that’s more exclusive with less people around 🙂  So…there was only 1 place in mind…

The Maldives, one of the 7 Wonders of Nature!!

We knew it was going to cost us an arm and a leg, but it was for our once in a lifetime honeymoon! 🙂 so we can’t really say no!

Just look at the picture below already took your breath away! what more to say?

Since J and I have 2 weddings, it only makes sense for us to wait and go on our honeymoon after our HK wedding in April.

We started our research early in the year Jan/Feb. While doing research ourselves on the side, I also asked friends & family for recommendations. Thanks to those who shared links and deals for me and J. At last, thanks to my cousin in-law Donna & Steve who referred me to their agent who helped us with our booking.

Boy, it wasn’t easy planning a honeymoon. Just like planning our overseas HK wedding, I’ve to be up many late nights til 3-4am to research, make calls and hundreds of email exchanges with the agent to nail this honeymoon down! But it was sooooooo worth it at the end.

We were debating how long we should stay and which island we should pick.

If you don’t know or never heard of the Maldives, here is some quick facts and bio:

• Yes! Republic of Maldives is a country of its own & the capital is Male (an island itself)

• It is an island nation of 26 atolls in the Indian Ocean

• It encompasses 1,192 coral islands of which 200 of those are inhabited islands and 80 with tourist resorts

• It’s mostly hot & sunny but comes with topical rains at times

• Lastly, it is the country with the lowest highest point above sea level in the world (2 meters – only 7 ft), making it the lowest country on the planet!!!!!

The Maldives is actually sinking and that’s the reason why J and I want to visit the Maldives at least once before it’s gone…..

Of course, it will take yearssssss for it to sink! you still have a chance to go if you are thinking about your next vacation or honeymoon!  *wink*

Maldives is definitely a true paradise! More to come in Part II on the island where we spent our amazing honeymoon!

Us getting on a sea plane to our island 🙂 Stay tuned!