yep!

The past few weeks, I've been waiting to feel baby baby baby Zebra.
I've felt tons of weird abdomen movements and cramps and pains and bubbles. Since it's impossible to describe a baby's movement to someone else, I just didn't know.

I thought it would be a sharp pain, so for every sharp sting, I was sure it was the baby. And now I know it's not like that at all.

But I have felt her innumerable times now, which brings immeasurable joy. She likes to move in the car in the morning, at night before I sleep and at work.

Which is good, because I think that means she's sleeping at night, right?
__________

I saw a bunch of Sykes employees yesterday, which was wonderful. A girl on my trip from last year is pregnant, too, now, so it was nice to talk about it and have a pregnancy buddy at work, too.

And it reminds me that I haven't blogged yet about Manila/Cebu/Bohol/Tagaytay

I will instead just share the story of seeing my old friend, Katherine Brown.
Katherine and I went to Elementary school together, she was a year older, but her mom was our art teacher, so I knew her my whole life. We had a similar circle of friends, even though we were never in the same classes, but she was in the honors classes like me and in the same band/theater stuff.

Anyway, we both ended up at UIowa together and one day shared lunch that turned into a roadtrip that turned into some nice friendships for the short time I stayed at Uiowa.

Flashfoward 10 years. We hadn't seen each other since 2001, seriously. But I posted on Facebook about being in Boracay (white sandy beaches and famous vacation spot) and she saw it, said she was coming to Manila in a few weeks.  I wasn't sure if our trip would still be going because of all of the uncertainty (which is why I was hesitant to blog about Philippines at all!) but we promised to keep in touch for the few weeks and hope we'd end up in the same place/same time.

So Katherine had been spending the last few years in China as a teacher and got lucky surfing facebook through the Chinese firewall traps. And her teachers were on holiday and going together to Palawan (another famous beach in Philippines).

Anyway, it was one day before Dan came and after 4 weeks of not seeing him, time was getting tighter and harder to ignore. Katherine's arrival would be great and a helpful distraction. So we went shopping at Glorietta 5 and walked around for awhile. We had thai food in the mall and gave each other the high level overview on our lives. (I am married? She is still in touch with many of the same CFHSers? She worked in a theatre?)

And then it was over, our 3 hours together ended and I walked back to my hotel, anxious for Dan, but knowing it was still 10 hours away. On the way back, I encountered a fountain in Makati with no one around, which is rare, Manila is CROWDED AS HECK!
The moment was very peaceful...

Then I walked into my hotel room, turned on Harry Potter, ordered room service and waited. and waited...and tried to stay awake so I could adjust my schedule to Dan's.

A few months later (Chinese Firewall blocking Facebook) I heard that Katherine had a great time in Palawan, got to do a ton of things for a low cost compared to anything in China and was slightly sick of the 10 different women she was traveling with (naturally).

More later!