Easter Sunday in Russia

For me personally, one of the highlights of my trip to Russia was attending church on Easter Sunday. Because it was such a special experience--and because my previous post was getting pretty long--I thought this story deserves its own post.

A little background is important to understanding why it was such a neat experience...

When I was a missionary in Moscow 13 years ago, we worked really hard to build the Church in Russia--to introduce people to the Gospel and help strengthen those who had joined the Church. Our goal in Russia was the same as it is for missionaries throughout the world--to foster personal faith and righteousness and to develop priesthood leadership. This is often a difficult task in areas where the church is new and members are few. When I arrived in Moscow in 1994, the church had been in Russia only 3 or 4 years. Moscow had maybe 1000 Church members total, most of whom did not attend church. Throughout my 2 years there, we met for our Sunday meetings in rented facilities--elementary schools, auditoriums, recreation centers, etc. We would typically have less than 20 members at church on a given Sunday. One branch I served in had 20 members total, and many weeks we had more missionaries (four) than members in attendance.

My mission also coincided with a period of difficult economic times in the former Soviet Union. The currency was unstable. People were unemployed and homeless. The comment was made to me several times that during Soviet times people had plenty of money but nothing to buy, and now they had plenty to buy (comparatively) but no money with which to buy anything. And when people are struggling with money, they tend to be less interested in God and religion. At least that was my experience in Russia. The growth of the Church at that time was pretty stagnant. And while I absolutely loved my experience in Russia and cherish the friendships I made, I will admit that I have questioned whether our Church would ever grow in Russia.

So, back to my Sunday in Tomsk...

Prior to leaving the States, I looked up the address of the Tomsk branch on the Church website. "No. 10 Prospekt Mira". I figured I'd find it when I got there. I didn't know what time church would start, but I figured 9 am was a good guess. That Sunday was Easter Sunday in Russia (Easter in the US was the week before). Prior to leaving that morning, I checked with the receptionist at the hotel who pointed me in the right direction. I caught a bus heading north and got off at No. 1 Prospekt Mira at about 8:45. I spent the next several minutes walking up and down the street looking for No. 10. It was not as easy as it would seem, since I wasn't sure exactly what type of building I was looking for. It could be a school or a library or some other building that would otherwise normally be closed on a Sunday. I asked some passers-by where No. 10 is, but no one knew. By then it was about 9:20, and, discouraged, I headed across the street to the bus stop where I would catch a bus to take me back to the hotel. I had just missed one bus and it would be several minutes before another would come. I figured that rather than stand around waiting, I'd walk down the street to the next stop in line. As I walked I admired the simple architecture of a building about a block down the road...

As I got closer to the building, I noticed a sign beside the entrance that I recognized almost immediately...

A real building! I was dumbfounded as I went inside. It was as if I were back home going to church. It was clean. There pictures of missionaries from Tomsk in a nice display and announcements for Institute classes and family home evening activities posted on the bulletin board. There was even a list of home teaching assignments posted on a bulletin board. (The idea of home teaching was pie-in-the-sky when I was in Moscow). Best of all, Sacrament Meeting didn't start until 10:00. So I was actually 35 minutes early.

I had to be back to the hotel by 12:30, but was able to stay through Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School. It was an incredible experience and a stark contrast to my recollections of attending church in Russia. The men all wore suits (I was actually under-dressed, with only shirt and tie--no jacket). The branch leadership were all Russian. The talks were well prepared and on topic. Nobody interrupted the speakers. And there were several families--moms, dads, kids.

Several people noticed me as an unfamiliar face and came up to introduce themselves. One young man, Sasha, was from Moscow and his wife had served a mission there (or maybe it was the other way around). They had been sealed in the temple and were starting a little family. That's the second generation of the Russian Church right there! As someone who for the past 13 years has wondered whether the Church would ever really take root in Russia, I admit that I got a little emotional as I realized, happily, that I was very wrong.

If I look like I'm in a hurry, it's because I'm Russian

Yeah, so that's a pretty lame title, I know. Even more lame is the fact that it's been almost two and a half months since my trip to the Motherland, and I haven't posted any pictures or anything. So, here goes!

Since medical school (or maybe longer?) I've known that I wanted to return to Russia as a doctor and use my training and my language skills to give back to the people there. I expected that I would complete my medical training and find a way to go back once I was in practice. Coincidentally, though, the chair of pediatric cardiology at Mayo, Frank Cetta, has been going to Russia each year with a group called Heart to Heart (http://www.heart-2-heart.org/). For the past 20 years, this group has been travelling to different regions in Russia and training nurses, pediatric cardiologists and pediatric cardiac surgeons to care for children with congenital heart defects. For the past 2 years or so I've been pestering Dr. Cetta to bring me along on his next trip. Given the nature of the trips, though, taking along a trainee like me usually isn't feasible. But this year a family emergency prevented one of the team members from making the trip, and about 3 weeks before they were scheduled to go, Dr. Cetta informed me that they had a spot available. I was thrilled and quickly took to applying for a new passport, since mine had expired a year before.

Fortunately, I got the passport and a Russian visa just in time.

We left for Russia on April 14. Dr. Cetta and I were scheduled to fly from Rochester to Chicago to Moscow. The rest of our team was coming from different parts of the country (Chicago, Milwaukee, Sacramento, Atlanta, Philadelphia). Two team members--Maryanne from Milwaukee and Lynn from Chicago would be on the same flight to Moscow.

The trip out had a bit of an "Amazing Race" feel to it right from the start, as our Rochester to Chicago flight was cancelled. So we booked it out of town in a taxi, trying to catch the Minneapolis to Chicago flight that was leaving in about 2 hours (its a 1:15 drive from Rochester to Minneapolis). We caught the flight with literally 2 minutes to spare, but had no guarantee that our luggage would make it on the plane. This was concerning, since our Chicago to Moscow flight was the last of the day. If our luggage missed that flight, it would inevitably miss the Moscow to Tomsk flight the following day. And, then, who knows if we would see it again?

In Chicago we were quoted an 80% chance of our luggage making it on our Moscow flight, which was not as reassuring as it might sound.

The Chicago to Moscow flight was an 11 hour affair overnight. The plane was not full, so I had a whole row to myself at first. I didn't lay claim to it quickly enough (by stretching out and taking a nap), so the end seat on the row became a popular spot for people looking for a little room. I must have woken up 2 or 3 times to find a different person sitting there each time.

We flew into the Domodedovo airport south of Moscow. It is either a new or newly renovated airport, since it was not like anything I had seen in Russia when I was there 13 years before. Definitely euro-chic--high end shops and fancy restaurants and stuff. There was even a Sbarro Pizza (albeit quite russified), which we took advantage of on our return trip. More important to me though, was the good news that our luggage had made the connection in Chicago.

We were met in Moscow by our Tomsk Heart to Heart liason, Irma. We had an 11-hour layover and at our request, Irma had arranged for a car to take us into town. We dropped our luggage off at a secure holding facility at the airport and headed out.

The air in Moscow smelled like cigarette smoke, exhaust fumes and dirt, bringing back fond memories of my time there. It took us about 45 minutes to get to downtown, which seemed a lot bigger and much more modern than I remember it. I had forgotten how incredibly huge Moscow is (10 million people). We had tickets to the Armory in the Kremlin where a tour guide led us through a brief history of the Russian czars, their thrones and clothing. After that we headed toward Red Square to see St. Basil's Cathetral and Lenin's mosoleum, but it was closed to the public due to a military rehearsal for the big upcoming May 9th celebration (Victory in Europe Day--the biggest holiday in Russia). Here are a couple pictures taken from outside Red Square:

The walls of the Kremlin...



The northwest end of Red Square. In the foreground is the State Historical Museum. In the background is the Kremlin...



This is looking from northwest to southeast. In the foreground on the right is the State Historical Museum again with St. Basil's Cathedral in the distance...



This is a picture of the Temple of Christ the Savior. It was originally destroyed by Stalin to make room for a huge public swimming pool. When I returned from Moscow in 1996, it was being reconstructed...



Next we visited a little cafe in one of the side streets of downtown, where I had some very expensive Fanta and Russian blini (pancakes). We took the subway to the Pushkin railway station where we caught and express train back to the airport.

Our flight left at about 10 pm and flew 4 hours to Tomsk, arriving at 6 am local time. Mid-flight we were served a meal of meat and pasta and some nasty spinach something-or-other. Definitely not my idea of a good midnight snack.

In Tomsk, we were met by a large cohort of the Tomsk medical team, who delivered us to our hotel, Hotel Oktyabrskaya ("October"). The hotel was surprisingly upscale, and by the next day I had even discovered that they had high-speed internet! In Toms, Russia! That was just amazing to me. My experience with international communication in Russia consisted of snail mail that would take 2 weeks to get to the US from Moscow. How on earth did they go from that to getting high-speed internet in the middle of Siberia? In any event, here's a picture of my hotel room:



This is most of our group in the restaurant off of the hotel lobby. They fed us some pretty darn good Russian food throughout our stay in Tomsk. Clockwise starting with me (this is mostly so I can remind myself of everyone's names in a year or two): Me, Talia (phlebotomist), Laura (anesthesiologist), Lynn (nurse), Dr. Cetta (cardiologist--I'm still not at a point where I can call him Frank, since he's my boss), Brenda (ICU nurse), Janet (intensivist), Gale (OR nurse), Maryanne (coordinator/administrator), Gary (surgeon).



There was a new restaurant not far from our hotel, called Southern Fried Chicken ("SFC"). We figured we'd check it out, and we were pleasantly surprised! The chicken was pretty good, although the portions were small. Most of the patrons looked like they were about 15 years old, so we felt a bit out of place. I assumed my role as Orderer of the Food. A few days later some of the ladies in our group ventured back to SFC by themselves. I got a call from them asking if I could speak with the cashier. 20 minutes after ordering they still only had about 1/3 of their food. The cashier, it turns out didn't think there was a problem and wondered what this group of foreigners was upset about. We all got a good laugh out of that.



Tomsk is a very nice city, but I realize that I am biased towards cold, dreary Russian towns. Here is a picture of me at the top of the main hill in town. Our hotel is to the right of the church in the background, about halfway between the church and the right border of the photo. A close up of the church and the hotel follows.





This is a picture I took from one of the upper floor balconies in our hotel. We had visited the Russian orthodox church in the distance (shown close-up in the subsequent picture).



This church was beautiful. We happened to visit right during a series of Easter ceremonies, which we were able to observe. This church had a large bell in it's courtyard, which was made in Voronezh, a city I had lived in 14 years ago as a misisonary.



Tomsk is called the "derevyany" or "wooden" city. It got this nickname because many of the older buildings are all or partially wooden. This makes for some really unique Siberian architecture as shown in the following two pictures. The first building is now the Tomsk Fine Arts Center.





This, again is the church by our hotel. I must have taken about 30 pictures of it, trying to get it in the right light. It had a pink-peach color, which looked incredible at night, unfortunately, my night shots turned out a bit grainy, so this picture at dusk will have to do.



Every major city in Russia has a Lenin Square. Such is the case for Tomsk (below). A statue of Lenin himself is pointing the urban proletariat in the direction of progress, community, and Southern Fried Chicken.



Once upon a time, Anton Chekhov, Russia's most famous playwright, stayed in Tomsk. He was none too taken by the town and wrote a scathing report about his experience there. Among other criticisms, he said it was rainy, muddy, full of drunks and the women were ugly. In his "honor", the city created this monument, which is intended as a characature of Chekhov. His feet are big and he is so tall, representing the perspective of a drunk lying on the street looking up at him.



The locals say that it is good luck to rub his nose. And I'm not one to pass on perpetuating a good superstition...



The Tomsk team were very gracious hosts, early during our trip, our hosts took us out to "nature" (i.e. the countryside) for a little R&R. We had a wonderful kebab feast with plenty of toasts and words of appreciation. While I abstained from the vodka, I took part in the friendly revelry of the event.



After the feast, a number of people went to the banya--a unique Russian experience involving sweating in a scalding hot steam room while someone whips you with tree branches, then jumping into a frigid pool. You repeat this process until you feel clean, or you are so drunk that you can't stand up. Having had the banya experience before (non-alcoholic, of course), I stayed out with the other abstainers and played Russian billiards.



The bulk of our stay, of course, was spent at the Tomsk Cardiology Centre. Our days were filled with seeing numerous patients with various congenital heart defects, performing echocardiograms (heart ultrasound), heart catheterizations, operations and giving lectures.



This is the conference room where we met frequently throughout the day to discuss patients and give lectures. It was always well attended by nurses, cardiologists, surgeons, etc. They really had a hunger to learn more western medicine, and we really appreciated their enthusiasm.



I spent the bulk of my time in the cardiac catheterization lab. Seeing as how this is what I want to do career-wise, I really enjoyed it. I worked closely with Viktor, the Tomsk physician who does their catheterizations. We developed a very good rapport, despite our discrepant sizes.





This is a picture through the x-ray proof window. Dr. Raff (the US surgeon) and Dr. Cetta are discussing the pictures we are taking with Evgeny (in the white coat, hunched over Dr. Cetta). Again, you can see by the sheer number of people watching, how excited they were to have us there and how they wanted to learn as much as they could.



I like this picture, because it makes me look smarter than I really am. What I'm probably really saying is, "Wait, I thought left is THAT way!"



I was really impressed with the level of technology that they had in Tomsk. I understand that they had gotten some new equipment since Heart to Heart's last visit a year earlier.



My Russian speaking skills came back pretty well, but I still found myself making grammatical mistakes regularly. I was able to pick up a great deal of medical lingo, though. This came in handy, since I was the only medical person who was biligual. We had local university students who translated for us, and they were very good. One of my unofficial roles was to keep track of the interpretation and provide feedback and recommendations for improvement. I developed a healthy, symbiotic relationship with the interpreters--they taught me Russian words or phrases and I clarified English/American colloquiallisms and help explain medical terminology and concepts. I certainly learned a lot from that interaction. Here I am with two of the interpreters I probably worked with the most, Sergei and Irina:



At the end of our trip, we had a more formal farewell dinner with some fine dining, dancing, awards, and, yes, more toasts. It was a lot of fun. I tried caviar for the first time ever and took some hilarious video of some crazy Russian dancing (Or is it "crazy Russians dancing"? I'll let you decide):

This is a picture of me, Dr. Cetta (to my left), Viktor (to my right) and the rest of the cath lab crew. At first, I didn't recognize most of them without their hats and masks.



The evening's activities culminated in a mock awards ceremony. The Tomsk interpreters had thought up some clever awards for each of the members of the American team. I was in the running for the Best Russian Linguist against some pretty tough competition. Here's a video of the announcement of the winner and [SPOILER ALERT!] my acceptance speech:

This is the final picture of our big group at the end of the party, prior to our departure the next morning. I'm the one in the back that is a tiny bit taller than all the others:

It was really an incredible experience for me. I am very fortunate to have been able to go at this stage in my training. There is already some talk about next year's trip, and it sounds like I am being included in that discussion. My hope is that this will become a yearly opportunity for me throughout my career.

A Very Cool Yule

So, now that over a month has passed since Christmas, I figure it's about time that I post some pictures on the blog. To the good fortune of many, I am hoping to focus my time and yours on pictures in lieu of my typical rambling prose. Before proceeding , though, it would be appropriate to say that this Christmas was special as we were able to have Nikole's parents and her youngest brother over. We always enjoy their company, particularly during the Holidays.

As parents, Nikole and I continue to try to teach our kids about the true purpose of Christmas--to celebrate Christ's birth, life, and ultimately his sacrifice for us. This becomes tricky in the face of the the commercialization of Christmas. We are finding it difficult to both indulge our kids' excitement for tearing through wrapped gifts, while reminding them that receiving such presents should not be the focus of our celebration. Currently our balance leans a bit toward indulgence, and we continue to discuss ways to sway that balance in the future...

Here I am being the donkey in the Taggart Community Theatre rendition of The Nativity on Christmas Eve. The role came naturally to me.

Here is a group photo of all the actors in the nativity: Andy was a shepherd, Nate was Joseph, Haley was Mary, and Michael was a sheep.

Michael enjoyed his Thomas train set.

Nate's Santa gift was a K'nex roller coaster

Haley is pleased with her Littlest Pet Shop stuffed animal.

Andy is absorbed in his Leapster. Not pictured is the Nintendo Wii, which has quickly become our family's favorite toy.

Christmas is one of those unique occasions when sibling conflict abates, and brothers and sisters can express their true feelings to each other. Sort of.

I was able to take the day after Christmas off from work, and the weather was nice enough that we could go sledding at one of the big hills in town. It was a lot of fun, and we weren't run over by any snow boarding punks.

Weekend Update

I'm ashamed that I haven't been more regular in my blog posts. My hope was that this blog would be like a journal of each weeks activities. I guess it HAS become like my journal, in the sense that I don't keep it up to date.

Since my last post we have had several significant events. I've been in the cardiac cath lab since August, and will continue to be there through October. It's a good thing that I absolutely love it. I had a sneaking suspicion that I would enjoy it; now I'm considering it as part of my long-term career plans. If I decide to do cath, it would probably require an additional year of training, which we would probably have to do elsewhere. I have plenty of time before I have to settle on my post-fellowship plans, so even if I am anxious, I don't feel rushed.

Summer is winding down here in Rochester. It has been a very nice summer--not too hot or muggy, not too many mosquitos (although we have had a lot of bees). The weather turned cool pretty abruptly this week. We've had several days in the 70's, dipping down to the 50's on occasion. Hopefully this portends a nice, long autumn, as opposed to the two week autumns we are used to.

As summer comes to a close, Nate and Haley have started back to school. Nate is now in the 3rd grade; Haley is in 1st. They seem to enjoy it very well, although their opinion about school--and their overall state of happiness, for that matter--is closely tied to the chores-to-play time ratio of a given day. For example, if they have to clean their rooms before playing with their friends, then school was dumb and boring. If, on the other hand, they get to watch TV all day, eat ice cream and donuts for dinner and stay up until midnight, then school was fun.

The new school year means renewed responsibilities for Nikole. She is the leader of VIE (Volunteers in Education) at the elementary school. So, she is responsible for finding parent-volunteers for various school related activities throughout the year, such as helping out with picture day and stuff like that (you'll have to ask her for all the particulars). Last year she found herself filling in most of the time when she couldn't get anyone else to help out. Hopefully this year will be easier for her.

Sorry this post isn't as interesting as others may have been in the past. In addition to entertaining (which I always try to do), I feel obligated to inform you about the goings-on at the Taggart homefront. We've had some other outings that have been pretty fun--church family campout, the Star Wars exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota--as well as our normal day-to-day events that are sometimes humorous. I'll make a point to post some more pictures and more lighthearted fare in the near future.

Independence Day

We had a nice, fairly relaxing 4th this year. I had the day off from work, which is always nice. Each year our ward has a picnic. We had fun eating sloppy joes and relaxing. The kids had fun playing games, running 3-legged races, etc. The weather was beautiful--sunny, but cool (in the 70's).

After the picnic we came home and hung out for my birthday. Nikole bought a couple of ribeyes and made a tasty marinade. I grilled them and some hamburgers for the kids.

Here I am blowing out my birthday candles. Nikole had initially put three small candles on one cupcake and a big number "1" candle on the other before I informed her that, in fact, I was turning 33, not 31. I think she was hoping I wouldn't catch the mistake and, knowing we are the same age, I would tell everyone that she is also 31. Or maybe she just likes younger men.

For dessert, Nikole had put together an ice cream tasting contest with seven different flavors. I was poised to win the trophy, but I mislabeled Drumstick ice cream as Tin Roof Sundae. Nate won instead (the kids only had to guess one of the ingredients in each flavor). That's fine with me. Either way we ended up with a freezer full of tasty, heart-healthy frozen treats!

Hoop! There it is!

A few weeks ago I went on a binge and purchased a nice basketball hoop for our driveway. It actually was somewhat of a retaliatory purchase. On Memorial day, Nikole had conceded to me that I could purchase a Wii for my birthday. The following Saturday, Nate had a fit because we wouldn't let him watch TV. In some expression of elementary school logic, he refused to go to his soccer game (it was the last game of the season). While my first impulse was to force Nate to go, I thought Nikole would not approve of my forcing him. (Turns out she would have forced him to go). Realizing that this was not a situation that I wanted to introduce something new to distract from physical activity, I put off the Wii purchase, and Nate and I went to Dick's Sports to by a basketball hoop. Surely, I thought, this will entice the kids, primarily Nate, to spend more time outside.

[As an aside, our kids really don't watch a lot of TV. Nikole has done a wonderful job of establishing a calendar of alternating "TV days" and "No TV days". Even on days where TV is allowed, it is limited. Funny, though, that Andy now has his personal calendar by which he identifies the passage of time (TV Day, No TV Day or Church Day).]

It's a nice system, sort of a poor man's Goalrilla. This is literally true as I am a poor man and Goaliath (our system) is a lower-end line produced by Goalrilla. Still, it has the requisite glass backboard, spring-back rim, in-ground pole, adjustable height.

I started setting it up that day and finished the following week while Nikole and the kids were visiting her family in Utah. I was excited to show the kids. They were excited as well, bless there hearts, for almost 10 minutes. I continue to have fun shooting around as I try to remember that it took me a while to really take basketball seriously. Hopefully, the fact that the hoop is there will provide opportunity for their interest to develop. We shall see...

Hawaii 2.0

This is a continuation of my previous post about our recent trip to Hawaii. Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this thing. I was hoping that I would maintain this blog better than I have my journals, but so far I have had no such luck.

That Saturday evening (now day+4 from the date of arrival--the same day as Dr. Kawasaki and Iron Man), we had our annual Mayo faculty and alumni dinner. The Department of Pediatrics holds one each year at the PAS Meeting and invites all current and former faculty and trainees who are attending the meeting. This was the first one I've ever been to, but have been told, and my own experience corroborated, that Mayo does it up well. We went to a restaurant called Ciao Mein in the Waikiki Hyatt. It was Italian-Chinese fusion cuisine consisting of about 6 different entrees and a smattering of side dishes. A lot of it was quite good. Unfortunately the only dessert they offered was tiramisu. For some reason, I keep hoping that the brown powder on top is cocoa, but it always turns out to be coffee. So instead Nikole and I grabbed ice cream on the way back to the hotel.

This is a picture of the current residents with their significant others who made it to the dinner:The couple in the front, Christine and Jeremy got engaged during the trip. Jeremy flew in from Canada to surprise Christine, who was also involved with our workshops. The irony of the whole thing is that not two weeks earlier Christine was telling Jay Homme and me how marriage was not that important to her since she new that she and Jeremy would be together forever. We gave her a nice ribbing about that when the news broke.

The next day, being Sunday, Nikole and I planned to attend the local ward with Mike and Molly Johnson. Mike is a 1st year pediatric resident at Mayo who was presenting a project on obesity and thyroid disease in children (if I remember correctly). The ward website stated that church started at 9 am, but when we arrived, we found out that it was Stake Conference that week, which didn't start until 11 am. Mike had a presentation at that time, so we weren't able to make it back. Instead we spend a little time on the church building grounds, which were beautiful. The building itself was built open-air, in the sense that the classrooms and chapel all opened directly to the outside. There were some beautiful blossoming trees as well on the grounds. My favorite, though is this enormous "Swiss Family Robinson" tree. I want one in my own yard, but I question how well it would do in the Minnesota winter.

As we had an hour or so to kill, Mike, Molly, Nikole and I took off in the Johnsons' rental Ford Mustang GS convertible for a quick tour of the surrounding area. The word "beautiful" gets a bit redundant, but it accurately describes the landscape of Oahu. I took several pictures along the way. In particular I enjoyed the view as we went farther inland, toward the mountains.

Monday was spent primarily at the conference as we had the second of our public speaking workshops. A group of us walked down the beach to a restaurant for dinner. I snapped this nice sunset as the battery to my camera was running low:

Tuesday was our last full day in Hawaii and was the one day that we had more or less planned out well ahead of time. In the morning we left for the north shore to the Polynesian Cultural Center via the Dole Plantation. Even though I had heard about the pineapple maze, I was expecting little more than a souvenir shop. The reality was that it was quite a nice joint. Sadly, we didn't schedule a great deal of time there, so we rushed a little bit. Still we were able to get some nice pictures of the many different types of pineapple. We also grabbed a tasty bowl of Dole pineapple soft-serve, which at about $4, seemed like a steal.

Our drive along the north shore to the PCC was brilliant. The north shore is nowhere near as busy and populated as Waikiki, so the drive itself was quite relaxing. The highway we took followed right along the shoreline, providing a beautiful (there I go again) view en route to our destination. The view did prove to be a bit distracting for the driver, so Nikole found herself reminding me to keep my eyes (mostly) on the road. We did pull over at one point to take some pictures by the rocky shore. I took this one of a very compliant crab. At least that's what I thought until I nudged it with a stick. Turns out is was just an empty exoskeleton. The crab, they say, was only a shell of his former self.

The Polynesian Cultural Center, located in Laie was great experience. We spent the afternoon/evening with a tour guide and a group of about 8 people visiting the various "islands" at the center--Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, and Aotearoa (New Zealand). The purpose of the islands is to give visitors an interactive look at the culture of the indigenous populations of the different lands. Given the size of the different lands, we were only able to visit four of the six islands, all of them except Fiji and Samoa. While all of them were great, I particularly enjoyed Hawaii and Tonga.

Hawaii featured Cousin Benny who explained the history of and demonstrated the various musical instruments heard in Hawaiian music. He also shared the story of his daughter, Natasha, who will be representing the US in the Summer Olympics as the first Hawaiian member of the US women's soccer team. Uncle Benny claimed that it was his liberal use of the pu'ili as a disciplinary tool that taught her how to run fast.

In Tonga, we had the opportunity to practice spear throwing, which looks much easier that it truly is. The highlight, however was the percussion exhibition, where three members of the audience were chosen to come up and wail on drums. Three guys from (one each from Poland, Japan and Philadelphia, I think) were chosen to follow the leader, pounding out rhythms while shouting purportedly authentic Tongan chants. While the poor volunteers were game, the beats and song became more and more complex, resulting in a pretty funny outcome. Fortunately I was able to catch most of it on video.

Outside of our visit to the individual islands, we had the chance to watch "Rainbows of Paradise" a canoe pageant featuring performers representing each of the islands. We also took in the Ali'i Luau which was nice for the entertainment, but the food was surprisingly bland. I ran off to catch the last IMAX showing of The Coral Reef Adventure, while Nikole finished eating and went shopping.

After the movie, Nikole and I scurried over to the Laie Hawai'i Temple, which was just as amazing in real life as it is in all the pictures I've seen. In fact, it's not difficult to take a nice picture of the temple, as is proven by the photos below that I took with my own point and shoot.

We finished the day with Horizons, the PCC's nightly pageant. It was spectacular. The music, dancing and pyrotechnics were all well done. And the dessert during intermission was tasty and refreshing! After the show Nikole took my picture with one of the performers: Wednesday morning we left early in the morning for Hanauma Bay to do some snorkeling. Hanauma Bay is a state preserve about 30 minutes from Waikiki with an incredible reef that through which visitors can snorkel. This was something I had read about ahead of time and thought it would be worthwhile. But as we realized the limitations of our time in Hawaii, we put it on the back burner. Boy am I glad that we ultimately decided to do it! Of everything we did, I think it far and away had the highest fun-to-cost ratio. We got there at 7:30, paid a buck for parking and about $12 each for snorkel equipment and fins. It was a little chilly at the start of the day, but you get used to the water and the weather warmed up fairly quickly. It was incredibly relaxing (once you get used to breathing through a tube under water) just floating around the reef looking at the varied marine life. We even saw a couple sea turtles, one coming within arms reach of me. I didn't touch it though, as the rule of Hanauma Bay is "You can look, but you can't touch!". Seeing the sea turtles inevitably led to my reenacting for Nikole the "sea turtle" dialogue from Pirates of the Caribbean about 7 times during the drive back to the hotel. One thing I love about Nikole is that she laughs at my jokes, even the lame jokes and the jokes I tell over and over. And the lame jokes I tell over and over.

My conclusion from our Hanauma Bay excursion is that I could have spent an entire day there. I think Nikole agreed.

After the Bay, we scurried back to the hotel, requested late check-out and frantically packed. We drove to Pearl Harbor for a couple hours and went to the remains of the USS Arizona. It was a somber experience and our short two hours did not do it justice.

That afternoon we took a bittersweet flight back to the mainland. We were sad to leave Hawaii and the incredible experiences we had. At the same time we were excited to be back with our kids, whom we missed. Turns out that they didn't miss us too much with Grandma around. She kept them busy and happy with fun activities and almost daily excursions to McDonald's. Still, they at least acted excited to see us when we got home. That lasted for the better part of the day, before they returned to their sibling spats and temper tantrums. And I returned to Travelocity to check the price of two more tickets to Honolulu....