Music Man (and Woman)

Here's a picture I took of Haley and Andy listening to some CDs. I don't know how it came about, but the kids were very interested in listening to music on their CD players on Saturday. Andy is actually listening to Nate's player with Nikole's headphones. I think he just likes to push the buttons on the player.

We got a kick out of listening to Haley sing along to the Lilo & Stitch soundrack. She was very enthusiastic when she new the words ("Aloha, a-LO-O-O-ha!") and a bit more hesitant when she didn't ("Mm-mmm-mm-mmmh-AND RAIN!").

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....

More Things About Me (Nikole)

46. Tulips are my favorite flower.

47. Nathan will get me flowers 2 or 3 times a month. He's so sweet! He's even found tulips in February!

48. I have to wear a mouth guard at night because I clench my jaw. I've cracked 2 of my bottom molars and didn't know it until I had cavities.

49. I've never broken a bone (knock on wood).

50. Speaking of that "knock on wood" I am a little superstitious. I always seem to jinx myself unless I say that. At lest that's what it seems to me! (-:

51. I was roommates with my cousin Heather both years at Ricks. It was a lot of fun to be roomies with her. We are about two weeks apart in age. Good memories.

52. Speaking of Heathers, I have a very good friend in Chapel Hill, Heather Pollei, who remembers my birthday EVERY year! Unfortunately, I never remember hers!

53. Four weeks after Haley was born I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance because we thought I had a bloodclot in my lungs (which is common during postpardum). But I was actually having a gall bladder attack and hyperventilating because of the severe pain in my abdomen. I had to have my gall bladder removed, which was full of stones. Unfortunately, six of the stones had migrated to my bile duct, so I had to have another procedure where they stuck a huge tube down my throat and they had to cut my bile duct a little to get the stones out. They wouldn't let me nurse Haley through all of this and I was so worried about my milk supply that I pumped the whole time I was in the hospital. This was one of my scariest moments. We were living with Nathan's parents at the time and Marilyn, Nathan's mom was so scared because I couldn't breathe.

54. We lived with Nathan's parents in Raleigh, North Carolina, in their downstairs apartment for 3 years.

55. We moved to Chapel Hill Nathan's last two years of med school. We lived in married student housing which was right across the street from the hospital.

56. I really worry about the crows feet/laugh lines I am getting. Does anyone know a great eye cream?

57. I rarely tan on my legs. I usually burn and then go back to white. I've tried one self-tanning cream and it turn my knees and ankles orange, no matter how hard I rubbed it in!

58. I am a night owl, hard core! I have a really hard time getting to bed and getting up in the morning. My mom said she used to have to get me up first for school so that I could sit in the big rocking chair and slowly wake up!

59. I remember watching "Wonder Woman" on t.v. when I had the chicken pox. I also got a really bad bloody nose while watching.

60. I had my tonsils out when I was 2. I remember waking up to a big lion painted on the ceiling. That is my earliest memory.

61. I love to make my kid's birthday cakes. They are never fancy or complicated, but it is something that I enjoy doing. I learn something new with each cake I make.

62. My mom made the white dress that I was baptized in. She also made me a lavendar dress to wear afterwards. I remember we went to Chuck E. Cheese after I was baptized.

63. When I was a pre-teen, my favorite color was peach. When I got my own room, we painted the walls peach (I know!), but when the first coat dried we were horrified to see that it looked really orange! We added another coat and it turned a little more peach, but when the sun hit the walls just right, it still looked a little orange.

64. I used to get really bad growing pains in my legs, especially my calves and shins. Now Haley gets them, she'll wake up in pain.

65. I also used to get charlie horses in my calves a lot. When I was pregnant with Nate, I'd get them frequently. Nathan was always worried when I'd jump out of bed with my huge belly because my leg was cramping.

66. I've been to Disney World 4 times. One time was when I was pregnant with Haley and I threw up in the Epcot parking lot! Fun times!

67. I wore a dress every day in Kindergarten. I wore a dress for picture day in every grade up to 4th grade.

68. We used to play kissing tag every recess in Kindergarten.

69. My second grade teacher had a baby while I was in her class and she used my name for her baby girl's middle name.

70. Ever since I was pregnant with Andy I am very prone to styes in my eyelids.

71. My mom used to make me the coolest Halloween costumes! I was Alice in Wonderland, Wonder Woman, Princess Leia, and The Tooth Fairy (2 years in a row). She used to always make my dance costumes as well. Thanks Mom!

72. I'll sometimes get a serious craving for chocolate and I'll eat half a bag of chocolate chips because that's the only chocolate we usually have in the house.

73. I ran in a 5 mile race in Moab, Utah during my third year of college. I've also run in a few 5Ks. I haven't run in a race since college. I don't know if my knees could take it now.

74. I really love the Harry Potter books and have read the entire series 3 or 4 times.

75. For our 10th wedding anniversary this last December, Nathan surprised me by renting out a movie theater and showing a movie he'd spent hours and hours and hours making just for me. It was really awesome to see our life together played on the "big screen". He was very sweet to do that for me! I LOVED IT!

76. I love it when Nathan plays with my toes. But not my feet, I'm too ticklish!

77. Some of my favorite picture books are the "Max and Ruby" books. I laugh every time I read one to the kids.

78. Cobwebs and dust bunnies REALLY gross me out. I seriously gag when I have to clean them up. As you can tell, I don't dust under our beds very often and that's where dust bunnies love to hide.

79. I wish that I could have a decorator come in and tell me how to decorate my house. I am totally at a lost as to how to do that!

80. My first two-wheel bike had a long banana seat with a rainbow on it.

81. I was so bossy when I was younger that the kids on my street used to call me "Nellie" (from Little House on the Prairie) behind my back!

82. I loved teaching Math, but I really hated learning it while I was growing up.

83. I love Angel Food Cake. One year when I was a teenager, I asked for an Angel Food Cake for my birthday.

84. One Easter morning when I was little, my sister, brother, and I thought we saw the Easter Bunny in the living room and we were totally scared to go out there! We did see some ears, but they belonged to a big blow-up bunny and we thought we were silly when we found out.

85. I have really weak ankles and I can twist them just walking on the grass!

86. I used to love to cross-stitch. I cross-stitched a "Precious Moments" pillow for my sister for one of my Laurel projects.

87. I used to never floss my teeth. I've only gotten into the habit in the past year. Gross, I know!
88. My favorite foods are all desserts.

89. I would rather make cookies than dinner.

90. I could have cold cereal for dinner every night. I did have cold-cereal dinners a lot in college!

91. I am a procrastinator. Just ask my parents.

92. Just before Nate turned a year old, we went to the one of the beaches in North Carolina. One afternoon after being in the ocean, I took off Nate's swimmer diaper and found a little fish, fortunately it was dead!

93. I went on Weight Watchers after Andy was born and lost almost 40 pounds! I haven't been so motivated this time around (after having Michael, I mean).

94. I think that Fall is my favorite season. I used to really like Spring, but every year it seems to get shorter and shorter. We seem to go straight from winter to summer, especially here in Minnesota.

95. I tend to be a pessimist, but I am really working hard on being an optimist.

96. I think it's great that my kids are into the same stuff I was into growing up, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, etc. Nathan loves that Nate LOVES Legos and Transformers.

97. I ran for Junior Class Secretary and for Varsity Cheerleader and didn't make either. AWWWW! Don't you feel bad for me?

98. I really enjoy playing card games and board games with my husband and kids. Nathan's family is really into games as well. In fact when we lived with Nathan's parents, we would play "Rook" almost every night during the summer.

99. I love barbeques! I love when grilling season is around. MMM! That sounds good right now!

100. I am really grateful for the friends that I have made over the years. Friends are such a blessing! Thanks to all of you! Love Ya!

100 things about Me (Nikole)

Some of my friends have done this, so I thought it would be great to list things about myself, since Nathan thinks I don't say anything nice about myself. Here goes:

1. I was born 33 years ago on this day, May 14, and I am feeling somewhat old today. At least my body likes to remind me how old I am.

2. I have a "phone-phobia". I hate to call people that I don't know. I struggle setting up visiting teaching appointments on the phone, I can't order pizza on the phone (I use internet), I am the Volunteer coordinator for our school and I have a really hard time calling people to volunteer (I rely heavily on email). I've had this phobia most of my life.

3. When I'm feeling down or depressed, buying clothes for my kids always makes me feel better.

4. Nathan and my Mom get so frustrated because I use my birthday money and gift certificates to buy things for my kids and house.

5. One Mother's Day I asked for a rechargeable vaccum so I could vaccum the rug in our kitchen.

6. I don't mind washing and folding the laundry, but I HATE putting it away. I don't know why I have this aversion, but we'll live out of the laundry basket until it's time to do laundry again.

7. It's the same with the dishes. I don't mind loading the dishwasher, but I hate unloading it.

8. If I had time to myself, I would rather take a nap or read in bed than anything else.

9. When I'm stressed about something, I always have dreams about packing. I dream I'm moving or going on a trip and I don't have enough time to gather everything and I keep finding more and more things to pack.

10. Nathan and I were in the same ward at BYU. We really had said two words to each other until he came on a group date with my roommate. I thought he had a great sense of humor!

11. The day before we got married, he gave me a dozen roses. He gives me a dozen roses on every wedding anniversary. He's 10 for 10!

12. I get along really well with Nathan's family.

13. I haven't been the most supportive wife with Nathan's medical school and residency hours.

14. I got glasses when I was 8 years old.

15. Before I got braces, I had to have 7 teeth pulled to make room. I had 4 baby teeth pulled and with 3 of those baby teeth, they pulled the permanent teeth above them, so they had to cut into my gums to get at those.

16. I grew up with 3 cats and 1 dog.

17. I will not let my kids get a cat or dog, for now anyway. I've seen how hard they are to take care of when they get old. I can't deal with that emotionally or physically right now.

18. I am the secretary in the Primary and I love it!

19. I love that Haley is great at drawing and I love her pictures and love notes.

20. I love that Nate has turned out so smart. I feel like he was just born that way, I really haven't had to work hard with him, he just picks things up really easily.

21. I love that Andy loves to give me hugs. During the day, he'll just randomly come up to me and give me a hug.

22. I love that when Michael is tired, he'll cuddle with me and put his head on my shoulder. None of our babies have been really cuddly, so this is such a treat. I'll rock him before naps and bed, just so I can have his head on my shoulder and listen to his pre-sleep babble.

23. I love the way Nathan's eyes crinkle when he smiles.

24. I have a fettish with my husband's and children's earlobes. I love to rub them, they are so soft!

25. I am the oldest child in my family. I have 2 brothers and 1 sister. Our order is girl-boy-girl-boy.

26. When I was young, I had really blonde hair. I hate that I'm now considered a brunette, but I don't like the idea of coloring my hair, either.

27. I want to learn Russian, but I have yet to become motivated enough to sit down and do it. Nathan went to Russia on his misison and wants to take me there someday.

28. For our honeymoon, Nathan and I went on a cruise with Nathan's mom's parents and siblings. There was a huge group of us. It wasn't weird at all. In fact, it was nice always having someone to take pictures of us. They were all really good about leaving us alone, if we wanted it.

29. When I was pregnant with Nate, I really craved those little smokie sausages.

30. I taught second grade in North Carolina. It was a struggle, but I loved the kids!

31. I graduated from Cyprus High School in Magna, Utah in 1993.

32. I did not go to my Senior Prom.

33. I did not have my own car until my third year of college at BYU.

34. I went and graduated from Ricks College before going to BYU.

35. At Ricks, I worked in the Women's locker room in the "cage" where we handed out towels, swimsuits, locks for lockers, etc.

36. I carried on that tradition by working in the Women's locker room at BYU. I made a lot of good friends with the girls I worked with. I always enjoyed going to work there.

37. In High school, I was a school janitor. During my sophomore year, I just worked at the High school during the summer, during my junior year, I was a daily janitor at my high school in the afternoon and during my senior year, I was a janitor at an elementary school. I know it's not pretty but, it helped pay for college, and I wanted a job that didn't work on Sunday (my choices were limited). I have not had to work (at a paying job )on a Sunday in my life.

38. Despite being in dance classes many year while I was a little girl, I still do not have any rhythm!

39. I was on my high school's women's tennis team during my senior year. I lettered. My best friend, Audrey, and I went to district finals in doubles. I haven't picked up a raquet since.

40. I didn't know how to drive a stick shift car until I had my own. My dad insisted that I buy a stick shift car so that I was forced to learn to drive one.

41. My favorite movie is the one that Nathan made me for our 10th Wedding Anniversary.

42. Nathan and I are really into "Lost" and "The Office" right now.

43. Two of my most favorite places is the library and the bookstore. I love books! Especially picture books!

44. I love the smell of clean diapers and new books.

45. I hate wearing perfume and jewelry. The only jewelry I'll wear is my wedding ring and maybe a watch.

I will have to finish this later. (-:

Kickin' It in Waikiki

Aloha! This is our first post to the world wide web blogosphere. The question is always when to start from. Rather that reminisce about the past 10 years of marital bliss, it's probably best to start with the recent past and go from there.

Nikole and I took a nice trip to Hawaii April 29-May 8. We went there under the auspices of my attending a couple pediatric conferences, but we still had plenty of time for the sights. Mayo paid for my part of everything (airfare, hotel room, ground transportation, and per diem), so we really only had to cover Nikole's airline ticket, food and souvenirs. My mom, bless her heart, flew into Rochester to stay with the kids while we were gone. We missed them while we were gone. But, knowing they were in good hands, we didn't miss them too much.

The plane ride into Honolulu was much better than anticipated, primarily thanks to Northwest's Airbus A330s, which have individual television screens at each seat in coach. You can choose and watch a movie from about 30 choices, some of which are edited. I watched The Great Debaters and X-Files, as well as an episode of The Office ("Phyllis' Wedding"--very funny).

After an 8 hour flight, we touched down around 3 pm in Honolulu. To get to our hotel, we grabbed a cab, which turned out to be a circa 1986 limousine, complete with VCR player and mirrors on the ceiling.

Despite being quite tired that first evening, we just had to go to beach. There was a Hawaiian band playing at the hotel's beachfront restaurant, which created a very nice ambiance. A native Hawaiian came up to us and gave us lei's, saying "Take one for your wife and for you!" Just as I was thinking that Hawaiians have got to be the nicest people in the world, she said, "For only small donation...". Anyway, we got our flower lei's and felt good about giving $10 to the Boys and Girls Club of Honolulu. [By the way, I am fairly certain that, if not the nicest in the world, Hawaiians are well near the top of the list].

We stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Ali'i Tower. Mayo's policy is to cover hotel rooms up to $325/night. Our room was $324/night. It's all about toeing the line, right? Here's a view from our balcony:

We actually never went swimming in the pool pictured, because our tower had it's own pool on the second floor. Even then, when you're 50 yards from the ocean, why settle for a pool?

I spent a chunk of my time at the conferences, at least for the first several days. I was part of a couple workshops about public speaking. The first conference was primarily a residency and fellowship leadership meeting (Association of Pediatric Program Directors--APPD). Our workshop at that conference focused on teaching public speaking skills to pediatric trainees (i.e. residents and fellows). It went really well and we received very positive feedback. The second conference we presented at was the Pediatric Academic Societies' (PAS) Annual Meeting. Our workshop this time focused more on the attendees themselves becoming better public speakers. Specifically, we wanted to teach people how to help their audience not fall asleep during their lectures. We planned for as many as 45 people attending, but we ended up with about 56, more even than the room was set up for. It went very well, we think. We are hopeful that we can continue to conduct these workshops at future conferences. The APPD and PAS meetings next year are in Baltimore, so it won't be quite as exciting as Honolulu. Unless, of course, we get mugged. That would be very exciting.

I also attended a few scientific sessions, some of which I was peripherally involved with. Those are always hit-and-miss, usually miss. The titles of some of the presentations can be quite misleading. I went to one session about the recent advances in Kawasaki disease. I was interested because of the cardiac implications of Kawasaki's. Mostly, though, I wanted to catch a glimpse of Dr. Kawasaki, who would be presenting the closing remarks. They introduced him at the beginning to a round of applause. The first talk was actually very good. It went through recent breakthroughs in finding the cause of Kawasaki's (it looks like it'll turn out to be an RNA virus). After that, though, it went down hill. Way too many small details and very boring PowerPoint slides. I couldn't last until Dr. Kawasaki's remarks. So I left and went to the mall. I called Nikole up, she met me, we had lunch, went shopping, then went to see Iron Man. It was sweet. Sorry, Dr. Kawasaki.

I was able to meet Dr. Noonan of Noonan Syndrome fame. She works at the University of Kentucky at Lexington. She was incredibly nice and chatty, was interested in us and our aspirations. It's nice to see you can stay down to earth even when you have a syndrome named in your honor.

Outside of the work part of our trip, Nikole and I had a good time exploring Oahu. Our first full day there, we hiked up Diamond Head State Monument. It is an extinct volcano, from the top of which you can get a nice view of the island and of Waikiki, in particular:

It was, as we had been warned, not a casual stroll, but a legitimate climb. Still, well worth the time. We recuperated with a mango smoothie and passion fruit shave ice (not "shaved" ice) once we got back to the bottom.

There is plenty more to tell about, which I will do another day. It's 10 o'clock and basketball is at 6 am. Aloha and mahalo!