Day 134 / 62 To Go: 33 Pictures...

Posted by: Cris

...Go ahead, count them! In recent days, I've been slacking on the pictures so I'm coming back strong tonight.

Last night was looong. I couldn't sleep with the hourly tsunami siren going off so I just stayed up and watched all the ongoing news coverage and waiting for the first wave to arrive (around 3 a.m. Hawaii time). By that time I was talking to several different people via text message who were checking in on us, not expecting that I'd respond in the middle of the night.

I had been watching the local coverage of the event so I didn't realize that apparently the national news networks were painting a picture of the situation that was imminently worse than the actual facts that the local folks had.

In the end, there was a bit of damage but nothing significant. I was watching live when the first wave came in and sucked the reef dry for 200 yards out into the ocean by Diamondhead before coming back in. It was totally freaky looking.

The girls got a great night's sleep and woke up none the wiser that anything was going on. The ocean this morning looked just like every other morning.

Throughout the day, I spoke with several of my Japanese friends here who had been in communication with friends and family back home when possible and while all of their families are safe, the situation there is very bad. We have some working contact with the Athletic Training program at Sendai University where the center of all the problems are and apparently that area has seen a disaster of biblical proportions.

In preparation for possible tsunami problems, basically everyone including the University of Hawaii was closed today. This gave me a day off but also meant that the medical students' anatomy exam that we spent yesterday setting up was postponed until next Wednesday which had a trickle down affect on the anatomy exam that was supposed to be on Tuesday for my graduate anatomy class...super hassle. But, by comparison to how others around the pacific rim have been affected, this is a minor inconvenience at best.

So, I worked at home on cars, and yards, and trying to get done at least some of what I needed to get done at work today.

Even though I was in and out of the house for awhile, it was nice to be around the girls playing this morning.

Nova practicing her vertical leap:

She looks like her mommy but maybe she'll have her daddy's vertical leap (she better since she is going to be a shrimp)

Having a fun morning.

The highlight of my day - the yard is now in condition that while I'm working out there, the dogs can come down and explore. Today was the first day I let them down there to run and they had the greatest time ever.

As soon as I opened the gate to teh bottom, they tore off and ran around like crazy.

They immediately set to exploring down through the brush on the hillside and Summit took off after them even though the brush is so dense she could hardly get through it with her tiny little legs.

Sherpa and Denali were total huskies running around side by side and jumping into each other.

Chasing them around the yard and watching them have such a great time made me anxious to get the rest of the lower yard completely sealed off so they can be left down there unsupervised.

The girls enjoyed watching the dogs from the lanai (Nova looks more like her mommy every day.)

The huskies thought they were all primal exploring the ultra thick brush at hte bottom of the hill - so thick I couldn't even walk through to check on them but after a few minutes they came barreling out of the jungle.

After about a half hour of roughhousing and running around, they were both ready for a huge drink and a nap.

Tonight we headed out for dinner at teh Dixie Grill with Meloday and the gang.

I had almost forgotten the girls had these cool Lightning McQueen shirts. They totally LOOVED them and thought they were so cool.

This counts as "dressing up" in the household run by daddy.

The commitment to the blog I've instilled in those around me: Beth literally crawled under the table to get just the right ankle for this super cute picture:

The funniest event of the day: As Aunt Wallie headed for the restroom after dinner, she got halfway down the hall when Beth realized she should have warned her that the women's restroom at Dixie Grill has a male mannequin standing inside the door to the restroom that will totally shock you if you don't know it is there. Beth predicted Wallie would scream and sure enough, a few moments later I heard a scream echo down the hall from the women's restroom.

The face of shock!

Wallie was still laughing 10 minutes later after returning to the table.

The girls spent a few minutes playing outside after dinner.

Finally time for goodnight hugs...

Tim did a bad thing tonight. At dinner, he mentioned that seeing my pineapple planter set-up that the thing that came to mind was that it would be a perfect design to setup to grow pineapples hydroponically...we talked through all the specifics at dinner and I'm totally loving it! Basically, it provides the opportunity to turn my pineapple farming project into a giant nerdy science project...Stop rolling your eyes Emilie Stickley!!!