Hawai'i

We are back from Hawai'i, where we had a great time. It was fabulous just to spend time with each other, but to do so in Hawai'i was even better. We saw volcanic craters, coral reefs, pods of pilot whales, enormous canyons, sea turtles, lava tubes, huge banyan trees, and the spot where Indiana Jones swung on a vine into a river while escaping the Hovitos.

Rainbow falls in Hilo, on the big island.

A volcanic crater within a crater also on the big island. Hot and desolate up there.

We went to a luau on Maui and were treated to this rainbow.

The Na Pali coast, on Kauai.

Of course, pictures do no justice to the scenery there. I ate lots of seafood: lobster, crab, shrimp, grouper, swordfish, mahi mahi, and generic fried fish, and I even managed to try mussels, which were alright. I couldn't bring myself to try the oysters - you can see the different organs too clearly.

Once we got home I slayed (slew?) a vile demon that was consuming my soul - I repaired the PVC pipes laying underground in the drainfield of our septic system that were punctured or snapped when our neighbor kindly plowed our garden plot with a tractor. We weren't aware of what was lying beneath when we took him up on his generous offer, until weeks later there were puddles of sewage in the garden. Yuck. As far as I know, though, everything's fixed and working correctly. And we're moving our garden next year.

We're looking forward to Lexington-Cincinnati-Columbus next week. And once we get back, there are only two weeks until school starts!

Nothing like a weird coincidence

Anyone familiar with the show Scrubs knows that Dr. Cox nearly always calls J.D. by a girl's name and never uses the same one twice. While watching an episode from our Season 3 DVD the other night, Dr. Cox actually called J.D. "Annika" (although he pronounced it Anne-ica, not On-ica, in an Annika Sorenstam reference). But, amazingly enough, the next name he used, a few minutes later, was Abby. Weird. The name he used after Abby was Judy, but I don't really see us using that one if and when we have a third daughter.

I just checked, while writing this: the aforementioned episode actually aired before Abby was born, so maybe it was subliminal message to us to use Abby for daughter number 2.

Hawaii in 12 days!