Ethan and I at the Pali lookout over Kane'ohe. There was an old story about king Kamehameha defeating his enemies here by driving them off the cliff...thought to be just a story until they began constructing the freeway through the mountain and found over 800 skulls at the bottom of the cliff.

After our island tour, we refreshed in our hotel room then headed down to Waikiki to catch our sunset cruise. (These pictures mostly taken by me, since I wasn't trusting the big camera not to get wet out here).

The cruise was very nice. Lots of nice vacationers out having a good time, a beautiful sunset, great crew, free-flowing Mai tai's....what more could you ask for??

This girl was waiting to catch a wave and surf into Waikiki....our captain threw her a long rope, and we towed her along. When we got close, she reeled herself in and he gave her a beer, then left her out along the surfline while we came ashore. Pretty cool!

The actual sunset on the sunset cruise...

Monday, we went on a tour with Atlantis submarines. I think I mentioned that we ran into a guy who recognized Ethan when we were in Costco?? Anyway, he is the pilot of the submarine and we got in for about 75% off. Pretty cool. Lots of fish, a cool planned shipwreck that will eventually be a reef, great times. And a cool picture at the end (that I do not have in my camera and therefore will not show up here)


Here are pics of the sub rising and sinking, and one of an anchor with some coral. I will do my fancy photo filter to remove some blue and put back in the reds and make it much nicer...but later once I get home.

Okay, we are here and having lots of fun.

Saturday, we hung out around the resort, played in the ocean a bit, checked out the pool

Sunday, we woke up EARLY and watched NFL football. Sadly enough, the Seahawks got stomped and my starting fantasy QB got knocked out for the SEASON in the first quarter of the game. Not good.

Sunday evening, we went to the Old Lahaina Luau, supposed to be one of if not *the* best luau around. We had lots of fun--great food, fancy drinks, and a great show. We switched from sitting on mats to sitting at a real table, because I think my hips and Ethan's knee would have all fallen off if we tried the mats. I am SOOOO going to the doctor about my stupid hips when I get home. But, I digress...

Here are a couple pics....the sunset on our first night in Maui.....the stage for the old lahaina luau, and the imu pig being removed from it's pit.

On Maui

Yesterday, we caught a short 45 minute flight from Honolulu to Kahului on Maui. From there, we rented a car, headed to Costco then Safeway to stock up on supplies for the week, then drove through TERRIBLE traffic the ~25 miles to our hotel.

So, we are here at the Westin. Due to an unfortunate problem with our reservation, we had some check in problems. I will not tell you why we had problems because it makes me look like a complete idiot. We are supposed to have a studio facing the parking lot or a garbage can or something, but we ended up in a one bedroom suite, oceanfront. OCEANFRONT!! We have a square lanai with a view of the water and some palm trees. VERY cool. About 250 square feet bigger, with a little kitchen and a whirlpool tub and all sorts of neat litle touches. I have taken pictures with my small camera, but didn't bring the cord to connect it to my computer, so you must wait until I get home to se the pictures from that one. I have some awesome shots from our sunset sailing cruise on Oahu Thursday that are very nice. My goal of getting at least one picture nice enough to frame and put up on our wall is already realized....

We also had issues with our rental car. We paid $125 for a full week for an economy car (the cheapest we could find) Due to circumstances beyond our control....we now have a silver Mustang convertible. So sad that all our plans have gone awry. Have not yet taken the top down, but I am sure we will figure that out.

Our poor vacation plans have all been torn asunder. Can you find it in your hearts to send us some sympathy???

Just a small taste....

We arrived Wednesday noonish, wandered town a bit, and got acclimated. Thursday morning, we headed out at 6am to the Pearl Harbor USS Arizona Memorial. Very cool. Awe inspiring to see. Then off for a tour of the north shore, including La'ie. Several Mormon jokes were told (by the driver). Beautiful scenery everywhere we looked. Drove back to Honolulu, went on a Mai Tai sunset cruise, came back to the hotel and crashed.
Today we fly to Maui for a week.

Here is a picture of a cool rock arch off La'ie point. Cannot even express how beautiful it is here. We knew even before looking at the pictures we are taking that the beauty couldn't show up on film.

I feel compelled to make a political statement, although I suspect the readers of my blog lean differently than I do. But I still feel compelled.

If the Republicans win this election in November, womens rights take a hit. I am concerned. I do not think abortion is a great thing, I do not think it should be used as a form of birth control. But in cases of rape or incest?? When there is a diagnosis of something like anencephaly (no brain present, dies at the moment of birth). They are pushing a platform which allows for NO exceptions. Not when the life of the mother is at stake, not ever. This bothers me. There was a case in Mexico months ago with a 13 year old rape/incest victim who left her country to go to neighboring Guatemala to have an abortion, since it was illegal in Mexico. Really?? We want to go along with that?? We want to make a 13 year old victim endure a pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood?? That is fair??? We are re-victimizing that poor child.
There was news a few days ago about a new Washington law that gives more prison time/stronger sentencing to rapists whose act results in a pregancy--they say that this is deserved because the victim must now endure either the agony of abortion, childbirth, adoption, etc. A man now faces much extended sentencing in these instances.

I know that the governor from Alaska is a staunch pro-life supporter. But to give no respite to women and girls who have been victimized already is just plain wrong.

So. I know I am voting in this election. I know whose ideals most closely resemble my own. I know the changes I am hoping for in the coming years. I am ready to start celebrating this country again, rather than being ashamed of the decisions that have been made. Just remember this issue when you go to cast your ballot.

Look What I Found!!!

Seafair 2008

We were able to go out on Kim and Justin's boat this year for Seafair Sunday. Justin was working and unable to attend, but the rest of us had a blast!

We even saw the Black Pearl attending the festivities!!

Cool houseboats along Lake Union as we headed toward the Montlake Cut, and a paddlewheeler heading out for the festivities.

The Montlake bridge opening up for a sailboat, and a view of Husky Stadium as we passed through the Arboretum.

Cool houseboat along the way to Lake Washington

Yes, my videos now have sound. A sad side effect of having your previous camera stolen is that your new one is upgraded to include sound in videos.

We are ready to go to Hawai'i

Mom with her team in Penang (she is sitting in the front)

Busy, busy, busy

The Amersons have been Busy with a capital 'B'. Ethan has had a total of one (1) day off in the past three weeks. Not cool. I worked extra Saturday, and will likely work extra this weekend as well. And I have two 50-hour weeks coming up to end the month of August.

Harborview is opening up two new buildings. The 13 story one opens up next summer, but Ethan is quite busy figuring out the keying and getting everything organized for the eventual open. LOTS of work there. The 9 story building was supposed to open up (well, at least one floor was) on the 15th of this month...but it got pushed back multiple times and now MY floor will be the first one to move over. We were originally scheduled to go on the 22nd, pushed to the 29th, then the 30th....now we are opening August 6. If all goes well. LOTS of work to do. Ethan has found multiple problems with locks improperly put together or crappy handiwork that is NOT okay, totally unsafe to have patients around, so he has to run around trying to get the contractors to fix their problems before it all gets turned over and HE is stuck with it. With only a 2 man shop for hundreds of thousands of square feet of space with literally THOUSANDS of locks, he simply does NOT have the time to fix the hundreds of problems the contractors have created.

I have somehow put it upon myself to assist with the move, so I have spent lots of hours over in our new unit. I designed and organized the supply room with its several hundred supply bins, organized by type in color coded bins. I made the units patient list board and labelled it so it won't look crappy like our old one now does. I went around testing electrical outlets and shower heads and light switches and curtain rods, etc in each new room to make sure that everything works (they don't.....got a list to give the construction people!). Still in progress wtih all of that. Little things that NEED to be done before we move over. The computers should all be installed (one in each of the 20 patient rooms, as well as around 20 in the nursing station), and we need to log in to each of them, check a few programs to make sure they are installed correctly, then try to print to make sure that works, too. L O T S of things to still do. It will be fun when we finally DO open. I have been moving my schedule around a bit to ensure that I am here that day, whenever it eventually is.

But, stressful. VERY much looking forward to our upcoming vacation, although I worry that Ethan will not be able to fully enjoy himself because he knows that more moves will be happening throughout August, and likely in September as well, and leaving Eric here alone is just going to dig a deeper hole for the lockshop. Ethan goes to all these management meetings and security meetings and gets stuck with a lot of sort of diplomatic problems. Eric is somewhat safe from those things, but when Ethan is gone, he will be doing his best to handle it all, but I am sure there will be quite a list for Ethan to look forward to when we get home.

All of this madness should be over by maybe February at the latest, but that puts us into the opening of the NJB building (13 stories with lots of clinics moving over). We need to tear down one section of Harborview that was built in the 1950's because it is not earthquake safe--figured that out in the 2001 Nisqually quake when a wall crumbled and the buildings separated a bit. So all the clinics and offices over there need to move out. Ethan's issue is that once people more into the new buildings, other people move into their old places (unless they are in the part being torn down), and he has to figure out who is going where, what they want/need lock-wise, and the timing of everything. Which changes on a daily basis. And when people start ordering keys for Dr Smith, with no first name given, Ethan gets a little hysterical. He seriously has been after one manager who gave him a list of doctors who need keys to an office suite but only gave last names. Do you have any idea how many freaking Dr Smiths there are?!? So he can't do anything until she gets back to him. But people are screaming for keys. See why he is stressed?? THey ignore his emails and phone calls, don't give him the info he needs, then throw a fit when they can't move because they don't have keys. And he can't just say, 'screw it' and let them flounder, because it is HIS shop seen as the one holding up the move. The head of engineering quit, the interim director went on vacation to miss the move (he is retiring in a few months), and the guy covering for him is so overwhelmed and lost that Ethan doesn't want to throw all of this at him.

Stress.

But, it WILL eventually end.