The New and Improved Neil

Slightly yellow, but nice and straight. Now all he needs is a hair cut.
Look how much light there is outside at 10:15pm!
The Dood always steals the show.
Playing with the chuck-it.



This afternoon Neil stopped by my work to show me his new look. He got his braces off! So, after over two years of Mr. Train track mouth he has shiny straight teeth! Since getting back from our vacation he's visited the surgeon, the radiologist (for his barium swallow test), and the orthodontist. Busy man. He even got new glasses.

Saturday - April 18th - Costco, The Beach, and Rainbows

Saturday morning started out like most in Hawaii - with a nice breakfast of fresh pineapple and papaya, yogurt, and some POG. We had stopped off at Safeway on the way back from Chinatown the day before to buy some groceries. After breakfast we had to attend to a very important matter - finding a Costco. We just wanted to go for the fun of it, but we ended up buying a few things: humbows, pineapple, chocolates for friends and family, and Maui chips. Emily was completely amaized by the Costco. It had lots of cool things that our Anchorage Costco's don't have, and even a few things that Seattle's doesn't have (like bulk tofu).

After Costco we decided to hit the beach of Waikiki again. We were mainly just killing time in the sun because Kari and Jared were arriving that night (they were taking the same flight we were on, just a few days later) and we were going to meet them for dinner. At the beach we were at they were having some sort of professional volleyball event. But the PA guy was super lame. He kept trying to get people into the action, but no one really cared. We watched for a little bit, but I mainly laid in the sun reading my Watchmen man-book (that's Jared's term for graphic novel) or splahed in the ocean.Emily enjoying a wonderful fresh breakfast in the Hawaiian sun.

After we hung out on the beach for a while, it was time to meet Kari and Jared for dinner. They had just arrived that night, so we met up at our studio and went to a local place called Rainbows for some local plate lunch specials. Think of Rainbows as Dick's Drive-In (how you order, then you eat outside on benches or on you car hood) mixed with Daily's (fish, burges, etc). I had some fried Ahi Ahi with some rice and macaroni salad. Emily had some rice and chili. I thought the place was pretty good.

Friday - April 17th - Chinatown

After Pearl Harbor, we were a little hungry. And what better place to fill that hunger than a little Dim Sum! Since we were in a town that - gasp! - actually had some Asians in it, we thought we might hit up Chinatown. We walked around some markets and different food stands. Finally we found a Dim Sum place. All in all we thought it was pretty tasty - way better than the so-called 'Dim Sum' in Anchorage.

We bought some Viet-wiches on the way back to our car. The plan was to take them down to the beach later for a little picnic-dinner. But we went to beach for a little sun, swim, and reading after we returned from Chinatown. And once we returned to our studio for showers, we decided just to eat on our lenai. But after dinner with hit the Waikiki strip - looking at all of the shops and people. We did manage to find a dessert - fresh mangos over shave ice. Emily loved it. She kept wanting to go back a second time, but we never did :-( Our first full day was a great way to start our vacation.
Nothing like some humbows, shu mie, and hom swi go for lunch.
Who wants some fresh catfish for dinner? You can buy them in Chinatown.
Emily and Peanut enjoying some good eats.
No one ever tells you how the little piggie goes to the market. But we found out: dead, gutted, and on the back of a pick-up truck.

Me enjoying my Viet-wich with a little rootbeer.
Check our our dessert!
Emily sure does lover her mango and shave ice.

Friday - April 17th - Pearl Harbor

After breakfast we went to the Pearl Habor/USS Arizona memorial. It was Emily's first time, my second. There is a little museum about the attack that we viewed while we waited for our boat to take us to the memorial. The memorial is above the final resting place of the USS Arizona. It was pretty cool, and the price was right - FREE! It was a hot day to be introduced to Hawaii.
You can see the memorial off in the distance above Emily's head.
America!
In the far room is the giant marble wall with all of the names who lost their lives on December 7th, 1941. Survivors of that day are also laid to rest there.
This is one of the gun turrets.
While we were there a lot of old while guys in white navy suits came on board and walked around. I really have no idea what it was all about, but thought I'd take a picture of them.

Friday - April 17th - Morning

While we were walking around Waikiki Thursday night we happened upon an ABC store. It's your basic convenience store, except more prevalent than Starbucks. Seriously, there must be at least one ABC store on every block in Waikiki. Anyways, we bought some yogurt (Lychee, coconut, guava - yum!) and fresh papaya for breakfast the next day. And I bought some orange juice, too. It was a great way to start out the day by eating a tasty breakfast on our lenai.
We were on the 10th floor of the condo. Here's a view of Kuhio Ave from our lenai.
A view of Waikiki from our room.
Looks like we had banana's to eat too. Emily was all smiles to be in Hawaii at last!

Hawai'i time

Since we've been back in (shockingly) sunny and warm (60 degees) Anchorage, we thought we should put up some pics from our trip to Hawaii.

Thursday - April 16th

Emily and I arrived in Honolulu a little after 5. Once we got our rental car, we were on our way to our Craigs-list acquired studio in Waikiki a little after 6 o'clock. But something funny happened along the way - it got dark out! This proved troubling when looking for street signs to guide us to our destination. Needless to say, I got us lost (Emily was driving, I was navigating). But we eventually found out place, and it was pretty nice.

After we were settled we walked around a bit and found a nice Thai place for dinner. Although you couldn't order beer or wine at the restaurant, you could bring in your own (which quite a few parties did). I refrained. In fact, the only alcohol I had on the trip was a drink on the plane to Honolulu and Pina Colada at Senior Frogs.
Here is what hotels look like at night from Waikiki beach. This is not wherre we stayed.
A little blurry, but a cool shot.

Live from Spamfest!

We are in Waikiki on our last night, and Spamfest is going on not 30 feet from us in the Mac Store.  It's kind of like a mini-version of the Bite of Seattle, but all of the restaurants make Spam-themed foods.  Emily and I had lettuce wraps with Spam (like at the Locke Dinner) from P.F. Changs, 2 spam sliders with bbq sauce, and two regular cheeseburger sliders, and some Spam Yakisoba.  It was all very delicious, but Emily wasn't in much of a spam mood, go figure.  We will be looking for some dessert (not spam themed) soon.

Today we hiked into this super-cool water fall and swimming hole.  I jumped in from about 10 feet up.  Jared jumped in from about 35 feet.  Then we went sea kayaking.  

We leave tomorrow a little after 9 pm.  We will be so happy to see the 'Dood on Monday morning!!!

Aloha!!!

What up everyone?  Emily and I are enjoying beautiful Hawaii.  Today we went to Pearl Harbor.  It was pretty cool.  Then we made a stop over at Chinatown on our way back to the beach.  We had some decent Dim Sum, and grabbed some Vietwiches for dinner.  We hung out for a bit on the beach, but it was a little overcast.  Now we're walking around Waikiki at night.  

P.S. - I'm writing this from a Mac store.  

Belly Pictures

Hello belly!
There he is!
I now have a new looking belly button.  

The growth of my stomach has really taken off over these last few weeks.  These pictures were taken last week when we had the ultrasound taken.  Sometimes while I'm just sitting around my stomach all of a sudden feels like I ate a really big meal and I feel my skin stretching.  It's all rather strange.  

Easter for non Jews

Following the Passover festivities, our easter celebration was pretty low key.  We contemplated going to church near our house, but never really got around to it.  Instead I made a batch of cinnamon rolls and we sat around and brainstormed baby names.  We also had a bone hunt for our first born son (sorry Yuniesky, I've written you off).  It was kind of funny.  I hid a bunch of dog biscuits around the living room, but it took Banjo a really long time to figure out the game, but towards the end he was searching everywhere for the cookies.

In the afternoon we went to the dog park, and then came home and cooked up an easter dinner.  Kari and Jared came over and we had ham, scalloped potatoes, fresh baked rolls, deviled eggs, green salad and ambrosia.  For dessert I made pineapple icebox dessert.  It was pretty tasty.  Afterwards we did a little more Hawaii planning and then played a game of Cranium.

Passover Seder

Last night Neil and I went to our friend Rachel's Passover for non-Jews.  It was great fun.  At Passover it is important to always do the same ritually in exactly the same order.  Some of the things that we do is to bless the Manishevitz wine (or Marrionberry Sparkling Cider in Emily's case) before you drink it.  

Then you say other prayers before you eat other items off the Seder plate.  We ate parsley dipped in salt water to remember the tears that were shed during 40 years of slavery.  All of the foods are steeped in symbolism.  We also had horseradish sauce as a bitter herd that we had on Matza bread, but I forgot what that symbolized.  We then made a sandwich with the horseradish and this super-sweet dish that had apples, walnuts, honey, and sugar.

After we said our prayers and ate from the Seder plate, we then had our dinner.  We had Matza kugel, Matza rolls, hard boiled eggs, gefelta fish (fish balls - kind of nasty) and some other things.  There is piece of matza cracker that is hidden in the house, and before we can have dessert someone has to find it, and they get a prize.  Dessert was Matza crackers covered in chocolate and other goodies.  It was real tasty too.

Dinner was a lot of fun.  At one point we all started talking about how we all dislike Alaska, and that the key to enjoying Alaska is getting out of the state every now and then.  It was funny because besides one guy who had grown up in Alaska, Emily and I had lived in Alaska longer than the other 5 people.  Who knew we'd be such experienced Alaskans at some point?

Surgery - Part II

I had my surgery yesterday afternoon. It was actually pretty easy. It took less time than waiting for my perscriptions to be filled at Coscto. They injected my mouth, left side of my tongue, and gums with local aneastetic. Then they waited until I was all nice and numb, and the surgeon dove on in and started slicing open my gums until he got to the bone. There he saw my two infected screws, as wel as two free-floating bone chips. And I had a large hole in my jaw, which isn't good. He had a little trouble getting the scews out, since Dr. Lee (my surgeon in Seattle) put them in threw my cheek. So he couldn't use the specail custom screwdriver that was sent up here. But he was still able to remove the screws. They were pretty sizable too - well over an inch. The bone fragments kind of looked a little smaller than fingernail trimmings. It was weird because during the surgery I could feel the surgeon screwing out the scews from my bone. Kind of trippy.


I picked up my perscriptions at Coscto (Hello, Vicadin!) and went home. I iced my cheeks all day while I watched the first season of The Wire (I had heard nothing but good things about this show, and I must say I was not disappointed). I then picked up Emily from work, and she made me some nice potato soup for dinner.

I should be back to normal by the time we leave for Hawaii in a week (aloha!). I just need to keep my wound clean and finish all of my antibiotics, and hopefully this stupid infection will finally go away.Banjo and me watching the first disc of The Wire.
Icing is a neccesity. 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off.
The 'Dood in his Classic Banjo sleeping position.

It's.....

....a boy!

The Peanut had it's 20 week ultrasound today.  The lady took lots of measurements like length of limbs, heartbeat (145 bpm), head, etc.  We even saw the 4 chambers of the fetal heart, which is different than our heart b/c the baby doesn't use his lungs yet.  After the lady put all of the Peanut's info in, she figured he was 6 inches long head-to-butt and weighed 13 oz.  The due date moved a day early, to August 20th.  

Now we need to start seriously thinking about names.  My friend Anthony suggested the following if we're having a boy - Oliver Klause Hoff.  Just say it a little fast and you'll get it.  Emily also always liked that named Jack, but I guess that's out of the question now.  What funny names can you guys come up with?

We're trying to upload the pictures, but are having a little trouble.  Emily and I are going out to eat at Orzo to celebrate tonight  It's suppose  to be a nice Italian restaurant in town.

A rude awakening for all

This morning around 6 am, Banjo had another episode.  This time I was home too so I experienced a Banjo seizure (in full effect I might add).  Banjo got up and was having this weird thing with his stomach that made a lot of noise.  I had Neil take him into the bathroom so that if he threw up at least it would be easier to clean up than if it were on the carpet.  Then he quickly raced onto the bed squatted over me and started peeing.  A few seconds later he was growling and seizing.  The seizure lasted about 2 minutes, and then he was "dead"  for another few minutes, but then his tail started wagging and pretty soon he was back to life.  Afterwards our bed, and myself were soaked in dog urine and anal juices.  It was pretty scary and quite smelly.  Everyone got a bath this morning.  We are wondering if we've maybe nailed down what causes the seizures.  Yesterday Neil fed Banjo quite a few grapes, which apparently are really bad for dogs.  So we're hoping that if we eliminate those he'll be a happy go lucky non-epileptic dood again.

King Arthur the Wimpiest

Banjo running up and down the hill between me and Neil.
And the name of the trail is _______________
Banjo loves rolling around in the snow. Silly dood.
Neil and I had to trade hats since it was so bright out and I don't have sunglasses.
Neil stylin' in my hat.

This afternoon we went up to flat top to walk down powerline pass. It was a gorgeous sunny day our. Most people were up there skiing, but we just had Banjo out for a stroll. We came across this mom and her 10 year old son and the kid started freaking out, because he saw Banjo up the path from him. Then when we called Banjo he ran towards us, and the kid quickly jumped off way off the path and his mom had to start waving her ski polls at Banjo to keep him away from Arthur. After Banjo came to us (without ever going near Arthur) Arthur turned around and yelled at us, "Keep your animal on a leash!" I'm hoping that he had some sort of tramatic dog attack experience when he was younger, because he was the biggest whimp I've ever seen. Neil couldn't stop talking about him for the next 15 minutes he was so flabergasted.

Two of our favorite things

It's been a while since we've made any posts.  Here are a few pictures of two of our favorite things:  food and Banjo!

We had this Costco bag of lemons.  Rather than make lemonaide, we made lemon marange pie!  It was super-delicious!  I would expect nothing less from my favorite cookbook.

On Friday night we finished off our last pack of halibut from Homer.  We made fish 'n chips.  They were really tasty, although they were a little soggy.  This is a picture of Neil's newest creation: Jalapeno bottle caps.  He dips the slices of jalapenos in tempura batter and fried them up.  After 2 peppers he had a bit of a problem (if you know what I mean...)

When we got back from camping we assembled our tent inside so that it could dry out.  The next day I was looking around the ho

use to see where Banjo had wondered off to.  Apparently he wasn't yet done with his camping fun.  He was sitting in the tent.