"New Leaf":
I''m going to make an effort to blog more. The goal is to write something at least once a week, as my contribution for the last year has been piss-poor. Things have been happening. It's not for lack of news that I don't write, just ..... who knows. Anyway, new leaf.

I started a new job this week. I'm now a "Partnership and Service Advisor" which means that now my responsibilities are to monitor agencies, not individuals. At the moment I don't have a clue but I'm hoping the job will become clearer in the weeks to come.

The other exciting event this week was the exploratory "cardiac catheterization" my Dad had scheduled on Monday, which might have lead to Angioplasty if any blockage had been found. Luckily, nothing was found and he is in good health. Scary though, and exactly the type of thing that makes living so far away difficult. It's hard to be as supportive as I'd like to be from another continent.

As requested, the "flooded tent" story:
When I was five my parents decided to take my sister and I on a hiking/camping trip to Kauai, Hawaii (we lived in Oahu at the time). The trip over was taken on a speed boat, and unfortunately I did not have my sea legs. I ended up having to wear a garbage bag to disembark from the boat as I had vomited all over myself (and probably my poor mom and sister). I think the trip back was slightly better.
My parents had been to Kauai without us kids at an earlier part of the year and wanted to bring us back to this amazing spot they found. Unfortunately it was December (or January, it was right after Christmas) and the rainy season. We hiked into a very remote area on the island, carrying in our tents and supplies. On the first night there (I think) we experienced a very heavy rain storm that practically washed mine and Susan's supposedly "waterproof" tent away. I remember we set up camp near the beach, and it felt like we were going to be washed out to sea, though that's probably a false memory. Susan and I ended up abandoning our tent and going to sleep in the bigger, actually waterproof tent with our parents. The other really memorable things about the trip, beyond the camping, hiking, and getting rained out, are the incredibly vivid memory of burnt pancakes, flowers that could be used as soap and shampoo, befriending a feral cat we called "Katherine" (who benefited when Susan and I abandoned our tent), and losing all four of my front teeth at different parts of the journey (at least one was lost eating what I remember as my first Kitkat bar). By the time we got home I had a huge gap in my mouth.
I have positive memories of the trip overall, though the storm was definitely scary for both myself and Susan. It was hardly the last family camping trip we took, as we camped about once a year until I was in high school.
Dad, Mom, Susan, is this how you guys remember the trip? Did I leave anything important out?