We decided today was a no alarm clock day. I slept into the glorious hour of 7:11. Nina was, of course, already up. Perry was up about ten minutes later. Chris hopefully will be able to do what all the rest of us could not do … sleep.

Snorkeling in Molokini was quite fun. The boat left at 8 a.m. and cruised past a couple of whale pods on the way out. We were there about an hour. The water was cool and a bit rough, but we had a lot of fun. I think that the snorkeling in the Caribbean is better, however (and the water is warmer!). We then cruised back towards Maui south of where we are staying in Kihei where we went back into the water to swim with the turtles. I saw several and Nina had one swim alongside for a few minutes. They were pretty, large, and more plentiful than I had expected.

Then we came back to the apartment, packed things up, and went to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. The water was still pretty rough — there’s weather coming in sometime — but we still had a great time. Chris literally lived in the water the entire afternoon. We watched the sunset (and took lots of pictures) and then came back to the apartment to shower and clean up. Dinner at Tony Roma’s consumed the rest of the night.

Whale watching may be on the agenda today…. We’ll see!

We’ve now been here in Kihei, Maui, for three full days and are exhausted. This is a beautiful place and far different than I had imagined. We’ve shopped, driven to the top of a volcano for sunrise, and survived the Hana Road. But, other than to stand and look, we’ve not been to a beach. I’m certain that’s on the agenda for tomorrow!

The flight here was very long. We left Houston on time at about 11 a.m. and flew for over eight hours westward to Maui, landing in Kahului. We were dang glad to get off the airplane even though our seats were actually pretty good. We were able to make some changes so that we had the two aisle seats on the last row in the airplane with an empty middle seat between us. There appeared to be two open seats on the airplane and we had one of them next to us! We then waited a couple of hours for my brother Perry and his wife Chris to arrive from Los Angeles. Our daughter Jaelene and her husband Scott are also vacationing here at the same time in a different place, so they met us at the airport as well. We planned the week and headed for bed!

Tuesday was a shopping day. We spent the entire day in Lahaina. We met Jaelene and Scott, bought tickets to a Luau and snorkeling, and then walked Front street. Lots of T-Shirt places, lots of trinket shops. Not nearly as commercialized as St. Thomas or Ocho Rios, but very much for tourists. We had dinner on Tuesday evening with some friends that my folks made while they were here on a mission about twenty years ago, Virgil and Bonnie. He’s also a cousin. They were a lot of fun and we had a great dinner.

Wednesday was volcano day. We got up at 4 a.m., left at 4:50 a.m., and drove to the summit of Haleakala some 10,000 feet above sea level. We arrived about 45 minutes before sunrise and were quite cold by the time the sun peaked over the clouds below us. We were there with about 200 other hardy souls and drove back down shortly after sunrise. We stopped at Paia on the drive back and watched the surfers. The waves were pretty big and there were a lot of foolhardy surfers out in the ocean catching waves. It was quite a sight! We then drove the coast along western Maui past Lahaina, Kaanapali, up to Hanolua Bay. We were at the Hyatt Regency at 4:30 p.m. for a Luau where we met up with Jaelene and Scott. The seats were directly in front of the stage. The food was reasonably good and plentiful. The show was excellent. We’ve now done that and don’t need to go again.

Today was the drive to Hana — clockwise around the Haleakala volcano. The total trip is about 110 miles but it took us a good eleven hours. We stopped at several waterfalls, some of which were lovely, many of which were very sparse. They haven’t had much rain this winter and consequently, the area is very much in a drought. Hana itself is a very quaint, lovely town and it’d be fun to spend a few days there (if we didn’t have to do the very long drive again). Just before Hana we stopped at Nahiku where George Harrison once had a house. Spectacular drive, stunning coastline, great place to have lunch. Past Hana we stopped at the Seven Sacred Pools — which were down to a couple of almost dry pools due to the drought and then stopped at the Charles Lindbergh grave. The drive from there back to Kahului was over some pretty rough road which was also quite spectacular in places. We ordered delivery Chinese food and I spent a few minutes in the hot tub. Sure did feel good on the feet!

So, is Maui almost paradise? It sure is a wonderful place. It’s expensive. Everything is expensive. The lady at the rental car counter said that everyone has to work two jobs to make ends meet. I asked her what here second job was and she said, “A boyfriend.” The traffic is lousy. Life runs at a little slower pace along with pretty poor service. Parts of the island are stunningly beautiful. The Humpback Whales are here…. So, Maui definitely isn’t a parking lot nor dashboard lights — and could be considered to be almost paradise.

It’s a few minutes before midnight on December 31, 2002. This year has only a few minutes life left before entering the history books. My doesn’t that sound profound? Air Force Academy is playing Virginia Tech in a bowl game — they’re losing by 7 points but are more or less driving down the field. Tomorrow will have several football games and we’ll be staying home all day to get our fill of football.

Some new neighbors down the street had an open house this evening so that they could meet the neighborhood. We went over about 7 and stayed until about 8:15. They are very nice people and will fit well into the neighborhood. There’s about 30 seconds left in the ballgame and Air Force has a first and goal. Perhaps they can make this happen??

I enjoy Sunday evenings like this one. We’re home, it’s dark, no one is coming over, I’ve no place I need to be, there are no obligations or other things I need to be doing. It’s also the last day of the Christmas Holidays. Tomorrow is a working day and most everyone will be back at work.

We had Monday, December 23rd, Tuesday the 24th, and Wednesday the 25th off from work. We were also encouraged to take Thursday the 26th and Friday the 27th off as well. Most of my staff did take these days off. I decided not to burn the two vacation days since we’ll be spending some in January. The two days were great days to be at work. I got most all the administrivia taken care of and can now let it pile up for several more weeks.

Christmas was very nice. Nina and I went to see The Lord of the Rings part two, The Two Towers on Christmas eve morning. We went to the first show at 10:00 a.m. meaning we were able to get into the theater for $3.75 apiece. The theater was filled — with a smattering of single seats left here and there. We were near the front of the line and had choice seats. Only problem is, the movie is more than three hours long with previews and such. Well before the movie was finished, both of our bladders were demanding serious attention. That’s too long that early in the morning to be too far away from a bathroom. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the movie a second time. I’ll definitely go see it at least once more in the theater.

Christmas eve night we were invited to a Mark and Karvin’s home along with another couple, Bob and Rosemary. Mark and Karvin had put together an sumptuous feast, including Swedish mush! I like cereal and found this to be very good as well. The mush includes one almond which ends up in someone’s bowl. The finder of the almond is supposedly blessed with good fortune in the coming year — in such ways as being the next one married, or having the next child. None of us were interested in any such “luck.” However, the Bishop drew the bowl with the almond. We’ll have to monitor his coming year to see what “luck” comes his way!

We were planning to sleep in on Christmas morning! At 4:45 a.m. the phone rang and it was our friends from Townsville, Australia: Ray and Mary. We had a lovely long chat. It’s mid-summer in Australia, so their day included a BBQ, swimming, and a water-balloon war. Meanwhile, we were enjoying 30 degree weather. Fortunately, Ray and Mary called us second. Duane and Bobby got the 4:00 a.m. call! After the chat with Ray and Mary, sleep was out of the question. We both lazed around until around 8 when we opened presents and then made a huge Christmas breakfast. Most if the breakfast waffles made it outside for the birds. All the bacon, however, was consumed! Later that afternoon we went over to Bobby and Duane’s to join them for their traditional family Christmas dinner. In preparation for the dinner, Duane decided to get a couple of tables and some chairs from the church building. He called me to make sure the room where the tables are located would be unlocked. I offered help, but he assured me all would be well. A little while later, I got a call from his cell phone. He was at the church and had locked his keys inside the building! So I drove down and rescued him. He had brought out two tables, with one holding the door open. He loaded the other one into the pickup truck along with sixteen chairs. He then loaded the other table- and the door closed, locking his jacket inside the building on the couch along with all his keys. Luckily, the cell phone was on the seat of the truck. He took a lot of ribbing about that incident!

While at Duane’s house, I took a couple hundred digital pictures of the family (there must have been about thirty people there). I then loaded the best of them, about a hundred pictures, onto a CD and put together a slide show of the pictures. That was a lot of fun and I learned a lot putting the CD together for him. One of their children lives in Maryland, so I made up two CD’s so that they could send one out east for that family to see pictures of the cousins and siblings.

Friday morning we finally finished revising our will. Both Nina and I now have a will, powers of attorney, medical powers of attorney, living wills, and all the associated paperwork for trusts and specific bequeathments. It’s good to have that done. The work is expensive…. Definitely not as expensive as not having all this paperwork completed! We can now demise and not have to worry about what will happen.

The Christmas season and the year 2002 draws to an end. It has been a good year for us. We’re still gainfully employed. We’ve been able to take two cruises. All of our children are doing well and everyone seems to be in good health and vigor. Mom and dad are getting much more frail, but they are still enjoying life and able to take good care of themselves. Dad has recovered very well from the fall resulting in a hip replacement. Mother has a congestive heart condition but it hasn’t gotten much worse over the past year. We’re active in the Church and thoroughly enjoy our work at the Denver Temple each week. Life is good!

We had our traditional Christmas services this morning in Church. The choir sang four numbers along with two speakers. I enjoy singing in the choir and we performed reasonably well for a volunteer pick-up type of a choir. We sang an arrangement of Silent Night followed by a speaker reading the Christmas story from Luke. We then sang Angels We Have Heard on High from the hymnbook followed by a congregational hymn Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plain. We then sang Were You There followed by the main speaker. The choir then sang an arrangement of Hosannah. The congregation sang O Come, All Ye Faithful and that ended the service. Our normal organist was out of town, so I was substituting on the organ. All went well except for the introduction into O Come, All Ye Faithful! My feet wanted to play the hymn in it’s normal three flats, hands were playing it in one sharp as it is now written in the hymnbook. We survived, however. Our organ has a nice 32′ diapason stop which got cranked in on the last verse…!

This Christmas looks to be very quiet around the house. We’ve been invited over to our Bobby and Duane’s house for Christmas dinner. We’ll have a quiet dinner here with Nina and me on Christmas Eve. This is the first time that I can remember where we’ve not yet found anyone to come over for Christmas Eve!

Bradica has been scarfing up on candy, however. She’s torn open a couple of packages that had candy in them. The one last night had fudge in it and she’s been a pretty sick dog. She just started to perk up a little while ago. Only problem is, she never learns a lesson from that.

Looking ahead at the new year is a bit difficult. Business conditions are improving, but very slowly. Bonuses and merits increases will continue to be on hold for at least the first six months of the year. Hiring is frozen; even if someone quits they likely won’t be replaced. Spending will be tightly constrained. I think that’s even the optomistic outlook. We’re looking right down the barrel at war with Iraq and if that happens, the economy will likely go south in a real hurry. That war will likely be very messy with a lot of casualties and the American people won’t tolerate that very well. We’ve got plenty of political problems as well. Reason and moderation have completely departed Washington and have been replaced by radical fanaticism. Only the far right and far left remain as they’ve literally made everyone that even smells moderate inconsequential. Makes one a bit depressed, me thinks.

The Two Towers was a marvelous movie. I was ready to turn around and go right back into the theater! Nina and I will definitely go next week, perhaps on Monday afternoon after we’ve finished with the will. That’s a task that’s been put off too long, so Monday morning we’ll review the wills thoroughly with our lawyer and get them finalized.

We left the office about 10 a.m. to go to the 11:30 a.m. movie. When we got to the theater, the line of people with advance purchase tickets was fairly long. We waited in line until almost 11:20 before the doors into the theater complex opened. They were showing the film on two screens, both of which were filled to capacity. It was a thoroughly engrossing movie and the almost three hours were over quite quickly.

I did find it very strange that the building was closed up for so long with only a few minutes to get into the right theater and seated before the movie started. As it was, I found a seat, left my jacket there, took a couple of food orders, and went back out to the popcorn counter to get some popcorn and drinks. Those lines were pretty long as well and I didn’t get back into the theater until about 11:50. I got to my seat as the last preview finished and the main feature started. Thank goodness for previews!

We’ve had a little snow this afternoon — perhaps an inch or so. Probably don’t have much more snow coming, even this small amount wasn’t forecast. We’d sure like to get a lot of snow and make some more progress towards breaking the drought in this area.

The second installment in the three-movie Lord of the Rings series debuts today. The first movie, The Fellowship of the Ring was an outstanding movie, so attending the movie today is quite important. To that end, I’ve declared the middle part of the day a “mental health” day and given everyone on my staff permission to take the time to attend the movie. Some thirty people here in Colorado Springs will be going together. This is quite exciting, actually!

We’re headed to the Church in a few minutes for our annual Tithing Settlement meeting with the Bishop. After that, it’s off to Walmart to finish up some shopping. We may even find some treasures there! Nina seems to be right ready for Christmas to be here. She’s been wrapping and packaging non-stop it seems for a couple of days. Tomorrow should see most everything in the mail.

We’ll have no family here for Christmas and have been invited over to Duane and Bobby Slocum’s for Christmas dinner. I think Nina’s got a few folks coming over on Christmas eve as well. Meanwhile, tomorrow is a very big day!