Hawaii Trip

Wendy recently posted this on her myfamily.com site. Thought I would pass it along



I typed for and hour, and accidently pushed return, and lost all of it. I was am pretty upset about loosing that much, so I am going to sum up.Started in Kaua'i, went snorkling, boogy boarding, went on a helicopter ride, drove to see the "grand cayon" of that island, ate at great places, and tried all the local fish and fruits. After 3 days we flew to Maui and drove the road to Hana, saw black and red sand beaches, Scott took his first Scuba lesson and did a dive with his mom and dad. We enjoyed a luou, (lots of great food, and amazing dancers). Scott, his dad, Eric and I went and snorked at Mulukini, a half moon crater island out by Maui, saw great fish. We also snorkled with about 5 sea turtles, 2 of which started mating, and we saw 2 males fight over the one feamale in heat. Apparently one bit the other one. We drove up to the top of Haleakala (the volcano), then went trick-or-treating. We took the kids on a little underwater boat and got to show them lots of fish. More beaches and snorkling. We then went to the Maui Aquarium where Scott's parents dove in their huge shark and sting ray tank. They picked up stark teeth for the kids. We got to watch them the whole time. The largest shark was a tiger shark 7 feet long. It was memorable. It was fun and very busy!Sorry it isn't very detailed, my other entry was. I am typed out. Love you allWendy


This was her post on Oct 16:
"Hey, I have to leave to go visiting teaching pretty soon so I will keep this short. We took Andrew to the Ped. Cardiologist yesterday because Scott heard a pretty loud murmur. After the echocardiogram, it was discovered that Andrew has a cleft in one of his chamber valves. His heart has to work a bit harder because the valve is less efficient then a normal valve would be. He will eventually have surgury on his heart when the cardiologist feels is neccessary, but for now it will be monitered every 6 months. Well I do have to go. Love you all."

I replied to it with this:
The technical term is an isolated "mitral valve cleft". They are usually associated with other congenital heart defects. Andrew doesn't have any of those other defects. Heather you are right, the first time we heard the murmur was at Dr. Stump's office when Andrew was sick. But we hadn't heard it before and we think it would go away, or least be not as audible, when he was better. But he was playing around with my stethescope the other day and wanted me to listen to his heart. As I did I noticed he had it again, but Andrew proceeded to get sick that night so I wasn't too worried except that I thought it was louder than before. I also could not tell where the murmur was originating from in the heart. So a few days later I pulled out the stethescope again and low and behold it was still there with the same volume if not louder. We got an appointment, the cardiologist couldn't place the murmur either by listening and the fact that I thought it was getting louder got Andrew an echocardiogram and the mitral valve cleft is what we found. It is rare enought that I can't find a picture on the internet to show you. So for now we will be watchfully waiting."


Most recently, I found my theme song
My colleague sent this to our group, thought it would be great to pass along.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xuZl9tRqjoQ

p.s. This is by a group called "Amateur Transplants". This is the only song from them I would listen to. We started to listen to another and there were really bad words in it. The above link/song is very clean.