Fun wit frens in da Caribbean

About a week ago, Brian and I got home from a trip to the Caribbean! I know, how exotic, right!? It was amazing, a world away from Seattle. My friend Jen from college and her husband Aaron got married in St. John and we stayed in St. Thomas (both in the US Virgin Islands). What a terrible obligation to attend a wedding in such an exotic location! Life is rough. It was truly beautiful. The weather was in the high 80s, maybe hotter. And muggy.

Our hotel/resort had a private beach and pools and spa, etc. It would have been easy to stay there the whole time and never see anything else. But we dragged ourselves away, rented an open air jeep, and cruised around to check out some other parts of the island. Charlotte Amalie is the major town in St. Thomas and was packed with shops, many that sold diamonds, perfume, electronics, etc. Apparently some items are quite a lot cheaper there, if you're into buying expensive diamonds and perfumes, that is. To me, they still seemed expensive. I bought a beautiful rose quartz necklace for $60 which was plenty expensive for me!

They speak English in St. Thomas, but we also heard some Creole! I didn't even realize that was still spoken anywhere. The English sounds pretty Caribbean, too, kind of like Jamaican for those of us who don't hear it very often. Apparently Virgin Islands Creole was formed when African slaves created a new English-based dialect with West African-derived words and sentence structure. It's strictly informal and constantly evolving and not recognized as an official language.

Anyway, the wedding itself was, of course, gorgeous. It was on the beach--but before I go any further, I have to say it was really unfortunate that many of us were literally eaten alive during the ceremony and suffered through more than a week of insufferable itchy bug bites. Mine just went away not too long ago and I still have hundreds of little purple-like scars to prove it. ANYWAY, aside from that, the ceremony was beautiful!! And so was the bride of course. It was a fun time and I am very happy for the newlyweds! This marks the end of a two-year wedding frenzy for us. In the past two years, we have been to nine weddings, including our own. I am looking forward now to hibernating in Seattle and enjoying some down-time.

Without further ado, here are some pictures from our trip!

View from our hotel

Downtown Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas

Beautiful wedding ceremony at Trunk Bay in St. John

Jodi and I getting much needed relief from the insane bugs

Long-time pals from college: Erica, Jen, and me

The boogie line

Oh my gosh, iguanas were EVERYWHERE!

Brian and I enjoying some good Caribbean food

A walk in the park, but not...

Um, hello. I've been busy these past few weeks. Too busy to write here apparently! So many things to write about, I don't even know where to start.

Let's start with my brother Steve. I haven't written about him in a long time. He is keeping his blog pretty updated, though he hasn't posted anything in the past few days. About three weeks ago he started what they call 'induction chemotherapy.' It is pretty harsh stuff but is supposed to reduce the number of abnormal cells, giving him better chances of a successful transplant. So he spent several days in the hospital and then proceeded to feel like total crap. Mouth sores, incontinence, nausea, you name it. I wrote a little guest post for him when he wasn't feeling very well.

After a few days, he went home and started to feel better and better. Then about a week ago he was admitted to the hospital for an infection, liver problems, and jaundice. Then went home. Then went in again last night because he had a fever (possibly another infection). But his fever went down right away and I think he is going to be released to go back home tomorrow. It's a bit of a rollercoaster.

I know he is disappointed because being admitted over and over again to the hospital feels like setbacks, especially when he had been feeling so much better. But apparently this is not unusual. When your resistance is that low, you can get an infection quicker than you can say "chemotherapy." I am bummed that I haven't seen him in about two weeks or so. We were out of town for awhile and traveling on airplanes, so we didn't want to pass on any unknown germs. Then sure enough, the day after we got home I came down with a nasty cold which I've been fighting for five days now and I think I'm finally at the end of it. So I'm glad I didn't see him right when we got home because I could've passed on a nasty germ.

So after he recovers from this particularly intensive chemotherapy (not like the 'lighter' ones he had before) in a couple more weeks, I think they are planning to start the transplant process possibly in early December. First they start with lots and lots of testing. Then they do total irradiation to wipe out his existing marrow. According to his doctor, this last round of chemotherapy he just had is a "walk in the park" compared to what the irradiation will be like. (That makes me wince...) Then he'll recover from the irradiation, and then finally he will have the bone marrow transplant. Or, more accurately, a stem cell transplant. Stem cells are extracted from the donor's bone marrow and will then be injected into Steve's marrow and will replicate themselves.

One thing you can do is support Steve is to support his friend Nic, who is running 13 races in 12 weeks to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Please consider donating to this great cause! Check out the website here: http://13in12.blogspot.com.

Thanks for listening. I'll write more about the many other things in the coming weeks...

La La Land

This past weekend, we made a little getaway to the City of Angels. Dios mio, that city is big! From the window of the airplane, all I could see was an endless view of lights in every direction. Los Angeles actually seems more like a conglomeration of little cities as opposed to just one. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. It's big and smoggy. I like the weather, though. It was in the eighties. I wore my bikini the whole time.

We went to Beverly Hills and Santa Monica, drove down Rodeo Drive, went to the beach in Manhattan Beach, spent a little time in Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach. We also drove a little south to Orange County where Brian grew up and the schools he went to. It was cool to see the house and neighborhood where he spent his years as a little kid until he went to college.

It was the strangest thing, but part of the time I could have sworn I was in Korea! We got to visit with a lot of Brian's relatives from the Korean side of his family and spent a good chunk of one day in Korea Town--apparently the largest Korean population outside of Asia. I got to meet some of his aunts and uncles, a cousin, and we spent time with his dad and younger sister, too. We ate lots of concord grapes while there. Maybe Brian hasn't mentioned this, but concord grapes are otherwise known as Korean grapes. Little known fact. We had the most amazing lunch at a Korean restaurant. I've never seen so many little bowls of food on one table. And the meat was cooked right in the middle of it all. It was awesome. Here is a picture of us at the restaurant.
We also spent several hours at the Getty Museum. The architecture is stunning. The building design is very modern, but it houses much older art. There was certainly some impressive art there... Gaugin, Renoir, Cezanne, Monet, Van Goget. But I have to admit, I appreciated the modern architecture more than the art itself... I know it's probably in poor taste to say that, but it's true. The Getty Museum sits on top of a big hill in L.A. and you have to take a little tram to get up there. The view from the top is great. If you can see through the smog, that is!

Finally, we spent some time on the beach goofing around!


Next update: Steve's hospital adventure.

Love conquers all in the OBX

Yeehaw! Two of my very favorite people in the whole world just got married last week! Sarah and Michael's wedding was in the outer banks of North Carolina and it was fantastically beautiful and so much fun!! Oh man, I can't believe so many of my friends and me are all getting married lately. We're all so grown up 'n stuff. It's, like, total awesomeness.


It was really exciting to wear my new dress, which was appropriately concord-colored (it even said so on the tag). And it was also fantastically exciting to see my friend Sheila for the third time this year!!! Best time ever.

Great artist

Great art from Matte Stephens:

Wailin' on Palin

I cannot even begin to express how much I dislike the thought of this woman as our vice president. It's a ridiculous joke. Joe Sixpack, please say it ain't so. She is so completely unintelligent. It's terrifying, absolutely terrifying that anyone in their right mind would vote for the McCain-Palin ticket. What has this country come to? Could we possibly stoop any lower than we have in the last eight years? It's sickening. I try to understand people who think differently than I do, but on this issue i will never understand.

Oh man, doggonit, you betcha I'm gonna give a straight-up shout-out to my readers and post these here funny videos of a little lady who likes to call herself a maverick. Because without a few laughs, I would fall onto the floor in a little ball and start crying.

Steve's bitchin' camaro transplant

I haven't written much about my brother Steve here lately. I guess it is partially because he has his own space to write and I like to hear what he says in his own words! And also because if I don't write it down, maybe it won't be real. Silly denial tactic.

Steve is actually doing pretty well in his quest for good health. I think he is possibly the most positive, upbeat, forward-looking person I've ever known. He is handling everything beautifully and taking it all in stride. Although we are experiencing a lot of ups and downs in his platelet and blood counts, which can be frustrating and emotionally exhausting, he never has a bad thing to say about it.

There are lots of good pieces of news right now. A match has been identified for him. A 22-year old female in the US. She is a 9 out of 10 match, which isn't 100% perfect I guess, but I'm very optimistic that her marrow will do the trick! They want to get started on the marrow transplant (or "camaro" transplant as Steve likes to say) right away, so he will be admitted to the hospital on October 20. After about three weeks of prep chemo, tests, and rest, he will undergo the transplant procedure. I'm excited that things are moving ahead. It is much harder to wait around to hear news. He starts another monthly cycle of chemo tomorrow. Yesterday we thought he might have to spend an entire month in the hospital doing a really hard-core round of chemo, but fortunately the doctors decided today that it was not necessary because his marrow is in better shape than they thought. So that's also really good news.

Here are at least four things you can do to help!

1. Sign up to be a bone marrow donor! Because it is so rare to find a person who matches, it is really important to have a lot of people in the registry. I'm sure that the girl who is a match for my brother signed up to help someone she knows. So I hope you'll sign up with Steve in mind, knowing that you might help save someone else's life. It's karma. And it's really easy. www.marrow.org.
   
   
2. If for some reason you can't sign up to be a donor, you can donate platelets! Contact your local blood center and ask if you can donate platelets. Steve needs a platelet transfusion almost every month--when he does chemotherapy, his platelets drop really low before coming back up. Platelet donors are absolutely crucial for people who need these life-saving transfusions.
   
   
3. Support the Aplastic Anemia and Myelodysplastic International Foundation (AA&MDSIF) by buying holiday cards!
   
   
4. Or shop through GoodShop and iGive!