Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Delta didn't call my Grandfather or anything, they just cancelled our flight. None of us in our party were let in on this trick until the day of the flight. Apparently Delta used to make daily flights from SLC International to Kona International, but they cut back to two flights a week...without telling anyone. I guess this is how a company going into bankruptcy treats its customers. Or maybe this is how they got to bankruptcy? So after a nice lunch with Grandpa and Uncle Max, we came back to Provo and played games with Jayson and Felicia (upstairs neighbors) until much too late. But we were on vacation, right? That's what you're supposed to do on vacation.

After one day's delay, we finally left for Kona on the Big Island on Thursday at around noon. The plane ride was long, as are most long flights, but Rebecca got a good view of the ocean and we got to the Islands right as the sun set. Our first hotel had beautiful grounds and was right on the coast of Kona, set in a tide pool where there was good snorkling and sea turtles always come by in the morning. We woke up early on Friday morning and raced outside to see two sea turtles basking in the early sun. We walked right up to them (there are signs everywhere telling you to keep at least 15 feet from the sea turtles, so we kept SOME distance) and took some pictures and video.

One of the best sites we saw on our trip was on the first day. We drove down to the Place of Refuge on the southwestern coast of the Big Island. This place is a replication (or is it renovation) of an actual place of refuge as they had existed for centuries. These places were for those who had committed crimes and came to a place of refuge for sanctuary and a place to "turn their lives around." It was one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my life. There was a sacredness to the beach and the land that can't be described.

The rest of the day we spent going clockwise around the top of the Big Island to Hilo. We stopped at some places in Kona, visiting the first Christian Chapel and King Kamehameha's summer palace on our way out to Waimea. The weather turned drastically colder and wetter; my Father spent some time in Waimea on his mission and he can tell you how cold it is there (in comparison to the rest of the island, of course). After finding the chapel where my father lived for some time on his mission, we continued on our path to Hilo. We stopped at the Akaka falls; it was alright but a bit overrated if you ask my opinion. Rebecca's theory is that a waterfall's beauty is mostly dependent on the context of the waterfall's location and how close you can get to it. I've never been impressed with Niagra Falls. I wasn't impressed with Akaka Falls. I still think that the best waterfalls I've ever been to was the place we went with the Bradshaws in the Olympic National Forest.

Our third day we started early and tried to find Volcanoes National Park, overshot it and ended up on the Black Sandy beaches on the southern part of the Big Island. Black sandy beaches are a bit creepy, because you can't see what's in the water, but it turned out that we were swimming with some more sea turtles and we didn't know it until one climbed up onto the water right next to us. Rebecca kept falling over in the water and cutting herself on the rocks because the current was so strong. After about an hour, we moved on to South Point. Neither of us were quite enthused about going to it at first (I mean, I've been MUCH further south than that), but the beauty of the place was nice. The water was very blue and the waves crashed against the cliffs. It was a peaceful place.

Then we went back to the Volcanoes. However, since Karl and Angela went to the Volcanoes last year, the lava flow has shifted to the far side of the park, approximately an eight mile hike. Since Grandpa can't make that, we didn't want to leave him in the car for the length of time it would have taken us to hike that distance. So we just stood out on the cooled flows and watched the steam plume rise in the distance. And we saw a couple other fun things in the park.

So, now I'm going to take a break from writing and let Rebecca continue the second half.

• View album
• View video Sea Turtles in Kona
• View video Chapel in Waimea
• View video South Point

Take a flashlight to Hawaii. That's what we learned. More than once we wanted to go exploring but failed because of a lack of lighting. We explored the lava tubes (interesting cave-like formations made from lava cooling in stages), but after a certain point in the tube, they stopped putting up lights and you couldn't go farther without a flashlight of your own. [I'd like to point out that more than 3/4 of the first cave we visited was unlit. -Wayne] We tried exploring some caves near a waterfall, but failed because there were no lights at all in the cave. Next time we go to Hawaii, we'll know to BYOF -- bring your own flashlight.

Before we left the Big Island, we also went swimming on a rockier shore near Hilo. It was surprisingly cold water, but then, it was only 9am on the wet side of the island. When we got out, some folks asked if we enjoyed playing with the turtles. Unfortunately, we had to admit we hadn't seen them at all, even though at least one shared our swimming hole with us! Also on the Big Island, we stopped to see the Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory, some cool waterfalls called Boiling Pots, and the Liliuokalani garden near our hotel. The garden was especially nice...a Japanese style rock garden. [This must have been the second most spiritual place we visited in my opinion. -Wayne]

Our first day on O'ahu we somehow managed to wake up and get ready before Grandpa. He was impressed. [This is truly a story we doubt he will ever stop telling. :) ] We were just excited to head over to the Polynesian cultural center already and get the party started. Along the way to the polynesian cultural center, we stopped on the North Shore to see some beautiful beaches and fairly large waves (large enough for them to put signs up warning against swimming there, at any rate). The temple was closed for maintenance, but we at least got our picture taken in front of it. Oh and Turtle Bay Resort was a very nice place to stop as well. [I'd give it 4 stars, not quite a 5 star joint. But we had some lunch there in the resort restaurant and that was worth it.]

Finally we made it to the Polynesian cultural center. It was a ton of fun, I have to say. The Samoan guys made us laugh our heads off, and they made it look so easy to climb a palm tree with your bare feet and open a coconut and start a fire (without matches). The Maori people showed us traditional songs and dances [I could watch and listen to Maoris all day long for the rest of my life and never get tired of it]. We got to bang a stick on the ground to a Fiji song. We almost got to learn the hula at the Hawaii exhibit, but the canoe pageant interrupted. Tahiti showed us how to shake our hips good though. :) And we had a blast with the Tongans and their drums. We felt like we breezed through, but there was so much to see that we couldn't dilly-dally long. The PCC also had a fun luau (including traditional purple glue food they like to call "poi") and a fabulous show [I have now tasted poi. And, as Grandpa says, "I tasted it twice: first and last time"]. If you see nothing else at the PCC, the show is well worth it. Lots of fun. Lots of dancing. Only a few inside jokes from things earlier in the day.

Our last day in Hawaii, we learned just how much Grandpa likes to sit and wait. :) The day was nothing like we planned it to be, but that isn't saying much since we didn't start off with a plan. Everything we thought of fell through though...the Hanauma snorkling bay was closed (because apparently they close *every* Tuesday...who knew?), swimming was off limits because of the wave size (who knew they would be *bigger* on the east shore?), and we got to Hilo Hattie's two minutes after they closed (does *everything* have to close at 5 or 6 in Hawaii?). But despite these seeming setbacks, we made the most of our time exploring and wading, and sitting on the beach and sitting at a very fancy but slow restaurant and sitting for four hours in the airport. We did quite a bit of sitting that day. :)

It was a fun trip. We saw lots of things (not everything, but we did our best) and had time to relax and play as well. And since we never adjusted to the time change, coming back to Utah shouldn't be *too* bad. Just really, really cold. At least we have a couple of flashlights here though. Just in case.

• View album
• View video Rainbow Falls with Grandpa
• View video Polynesian Cultural Center (41:11)

Key Lime Cheesecake
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1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 TBS sugar
1/4 cup margarine - melted
20 oz of cream cheese
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
3 TBS flour
3 eggs
3/4 cup lime juice
1 tsp vanilla

CRUST: mix together graham crackers, 2 T. sugar and melted butter. Press into 9" spring form pan.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
FILLING: Beat cream cheese and 3/4 cup sugar until smooth, best to wait until the cream cheese is already at room temperature. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in sour cream, flour, lime juice and vanilla. Beat until smooth.
Pour filling over crust. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 250 degrees and back for 50-55 minutes, until center is barely set. Cool on rack and chill.

Cheesecake
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12 Graham crackers - crushed
1 TBS sugar
1/3 cup melted butter
24 oz cream cheese - at room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 TBS lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups sour cream
3 TBS sugar
2 tsp vanilla

CRUST: crush the graham crackers and mix with sugar and melted butter. Press into the bottom of a 9 1/2 inch spring form pan.
FILLING: In a mixing bowl, soften cream cheese by beating slowly. Gradually add sugar, beating until creamy and smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add lemon and vanila. Continue beating until smooth and creamy. Pour into crust.
Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until set.
TOPPING: Stir together sour cream, sugar and vanilla. Gently spoon over cheese cake as soon as it is taken from the oven. Continue baking at 325 degrees for 10-15 minutes until set. Remove and cool. Add glaze, if desired.

Berry Glaze: Thaw 12 oz frozen berries. Mix 2/3 cups sugar with 1 TVS cornstarch. Add to berries. Cook stirring constantly until mixture boils. Cool, then spoon on cake.

Fruit Glaze: Drain fruit adding 2/3 cup liquid. Place in sauce pan. Mix sugar and cornstarch as above. Cook stirring constantly until mixture boils. Cool, then spoon on cake.

Pineapple Avocado Fish
----------------------

4 Salmon or halibut filets
4 TBSP olive oil
2 tsp dill weed
1 can pineapple - crushed
1/2 avocado
pinch of salt
cajun seasoning

Tear off four pieces of tin foil to wrap the fish in. Rub in a liberal amount of cajun seasoning into the fish and sprinkle 1/2 tsp dill weed and 1 TBS olive oil on each fish. Wrap in tin foil. Cook at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Top with crushed pineapple and finely chopped avocado, covering with a pinch of salt.

Sorry we've been a bit inconsistent for family emails the last month or so. We've been all over the country and having fun, but internet/computer access was a questionable at best. So to recap, we spent Christmas and New Year's in Virginia with my family, stopping briefly in Michigan to visit Wayne's family and in Pennsylvania to visit a school Wayne's applying to.

Visiting family is always fun, but never long enough. Oh well, at least we will always look forward to the next time since we don't get our fill. :)

Applications to MFA programs are almost complete...five of the seven schools should already have all the materials and we just have two other schools to take care of. Unfortunately, we won't hear back from any of the schools until April or May...so who knows what will happen. We could end up anywhere from California to Illinois to Massachusetts. It's hard to say for certain.

Hawaii with Grandpa Madsen was a blast too (see the previous posts and videos and photos on the trip). Wayne almost has all the videos edited and posted...I think he has a couple more videos to take care of.

And the rest of last week was back to the old grindstone. We technically missed the first two and a half days of classes for the semester, but we feel okay about that. :) Sacrifices must be made sometimes...! And it turned out not to be that big of a deal in the course load work anyway. The first week tends to be slower paced than anything else, and professors are more forgiving with deadlines and whatnot. I don't have any classes this semester (I don't think...I have one more week to change my mind), and I just need to finish my thesis (and defend) by April 25th. It is doable I believe. After that I only have one more credit hour of class to take care of, which I'll do a special projects class (a.k.a. choose-your-own-adventure style class).

Wayne is a monkey face. And he has classes this semester, unlike me. But his schedule should be much lighter than last semester, thankfully. A physical science class, two Studio Art classes (his version of choose-your-own-adventure class), one last Psychology class, Contemporary Art History (which he is very much looking forward to), and a racquetball class. I personally can't believe he has made it this far in his education without taking one P.E. class, but he has. He's getting to the end of his requirements too...he should be done with classes Spring term as well. If all goes well, we'll be done with classes and other requirements by the end of June, and have a month and a half to play/work before going to our next grand adventure.

Anyway you should all be caught up now with our plans and whatnot. Hope all is going well with you guys! Excitement and high adventure all the way! :)

We believe it is a good sign about this semester that we have been able to play games most every night this week as well as sleeping in a little bit on some mornings. That is a good start. However, this semester is going to be one of our last here at BYU (as far as we can tell at this point), which means finishing off MFA applications as well as applying for graduation here. We took very close care of my CMU application and now we have to wait until April or May to hear back from any of the schools on the list that I applied for. So, now it's the waiting game. Rebecca always mentions how she's so excited to find out where we're going "for our next adventure."

Sunday and Monday we played games with Karl and Angela. We got them hooked on Scotland Yard because they overdosed on Carcassone. But while we were doing that, we were attempting to figure out what was wrong with our desktop computer. Over the past four months, it has been acting really poorly, turning off, crashing, not installing, etc. However, we pulled out the hard drive and tried a fresh install. Everything seemed to work fine, so we were thinking that maybe the motherboard wasn't bad and it was just the cd drive that was bad. However, we have since had the computer have the same problems again: problems installing programs we downloaded, sudden crashes, automatic restarting. Motherboard? Probably.

My friend Jamin came over on Saturday and we tried to come up with movie ideas that we could film. Both of us were really involved with acting and movie making in high school (and later) so we've been itching to get back into the creation process. However, we realized that since we've been out of the loop for so long, that the initial idea process didn't flow so easily for us. Not as easily as we could back in the day. The best idea we came up with: find a homeless man who calls himself "the General" and talk to him. Not the greatest idea in the world. Plus, when we found him in the library, we were too chicken to bother him. I guess it's back to the storyboard.

Congratulations to Jessica and Martin for their new addition. We hope that Elena Joy Madsen is doing well.

We went to Sara and Jarem's house last night and played games. They are leaving for McMinnville, OR in a couple weeks and we're sad to see them go.

I will be showing 20 of my finished robot paintings on the 5th floor of the B.F. Larson from February 1st through the 14th.

A short video of our cat playing with a bag we were using to mail something. She was playing more with it while we were eating, but when we got the camera she quickly got bored of it. She's a bit camera shy, you see.

• View video Star cat in a bag

We almost got towed today. Not just almost, but we turned the corner to walk to our car and saw the tow truck pulling up to our car and had to run to stop them. Thank goodness my class got out when it did. Thankfully Rebecca was ready to walk to the car when she was. Thankfully everything worked out just right so we didn't miss our car being hauled off to the impound.

We made a mistake. It wasn't where we parked, but that when we traded cars over winter break, we didn't "remove all remnants" of our parking sticker to prove to BYU's parking department that we needed a new one for our new car. So we are parking permit-less. And now, we find out, our old parking spot in the church parking lot on 9th east is HEAVILY enforced. Which is odd because that parking lot stays empty ALL DAY LONG.

We are just lucky to have a car tonight. But I don't know where we're going to park tomorrow morning (and for several days thereafter).

So we went late one night to Borders (because Barnes & Noble closes SO early) and wandered around the kids section looking at Caldecott Award winning books. This book, (it's actually called "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus") was written by Mo Willems and we picked it up after we read another book he wrote which won the Caldecott, Knuffle Bunny.

Oh, man, this has got to be the best children's book written since "The monster at the end of the book." Mo used to be a cartoonist for Seasame Street and it shows in some of his books. We highly recommend the three that we read: Pigeon, Knuffle, and Leonardo, the terrible monster. But Pigeon in particular is a great book.

No surprises, it's a kids book. So, there's not much there. But, unlike most kids books, this one goes beyond the physical interaction and involves the kid as the authority figure. The whole premise is that the pigeon wants to ride the bus and the kid has to tell him "no."

"I'll be your best friend"
NO!
"How 'bout I give you five bucks?"
NO!
"What's the big deal?!"
NO!
"It's just a bus!"
NO!
"No Fair!"
NO!
"I bet your mom would let me drive"
NO!
"I have dreams you know..."
NO!

This book is wonderful, especially for that age when kids just want to say NO to everything, this is a book that they can get all that frustration out by telling an adorable pigeon, NO!

Hopefully they won't tell an adorable parent NO afterwards. :)

Update: Mo Willems' books didn't win the Caldecott, they were only Caldecott honor books.

Wayne's highlight of the week was beating his friends senseless for the sake of art. Between that and the huge bruise he got in racquetball, how could his week get any better?

My week was a bit more tame. I started and completed my first sewing project on my own sewing machine. Who knew it could be so much fun? :) I started off easy, just making a dust cover to put over the sewing machine when not in use. I looked up someone's directions online, and then modified it. I think it is a good thing it was easy, because I didn't even think to print out the pattern or pin the fabric together...I just kind of made it up as I went along. And it worked out alright, which is nice. I have sewed before, but this is only my third project (ever...the first two were a simple skirt and a duvet cover), and the first one that I have done without any supervision. [Any hints at how to hem pants is a plus...mine need it. -Wayne]

Wayne spent a good chunk of Saturday morning getting paintings on frames for the art show that opens this week. We bought all the wood we needed at Home Depot Friday night, and he put them together on Saturday while I was gone at a YW camp meeting. I still have a hard time believing that it is necessary to start planning camp six months ahead of time. I suppose that is just the difference between the girls and the boys, and I should learn to just accept that. But how does it take six months to plan a one week activity???

I got a lot of work done for my thesis this week. There's still a lot left to do, but it's coming along. I have the two basic pieces ready...one that uses machine translation to create paraphrases, and the other that finds noun-phrases and preposition phrases in the sentences. Now I need to combine these in a meaningful way. So this week I'll look at statistics for phrases that move so we can decide how to use this information with the MT part of the system.

Well, happy Chinese New Year to everyone. We're going to go finish dinner so we'll be ready when our guests arrive. And have a fun groundhog's day this week. Bring on the Spring! :)

Chicken & Cheese pockets
------------------------
1/2 cup chopped onion (but I would recommend more)
2 minced garlic cloves
3 TBSP oil
2 1/2 cup shredded cooked chicken
2 8 oz. cans croissant rolls
1/2 cup salsa
2 cups cheese
Sour Cream, avocado and salsa for topping

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Saute onion and garlic in the oil on medium heat until the onions are translucent. Add shredded chicken. Cook over low heat until cooked thoroughly and the oil is mostly absorbed by the chicken. Separate the dough into 8 rectangles and squish out the perforations. Divide 1 cup cheese, all the chicken mix and the 1/2 cup salsa onto the 8 rectangles. Roll up and pinch to seal the ends. Bake at 350 for 16-21 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven, top with cheese and cook for an additional minute. Serve with sour cream, avocado and salsa.

Jamin came up with this idea: make a documentary about this group of people who "swordplay" at North Park. They use pvc pipes covered in foam that they hit each other with. They've developed rules for this game and we usually see them practicing until late all through the spring and summer.

So to prepare ourselves for this, we're doing a "prologue" to the film. This will be about our trail to the Knights, getting ourselves ready for the challenges ahead. This footage was stuff we shot the other day...a behind the scenes look at the documentary.

No, we aren't nuts.

• View video Knights of North Park behind the scenes