Kayla's birthday

Here are some of my favorite photos from our weekend together in Seattle for Kayla's birthday. I wish I had charged my camera earlier in the trip. I'll have to rely on the rest of you for the priceless photos of Kayla's baptism and Grandma playing Wii. Mom - Post the video!! :)

Disneyland Trip

LaDawn and I just got back from our company trip to Disneyland. We had an amazing time. We flew down to LA on Monday and went to the park all day on Tuesday. And I mean ALL DAY. I got to the park at 9:30 am and stayed until about 1:00 am. First we went to California Adventure and rode the Tower of Terror. That was a big ride to start with since it involves a 13 story drop. :) Then we rode the roller coaster - twice - and California Soaring where you're in a simulated hang glider and zoom up to a wrap around screen and fly over scenes of California (orange groves, surfers on waves, downtown LA, etc). It was fun! I felt like I was flying. My favorite part of Disneyland was Space Mountain. I think I rode it 6 times at least. It was best once the park closed at 8pm and our company was the only people in the park. There were no lines! I mean NO LINES! You could just walk up to any ride and hop on. My favorite picture I took was in front of Space Mountain where the signs says there is a "1 minute wait time". Hahahahaha! :) I don't think I'll ever see that again. I also *loved* the free food (woo hoo!) and the most incredible fireworks show I've ever seen. Enjoy some of my pictures here:

Tahoe Ski Trip

I know I haven't posted in a long time and this is going to make it look like all I've been doing is partying - but believe me that there has been a lot of work behind all of this. Here are some photos of the ski trip I arranged for 700 people on our team. We had a blast. And then I died of exhaustion. Check it out. :)

The Holiday Party

Okay, it's embarrasing to finally post pictures of a holiday party now that it's February... but the party was so fun I want it to be remembered. Check out this album for the highlights.

Last Lecture - by Randy Pausch

Last week the Wall Street Journal featured a fabulous column by Jeffrey Zaslow which told the story of the "last lecture" of Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Randy Pausch, a 46-year old father of three young boys (ages 5, 2 and 1) who is afflicted with terminal pancreatic cancer. This lecture is probably one of the most inspiring things I've ever experienced and I wanted to share it with you.

You can view his lecture at mms://wms.andrew.cmu.edu/001/pausch.wmv.

Today the Wall Street Journal published a follow up article about the enormous response there has been world wide to this lecture. Professor Pausch is expected to live for another month or two, but the effects of this lecture and his life's work will live on. I was inspired by the awards and announcements after his lecture too, so be sure to stay tuned.

Paragliding at Pacifica

Keith, Brent and I spent Sunday afternoon in Pacifica enjoying the scenery and watching Sam paraglide. Check it out!

New York!

I worked in our New York office last week - and I played a bit too. :)

Labor Day at the Palace of Fine Arts

Jacob came to visit us over Labor Day weekend. We did a lot of fun things. One of our favorite things was visiting the Palace of Fine Arts in downtown San Francisco. Here are a few of my favorite photos.

This is the Palace of Fine Arts. I love the swans swimming out front.
Jacob in front of the columns at the Palace.

After our long walk around the Palace for a few hours we got really hungry. So we decided to get dinner at Tarantinos (a sentimental place for the Hiatts) and then dessert at Ghirardelli. We had to roll ourselves home.

Hiatts know how to party! ;)

Hawaii

Keith and I had a great trip to Hawaii. Check out a few of our pictures.

Israel Part 2

Israel was my favorite city of our trip. What an amazing place!

Israel Part 1

Bangkok and Bangalore

Here are my lastest pics from Bangkok and Bangalore. What an adventure!

Beijing and Bangkok

Yesterday we had breakfast in Beijing, China, lunch in Bangkok, Thailand and dinner in Bangalore, India. I'm exausted and my stomach is really confused. :) Here are my pictures from Beijing and Bangkok. We were only in Thailand during a layover so we didn't get to see very much. I hope to come back here in the future. It was amazing - and the food was the best I've ever had in my life.

Tokyo Part 2

Hey everyone! I'm alive. So far we've survived a typhoon and 2 earthquakes - but we're still having fun. Check out what we've been up to in Japan. :) You can click on the slideshow below to see larger pictures and read my captions for more info.
Love you and miss you!

Tokyo Part 1

Lake Tahoe Weekend

From my blog posts today it will sound like Keith and I have just been relaxing and taking it easy for the past few weeks - but the truth couldn't be further. Keith just finished a very heavy load of final exams and papers and I had a miserably stressful few weeks at work. Neither of us had had any sleep and our blood pressure felt dangerously high, so we were releaved when some friends of ours invited us to go to Lake Tahoe with them for the weekend. We drove up to Tahoe when I got home from work on Thursday and we spent all of Friday and Saturday at the lake. I've never been happier. I feel like this trip saved my sanity. We stayed at one of the most beautiful places on earth. Here are a few of my favorite photos from our trip:

Friday morning we went hiking up a ski trail to get a view of the lake. Isn't this beautiful? It was breathtaking in person. The lake is so blue and clear.

Here is Keith, Ming and Stephen relaxing at the empty ski resort at the top of our hike. It was a wonderful place to sit and talk and enjoy the beautiful setting. We stayed so long that I got a sunburn. I didn't mind at all! :)

Keith and I overlooking the lake.

On Friday Keith and I went down to explore the lake. The water was unbelievably clear and beautiful!
Friday afternoon we drove to the other side of the lake to hike down to Vikingsholm. (For more info on this fantastic places, check out: www.vikingsholm.com.) This is the view of the lake from the top (beginning) of the hike.
This is the view of the waterfall from the top of the hike.


This is Vikingholm. It's a scandinavian estate built in the traditional style with the main house in the center and longhouses on either side with sod roofs. We hiked down over a mile to get here.
From Vikingsholm we hiked over to the base of Eagle Falls. It was beautiful and the mist felt really nice. It was over 80 degrees outside that day and I was sorry that I wore a black t-shirt!
Here is Keith and I at the base of Eagle Falls. We had an amazing weekend in Tahoe. I am so glad that we went.

Baseball Saturday

A friend from church gave Keith and I tickets to an Oakland Athletics baseball game. It was fantastic to spend the day together in the sunshine and enjoy some baseball. We had fun celebrating Keith finishing finals.

We had great seats! This picture was taken without zoom. We were 5 rows back between home and first base. One of the payers broke a bat swinging for the fences and I flinched because we felt close enough to get hit by the other half.

I wasn't aware that a mountain man was sitting behind us until I looked at this picture that night. Probably for the best. :) We had a great time even though the As lost.

St. Patrick's Day Obama rally

Keith and I went to Barack Obama's presidential campaign rally in Oakland last weekend (on St. Patrick's Day). I met Senator Hillary Clinton while she was visiting some executives at work a week earlier, so I thought it only fair to meet her competitor. Unfortunately Keith and I didn't exactly get to meet Obama. We were in the middle of a crowd of 12,000 people that gathered to hear him speak. The red dot in the picture below shows where we were in the crowd.

Most of the time I couldn't see the stage because I am a foot shorter than the guy that was standing in front of me. And when he wasn't in the way there was a lightpole blocking my view. The good news is that the crowd shifted a bit once he started his speech and I was able to see him through a tiny gap in the crowd for most of his speech. Keith was able to see pretty well and got some good pictures. Here are a few:

The rally was in front of Oakland City Hall. It was *so* crowded!

This is a shot of the crowd behind the stage and podium. Obama made his entrance through the middle of this crowd.

This was Keith's view of the stage. Obama gave a great speech and the crowd loved him. I've never been to anything like this before. It was a good moment for me as a registered voter. It made me feel connected to my country and happy to be able to participate in a public expression of democracy.

Reed's visit to San Francisco

Reed visited us in SF this week. Check out my web album of all the fun things we did during his visit. We had a blast (and I hope Reed did too!).

Reed's SF Visit

I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged! In an attempt to catch up on everything that's happened in the past few months I've created a web album with some highlights. You can view it here:

Dec 2006 Jan and Feb 2007