Six years!

Who woulda thought we'd last this long? :)

Today is our sixth anniversary, and to celebrate, I headed to Hawaii this past weekend.

The trip got off to a great start. United Airlines has a Halfway to Hawaii competition, where everyone on the flight guesses the exact time at which we reach the halfway point of the flight. We took off at 6:35pm, and the flight was supposed to take 4 hours and 50 minutes, so I split the difference and wrote down 8:59pm. Then they said it had to be to the nearest second, so I quickly jotted down 45 seconds and submitted my entry.

8:59:44!

Thank goodness I didn't use Hurley's numbers, or the flight never would have made it. I narrowly beat a woman across the aisle (who was just seven seconds off) to win some boxes of chocolate macadamia nuts. I felt kinda bad since she was the one who lent me the pen to fill out my entry. Lucky pen.

When I landed, Gina and I had our customary first-night-in-Hawaii dinner at Zippy's, and then we headed home and exchanged gifts. Gina had a picture book made of the memorable moments from the last six years (thoughtful), and she also got me a putting machine from Sharper Image (fun). I got Gina a Nintendo DS with Nintendogs (fun). Even if it were thoughtful, I could hardly take credit for it, since Hubert suggested the idea to me. Thanks, Hubert!

Friday night was Gina's classmate Tracy's birthday (she's the one to the left with the lei), and there was a big dinner planned for her with a bunch of other future doctors. It was supposed to be a surprise, but much to my surprise, doctors can't keep a freakin' secret! So much for the Hippocratic Oath! So the surprise was blown, but I don't think anyone cared. As long as they aren't sharing patient stories!

It turns out there were a couple of other guys whose birthdays were around the same time, so the group decided to kill three birds with one stone and present them all with a birthday cake.

The next morning, we took a hike on the Eastern side of the island, up a ridge that gives a view of both sides of the island when you get to the top. It wasn't a very arduous hike, just two hours roundtrip, perfect for my lungs and knees. Gina, on the other hand, hardly broke a sweat, and this was the view I had for most of it.

The views were great at the top, but that's pretty much what it looks like from Gina's place. I felt like the racehorse in Seinfeld's bit. We were just here! If we had stayed, we would have been first!

After the hike, we ate at this Jamaican place, and its location further proved that it doesn't matter where you go, the view is going to be nice.


We headed home and caught the last quarter of the USC ND game, then I followed the Stanford game while Gina caught up on her med school reading. Somehow we managed to win! Not nearly as exciting as USC ND, but any Cardinal win this year is to be cherished.

That night we headed to a nice restaurant on the second floor of the Kahala Mandarin Hotel, the place we've chosen for our wedding (the same place Jack got married! Also Dean, who's a real person). We had a VIP card that cut the food bill in half, so we went all out and ordered a poke appetizer, veal and steak for entree, and chocolate bread pudding and molten cake for dessert. They also brought out a complementary dessert for our anniversary, and it was a pretty funny moment when the waiter asked us if it was our first, and Gina attempted to explain that it wasn't actually a wedding anniversary, but a dating one. I thought he was going to take the cake back. :)


We went to Dave and Busters afterward to have some video game fun. Damn those shooting games are tiring! I kept having to switch hands because my shoulders got tired. We finished with Skee Ball, then called it a night. It was a lot of fun, and it made me think my housemates and I should go to Dave and Busters some time, but our house kinda has most of the stuff we'd want to play anyway. Especially since Hubert and I were planning to get Time Crisis for the PS2. :)

Thanks for the great weekend, G! See you in two months...