Nice weekend. The girls' grandparents, Grandma & Grandpa Nihei, and their cousin Maddie (6 years old) came down from the Bay Area for a visit. It was nice to see Lauren play and keep up with Maddie, who goes a mile a minute. On Saturday we took them to Lauren's favorite noodle house, Shin Sen Gumi, and then we went to the Los Angeles Zoo. Lauren walked the whole time, up and down the hills at the zoo, while both Marissa and Maddie needed a ride in the stroller (if the stroller could have handled the wait, the grown-ups would have liked to have been pushed around in a stroller, too). Lauren hates and refuses to be pushed around in a stroller, I think it's a reflection of her fighting spirit. On Sunday, everybody (except Hilary) went to the Riverside Museum and the Citrus Historic Park and Museum (we didn't want to go too far since we thought it was going to rain). While the Riverside Museum was pretty sad (very small, 8,000 sf), the girls still liked it because of the stuffed (real) animals. Ironically, the museum had a special exhibit of the Anza Internment camp. So the girls, got to learn about one of the camps, where the American Gov't put our people (U.S. Citizens) after dragging them out of their homes during WWII. But the girls were more interested in blowing their noses in tissues and yelling "snowball" and throwing them at me. Oh well.

Hilary didn't go with us on Sunday because she needed to represent our family and pay respect to baby Luke. His funeral was on Sunday. This was the first funeral we (she) attended in our "journey." Hilary was amazed at how strong Luke's parents (Laura and John) and older sister, Grace were. Once again, our condolence go out to the Piersol family.

We got a call last night from the Make-A-Wish people. They are coming out next Thursday to interview Lauren. From what I hear, they'll ask her three questions.
1. If you can have one thing what would it be? 2. If you could meet one person who would it be? 3. If you could go anywhere, where would you go? So out of curiosity, we asked Lauren these questions. Her answers were, a million stuff animals falling from the sky, she'd like to meet George Strait and go on a Disney Cruise. For those of you who don't know George Strait, he is an old country singer. I asked her, wouldn't you rather meet Ariel (Little Mermaid) or Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)? Her response, No, I've already met them. Of course, when I asked her two weeks ago the same questions, she said, Kobe Bryant, Canada, and a stuffed animal. So there is good chance, her answers will change by Thursday. I'm still hopeful her wish will be to play a round of golf at Pebble Beach with her daddy and Tiger Woods. Of course, I would never think of trying to coach her into picking that.