brief update

we are vacationing on the north shore (in the rain!) with our family, so we can't post much, but here is a brief update until we are back in blog-land next week:

we survived the island-wide power outage on sunday. it was totally freaky.
we were almost smashed to smithereens in a high speed chase on a two-lane highway while driving to the North shore!
we are having a total blast, in spite of the daily downpours!
i had the christmas a 14 year old boy could only dream of - a nintendo wii, guitar hero world tour complete band kit, and a wii fit. pretty amazing.

We are having an unbelievable time with Mamaw, Papaw, Grandma, Grandpa, Coral, Ed, Alex, Lyndsey, Brent, Meghan, Casey, and Carmen....more to come!

We Can Hardly Stand the Wait...

...Please Christmas Don't Be Late!!!



We are SOOO excited about Christmas... No, you don't understand...We are REALLLY excited about Christmas!!

The Christmas tree is up, the palm tree outside is decorated with red Buckeye lights and the pile of presents under the tree is growing daily as everyone in the family sends their contribution to the girl's first Christmas haul. The mail truck, UPS and Fedex trucks have been forming a line at the end of the driveway lately. The girls can hardly wait.

In the meantime, they will be spending some serious quality daddy time as I take over nanny duties for the week until my parents and grandparents get here and then I figure I won't see my daughters for the next two weeks until they leave.

Lately, the girls have become obsessed with this catepillar tunnel Juneau got for her birthday. Every morning one of them goes over and pulls it out from behind the bookshelf and looks at me to open it up across the living room floor and they commence crawling back and forth through it.

Our December has been super full even before Christmas gets here. Last weekend, Emilie helped pull off a surprise graduation dinner for me at our favorite Italian restaurant with my friends and colleagues from UH. It was pretty impressive considering Emilie is genetically incapable of keeping secrets most of the time. Also, since it had been a while since I graduated back in July, I totally wasn't expecting it. To make my nerd status official, I was given my very own personalized white lab coat with "Dr. Stickley" embroidered on it...however, the pocket protector and slide rule were not standard equipment on this model.

The UH Gang - minus Kaori - someone had to take the picture :(

Emilie was home all day on Thursday with the girls so of course a photoshoot ensued. Have we mentioned Nova loves to smile...

She did manage to take a picture of one of the most infrequent occurrences in all of nature...No, I'm not talking about Ohio State losing to Michigan...

Yes, occasionally Nova can be seen NOT smiling...and Emilie actually captured it. I figure she had just as good of a chance of getting a snapshot of Bigfoot.

Contrary to what it looks like in these pictures, Juneau is NOT 5 years old.

That night, we jetted off to a Holiday lights trolley tour around downtown Honolulu sponsored by our adoption agency, Hawaii International Child. While waiting for the trolley, we were introduced to a family who adopted a little boy named Van. Van is approximately 2 months older than Juneau and for the first 9 months of Juneau's life, she and Van were together in their orphanage at Tam Ky. His parents traveled to Vietnam and brought him home just a few weeks before I went to get Juneau.

Juneau and Van

Now I am clearly the most skeptical person in the world about things like this but I was holding Juneau when Ruthanne (HIC's Vietnam program director) introduced me to Van's parents. We held Juneau and Van up to each other, just a foot or so apart and immediately, both of them responded with a look that suggested some sort of recognition and they both kind of reached out and touched each other on the arms. I don't know Van's normal personality but I know Juneau well enough that her reaction was different enough from what her reaction would normally be in a situation like that that it immediately stood out to me as something unique. Had I not seen it I would have never believed it.

Juneau has been LOVING all the lights the holiday season brings so she thoroughly enjoyed the trolley. Nova was only semi-interested in the lights. She was much more interested in waving at everyone on the trolley and then giggling when they acknowledged her.

Look Dad, more lights!!

Here we are after the trolley ride posing as Ruthanne makes her debut on our blog. Ruthanne was one of the people who was so instrumental in us bringing our Juneau home and in the process, she has become a regular reader of our humble little blog.

On Friday, the Tripler Ob/Gyn department had their Christmas party and Juneau and Nova got their first exposure to the Big Guy. I chose NOT to post the first picture in which both of them are crying as they sit on Santa's lap.

Today was the Tripler Ob/Gyn residency Christmas party at Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park.

For everyone freezing their rears off somewhere back on the mainland, I won't spend too much time talking about how we spent today, December 20 at a water park enjoying some awesome water slides. Juneau and Nova both loved the kids pool and Juneau absolutely loved the waterslides. As soon as we'd splash down at the bottom of one, she'd immediately be making her "more" sign almost before her head was back above the water. The part I don't think she realized was every "more" meant her dad carrying her up several flights of stairs back to the top of the slide...hopefully my sore legs will be able to get out of bed tomorrow.

With Juneau and Nova's Grandma, Grandpa, Great-grandma, Great-grandpa, Aunt Coral, Uncle Ed, cousins Alex, Lyndsey and Brent and Uncle Casey and Aunt Carmen all coming to Hawaii in just a few days, Christmas and New Years is going to be a TOTAL blast...Stay tuned and a Merry Christmas to all our friends, family (and even a few strangers we've never met) who follow our blog...we hope your lives are as blessed as ours have been this past year.

We are Back from Maui

And it was Awesome! Very different from our trip to Maui 2 years ago, when we camped on the big volcano, and it rained so incredibly hard that they actually closed the road to the campsite, leaving us at the bottom of the mountain, and our stuff at the top of the mountain. This weekend was a short, overnight trip, but it was just what we needed...a little chance to get away and relax...that is if you call waking up at 430 in the morning relaxing! We still aren't quite sure why the girls decided 430 was the perfect time to wake up during vacation. Oh well, it was great anyway.

We started off the adventure on Saturday morning, at our usual weekday wake-up time of 430 a.m.. I decided to get us tickets on the new Super Ferry, so we could enjoy a 3 hour boat road, instead of a 25 minute flight. i just wanted to try out the superferry. It actually ended up being a pretty cool way to travel. It was a little on the long side, but we really enjoyed the beautiful scenery, and the boat was very nice. No one got nauseated or puked (although there were at least 4 stinky diapers en route...another mystery).

The Super Ferry!

A rare picture of Nova smiling (just kidding!)

The girls in their Cruise-wear

the Stickley Fam Daddy and his little Bug on the boat (you can tell it's early! the sun is barely coming up!)

mom and NovaJo

Juneau looks a little sea-sick...but she really did fine!

Juneau in the Ergeau

The Hawaii Stickley Girls

We arrived at 10:00 and headed over to meet our friends at the resort

We were soooo happy to get to see our friends, Shabnam and Brant and their absolutely adorable little Ava...
Shabnam and I have been friends, and at various points roommates, since our very first day of undergrad in 1997. We made it through all 3 years of undergrad, and then 4 years of med school together. We have gone from being crazy 18 year old college students to crazy 29 year old moms (happy birthday shab!). Ava is such an incredibly delightful 11 month old. she is so sweet and smiley, and of course unbelievably cute.

Cris, Em, Shab, Brant, Juneau, Nova, and Ava!

Our Vietnamese, Caucasian, and Persian cuties!

Next about the resort. It was pretty much amazing. I half expected to look at the lounge chair next to me and see Paris Hilton sitting there. We didn't get to enjoy the "Serenity Pool", since apparently most people don't find 1 year olds "serene", and hotel policy prevented our brood from running rampant amongst those who were relaxing. But we did admire it from afar. the pool was designed so that if you were standing in the pool it looked like it ended directly in the ocean. It was pretty cool.

the Serenity Pool

We did, however, enjoy the kiddie pool. There were water slides and fountains, and all kinds of things that Cris and Juneau could enjoy while being wild and crazy. Juneau went down the little tube water slide by herself. I can't really say she loved it, but she didn't hate it, and she kept doing her "more" sign.

We pretty much just bummed around the resort and beach, then took an awesome 2 hour nap, and went out for dinner. the girls don't really get the concept of "a good night's sleep", so we were up feeding them bottles and replacing their pacifiers until 430 a.m., when they decided they were ready to hit the beach. We played for a little while at the pool, then headed back to the Super Ferry for the trip home.

Nova showing off her new trick---waving!

Juneau going in for the kiss

cute little sisters

Dad and J enjoying breakfast by the ocean

Not sure if anyone actually made it through the play-by-play of our entire weekend, but here are some more pictures. There are enough pictures here to make it seem like we were there for a week instead of a day. enjoy!

The girls climbing on the Crab in SuperFerry kids play area

We were just a little family of two last Christmas...we are sooo happy to have both of our girls for their first christmas, 2008!

Juneau blowing kisses

J-bug showing off her swimming suit

Nova is excited to celebrate christmas....only 18 days until her cousins come to Hawaii

7 and 14 months!

Time for an update on NovaJo and her big sister. Both of the girls have made huge progress this month in their development.

Nova is on the move! She crawls all around the house now. She did the belly crawl only for a few days before she started an official crawl on all fours. She has also started cruising on the furniture a little bit. She still falls down a LOT, but she shakes it right off and keeps on going. She has pretty much outgrown her bouncer and exersaucer, and hates to be confined now that she has found the freedom of crawling. She still spends the majority of the day smiling. She is a very social baby, and laughs and giggles at everyone when we are out and about. She isn't really to interested in baby food, and so only tries a little bit here and there. She still isn't close to sleeping through the night, and usually wakes up 1 or 2 times for a bottle. Nova has 1 tooth popping through on the bottom. She is sweet sweet sweet, and we absolutely adore watching her grow.

Are you tired of seeing Nova ham it up for the camera yet?

June-bug also has big news....she is walking! She has been taking a few steps with encouragement for about a month or so, but i couldn't really call it "walking" until the last week. Now she is walking around the house more than she is crawling. She is so proud of herself when she realizes she is walking. It is so cute. I am loving how her personality is totally shining now. Sometime last month i posted about how she was always so serious, and rarely giggles or acts like a 1 year old. Over the last month she has started acting so silly. She now giggles and laughs all the time. Her laugh used to sound so strained, almost like a scream, but now she genuinely giggles. She knows several body parts (toes, eyes, ears). She can say a lot of words that use a "sh" sound. Fish, wash, and shhhhhh (when nova is sleeping). She also consistently says "juice" when she wants something to drink. Mama and Dada are commonly heard. when she really wants Cris' attention she will just yell "Dad" with extra emphasis on the last D. She loves to read books, although her attention span isn't quite enough to finish all of "Green Eggs and Ham". She has also definately learned what the DVD player in the minivan is for, and immediately points to the TV as soon as we buckle her in. She loves Shrek right now, but also watches Nemo and Veggie tales. Her very favorite movie to watch is her adoption video. She is captivated by it. Juneau is such a delightful and wonderful little girl. We are learning so much about her personality, and loving every second of it.

The Bug fast asleep in the Carseat

Juneau reading by the Christmas tree

Trying out the Santa hat

Hanging out with her buddy Aalyjah

las vegas, thanksgiving, black friday, ,etc...

Well, we haven't posted in a while, mostly because we have been running around like crazy folks. Last wednesday night, my friend Tracy (who deserves to be made Saint Tracy after her heroics last weekend) helped me bring the girls to Vegas. It was insane. Fortunately, it wasn't as insane as it could have been, but it was still quite an undertaking. Tracy does not yet have children, and it was quite amazing that she was so awesome with helping me haul mine through a 5 hour plane ride, a four hour layover, and another 1 hour plane ride, and then repeat the whole process 4 days later. Fortunately, both Juneau and Nova have already made a couple of very long plane rides, so they are becoming rather seasoned travelers at the ripe old age of 6.5 and 14 months. This was Nova's 3rd trans-pacific flight, and she did quite well.


I only really got the Bad Mother Award once, when Juneau fell off the airport chair she was balancing precariously on, and busted her bottom lip. there were many tears, and lots of gushing of blood, and quite a few nasty stares from bystanders who couldn't believe i would let my daughter stand unassisted on the airport chair with metal arms. With several minutes of heavy pressure on the wound (once i finally identified it through the massive hemorrhage), the bleeding and tears resolved, and we made it through the rest of the trip.

Vegas itself was a BLAST. Tracy, our friend Kenya, and I had a great time learning lots of cool stuff at the Cosmetic Gynecology conference, and Juneau and Nova had a fantastic time getting non-stop spoiling by Grandpa and Grandma Saccenti, Aunt Becky, and Uncle Drew. The girls absolutely LOVED the lights of the casinos. I unfortunately do not have any pictures...which is rather sad, but truthfully i had such a difficult time keep up with myself and the girls, that i couldn't even think about taking the extra step of pulling out the camera. Travel with babies is hard! I thought travel with 1 baby was hard when Nova and I were traversing between Hawaii and Michigan, but adding J-bug to the equation kind of quadrupled the work/stress. But all that being said, it was DEFINATELY worth it so Juneau and Nova could hang out with the family. Grandpa and Grandma adored the girls, and the girls adored them, so it was overall a success. Not to mention that the good Lord smiled down on us, and Tracy and I each had an empty seat (on otherwise totally full flights) next to us on 3 of the 4 flights. That was truly a miracle, and a life-saver.

The girls' first Thanksgiving was action packed. We started off with the Tripler Crew thanksgiving, then headed over to the Traditional Thanksgiving Feast at Gordon Biersch with cousins Tim, Beth, and Melody, and then over for a final thanksgiving evening with the University of Hawaii Kinesiology gang. Needless to say, i think we are truly thanksgivinged-out until next November. The girls were amazing as we dragged them around all over the island. I'm glad that they have very easy going personalities, and just go with the flow.

Finally, we didn't do our usual wake up at 4 am for the black friday deals this year. There wasn't really anything we "needed" from the ads, so we slept in until 6:30 when the bug woke us up. I was getting a little stir crazy from being in the house all day, so in the afternoon we headed out for a little shopping. By the time we hit the stores they crazy crowds had kind of dissolved, and we just bought a few little things.


I have to say i am pretty pumped about my christmas present (which cris bought after just a tiny bit of begging a couple of weeks ago). On December 25th i will be the ecstatic owner of my very own Nintendo Wii. I'm super excited. The last game system i owned was the olllld original Nintendo (circa 1985). Cris owned an original Playstation system, but never bought anything since then. we can't wait to try out the amazing new technology that has come about in the last 20 years.


and finally, pictures of the week (except for vegas, for the above stated reasons!)

Hanging out at the Zoo with Aunt Bets

J-bug getting her Starbucks Fix


Juneau going in for the open-mouth drool kiss

Thanksgiving dinner with Cousin Melody

The Buckeye Tradition

As a Buckeye living outside of the midwest, I am often asked "What exactly is a Buckeye?"

Technically, a Buckeye (Aesculus glabra) is small, shiny, dark brown nut with a light tan patch that comes from the official state tree of Ohio, the buckeye tree. According to folklore, the Buckeye resembles the eye of a deer and carrying one brings good luck. “Buckeyes” has been the official Ohio State nickname since 1950, but it had been in common use for many years before.

Commonly, a Buckeye refers to an Ohioan. The first recorded use of the term Buckeye to refer to a resident of the area was in 1788, some 15 years before Ohio became a state. Col. Ebenezer Sproat, a 6’4" man of large girth and swashbuckling mannerisms, led the legal delegation at the first court session of the Northwest Territory in Marietta. The Indians in attendance greeted him with shouts of "Hetuck, Hetuck" (the Indian word for buckeye), it is said because they were impressed by his stature and manner. He proudly carried the Buckeye nickname for the rest of his life and it gradually spread to his companions and to other local settlers. By the 1830s, writers were commonly referring to locals as “Buckeyes.”

For those of us who are Alums of the greatest university in the world, being a Buckeye is a label we wear with pride that represents the traditions of our beloved Alma Mater.The term Buckeye also refers to the round white decals, about the size of a quarter, with a green depiction of a buckeye leaf applied to Ohio State football helmets for big plays and consistency on the field. This tradition started in 1968 when Woody Hayes and longtime athletic trainer Ernie Biggs changed the look of the Ohio State uniforms. Many of the sports at Ohio State incorporate Buckeye Leaves into their equipment and uniforms.

Finally, Buckeyes are also a candy made to look like the Buckeye nut though unlike the nut, they are delicious instead of poisonous...these yummy confections are the heart of a family tradition that began many years ago.

In 1992, my sister and I were living in a small apartment just off High Street at the edge of the Ohio State campus. She was in her second year of medical school and I was in my second year of undergrad. We had grown up on a small farm in Ohio and had been raised to love the Buckeyes. That was the year, without knowing it, we started what would become our “Michigan-week” tradition. In our small kitchen we baked a single recipe of our beloved Buckeye candies and each took half of them to work with us on Friday – her to share with her med school mates and mine to the Ohio State Athletic Training Room. The tradition has continued every year since then even after we moved to different corners of the state or country and seemed to get bigger every year – that first year we made about 50 Buckeyes total; In recent times, some years have seen us well over the 500 mark between us. The tradition has been carried through Ohio, Kentucky, to California for a couple years and even all the way to Hawaii. Now years later, it’s not just her and I carrying on the tradition: Her 6 year-old son and 10 year-old twin daughters know the process of rolling the peanut butter balls and dipping them in chocolate by heart and my wife, now already in her fourth year of the tradition has her own special touches she likes to make to the recipe. This was Juneau and Nova's first of what will be many years of making Buckeyes during "Michigan Week".

So, for 17 years now, my sister and I have been bringing Buckeyes to work with us the Friday before the Ohio State – Michigan game and sharing some Buckeye spirit.

Juneau "helping" roll peanut butter balls

Juneau dipping her first Buckeye

It looked too good to share with everyone

Nova dipping her first Buckeye

Juneau testing out this year's batch to make sure they were safe to share

Obviously, Juneau approves of the family tradition but I'm not sure she realizes she has to wait a whole year until the next batch.

“Time and change will surely show, how firm they friendship, O-HI-O” - from "Carmen Ohio" (The Ohio State Alma Mater)

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Go Bucks!!! Beat Michigan!!!