Brace face

I failed to mention that this week I got all my braces on. I've had the upper braces for about a month now, but I got them put on the week everyone left for break, so I guess not a lot of people noticed them before. I get so many comments about them now, and it's a little funny to me, but I don't really care. I've never had braces before, so it's been a new experience, and I have a lot more sympathy for my little brothers now! Also, I choose to go with blue bands, and my student dentist is trying to convince me to go for Halloween colors next month. (I'm getting them done at the school.) We'll have to see about that because it might make me feel a little too juvenile, but who cares, right?

Some random Wednesday

For some reason this week has felt ridiculously long to me. I don't know why. However, it was a pretty good week. I saw a bunch of patients, got some requirements out of the way, attempted to clean my house... yeah. Anyways, on Wednesday my friend Julianna randomly asked if I wanted to come jet-skiing with her (wave-running, whatever). Of course I said yes!

Across the river in Iowa there is this nifty reservoir - not ten minutes from my house! Now, it's no Lake Powell - it's pretty small, and the water is a nice muddy brown - but it's still a lake! Julianna's fiance John has two wave-runners and we took turns cruising around on them. Julianna and John soaked Qi Qi and I in a drive by, and I managed to dump both of us off the wave-runner while attempting to repay the favor! Poor Qi Qi. Ha ha. I also managed to re-live my wild childhood days of flipping doughnuts on the wave-runners. No, I did not flip it after that first attempt, but then again, Qi Qi was safely watching from the dock. All-in-all, very fun, very exciting, and very refreshing to get out of the house and on the lake in the middle of the week!

Peacock Fun!

When we were in Hawaii we stopped and had a picnic after hiking up to Waiamea Falls. We happened to discovered some very friendly wildlife. My brother Blake has a way with animals, especially when it comes to getting them to do things for food! Enjoy.

PS, please ignore the commentary...

I love this video because it really shows Blake's personality. Which is exactly why I love being around him!

Hawaii!!!!

Okay, so my family decided to go visit HAWAII and luckily they invited me! Here are some awesome pictures just for you to enjoy.

The beautiful beach right outside our hotel.

Two of the brothers on the dive ship. My parents, Blake, Mitchell, and I are all dive certified. This was lots of fun, and my dad has better pictures on his camera, but unfortunately they are unavailable at this moment!

We did a deep dive (about 90 feet) down to a wreck. We then did a more shallow dive through some awesome lava tubes where we saw 4 sharks! Yeah... can't say I was especially excited about that because we had been watching Shark Week on the discovery channel. Not to mention it was a bit claustrophobic in the tube with 5 other divers, 4 sharks, and sea urchins lurking on the ocean floor waiting to stab unsuspecting victims. All-in-all, a very exciting and awesome experience!

Me and Mitchell were collecting leis at the Polynesian Cultural Center. I got three, and Mitchell had five (but only because he found 2 in the garbage!). By the way, I just love his huge smile, and the fact that he is now taller than me! When did that happen? We watched some guy start a fire and climb a tree, and some dudes from Tonga (and a random Chinese guy) pounded on some drums. We ate tons of delicious food at a luau - including some of the best pineapple and pork ever- and we saw a very cool dance and fire show.

I want you for... um... I can't think of anything clever. This is my dad being awesome.

Me and two of the brothers finally going surfing! We rented these boards and just taught ourselves. I can't say I was good at it, but I'm glad I went, and I really wish I lived by a beach so I could get good at it. So much fun, but it is a lot of work, especially when you are trying to control those giant beginner boards! Yet another adventure, this was technically a military beach, and you had to have military ID to rent a board. Luckily my dad worked for the government doing dentistry on a reservation his first year out of dental school - and they still accepted it. Way to go dad!

All in all, a phenomenal trip. Not to mention the sweet tan lines I came back with!

Travel fest!

This year my summer was taken up mostly by clinic, and by studying for the National Boards. I took Boards July 27th, and I'm pleased to announce that I passed! I am glad to have that over with. Too bad Part II boards will be coming up much faster that I would like to think about, but oh well.

Luckily I did get to fully appreciate and enjoy my rather short summer break. I'm not complaining, because I thought it was a wonderful break! However, I do have to do some tallying, because I'm pretty sure I spent at least 4 days of solid traveling over the break (an awesome feat considering my break was only about 2 1/2 weeks long). Also, I had the most crazy experiences while traveling, not to mention all the interesting people you meet while on planes!

Omaha to Vegas via Denver - 6 hours plus 2 1/2 hours driving home. Two days layer I drove 3 1/2 hours to Salt Lake to go to my friend's wedding. After the wedding I headed to the Salt Lake airport at 5 am to fly to Phoenix for a 3 hour layover and finally on to Honolulu (YAY!) with a grand total of 12 hours inside the airport. I gained four hours, so I think I was awake almost a solid 24 hours without even trying! (I was pretty delirious at that point...)

I headed back to Salt Lake at 10 at night (Hawaii time). However, there was some difficulty boarding because apparently some old lady had something fall out of the overhead bin and hit her in the head! Yeah, so they brought an EMT guy down and checked her out. She was totally fine, but they were worried about liability, and the fact that we would be flying over open ocean if she needed medical attention in the near future! I don't really know if she decided to fly or not, but we did eventually get off the ground. I pretended to sleep for 6 hours and get this - when we landed some stupid lady opened the overhead bin (she wasn't even sitting close to me) and some hard plastic thing from a stroller fell out and hit me in the face! Pretty sure it messed up my glasses, but at least they didn't have to call the EMT for me! Well there was another 3 hour layover before finally flying to Salt Lake. I drank 2 Rockstars to make the drive back to Cedar because I lost those four hours... so sad! Grand total time in airport - 12 hours.

When I finally headed back to Omaha, I took a random shuttle to Vegas. I always get to the airport like 2 hours early, and my flight was delayed, so I spent 3 hours sitting in the airport. Finally made it on the plane, had to run to my connecting flight in Denver, and finally made it home around 10 o'clock. Then my friend came over and kept me up till 2:30 am. I didn't really mind, except I kept falling asleep in church the next day. Ha ha!

There you have it - Ashley's adventures around the country! It was amazing. I will post pictures in upcoming posts!