Hawaii stylee

Despite deciding to tell people I was moving to Hawaii on April Fool's day, it really did happen.  After messing around in Cedar for a month, I packed up everything I would need for the next year in four bags and flew out of Vegas.  That was a bit of a struggle!

When I first got here I started noticing all kinds of strange things that you don't see on the mainland.
1.  Picked these up at State Farm.  "Sorry, you can't get renter's insurance because you're within 1000 feet of the ocean." And my personal favorite, which I overheard being said to someone on the Big Island, "We can't insure you because you're in the lava zone."

2. When I found gas that was 3.99, I thought that was ridiculously cheap.  Seriously, when I first got here gas was 4.89...

3. The roads are filled with Tourists in rented Mustang convertibles, and Asian drivers.  You do the math.

4. Pidgin.  That's the local language.  I would explain it like Hawaiian ebonics.  There literally is the word "yeah" in every sentence.  I addition to the language, the names of things here literally took me a month to figure out how to pronounce!  It's entertaining, for example, here are some street names - Kamehameha, or Ka'ahumanu.

5.  This is a real common sight, yeah:

Most of the locals have boards strapped to their cars, even in the parking lot at church.  We actually saw a guy on a moped that had rigged up a way to strap his surf board on the side.

Living on an island certainly has its charms, yeah.  You can literally see the ocean from everywhere, including my bedroom window.  I love it, but I had a very strange sense of claustrophobia when I first got here, yeah.  I guess it's the idea of being out in the middle of the Pacific ocean with an airplane being the only means of getting to land that kinda freaked me out.  Honestly I can't believe I've already been here a full month.  I've totally loved it so far, and I'm slowing getting used to the local customs.  I get the feeling I won't ever want to leave!

Month off

After graduation and driving back to Utah I had about a month off before starting my residency.  My parents were kind enough to let me move in for a while, and they let me put a lot of my furniture into storage.  When I first got back, I spent a couple of days unpacking.  This was a total adventure (and huge pain) since I was attempting to think ahead about what I was packing for Hawaii.

While in Cedar I had all kinds of adventures.  We went off to the lake a couple of times, and up to the mountain for some 4-wheeling.  Utah this summer is super dry, and super dusty.

This is what we looked like after driving around for a few hours.  Mitchell and I drove the 4-wheelers down the mountain, and by the time we were almost back to Cedar is was getting pretty dark.  That's why I wasn't wearing my sunglasses, and that's why I got nailed in the eye by a huge bug.  I'm lucky I didn't crash on the side of the road, or develop a black eye.

I also got to go up to Salt Lake and visit my amazing college friends.  I stayed with my friend Rachel, who had just found out she was pregnant.  She was so excited, and it was so fun hanging out with her and watching The Office while we ate Starbursts and Doritos!  We also had a big group of us get together and have dinner at The Pie.  Best pizza in all of Utah!  I love that place.  It brought back all kinds of fun memories of being in college and living by the stadium and eating crappy food during finals week.

One of the highlights of my month off was having several of my Omaha friends come visit me in Cedar.  My friend Zach drove up from Arizona and stayed at my parent's house for the weekend to go to Elder Overson's homecoming.  Gary was an elder out in Omaha who was from Parowan (which is like 15 minutes from Cedar).  Zach has been studying for the bar, so this was a total vacation for him.  We had a whole list of fun things to do like bake cookie brownies, and go see the new Snow White movie.  I also got my mom and several of my brothers to take us to the lake and drive us around on the tube.

It was like a little reunion going to Gary's homecoming.  We had so much fun sitting out on the porch chatting, and eating all of our cookie brownies!  Made me miss Omaha.

The Exodus

The week after the family flew out of Omaha, I went to John and Julianna's wedding (May 19th).  It was one of the fanciest weddings I had ever been to!  I actually didn't take any pictures with Julianna, so I borrowed this picture from their thank-you card they sent out.

They held a beautiful reception at the new aquarium at the zoo.  The zoo had just finished redoing their aquarium, and Julianna's wedding was one of the first events to be held in the conference center, which featured a huge fish tank.  It was so fun to dress up fancy and wander through the zoo.  Too bad most of the exhibits were closed by the time we got there, especially since I don't think Will had ever been to the zoo before.

Me and my "plus one."  Seriously, we even had little place cards for our table!

I just love this picture of Dave!

One of the many fun things about their reception was they had "animal ambassadors" which meant they brought in animals we could interact with.  They had an armadillo, a turtle, and a penguin!  After the wedding we headed to Chase's house to watch a movie in his sweet basement.

The zoo worker with a cute little penguin!

Sunday was our last day at the ward.  I don't really like saying goodbyes, so I tried not to focus on it too much.  Dave and I luckily got invited to have dinner at Chase's house that afternoon since we literally had no food in our houses.  That also happened to be the day of the solar eclipse.  We took a walk around the block in Bellvue and tried really hard to see it, but were unable to since we didn't have one of those sweet homemade view boxes.  Yeah, not very smart of the two new dentists ruining their eyes staring at the sun!  I didn't feel too bad since it didn't fully eclipse in Nebraska anyway.

Early the next morning Dave and I set off on our exodus back to Utah.  We were both driving our own cars back to Utah, so we had decided to caravan back together.  Dave was an amazing travel buddy, and we kept each other entertained through walkie-talkies.  We left around 8 am and made it to South Jordan around 9 or 10 that night.  We stopped the night at Dave's parent's house, and I finished driving home to Cedar the next morning.

I was so bored...  I can't tell you how welcome the sight of the Utah sign was by late Monday afternoon.  I did try to keep myself entertained by burning about 10 new CDs, and having a fully stocked cooler in the front seat next to me!  Officially we were in four states - Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah.  We were only in Colorado for a very short period of time because I may have taken the wrong exit...  Grand total mileage according to Google maps: 1,177 miles.  Awesome.  After that, all road trips now seem short!

I was thrilled to be done driving, and excited to see my family.  Okay, more stuff later!

Graduation and Beyond

Thought I'd finish up with graduation.  After the hooding ceremony we got some fun pictures with my brothers and grandma.

The fam after hooding.  It was so special to have my grandmother there!

Me and the bros.  Too bad we were missing Mitchell.

My dad was my guest hooder.
Doesn't he look fancy in his robes!

 Graduation was held Saturday morning.  Funny story, we graduated in the same place where they are now holding the Olympic swim trials.  They actually built two Olympic-sized pools there in like a month, but more on that later.

Apparently graduation is supposed to be this dignified, "professional" affair.  Luckily the dentists have always had a different view!

There are some advantages to sitting in the very front row!

Historically the graduating dental class has always been rather irreverent.  Our class leadership actually supplied the entire class with cans of silly string.  Since we weren't supposed to have this stuff, they set up a "distribution site" a block away where we picked up the goods so we could sneak it in.  Considering the fact that most of the women were wearing dresses and high heels (hence no pockets), we had to get a little creative!  I had a little backpack stuffed with silly string and confetti poppers hidden underneath my robe.  I probably looked a bit like a lumpy hunch-back as I was walking around, but it was totally worth it!  

All the ladies before the ceremony.  Dr. Smith, our Master of Ceremonies, is a total stud!

The RDEP group.
Notice the "hunchback" I'm trying to hide!

I do feel a little bad for the poor people that had to clean this mess up considering there was another graduation ceremony like an hour later...

The aftermath.

After graduation, I took my family to my favorite burger joint in Omaha, Blanc Burger.  This was one of our favorite places to head on the weekends (or for random take-outs), but I found out that this place actually shut down recently!  Probably because all their best customers moved away...  

We liked these cute little shopping carts our onion rings came in! 

We then toured around some of the fun sites in Omaha, including the Winter Quarters temple, the Botanical Gardens, and the Zoo!  The brothers decided to attempt some parcour at the gardens!

This was actually pretty impressive!
Good thing he's all stacked from going to the gym.

My family headed back to Utah that Sunday, and I stuck around for another week to pack up my home, and attend a friend's wedding.  Moving turned out to be a bit of a disaster.  I actually hired a moving company about a month in advance, and the day of the move they cancelled, citing problems with the truck.  Thanks a lot.  I spent the better part of the day sitting around waiting to see if they would pull through, and then calling around looking for a replacement truck.  I ended up renting a U-haul and, with the help of several amazing people, got my house packed up and ready for the new owners to move into.

Well this has been a massive post of doom.  I think I'll add more later!