Last June

June 2013 was a bit of a crazy month for me.  It was a time I had both dreaded, as well as looked forward to in some ways.  On one hand I was excited to finish up my residency, and although I loved my job, there were a few things that if I were permanent, would need to be changed.  Not to mention the idea of moving to that next stage of life beyond school.  However, how could one not be sad to leave Hawaii?  Therefore I attempted to finish up any last minute bucket list items before saying aloha oe at the beginning of July.

We had some kind of Hawaiian holiday in which I, and two of my good friends had the day off.  Somehow the idea came together that we needed to make the drive around to Hana on our lovely day off!  June 11 the three of us loaded up in my friend Sheila's jeep and just started driving.  This was probably one of the most relaxing, fun days, and I was so glad Sheila and Jami planned this activity!  Also, because all three of us were Mainland transplants to the islands, we made several touristy stops that our local friends probably wouldn't have suggested.  We visited the Garden of Eden and walked all around the gardens, and the trees, and the lovely waterfalls.  We also attempted to make friends with a couple of peacocks…

This guy was attempting to hold us hostage...

Colorful plants, and glorious ocean overlook.  Definitely how I picture the Garden of Eden!

Sheila and I.

Our trip included a stop to indulge in delicious, fresh-from the oven banana bread, a hike and swim to Venus pools, and a couple of other side tracks admiring the view from Hana Highway.

By a waterfall that was literally next to the road.  And this is typical!

Venus pool

The view from the back side of the island.  Still gorgeous, but dry and barren compared to other parts of the island!

We wrapped up the day with dinner at Da Kitchen, and this tasty dessert!

A very good holiday in paradise!

June 15th was our residency's graduation dinner ceremony thing in Honolulu.  My clinic offered to fly me over to O'ahu, and put me up in a hotel for the night so I could attend.  It was a bit of an adventure since Honolulu is actually a pretty big city (especially by island standards), and I didn't rent a car.  Instead my director Dr. Pijpaert arranged for a shuttle to take us from the airport to our hotel which actually turned out to be very nice!  I got my own room for the night, and the hotel was attached to a huge mall that I spent a couple of hours at.  I'm afraid I went on a bit of a shopping spree since Maui's shopping is… limited, and there were all kinds of fun stores that I hadn't seen in a very long time!  The dinner was inherently dull, but was actually very nice to get together and thank some of the people that had been helping us out all year.

View of Maui from the airplane window.

Dr. Pijpaert, me, Sandy, Heather, and Sophia.  The other lady was the director from the other Maui clinic.

The four Maui residents!

I had a fun night relaxing in my hotel that night, then it was back to Maui the next morning!

Wintry Christmas fun

I'm still working to post stuff from last June, but I feel the urge to blog about stuff right now before I forget all of it!  Don't mind if things are completely out of order!

This past week has been rough for me.  Almost immediately after returning to West Jordan on Monday from a lovely long Thanksgiving weekend it started snowing.  "Snow" in my vocabulary is equated to "nasty white crap," but it was a bit exciting because it actually started feeling like Christmas for me!  Well anyway, snow + rear wheel drive + Salt Lake traffic + apartment complex not plowing parking lot = not fun.

Oh yes, and I haven't driven in snow for nearly two years.  Yes yes, I'm a poor girl who got to live in Hawai'i for a year, but seriously, I forgot how to do it!  Today I drove to church and totally spun out and ran into the curb with some guy from the ward behind me watching the whole time.  I actually thought that bit was hilarious, and was totally chuckling to myself the whole time walking up to the church building (amidst my mutterings of "winter sucks," and "I hate winter").  I've decided the whole root of my not liking snow is because of how it affects my driving, and all of the butterfly effects of that.  Here is a flow chart for you!

Snow --> worse traffic --> drive slower --> need to leave earlier for work --> less sleep --> earlier bedtime

Ugh, you get the picture.  Other than that, I don't really care that much.  I mean, I can deal with the occasional wet foot, or shoveling the sidewalk.  Besides, I forgot how much I enjoy kicking off the collection of road debris and icicles that collect under your car when the road is slushy!  (I'm being totally serious.  Is that weird?)  So I'm ashamed, because I actually had my Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving this year!  I can only justify this because I was down in Cedar City for five days, and also I was bored the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

My mom got me started on the Utah Utes theme by sending me all kinds of fun ornaments when I was out in Omaha, and I've continued the tradition with some additional fun items.  I have to admit, it's been really nice to experience the change in season and the colder weather.  I feel like if Hawai'i was a permanent thing for me, I would get very confused, and the seasons would just completely blend together.  Not to mention I have rekindled my love for hot chocolate and sleeping under a pile of blankets!  Besides, what better excuse is there to spend your weekend staying at home, in your pajamas, curled up watching movies or reading a book in front of a heat dish?

To the Lake!

Much like my mother, I had to make the most of my vacation time.  My family had planned for a multi-day trip to the lake to camp out on our houseboat May 29 through June 1.  We loaded up our boat, and headed off on the near 2 1/2 hour drive to Lake Powell.  Turns out that my dad and two of the brothers had to stay for work, so our boating party initially consisted of me, my mom, and three brothers Mitchell, Calvin, and Carson.

Our adventure definitely got off to an interesting start when we got a flat tire on our boat trailer about a half-hour away from the dock.  Luckily we had a great pit crew, and we managed to get the flat replaced with the spare.  Unfortunately we got into the dock a little later than planned, and it was nearing dark by the time we finally launched.  Our houseboat is moored off the shore on a buoy, and we managed to get docked with it without incident, and didn't think much of our late start (more on that later).

The next couple of days were spent out in our boat making frequent stops for tubing, water skiing, wake boarding, cliff jumping, climbing, and swimming.

Tubing is one of our favorite pastimes.  Unfortunately, so is crashing!  Hope this video clip works, it's pretty entertaining!

The water was unpleasantly cold that time of year.  It was bearable, but for a poor, sad, Maui girl it was a bit too nippy for me to spend too much time floating around (yes, I got mocked).  We also made frequent stops at the marina for Rockstars and ice-cream.

See.  I wasn't the only one who thought it was cold!

By Friday we were joined by my dad and my brother Blake.  Our boat is comparable to a floating RV, so our sleeping arrangements were a bit comical with the added people.  Especially when it started raining fairly hard in the middle of the night, and three of us attempted to sleep in an area really only meant for two.  I imagine my dad found that amusing when he found us still sleeping in the living room the next morning!

We left sometime Saturday afternoon.  Things were going well until we attempted to load our boat on the trailer and encountered a slight hiccup.

Yep.  Just, yeah.
We got the attention of a nearby ranger, and he called up the guys responsible for the boot.  After sitting in the hot Arizona parking lot for nearly thirty minutes, the brothers contemplated pulling the tire, putting on the spare, and driving off, not to mention doing some other unsavory things to the boot which the officer would have to handle in order to remove.  Haha.  Boys.  Well, turns out when our flat tire slowed us down four days prior, we were able to get into the park, but we were too late to get our boat inspected for mussels.  I'm all for preventing spread of the nasty buggers, but our boat had been inspected the last time we used it, and it hadn't been in any water since.  Things eventually got sorted out - which actually took several weeks, and multiple emails - but we finally got our vehicle liberated.

Mitchell had put in his mission papers a couple of weeks prior, and he was expecting to get his call sometime during the week.  The parents had even gone so far as to plan a call opening party that night which we were trying to drive home for.  We made it home on time, and Elder Brown's thick envelope was waiting unopened for him!

We had quite the crowd gathered to hear Mitch read his call to the Johannesburg, South Africa mission leaving September 19.  Sooo proud of him!!

No party is complete without a cake!

Southern Utah Tour

To make my Mainland trip worthwhile, I stayed in Cedar for almost 10 days, and used up all my left over vacation time.  I also got two very fun visitors while in Cedar.

Two of my good Omaha buddies drove down from Salt Lake while they were both off from school/residency.  Dave was using up vacation time at the end of his dental residency, and Stephen was in Provo with his family enjoying a brief break before moving to Wisconsin for his medical residency.  They stayed at my parent's house, and I gave them a brief tour of Southern Utah.

My family has quite a bit of mountain property that used to belong to my grandfather.  Hence we have a nice collection of ATV equipment, including a ranger.  I strapped these guys into the Ranger, and we took off up the mountain!

Dave strapped into the Ranger driving through Cedar.

Calvin after arriving at the top.  He was driving a 4-wheeler up the very dusty trail.

Dave after tearing around behind one of the brothers.

Steve was very concerned about me wreaking.  Hence the helmet.

We enjoyed the ride, had a little weenie and mallow roast, drove around the property, then headed back down the mountain.  It was very dry and dusty, but I think the guys had a good time!  We finished off the night by playing some card games.  The next morning we were up moderately early to drive down to Kolob and Red Cliffs.

After getting only slightly lost, we made it into Red Cliffs.  Not bad considering I literally hadn't been there since High School nine years ago.  Red Cliffs is a series of slot canyons extending through the red rocks of Southern Utah, and it felt good to get back to my hometown backyard.  The guys seemed to really enjoy the beautiful red rock formations, and we had a good time posing for pictures!

Taking pictures on this log with a timer.

Dave climbing a tree.

A yucca plant.  The state plant of New Mexico!

Climbing along some footholds around a large "puddle" or whatever.  Those girls were swimming, but we'd neglected to bring our suits!

Dave.  Being Dave.

We though this old rotting stump looked a lot like an elephant.  Here we are demonstrating our trunks.

After the drive we ate some delicious Jimmy John sandwiches, then we wandered around the SUU campus and caught some rehearsals for the Shakespearean Festival.  All in all a great day!  So glad these guys came to visit, and even more glad to have had such great friends out in Omaha!

In the Adams Theater - modeled after Shakespeare's Globe theater.

Vacation for Graduation

Getting towards the end of April I realized I still had a plethora of vacation days saved up, and because of our residency's regulations, I had to use them all up before the end of May.  I had originally intended to go to Kauai with a friend, but we went to Big Island for the weekend instead.  Plus, flights to Kauai, even from Maui, were surprisingly expensive!  So I decided that since my younger brother was graduating from High School, and expecting his mission call, I would fly home for the duration of the vacation time!  (Yes, I know, seems strange to take a vacation away from Hawaii.)

Because I'm a proud sister, I provided a whole bundle of authentic Hawaiian leis for my brother, two of my cousins, and several of my brother's friends.  Mitchell even got a real tea leaf lei - the traditional male lei - along with a whole other pile of leis.  It seems to be a Hawaiian tradition to make a grad wear as many leis as possible, and who am I to argue with Hawaiian tradition?  Haha.

His graduation was May 23rd, and I got there in time to help my mother set up for a joint grad dinner with Mitchell, and my two cousins Whitney and Britney.  I helped make sweet pork, and my mom had some interesting cakes for the grads!

Whitney, Mitchell, and Britney.

Those cakes are supposed to be lockers... whatever.

Graduation was oddly nostalgic for me since my same choir director had the choir sing the same songs we had done for my graduation.  It was so fun to see Mitch graduate, especially since I had missed Blake's graduation four years prior.  So proud of him!

All the sibs minus one.  Blake, Carson, Mitchell, Calvin, and me.  Just missing Randall.

Mitchell and his friend Marshall.  He actually lived on the Big Island for a couple of months.

Part of the crowd cheering for our grad!

Mitch and his neck candy!  He didn't even wear all of the leis I brought for him.

Mitch and my parents left that night to go on a grad trip to Disneyland, CA.  I was a little bit jealous of the Disneyland thing, but I was not jealous that it was a marathon bus trip with no hotel to sleep in.  Instead I got to stay home and play with the puppies, and hang out with my other brothers!