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!

White trash moment..

Do you ever have those moments when you stop and think - "could I be more white trash?" Ha ha, I just had one.

So I've been studying for boards today (the big test you take after the 2nd year of dental school that basically allows you to proceed with your dental education). That is pretty much what I've been doing for the past week, so I'm getting pretty worn out. After a particularly fascinating topic on biochemistry, I decided to take a break.

I snatched some beef jerky from the cupboard, and headed outside. Here I was, in my front yard holding a hose, wearing basketball shorts and no shoes, watering flowers that are pretty much dead at this time of year. Not to mention the fact that I was still gnawing on my beef jerky which in itself is sad because I have braces (and jerky is not brace-friendly). Well here comes my neighbor strolling by and it hits me just how white trash I must look! I retreated to my house in shame...

Except I'll be honest, I kinda don't even care. Come over to my house, and you will see just how much I don't care. I have been living in my pajamas for a week now, and I'm pretty sure I have some form of boards study material in every single room of my house (including the bathroom). However, I'm pretty much stocked up on random study munchies and diet coke - it's like a party. Ha ha, it is pretty much awesome!

Harry Potter Glasses dude

Right now I'm studying for my national board exam, which is on Tuesday. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my blog, and I haven't forgotten to find pointless videos to post in order to distract myself! (Just watch the beginning of this video, because he starts interviewing the guy, and that is boring.)

Good music

Yesterday I bought an actual CD at the store. It was monumental! I don't think I've done that in years. It was kinda exhilarating to take it out to the car and toss it in the CD player as I drove home!

What did I purchase, you may ask? It was the soundtrack to Eclipse. I'm really impressed with the music they have had on all three movies, and I love them all (although I've only downloaded the other two movie's soundtracks). I've tossed a couple of songs from the soundtracks on my playlist, so check them out if you wish. They aren't labeled, but if you've seen the movies you should recognize them!

ECLIPSE!!!

Okay, so this week the newest Twilight movie came out, and of course I had to go to it. I ended up having a patient cancel for Wednesday morning, so I decided it would be cool if I went to the midnight showing.

I went with a bunch of girls from the dental school, and they love it as much as I do. We even had a "Twi-hard" party last weekend where we watched New Moon and drank "blood" (cranberry juice). So for the movie I even went and found me an awesome Edward T-shirt. Yeah, don't worry, I used to make fun of people that owned these shirts. I got it at Hot Topic, and it was only 7 bucks, and I love it.

The girls ended up arriving at about 8 o'clock to get seats, and I got there about 10. We were awesome studying our dental decks waiting for the movie to start. Diana just finished reading Eclipse instead... Ha ha.

This is Fatima. She loves Twilight the most!
All the girls before the movie! It was amazing, and I want to go see it again. It was the best one of the series yet. Also, I have decided that I am "Team Jasper." Yes, make fun of me if you will, but I love him. Ha ha!

After the movie I didn't get home until 3 in the morning! Also, I still showed up to clinic the next morning just in case I randomly got a patient scheduled. Yeah, four hours of sleep... I was extra grouchy in traffic that morning... Good thing I had no patient. But it was totally worth it!