On a mission

So I've been living here in Maui for just over a month now.  I've discovered that living here is much different than vein a tourist here.  However, I try to take full advantage of my idyllic surroundings.  Right now I'm on a mission to go to the beach as often as humanly possible!  Haha.  Seriously, my friends mock me since it may seem to them that I am constantly heading to the beach.  Judging by the amount of sand that has accumulated in my car, on my floor, and in my shower, that may in fact be true...  Anyway, I find myself on a mission to not only discover the best spots on Maui, but mostly to find the best beaches!

First week here my brother was around to show me the sights.  He drove me around to some of the more touristy locations, like around to Lahaina, which is on the NW side of Maui.  I thought this beach was gorgeous since you can see the off-shore islands of Molokai and Lanai.  It is, however, bordered by several large resorts, which tends to take away from the experience if you don't happen to be staying at any of these resorts!

Konapoli Beach - That's the off-shore island of Lanai

This next beach happens to be my very favorite beach so far.  It's about a 30 minute drive from my house, which is perfect for weekends.  This is Big Beach, which is down by Wailea.  It's fantastic for relaxing on the sand, or it's got some pretty intense breakers that are great for skim boarding and boogie boarding.  Funny story, if you are willing to climb over a little rise, you will find Little beach.  When I tell you that both these beaches used to be big hippie retreats, you shouldn't be surprised to hear that Little beach is notorious as a nude beach!

That little island on the right is the Molikini crater.  Apparently it's excellent diving.

Little beach is just over the top of the point.  I haven't ventured over there just yet...

My own personal paradise! 

I've visited multiple other beaches, but I can't get the pictures off my camera, so I'll put this on hold till I can figure it out.  Okay, enough beach talk.  Seriously though, just thought I'd make you all a little bit jealous!  Also, quit mocking me for almost constantly being on my way to a beach.  I love it!

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!

Hooding

I can't believe it's taken me this long to get to posting about this.  Probably because I've already totally overwhelmed people with pictures on Facebook!  I actually don't have many good pictures because my brother is currently holding them hostage on his camera...

The last week of school was both busy, and totally laid back at the same time.  We had a couple of parties, and we did things like clean out our lockers and get a whole bunch of signatures saying we could graduate.  Honestly I think it's almost harder to get out of dental school than it is to get in.

Graduation was May 12th, and my whole family flew out to Omaha the Thursday night before, including my awesome grandmother.  It was fun to show them around, and meet everyone else's families.  We had a hooding ceremony at the Jocelyn Art Museum on Friday (May 11th) in which my dad was my guest hooder.

Right before the ceremony.  All ready in our lilac robes and caps.  We tried to get a picture with all the Utah RDEP students, but we were missing two of the Daves.  

During the ceremony.  I felt like it was an episode of Harry Potter with all the different tasseled hats, robes, and hoods  the profs had on.

 This was a fun little ceremony for just the Dental school and our families, and we had a reception afterward at the school.  Some pictures afterwards.

Dave, Stephen, and I after the ceremony.

Me with Dr. Stout.  He was one of my favorite profs, and he actually wrote a letter that helped get me into my residency.  Also, I thought this was funny because everybody kept mocking me for my super sweet heels!  To be fair, they did end up giving me a massive blister after all the walking around that night.

Unfortunately I'll have to hunt down pictures of the actual ceremony.  Someone in the class had arranged a class picture, but I've only found one picture where I was actually visible.

Fun times rolling

More fun stuff that happened.  (I apologize, I'm totally doing this for me, so if you get bored, just look at the pictures!)  Really I was trying to soak up just as much fun with my Omaha people as possible before I had to leave them all!

I went to tons of movies, which was so much fun, and even better because a couple of them were free, and some of them were even midnight movies!

A big group of us went to see The Avengers at midnight.  There were about fourteen of us, and I really only knew like three people.  My friend Jessica was a total stud, and put together her own Captain America costume!  I actually went to a couple of stores in search of a good Iron Man shirt, which does not exist.  I contemplated wearing my Batman t-shirt (despite him being in a totally better playing field than Avengers),  but instead just gave up.  Let's be honest, I don't do costumes unless I go all-out!

Next.  We have a good buddy who works for the radio stations in Omaha.  They were doing some sweet promotion where we got free tickets to Dark Shadows!  Not only did we get free tickets, we got to see it a week before it was released to the public.

Of course that meant Will and I were going to dress up!  You can't tell, but I'm wearing my awesome vampire boots.  I busted out my teeth, and Will let me color his hair black!  See what I mean about going all out for costumes?  Also, I think this picture is hilarious because usually it's me drinking the Diet Coke.

I know it came out a while ago, but we most certainly went to the midnight movie for Hunger Games.  I went with my friends Dave, Zach, and Laura.  Funny story, the next day I get a call from Zach saying that he wanted to go see Hunger Games again.  Knowing me, it took next to no persuasion to get me to convince me to go!  So there you have it, I saw Hunger Games not once, but twice, and both of them at midnight!  Actually, that's one of things I miss about Omaha.  Cedar doesn't exactly support midnight movies.  Or any movies after 10.

After Graduation, a bunch of the dental students decided to stick around Omaha for a week in order to attend a fellow dental student's wedding.  That meant that I was spending a lot of time packing and cleaning my house, but I also had a lot of free time to spend with people.

Dave and I decided we needed to go visit the zoo one more time!  We had a lovely time taking pictures, and checking out the beautiful new aquarium.  It's been closed for a couple of months for renovations, and it has been my favorite exhibit besides the jungle.




I spent the entire week between graduation and the wedding packing my belongings, including my kitchen stuff and food.  Poor Dave had nothing in his house but a lawn chair and a blow-up mattress, so we went out to eat a lot.

 

Here we are at Taco Tuesday at the lovely Guacamaya.  Yum!  This was one of our favorite haunts since we could get tacos for a dollar!  After this we met up with some friends at a Jays game down at the new Ameritrade center.  It was the first time I had ever been there, and it was a lot of fun to enjoy the beautiful weather and watch some baseball and fireworks!
We also spent a day hanging out at my friend Chase's house.  Since moving he seemed to take on several home improvement projects, and we volunteered our services.  He bought his home from a family, and the house came with this really rickety old swing set.  We took that poor old thing apart, chopped it up, built a fire pit, and burned it!

 

Actually the whole point was to build the fire pit, but the swing set made for good firewood.  After we built the pit, Chase threw us a big going-away BBQ.  It was ah-MAH-zing!  Funny story, though.  Apparently the neighbors called the cops when they saw the "ten foot flames."  Yeah, you can tell from the pictures that they weren't!  Also, when the cop showed up and realized there was no alcohol at our party, he let it go.  So there you have it, I had my own party and got the cops called on it.  Check that off the bucket list!