Oh what fun!

The best part of Christmas this year was I got to go home and see my family!  I couldn't believe how much I missed my brothers.  Also, I can't get over how much they have grown up.  I know I sound like a proud mamma when I say this, but I seriously remember when they were tiny!  It was so much fun to hang around with my teenage little bros during the break.  We had a great time watching movies, eating junk food, playing cards, driving around Cedar, and pretty much wasting time together.

This is Calvin.  He's 14.  Are you enjoying his super sweet hair-do, because I totally am!  Does it remind you of anything?  Here's a clue:

Hahahaha.  By the by, I chose this picture because I think he looks particularly floofy, and also kinda ugly.  Anyway, we were teasing poor Calvin about his "Edward hair," even though I actually liked Calvin's sense of style.  He's a pretty awesome little dude!

The Brown side of our family traditionally has a bingo night and white elephant gift exchange every Christmas.  Most of the fun for us happens beforehand since we've historically been rather creative with our white elephants.  Besides, what with most of the cousins being a bit too young to really understand most of the humor, we usually just laugh at the weird crap we manage to dump on our poor aunt Teri!  (It really freaks her out to get stuck with random crap.)  I don't honestly remember what most of the stuff was, but this one was a winner!  Please note the super creepy, moderately stained, hot pink princess chair right behind Mitchell.  That thing was disgusting.

I guess this is the most hard-core apron out there.  Actually, it was some kind of fluid-protection suit.  However, we couldn't get over the back-side of this beauty -

- Mostly because it didn't have one!!  Yeah, that does you a lot of good.  Hopefully you don't sit on anything while you're "fluid protecting" yourself.  Also, my brother's a total creeper and he has a gas mask and an old man mask on.  I guess he puts that mask in his car, and will randomly slap it on to scare his fellow motorists...  Call me crazy, but I totally get it!

Also, it wouldn't be a Christmas blog without me posting a picture that gets someone into trouble.  Namely the dog who sheds like mad, and isn't allowed inside because of that nasty habit of hers.  She is a snuggly little buddy, though!
While we're on the subject of dogs, this is Blake's roommate's dog Wrigley.

He's a boxer puppy, and I couldn't get over how cute he was!  Blake couldn't get over how stupid he looked in this sweater (that was a gift from the roommate's girlfriend).  I have to say that I'm on a dog kick because I really, really want to buy one.

And those are all the pictures I took!  Christmas Eve my brothers were still out shopping for each other, then we enjoyed our usual CE fondu.  I drew my brother Mitchell for the secret santa gift exchange, so he received a beautiful ukulele.  After that we had fun attempting to mimic Tiny Tim on our ukes.



Yeah... that dude is a freak.  The brothers like this song because it's on Sponge Bob.  Go figure.

No Pilgrams, just Natives

Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful for me since I just hung around Maui.  Besides, since there's very little change in season around here, I found myself oddly confused.  I didn't have fall weather, or school midterms to help mark the time of year, so Thanksgiving didn't exactly register with me this year.  I actually had to work the Friday after Thanksgiving, so I didn't even really participate in the whole Black Friday nonsense.  The good news was that with all the shopping going down, no one seemed to want to come to the dentist!  Plus, as an added bonus, it turned out to be the week of two Fridays!  Who doesn't love that.

I did get invited to spend Thanksgiving with some Hawaiian friends from work.  They were very kind to open their home to me, and share all of their delicious food!  Seriously, Hawaiians know how to put on a good meal.  However, it wasn't exactly the traditional Thanksgiving feast since it included things like this:

This shrimp was kinda creeping me out, especially since it had some extraordinarily long antennae.  My boss showed up, and he absolutely loves these shrimp.  He was teasing me by telling me than when he was eating them the antennae were tickling the roof of his mouth.  Gross!!

Like I said, not many people decided to show up to the dentist.  However, one of my patients brought us this delicious chocolate cake!  Yeah, and I wonder why I've gained weight since moving here...

I was a little bit disappointed that I didn't have the traditional leftovers, so I took on a little cooking project of my own that weekend.

That's right, I learned how to bake a turkey!  Granted this turkey was the size of a smallish chicken, but I struggled to eat that much food.  So now I can say that I've baked a turkey, and it was actually quite delicious.  I also whipped up my favorite sweet potato casserole, and mashed potatoes.  It was all very traditional and "Mainland-ish" of me!  The best part was I had leftovers to eat for lunch for the next week.

Seriously, more Big Island?

Oh hey, I have some more pictures from the Big Island!  The really sad part about living in Hawaii is that it no longer feels like being on vacation in Maui.  Therefore, the Big Island was totally a va-ca for me!  Honestly I don't remember what I put in the last post, so I'm just going to throw a smattering of stuff here!

Kahili and I in a lava tube.  And yes, I'm wearing a Batman shirt.  I'm awesome.

Sunday we hung around with my friend Kahili, and her cousin.  He's a local of the Big Island, so they kinda played tour guide for us.  Monday Sheila and I were on our own, so we took advantage of all the rando touristy things I could dig up using my trusty guide book!  Basically this meant we hit up the Big Island Candies shop, and found several sweet waterfalls on our way back around the island.

I was trying really hard to find a large fallen leaf so I could take a "bannana leaf clothes" picture, but I could only find ones that were attached to living things.

 We "hiked" to this waterfall, meaning we walked down a state maintained path to see the beautiful Akaka waterfall.  We went to some other falls, but this was the most exciting one.

Sheila and I looking rather washed out due to my experimentation with my camera settings.

Akaka Falls.

Our final tourist destination was that of the Waipio Valley overlook.

This is Waipio valley.

This particular destination was a bit out of the way.  It required driving through some tiny little towns, and some less than ideal roads.  Also, the story behind this valley is a bit spooky.

 Apparently this place was once pretty important to the ancient Hawaiians.  It's an incredibly isolated little valley surrounded by steep cliffs on both sides, and a black sand beach.  It can only be accessed by four-wheel drive (or hiking).  Thousands of people once lived there cultivating the land until the great tsunami of 1946 washed away nearly everything.  The idea of being trapped in this little valley with a tsunami headed for you is just a little bit creepy to me...  Anyway, after that it went wild until a bunch of hippies trickled in during the 60s and 70s.  No water, no power, feuding neighbors, and a relatively hands-off police involvement.  Yep, it's an exciting place!

 The lookout above the valley was littered with signs warning away inexperienced drivers.  You're not even allowed to drive down without 4-wheel drive due to the steep grade.  I was actually in possession of a vehicle with 4-wheel drive, but I was too chicken to make the drive.  (Seriously, I was scared!)  So instead we just stood at the top and looked into the valley.  Much safer!

On the drive back from the valley to the main highway, Sheila and I finally decided it was time for lunch, so we stopped off for some local yumminess, and some malasadas.


I've become fond of the Revealed series of books, which apparently the locals dislike because a lot of the things they "reveal" are actually private property, or they are areas that tourists don't exactly treat with respect.

Anyway, after Waipio and lunch we realized we had a bit of time to spare, so we thought we'd go on a little adventure recommended by my Big Island Revealed book.  This took us very off the beaten path in search of caves.  Maybe not exactly the best idea I've ever had...  Regardless, after wandering around and driving past twice, we discovered the entrance to this little beauty literally right next to the road.  Looks small, right?

Think again!  The cave entrance was merely the opening into an entire series of lava tubes stretching for who knows how far under the mountain!  The only light we had thought to bring was the puny light on my iPhone, and Sheila didn't have any light source.  She was reluctant to follow me very far into the tubes without her own light, and I couldn't really blame her since it was literally pitch black in there.  I adventured back into the tube a ways, but honestly I started to freak myself out being in the pitch black alone.  I kept having this recurring thought of someone lurking in the dark waiting to steal my car keys and leave us stranded.  There was a lot of garbage left in the caves, which actually made me fearful that a hobo might be calling this creepy little cave his home.  This was actually one of the coolest places we visited, and I was totally kicking myself for not bringing a flashlight!

Anyway, we packed it up pretty quick and made our way back to Kona to return our sweet little truck, and make it to our flight.  The Big Island was gorgeous, and I'm really happy that I took the opportunity to visit!!

Big Island of Hawaii

Living on an island, we find ourselves a bit limited on certain things.  We don't have a temple on Maui, but there are two temples in the islands.  There's one on O'ahu, and one on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Our ward apparently plans temple trips on occasion, so I managed to join in on the trip last November 9-12th.  The only way to go from Maui to the Big Island is by flying, so I jumped onto this tiny little plane.

The tiny little plane we flew in.  It was a 9-passanger little thing.  Honestly, I was a little bit scared.

I flew over Friday night after work, then we went to a church dance.  We stayed at the home of some members, which was a bit of an adventure since they weren't there when we showed up.  Luckily they showed up right as we were leaving!  It was fun because we ended up eating doughnuts, staying up chatting, then the next morning the sweet lady made us delicious breakfast.  We all met up at the temple that morning, and we had a great experience doing baptisms for the dead.

The group from Maui in front of the Kona temple.

Our group kinda split up after that.  Several people headed back to Maui, but a couple of us decided to stick around and explore the island since we were already over there.  We drove around Kona for the rest of the night, and enjoyed all the fun things they have on their island that we don't have on Maui.  For instance, we went bowling, and shopping at Target!  I also got to rent this super awesome truck for the weekend!

That night we drove two hours around the island to Hilo where we stayed for the rest of the trip since it was close to Volcano national park.  I was really excited to go to the Big Island because it's the only island with an active volcano.  I was hoping to get a glimpse of some lava, but apparently it's a bit difficult to see flowing lava unless you go out at night and hike across lava fields, and stuff.  Apparently it's a bit risky, and none of the people we went with were exactly up to it.

Sunday we got up for church, then we went for some lunch at this random little sports bar called Cronies.  I had the most delicious BBQ chicken sandwich with grilled pineapple.  Also, there were some totally rando old guys at the bar who tried to make friends with us.

Anyway, we spent the rest of the day out driving around the Volcano National Park.  It was kinda crazy to see fields and fields of lava rock.

We drove to an overlook, and saw this huge crater which you can actually hike down into.  This is Devastation Trail, which was the site of major fallout from the 1959 Kilaue Iki eruption.

Photo of the 1959 eruption.

I thought this sign was funny.  If you look closely, it says it's closed due to "volcanic hazards."  How weird is that?

I'm standing in one of the steam vents.  It was nice and warm!

This is a picture of Kilauea crater, and the steam in the center is the Halema'uma'u Crater.

The Halema'uma'u Crater is the heart of the current eruption.  This is about the closest I got to lava, so enjoy!

One of the many things I love about Hawaiians are all their beautiful legends about gods and goddesses.  Many of their legends has to do with the goddess Pele, the volcano goddess.  One particular legend is about the 'Ohi'a tree.  'Ohi'a was a handsome chief who was courting a girl named Lehua.  Pele became enamored with 'Ohi'a, and wanted him to be her husband.  She appeared to 'Ohi'a and asked him to be her husband, but he turned her down because he loved Lehua.  Pele (who is known for her temper) became angry and turned him into a gnarled tree.  When the other gods saw what Pele had done, they tried to reverse it, but failed.  They best they could do was reunite 'Ohi'a and Lehua by turning her into a beautiful blossom on the same tree.  To this day, it is said that if you pick a Lehua blossom, it will rain.  These are tears from heaven for separated lovers everywhere.

This is an 'Ohi'a tree with Lehua blossoms.

We finished the rest of the day off by getting more yummy local food, ice cream, and going to see Pitch Perfect in the theater.  It was an awesome day!

2012 in Review

I realize there are some definite holes where I've skipped some activities.  However, with the New Year, and all, I just couldn't pass up the chance to recap some of the things that I've done in the past year.  This list could probably go on for a long time.  However, I tried to limit it to monumental items, or firsts.

• Took and passed my Clinical Western Regional Boards
• Sold my lovely Village Green home (and got rid of my favorite green couches)
• Finished serving as a Relief Society President in the most awesome ward ever.
• Graduated from Dental School, and officially became a DDS.
• Got to fly an airplane.
• Also experienced my first real bout of motion sickness...
• Said goodbye to some of my very best friends.
• Reconnected with some old friends - some of whom traveled a great distance to do so - and lost touch with others.
• Moved across the country from Omaha, Nebraska to Cedar City, Utah.
• Accepted a residency position in Maui, Hawaii without ever actually visiting the island.
• Moved across the Pacific Ocean to the beautiful island of Maui, which presented plenty of firsts in itself:
• Figured out how to ship a vehicle across the ocean.
• Packed everything I might need for the next year into 4 bags.
• Learned how to properly pronounce the words Kahului, Ka'humanu, Kamehameha, and Humuhumunukunukuapua'a.
• Started my first real job after dental school where I don't have anyone looking over my shoulder.
• Realized that supporting yourself on your own salary is kinda stressful, but also very gratifying.
• Extracted at least 400 teeth in less than 6 months.
• Started using my new-found title of "doctor."
• Shattered the screen on my old Droid, and finally realized my dream of becoming an iPhone owner!
• Flew across the ocean 4 times.
• Evacuated for a tsunami.
• Escaped from the ridiculousness of daylight savings time.
• Purchased an ukulele and started teaching myself how to play it.
• Converted my old "study time" into "just sitting at the beach time!"
• Got to swim with several huge sea turtles, which I didn't touch, since that is illegal.
• Visited the Big Island of Hawaii, and the crater Molokini.
• Watched The Hobbit three times in the theater, and still didn't get bored.
• Gave up the much-beloved activity of going to midnight movies.
• Went on some pretty awesome dates, but even more "just friends" dates.  (Seriously, is that even a real thing?)
• Consumed waaay too much Diet Coke.
• Went from blonde, to dark brown, back to blonde again.  Not to mention my hair is getting freakishly long.
• Got to be a bridesmaid for one of my very best friends.
• Visited one of my other very best friends and saw her new baby girl, Taylor.

Obviously this has been a pretty eventful year, with many rather large achievements.  I honestly don't know if 2013 can top 2012!!

All Hallow's Eve

Believe it or not, Halloween is kinda a big deal in Maui.  You wouldn't really suspect that, what with all the other awesome stuff happening on the island.  However, Hawaiians love to dress up!

I managed to convince a friend to go out with me that night, and we met up with a bunch of people from my ward.  We drove around the Lahaina side, and they had a big huge Halloween party on Front Street.  It was awesome - and just a little bit crazy.  Front street is part of this really touristy area in a very touristy town.  It runs along the coast, and is lined with restaurants and all those little souvenir shops you just love to spend your money in.  They call it Halloween on Front Street, and they shut down the entire block, and people just roam up and down in their costumes.

I couldn't believe how many creative costumes I saw, and just how all-out people went on them!  We did see some rather scandalous outfits, but keep in mind I am in Maui where nude beaches are, if not accepted, they are at least "ignored" by law enforcement.

We spent a couple hours walking up and down the street, and staring at other costumes.

Just an example of what was going on that night.  It was a wild party!

If you look closely at the guy standing on the sidewalk right under the sign, he is dressed like Bane.  And he actually looked like him!  It was kinda creepy.

Me and all of my friends.  I'm the pirate on the end.

I found the 3 Amigos!!

I just had to have a picture with these two.  They were my heros, because their entire group was dressed up as characters from Batman.  Seriously, I'm not obsessed...

Eventually we headed home since I did, in fact, have to work the next morning.  It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I got to go.  However, I will be glad when I return to the mainland, and I can celebrate Halloween with some colored leaves, and cooler weather!

Halloween at work!

Remember how Halloween is my very favorite holiday?  This year wasn't quite so exciting considering I didn't really have the means to make a fun new costume this year.  I ended up recycling a costume from a couple years ago since no one here had ever seen it.  However, I was super excited because I was finally allowed to dress up for work!  I tried to keep it a little low key since I still am a doctor, and I was still pulling teeth out of people's mouths all day.  I did get to have some fun, though!

Me and the staff at our clinic.  We are very festive.

Our pedodontist, Dr. Michelle dressed up as a lion! 

Check out my awesome Bat belt!

I love fancy makeup, and I love it even more when I get to wear fake lashes and Batman earrings!

We had a total blast dressing up at the clinic, although I was a little surprised that we had several people decide to go with Batman.  Probably because Batman is awesome!



It was a pretty good day.  I just hope I didn't scare any of the kids (or the adults, for that matter).