Our First Visitors!

January brought our first visitors! Chris' parents came to stay with us for 11 days. We had a great time showing them around and keeping them busy! :) Chris had several days off while they were here because he was on his ER rotation. I had MLK day and Wednesday afternoon off.

While they were here...

We ate at: Kona Brewing Company, Yogurtland, Hale Koa hotel, Blue Water Grill, Old Spaghetti Factory, Teddy's Bigger Burgers, Giovanni's Shrimp Truck, Little Village Chinese, & la casa de Mulders.

We hiked: Mauna Willi Falls, Makapu'u, Chinaman's Hat

They hiked: Diamond Head, Koko Head

Visited: Dole Pineapple Plantation, Polynesian Cultural Center, Germaines' Luau

Swam: with sharks on the North Shore, at Bellow's Beach

Experienced: Tripler Army Medical Center, Waikiki Health Center, Harbor Church

They also spent 2 days on the Big Island at Volcano National Park. They visited the Arizona Memorial as well.

Here are some pictures from their time here...

1. At Mauna Willi Falls (I was working that day)

2. At the top of Chinaman's Hat

3. The shark we swam with during our tour

4. At Germaine's Luau

We had a wonderful time while they were here! I'm not sure who was more tired; them from us taking them so many places or us from showing them so many places!

We are looking forward to our next visitors...Chris' brother, his wife, and their son are coming in May!

Long Time No Update-December in Review

Back to December...

The first weekend we got back to Hawaii my friend Stephanie and I hosted a cookie exchange at my house for the ladies from church. We had a great time talking and eating! Here's a picture with all our cookies...

We also went to an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party hosted by one of the guys Chris works with. We had a good time and there were some HIDEOUS sweaters. One of the winners bought hers off Ebay. It had a stuffed reindeer head in the middle, attached bells on the top, christmas lights around the bottom, and frills along the bottom. It was unique! Chris and I went to Savers and found a few good ones. Here's a picture of us...

On Christmas Day we woke up early and went to the North Shore. It's an hour plus drive. The waves were 25-30 feet. It was amazing to see all the surfers out riding those large waves. Chris is a great surfer but only on 3-5 foot waves! :)

After the North Shore we went to Mike and Carin's house. Carin is an intern with Chris. She had to work Christmas Day, but her husband prepared a 5-meat chili and invited us all over. It was excellent! Chris has even requested he make it again and yesterday Carin brought Chris a bowl plus corn bread!

We went to our pastor's house after that for Christmas dinner with our church family. It was a great traditional Christmas feast! We're so thankful we've made such great friends here!

Christmas in the Midwest-Our Trip Home!

We left the 80 degree weather of Hawaii on December 3rd and arrived in 20 degree Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We were greeted by Rudolph (aka my mom with antlers and a red nose) and a car with the heat on high! :) We celebrated Christmas with my family while we were home. We also got to see my good friend, Jessica, from high school and her husband and daughter. We enjoyed seeing my little sister's baby bump too. We'll have a new niece or nephew in April! On Tuesday we went to Chaelor and Hunter's school and ate lunch with them. Hunter's class was learning about Hawaii so we were guest speakers in his classroom. The time passed way too quickly while we were in George!

The Stille family

Jessica and I

On Wednesday, December 9 we flew from Sioux Falls to Chicago to stay with Chris' family. Despite the snowstorm we made it safely to Illinois/Wisconsin. We got to see our nephew, Austin, for the first time! It was so fun to spend so much time with him! We also celebrated Christmas with Chris' family while we were there. I also got to see my Grandma Stille and Aunt Linda. Chris got plenty of basketball in with his dad, brother, and brother-in-law. The girls got pedicures. Several of Chris' extended family members joined us for lunch on Sunday afternoon-Grandpa and Grandma Mulder, Uncle Tom, Uncle Jim and Aunt Sue. Our time in Wisconsin passed far too quickly as well!

Austin with his favorite uncle and auntie!

The Mulder Women

My Aunt Linda and I

Grandma Stille and I

We are thankful that our families made our time at home so special and a big thanks for turning up the heat! :)


We got back to Hawaii on December 14 and returned to work on December 15. I get off work at 1pm tomorrow and Chris has to work the whole day. We plan to go to our church's Christmas Eve service at 6pm. We both have off Christmas Day! :) Chris was supposed to work, but he was able to get it off. We plan to head to the North Shore Christmas morning to see the 20ft. waves. After that we are headed to one of the other intern's house for chili and Christmas movies. At 3pm we will have Christmas dinner with our pastor's family and church family. Although we would love to be with our own family on Christmas Day we are very thankful for our Hawaii family!

Good News and Chinaman's Hat

First, I must share our good news! On Tuesday, I received my loan repayment deposit. I applied for the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program earlier this year and got a contract and after 3 months of patiently waiting (or not so patiently at times) I finally got my money! Since I work at a community health center and it's considered an underserved area I qualifed for the loan repayment. I have a 2-year contract to work at the Health Center in order to get the money. Not a bad deal! :)

Very excited to write the check!

On Wednesday afternoon Chris and I headed to the North Shore. Our friend, Dave, has a house right on the beach. He has graciously invited us over several times. We kayaked with him to Chinaman's Hat. It was about a mile to get there. Along the way we saw a couple huge sea turtles in the water. It was amazing! Once we got to Chinaman's Hat we hiked to the top on the regular, clearly paved trail. It was a great view from the top. We even saw more sea turtles come to the surface. We enjoyed a little time in the ocean at the sandy beach. There was a small cave we sat in and took a quick picture. We couldn't stay in there long because the waves were so intense it was knocking us around. We were getting ready to head back to our kayaks when Chris decided we should climb up the other side of Chinaman's Hat, the "less paved" and straight up way. Dave decided he would try it too and what was I supposed to do? I didn't want to be left by myself so I agreed to give it a try too. We all made it up safely (minus a few cuts and panics!). It was a good challenge! Chris was proud I gave it a try and made it! :) We then hiked down and kayaked back to Dave's house. We had a great time and look forward to going back!

A picture of the mountains behind Chinaman's Hat

Chris and I in our kayak...at the end of our trip!
Here's a picture of me climbing!

Here's a picture of Chris in front of Chinaman's Hat. The traditional way to climb is on the right side, around the back. The not-so traditional way was climbing on the left side, a good challenge!

A picture of us at the top!

An Overdue Update

We haven't been doing a very good job of keeping this blog up to date, but in my defense, there is not much to update. We continue to be busy with work. Chris is on his 2nd week of his ICU rotation. He is enjoying the ICU and is half done with his long 30-hour shifts. He has done enough arterial blood gases to be "checked off" so he can officially do them on his own now. Exciting! :) His next rotation is Nephrology, which will be exciting for me to hear about! I miss working in nephrology.

We also head back to the COLD Midwest in December. A week from today! We are very much looking forward to seeing our family and friends, but we are not looking forward to the cold. I must admit I had to wear a sweatshirt a couple nights ago because a "cold front" came through and it was 80 degrees! (Mom and Dad turn up the heat now! Bruce & Doris I'll sleep in the living room by the wood stove!)

I continue to see interesting patients everyday. I have done many things at this job that I've either never done before or never seen before. A brief rundown...a patient with multiple personalities, telling ladies they are pregnant, telling patients I think they have cancer, being called horrible names because I wouldn't give a patient pain medications, etc.. Every day is a challenge and a new experience! I feel more settled in my job now and feel like I am more productive with my time.

Chris and I continue to run when we have time. Actually, Chris runs every day he can when he either doesn't have to go in to work or he gets done early and I run Monday-Friday. It's nice to be able to run outside everyday. There has only been 1 day when it was raining and we couldn't run outside. Speaking of rain, it's been raining here a lot (which means it has rained here several days in a row for more than 5 minutes at a time). We still got 2 hours of beach time in today! :) Back to running....we ran in the Race for the Cure, the breast cancer 5K a few weekends ago. I organized a team from work. It was a great run and Chris said it was the fastest I have ever run with him! :) Pictures below...

I will try to be better about updating!

After the race...

Waikiki Health Center Team...before the race...

And I'll end with a picture of us....just another day at the beach!

Maui

This past weekend we headed to Maui (island 3/6 we've visited) for a quick trip! We were able to get $50 round trip tickets from Oahu to Maui, which is a great deal! We left at 6am on Saturday and returned on Sunday evening at 10:30pm. It was a quick trip, but FULL of activities! Here's a recap...

After getting our rental car on Saturday we drove to a beach that was supposed to have dolphins, but unfortunately we didn't see a big group of them. We both think we saw a couple pop their heads out of the water, but we're not sure. Of course we weren't able to capture any pictures! We decided to head to another beach to snorkel. It was great! There were a ton of beautiful colored fish and the water wasn't that cold!

We ate pizza at a local pizza joint and then headed to Lahaina where our hotel was. We walked around Lahaina and did some shopping. After that we decided to go parasailing. It was $70/person, but we got a great kama'aina (local) discount and only paid $40/person. We were ~1200 feet in the air. It was awesome! We had both parasailed before, but never together so it was fun to experience it together! We had a lady in the boat taking pictures for us and she did a good job. We counted 42 pictures! After parasailing we headed to another beach and saw giant sea turtles swimming. It was neat to see! Then we headed to the hotel and checked in. We got ready and went to the Old Lahaina Luau. This was our second luau. It was fun to go to another luau and of course the food was excellent!

Sunday we woke up fairly early and drove to a neighboring town to bike down a volcano. We had to re-book with a different company late Saturday afternoon because of a major screw up by the first company we booked with. Long story, but needless to say, it's not over yet. I will be calling them tomorrow when I can talk to a manager about their HORRIBLE service. Ok, so here's a quick rundown of what happened: Saturday 11am received a call from Mountain Riders saying there was no one else on our tour and that we would have to reschedule for another day or be upgraded to the sunrise tour. We explained that this was our last day in Maui and we had to go on Sunday. She said that she would call us back at 5pm when they would be closing and let us know if anyone else joined our tour. At 4:55 Chris called them and a different person answered the phone and said that no one joined our tour and now the sunrise tour was full. This person would not give us her name and offered to do nothing for us except refund our money. (We booked this tour >1 week prior and paid for it.) She was LESS than helpful and we were very angry! Thankfully we got a tour with another company. It turned out to be a great tour. We rode in a bus to the top of the volcano and then rode (coasted!) down the volcano. It was very cold at the top of the volcano and rainy. We wore rain suits for the bike tour as it rained almost the whole time. Despite the rain we had a great time! After the bike tour we took the famous Road to Hana. This is a road full of tight turns and one-way bridges with many waterfalls along the route. The max speed limit is 15mph and the total mileage is 32 miles. We stopped several times to take pictures! We had a guide book offering many inside tips as well. One tip we decided to follow, led us up a waterfall, through thick mud, only to find that we couldn't see the "better" waterfall. Our legs were full of mud, but it was fun and worth a good laugh. After the tour we went to a couple of beaches....black sand and red sand beaches. We then ate supper and headed back to the airport.

It was a quick 2 days and we were exhausted on Monday. Thank goodness for Labor Day! We spent the day grocery shopping, doing laundry, and taking naps!

Here are some pics of our trip....

Parasailing!

Old Lahaina Luau at sunset

Rainsuits and our cruiser bikes. (It really was a bike tour, not a space mission!)

Road to Hana...with legs full of mud!

Koko Head Hike

A few weeks ago we went on our first hike here in Hawaii. It was a hike of 1,048 steps straight up. We went early in the morning to avoid the afternoon heat, although it was still very hot! Here are some pictures...

Before the hike

At the top of the mountain

Other than that, we've fallen into a fairly "normal routine" which looks like this:

4:30-5:00am Chris gets up sometime within this time period and a short 20 minutes later is out the door on his way to Tripler.
6:25-6:30am I get up and begin my morning routine, run, finish the prior day's charts for work, leave for work.
9:00am I arrive at work, sometimes earlier, but my first patient is scheduled at nine.
WORK, WORK, WORK
4:00pm-7:00pm-10:00pm At some point Chris finishes work and drives 30 minutes home (on a good day).
6:30pm I finish work and begin my 20 minute commute home. (I have every Wednesday afternoon off from work!)
7:00-7:30pm We eat supper, made by whoever gets home first!
9:00pm We head to bed and it starts all over again.

Our weekends are filled with Chris working one of the days, I take care of household tasks and the other weekend day is spent at the beach, church, and relaxing.



We are both enjoying our jobs, however are challenged on a daily basis. Our conversations in the evenings are often centered around the interesting, weird, unbelievable patients we saw that day.

This weekend we're headed to a party with other Tripler physicians and families. It should be a good time! Hope you all have a good rest of the week and weekend!