We've Arrived!

ALOHA!!!!!! We have arrived in Hawaii! Actually, we arrived one week ago today! And as promised, I will begin a blog of our Hawaiian adventure for all of our mainland family and friends to stay updated!

We had a wonderful aloha before we left DM. 2 of our friends and my co-workers, Diane and Sheryl, were at the DM airport to see us off. They had authentic Iowa leis for us to wear--complete with farm animals and tractors! It was so nice of them to remember us and send us off! (see pics below!) We got to the hotel and unloaded our 5 suitcases and 2 rubbermaid containers and walked down to the mall for "supper." It was supper time in Hawaii and bedtime in Iowa, but we had to try to stay up as late as we could to get on Hawaii's schedule. We made it until 2am Iowa time, which was 9pm Hawaii time.

Our first week was very busy...here is a short recap:

Monday--(We wake up at 4am Hawaii time) Chris reports to day 1 of orientation at Tripler Army Medical Center. (See Cpt. Mulder's pic below!) This was a day of inprocessing and general "orientation" things. I went to the Waikiki Health Center and met with my supervising physician and the other PAs I will be working with. Oh yeah, I officially accpeted the position and start on July 1! It is a community health center so I will be doing primary care for adults who are homeless, under-insured, or have no health insurance. It will be an interesting job!

Tuesday--Chris reports again to Tripler. I again report to the beach! I also report to WalMart at 10am to stand in line for 77 cent plate lunch and 10 cent Pepsi at the local L&L. Plate lunches are very popular in Hawaii--I had chicken katsu which was breaded chicken with sticky rice and macaroni salad (see picture below). (I waited for 1 hr. 45 min, but anyone who knows me well knows I love deals; and I am not working yet, so what else did I have to do?!) Tuesday night we searched for houses...this has been quite the adventure. You can't get too much for your money here! (A yard? What is that? Central air-conditioning? What is that--we have tradewinds here, just open windows! Washer and dryer--they'll fit real well on your front "lawn" or in your garage. What a garage? Maybe you'll have a one stall, if you're lucky!) Needless to say, after looking at a few places we weren't impressed and went to bed feeling discouraged.

Wednesday--Chris has the day off so we plan more house searching and getting my military id. Another adventure! I waited for my military id for 2 1/2 hours! Eventually I got it and we went on our merry way to search for housing. We were much more successful today! The last "house" we looked at turned out to be the one! We were hesitant to look at it because it only had 2 bedrooms and we really wanted 3, but decided to give it a try. It turned out to be just perfect for us! It's a townhome in Hawaii Kai (apparently. per Hawaiians a VERY nice place to live) with 2 large bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a small "yard," ok, not yard, but small green space just right for a grill and maybe a table with chairs. YAY, success!

Thursday--Chris reports to Tripler again for computer training. A long, boring day for him. He did get done early though! I worked on paperwork for my new job and sat by the pool. Thursday evening we went to Chris' program director's house for a BBQ with all the new interns and their families as well as attending physicians. Chris got his first lei tonight! It was great to meet everyone and eat some real homemade food! (Eating at restaurants all the time does get old!)

Friday--Chris has the day off again! An easy residency so far, right?! Actually, he went golfing with one of his fellow interns. It was a great sunny day! I sat by the pool and thought I applied sunscreen, but missed a few spots! My first Hawaiian sunburn! I also paid for my Hawaiian PA license and dropped off all the paperwork. In 12 days I will hopefully be a licensed PA in Hawaii!

Saturday--We decide we need some furniture for our new house! We head out to the Navy exchange, which is the largest post exchange in the world. It's a mall, grocery store, barber shop, beauty salon, furniture store, etc, etc..... Needless to say, I loved the place! We found some furniture we liked, a TV we liked, Chris found a surf board he liked, etc, etc..... We will be headed back on Wednesday to buy our furniture since it goes on sale then!

Today--We went to church this morning. It was the same church I went to when I was here in 2006. After church, we headed to the beach. Chris went out in the HUGE waves and body boarded while I layed peacefully on the beach! It was a perfect Sunday afternoon! We also went to the $1.25 movie, Sunshine Cleaning. There is one cheap theatre here--movies during the week and weekend matinees are $1.25 and $1.50 on the weekend evenings. It's almost Iowa prices! Sadly, they are closing the theatre in August. We'll have to get in a few good movies before that!

That's a wrap for our first week. I'm not sure about this blogging thing. Hopefully I didn't reveal too many boring details and hopefully you'll enjoy reading future posts. Thanks for all the well wishes and we'd love to have each and every one of you come visit us!

**Stay tuned for pictures of our "new" car and townhome!!