My How Time Flies!!

Hello?? I wonder if anyone still checks this blog?? It's been so long since I've posted that I imagine a few of you have given up checking!! I can't believe how fast time goes! I often think of writing and all of us often say, "We'll have to put that on the blog." But, alas, time goes on and I don't take the time to do it. It saddens me a bit because there are so many things that I want to share with all of you, but there just doesn't seem to be time to fit it in! I will try and capture the events of the last month.

First of all, an update on my last entry. Remember I felt an earthquake? Well, it registered a 5.1! I was told that at the hospital, which is about 6-8miles from where we live, things were really shaking and moving! That must have been scary for the patients!

Can you believe we just had our 8 month anniversary of living in Hawaii?? 8 months already!! I can't believe how fast it has gone! We are loving it and still adjusting to the vastly different changes of season (from what we are used to)! There wasn't much of a difference from fall to winter to spring. I have noticed a few different things blooming, but other than that, it is very difficult to really know what time of year it is!! We have loved having visitors and are looking forward to friends coming at the end of May. And possibly some more this summer.

The vog has been really bad lately. We haven't been able to see the horizon for several days. About 2 weeks ago, we had a stretch of about 5 days where it was crystal clear! It was so awesome!! You could actually see where the sky ended and the ocean began. It was like a veil had been lifted off of the entire landscape! I love it when it's like that. It seems like those days are so far and in between.

AJ has been doing good. Keeping busy at work as usual. The weather has caused some problems for them. We had so much rain for several weeks in a row that it caused the queens to not be able to mate. That slowed everything down and caused A LOT more work!! Thankfully, things have straightened out a bit and things are back on schedule. He had a Saturday off 2 weeks ago and we took advantage of it and spent the day together as a family. We drove up to the top of Mauna Kea (about 14,000ft) and got out of the truck briefly to take a few picutes. There was still a little snow and it was REALLY, REALLY windy!! Jenna hated it! She didn't want to get out of the truck, but she did long enough for a few pictures. I've posted a few. After that, we drove to Hilo on the oposite side of the island as us. We went to the zoo. It is supposed to be a "rainforest zoo." It wasn't the biggest or best zoo I have ever been to, but it was free and it was fun to see the different animals. Jenna's favorite thing to see was the peacock. There were several of them just walking all over the grounds. We got to see a couple of them with their plumbs all open and puffed up. It was so beautiful! They really do strut around back and forth and in circles as if to make sure everyone can see how beautiful they are!! It was cool to see! I attempted to post some pictures. I'm not sure how good they will turn out. We drove home from Hilo the north route. It was a nice day with no rain, which is unusual for Hilo. We were able to see all of the beautiful valleys full of Japanese tulip trees, which are these huge trees with orange flowers on them. They are very beautiful!! When Karen and Dave were here, we drove home this way, but the weather was awful and we couldn't see anything! I guess they will just have to come back so they can see it themselves!

I have been very busy with work. One of my co-workers was gone for 3 weeks so I had to pick up 3 of her patients. I already had a full caseload myself, so adding hers on top of it was super, super stressful. I had to take more call too, since she was gone. One night, I was answering the phone until about midnight before I finally went to bed. Then I got called out at 3am to a patients home because he had died. I ended up staying there until about 5:30. By the time I got home, I just stayed up since I had to take Jenna to school, and work that day anyway! I was pretty tired the next two days after that! Thankfully, my days/nights on call haven't been quite that busy since! My co-worker is back and things have settled down a lot for me, making things much more bearable. About 2 weeks ago, I was in the car ready to take Jenna and our neighbor to school and my car wouldn't start! The battery had died! AJ had already gone to work. All I could think of to do was to call my neighbors to see if I could borrow one of their cars. They have about 4, so I figured I could maybe borrow ONE of them! Since they were both already gone to work, all they had available to me was a stick shift, which I am not very good with, or a Corvette convertible!!! Soooo, I ended up driving the Corvette!!! Can you believe it?!?! I was so nervous! I had to squeeze the 2 girls into the front so I could take them to school--no car seats and only one seatbelt. I was so afraid I was going to crash it sometime during the day! I just kept praying that I would be safe! I had to keep explaining to my patients and co-workers all day that it was NOT my car! I didn't want any of them thinking I make lots and lots of money! I was so glad when that day was finally over!! AJ put a new battery in for me and thank God, everything has been fine ever since!

Miss Jenna continues to love school. She sometimes seems like she is struggling with certain concepts, but then she does great on all of her tests. We are very proud of her! She is becoming quite the little artist! They had a contest at school about celebrating libraries. Each child had to draw a picture illustrating their favorite book. Jenna chose the book, "Marvin Wanted More." It's about a sheep who wanted to be bigger, so he kept eating and eating and eating until he ate the whole world! Parents were not allowed to help the child at all, which worked great for us because this project happened to be going on when AJ and I were both swamped at work and didn't have as much time to help her with homework. She did the whole drawing herself and it turned out terrific! Yes, I realize that I am a little biased, but that's my job! :-) She won FIRST place in her class!! Her poster is currently being displayed at the local library! I am hoping that we can go to the library on Saturday so I can get some pictures of her with her poster. When I do, I will post them on my blog.

She loves hula and continues to improve. The school put on a program for May Day, or as it is known in Hawaii, "Lei Day." Each class sang songs in Hawaiian. It was so beautiful! I couldn't understand anything they were saying, but it was so beautiful to listen to! Jenna's hula class did a dance. I tried to video it, but it didn't work too well. I wasn't in the right place so I couldn't see very well. I will try and post some of it, if I can figure out how to do it.

Last Saturday I was on call and AJ had to work for just a few hours in the morning. After he was finished working, he and Jenna went off on an adventure. They kayaked across the Bay and went snorkeling. She did so great! She is becoming such a good snorkeler! Her confidence is really growing and she is able to snorkel right along with us. AJ took some really cute pictures of her that I've posted.

I think I have finally gotten you caught up again with the happenings of our lives. I will really, really try hard to make the entries more often. Time just gets away so quickly!! So, until next time...aloha!