It seems early, but Daylight Savings Time is upon us again. That means it is a FIVE hour time difference from the midwest now! It might make it a bit more complicated to call each other, but it will work out. I guess we'll have to be more aware of the time.
The weather here has been really rainy lately. We've had rain for several days in a row and the forcast is for 3 more days for sure. The average rainfall for Kona in the month of March is 1-1/2 inches and we have easily reached that already! The one nice thing about rain on a Sunday afternoon is that is makes good napping weather! I fell asleep this afternoon and AJ, Jenna and some friends of ours went to the beach to go body surfing - in the rain! I woke up and the house was totally silent. All I could hear was the soft hush of rain hitting the covering over our lanai. It was so relaxing! I think God sends rain on Sundays so we can rest and observe the Sabbath! I certainly did my best today! I slept for 2 hours...it was great!
It's been raining so much in Hilo (the opposite side of the Island from us) that they have had mud slides and road closings! AJ said they got 7-1/2 inches of rain in one day this past week. There is a ton of new snow on the mountain. AJ and some friends were going to go to the summit today to see the observatories and play in the snow, but the road to the summit was closed due to snow and ice! The ranger said it will probably be closed tomorrow too! That's so weird to think of in Hawaii!!
I'm still trying to get Jenna's presentation to upload to my blog, but unfortunately I'm afraid that I will not be able to get it to work. I'm so bummed because she did such a great job and I wanted to share it with you! I will keep trying. So, until next time...aloha!
Hawaiian Sunset at Hapuna Beach
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Jenna's Science Fair project
Today at Jenna's school, they had a Science Fair. Each of the kids had to do a project and present it to the 3rd grade students and 3 judges. Jenna chose to do her project on magnets. She had to have a purpose, hypothosis, experiment (materials and steps in the experiment), results and summary. AJ and I thought this project was a little much to ask of a 2nd grader...it would be more appropriate for Jr High! The kids were supposed to do most of it themselves with little parental help. Jenna did do most of it herself. I guided her and gave her some direction. AJ was great with helping her with the presentation part of it. She asked the question...Can a paperclip float in the air by itself? She taped a string to a phone book and tied the other end of the string to a paperclip. Then she used the magnets to pull the paperclip into the air. She could pull the magnet away from the paperclip about 1 1/2 inches before the paperclip fell. We tried several magnets and measured the distance between the paperclip and the magnet. It was a lot of fun. She did her class presentation today. She did a really great job!! The teacher had a microphone for the kids, but didn't have it on for the first few kids. Fortunately she thought to check it right before Jenna started, so she got to use the mircophone. You could hear her a lot better that the other kids!
I taped it and posted it for you to watch. I apologize that I missed the first few sentences of her presentation. I had the camera in the wrong mode! I dropped her off at school and then parked and waited for the presentations to start since it was only an hour later. While I was waiting I saw a mother hen and her chicks in the parking lot. I took a picture of them and forgot to put the camera back into video mode!! Jenna started her presention and I realized that I wasn't taping. I still got most of it. You just miss her saying her name and what her project is about. You might need to turn the volume up all the way on your computer because it is kind of hard to hear. I could hear her really well in the classroom, but I guess the camera didn't pick the sound up very well. I hope you enjoy it!! I'll let you know if she gets a ribbon or something. Until next time...aloha!
I taped it and posted it for you to watch. I apologize that I missed the first few sentences of her presentation. I had the camera in the wrong mode! I dropped her off at school and then parked and waited for the presentations to start since it was only an hour later. While I was waiting I saw a mother hen and her chicks in the parking lot. I took a picture of them and forgot to put the camera back into video mode!! Jenna started her presention and I realized that I wasn't taping. I still got most of it. You just miss her saying her name and what her project is about. You might need to turn the volume up all the way on your computer because it is kind of hard to hear. I could hear her really well in the classroom, but I guess the camera didn't pick the sound up very well. I hope you enjoy it!! I'll let you know if she gets a ribbon or something. Until next time...aloha!
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
6 MONTH ANNIVERSARY!
Can you believe we have lived in Hawaii for 6 months already?! Sometimes I can't believe it! The time has gone so fast, yet in a way it feels like we have always lived here. We love it here and have become so comfortable with our life. We're looking forward to exploring the islands more and learning as much as we can. We never know when this adventure may end!
We have enjoyed having visitors and look forward to seeing more of you here in the future! See you soon! Until next time...aloha!
We have enjoyed having visitors and look forward to seeing more of you here in the future! See you soon! Until next time...aloha!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Too busy!!
I can't believe how fast time goes! We have been really busy lately! We have had more visitors the past few weeks. We have visitors for the next little while too. We love having visitors but it changes our routine a bit!
AJ is still busy at work. Things are not slowing down like we thought it would. He is still working 6 days a week, 10-12 hours. I'll be so glad when things slow down for him!! He will too!
My job has been going great, but I have also been working more than I thought I would! I was hired to work 20 hours per week, but it has been more like 30 hours. One of my co-workers was gone last week, so I covered most of her patients. She is still going to be gone this week, so I will see her patients again. I am still supposed to be on orientation, but I have been on my own for the past two weeks. I know I can always call if I need help, so I guess it's OK.
I feel bad for our visitors because we have both been working so much, we have hardly seen them! Thankfully they have been understanding! We took some time last weekend and went to the beach. We saw 15 turtles on the beach! I've posted a few pictures.
Jenna is doing great! She loves having visitors and always wants to be the one to give them a tour of the house. She spent all day Saturday working on a project for the Science Fair at school this week. She did an experiment using magnets. She did a great job. It turned out pretty good! She has a pet fish now. It is a male betta that she named Rainbow. She loves her fish! She had a couple of sea snails that we brought home from the beach a few weeks ago, but they didn't last too long. I guess we should have left them in the ocean!!
Well, that's about it and I'm tired, so I'm going to sign off for now. So, until next time...aloha!
AJ is still busy at work. Things are not slowing down like we thought it would. He is still working 6 days a week, 10-12 hours. I'll be so glad when things slow down for him!! He will too!
My job has been going great, but I have also been working more than I thought I would! I was hired to work 20 hours per week, but it has been more like 30 hours. One of my co-workers was gone last week, so I covered most of her patients. She is still going to be gone this week, so I will see her patients again. I am still supposed to be on orientation, but I have been on my own for the past two weeks. I know I can always call if I need help, so I guess it's OK.
I feel bad for our visitors because we have both been working so much, we have hardly seen them! Thankfully they have been understanding! We took some time last weekend and went to the beach. We saw 15 turtles on the beach! I've posted a few pictures.
Jenna is doing great! She loves having visitors and always wants to be the one to give them a tour of the house. She spent all day Saturday working on a project for the Science Fair at school this week. She did an experiment using magnets. She did a great job. It turned out pretty good! She has a pet fish now. It is a male betta that she named Rainbow. She loves her fish! She had a couple of sea snails that we brought home from the beach a few weeks ago, but they didn't last too long. I guess we should have left them in the ocean!!
Well, that's about it and I'm tired, so I'm going to sign off for now. So, until next time...aloha!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Weather, work and more friends!
Well, another week has flown by! I can't believe how fast the time goes! In my last post, a friend of ours, a former resident of Hawaii, reminded me that winter is the dry season and summer is the wet season in Hawaii. While I did know that, I think Mother Nature is a bit confused! We have had a lot of rain lately! Some of the roads up the mountain from us have had to be closed due to flash flooding. Jenna and I saw sides of roads filled with water Friday on the way home from school. On Tuesday of this week, the road to the top of Mauna Kea (ma-naw kay-a) was closed because of snow! Also this week, there was a TORNADO on Oahu!! That is very, very rare as far as I know! There was some great footage on the news and quite a bit of damage! I guess you never know what kind of weather you might get over here! Kind of reminds me of the midwest! :-)
I have just completed my second week of work and things are going very well. I have been seeing a few patients on my own and I am beginning to feel comfortable with the computer system. Next week I will go with a different nurse and meet a whole different set of patients. I think I am going to be given "my own" patient (vs. sharing with another nurse) next week too so I can learn how to manage all aspects of their care by myself. I think it will be OK. Learning the policies and procedures is the hard part and hopefully being more on my own will help with that process.
AJ continues to be busy with Kona Queen, although he hasn't been working quite as long most days. He has been able to be home on the weekends, which is nice and he gets home a little earlier in the evening. We can dinner together as a family again!
Jenna is doing great in school. She made the honor roll again for 2nd quarter. We're very proud of her. She works very hard. She has started to go to the after school program now that I am working. She likes it. She has been able to get most of her homework done before I pick her up. That is a huge help!! She continues to take hula lessons and she likes that a lot.
We had a great time with our friends Dick and Jody. It was so great to have them here!! It worked out great and I think they had a good time. We went to a luau last Friday night. That was great! Last Saturday we went to South Point, the Black Sand Beach and the volcano. We saw several turtles at Black Sand Beach. We only had to walk about 3/4 of a mile to see the volcanic activity. There was a huge plume of smoke rising into the sky. The lava was flowing right into the ocean and occasionally you could see red hot lava flying into the air! It was quite a sight! I've posted some pictures of this too. On Sunday, we went kayaking across the Bay to the Captain Cook Monument to go snorkeling. The dolpohins were out in full force and they put on a fantastic show for us!! There were several pods of 10-20 dolphins (at least) swimming very close to us. They were jumping in the air, doing flips, spinning in the air, and slapping their tails against the water! It was SO COOL!!! I tried to get pictures, but it's hard to know when they are going to jump! AJ tried to get a few underwater pictures. They turned out OK. I posted the best ones. I never tire of seeing the dolphins! It is my favorite thing to do in Hawaii. After the dolphin show, we had the pleasure of seeing all of the beautiful fish while we snorkeled! What a treat! After we got back from snorkeling, we went to the beach and cooked burgers on the grill. We were hoping to see a few whales, but...no luck! Oh well, we had aleady had a fantastic day!!
We were sad to see Dick and Jody leave us on Thursday. We were very happy that they could come and spend some time with us! We have more visitors coming to see us in the next few weeks. Some for a night or two and some a little longer. We look forward to everyone's arrival! We are praying for safe flights and good weather!! That's the latest update, so until next time...aloha!
I have just completed my second week of work and things are going very well. I have been seeing a few patients on my own and I am beginning to feel comfortable with the computer system. Next week I will go with a different nurse and meet a whole different set of patients. I think I am going to be given "my own" patient (vs. sharing with another nurse) next week too so I can learn how to manage all aspects of their care by myself. I think it will be OK. Learning the policies and procedures is the hard part and hopefully being more on my own will help with that process.
AJ continues to be busy with Kona Queen, although he hasn't been working quite as long most days. He has been able to be home on the weekends, which is nice and he gets home a little earlier in the evening. We can dinner together as a family again!
Jenna is doing great in school. She made the honor roll again for 2nd quarter. We're very proud of her. She works very hard. She has started to go to the after school program now that I am working. She likes it. She has been able to get most of her homework done before I pick her up. That is a huge help!! She continues to take hula lessons and she likes that a lot.
We had a great time with our friends Dick and Jody. It was so great to have them here!! It worked out great and I think they had a good time. We went to a luau last Friday night. That was great! Last Saturday we went to South Point, the Black Sand Beach and the volcano. We saw several turtles at Black Sand Beach. We only had to walk about 3/4 of a mile to see the volcanic activity. There was a huge plume of smoke rising into the sky. The lava was flowing right into the ocean and occasionally you could see red hot lava flying into the air! It was quite a sight! I've posted some pictures of this too. On Sunday, we went kayaking across the Bay to the Captain Cook Monument to go snorkeling. The dolpohins were out in full force and they put on a fantastic show for us!! There were several pods of 10-20 dolphins (at least) swimming very close to us. They were jumping in the air, doing flips, spinning in the air, and slapping their tails against the water! It was SO COOL!!! I tried to get pictures, but it's hard to know when they are going to jump! AJ tried to get a few underwater pictures. They turned out OK. I posted the best ones. I never tire of seeing the dolphins! It is my favorite thing to do in Hawaii. After the dolphin show, we had the pleasure of seeing all of the beautiful fish while we snorkeled! What a treat! After we got back from snorkeling, we went to the beach and cooked burgers on the grill. We were hoping to see a few whales, but...no luck! Oh well, we had aleady had a fantastic day!!
We were sad to see Dick and Jody leave us on Thursday. We were very happy that they could come and spend some time with us! We have more visitors coming to see us in the next few weeks. Some for a night or two and some a little longer. We look forward to everyone's arrival! We are praying for safe flights and good weather!! That's the latest update, so until next time...aloha!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Work, weather & friends
I have officially worked 2 days plus a few extra hours. On Monday, I just did paperwork and orientation stuff. Not as boring as I thought it would be. There was another gal that started the same day as me. She is also an RN that will be working per diem (as needed). She and I are the same age and have a lot in common. We hit it off right away! It will be fun to work with her...hopefully I will be able to see her once we are done with orientation. On Wednesday, I met again with the nursing supervisor and went over policies and hospice Medicare criteria. That was a little dry. Thankfully I had heard most of it before at the Health Department, so it wasn't all foreign! After meeting with the supervisor, we went to a staff meeting where we did chart audits. Not a fun job at all! But it helps me to see what needs to be done. Then we attended another meeting! This one was with the whole team (nurses, CNAs, social worker, counselor, and MD) We discussed how the patients are doing and what needs they have. That was pretty interesting. Another nurse and I left this meeting early to go and admit a patient. That was a good experience. The process is basically the same as what I did in Darlington. I just have to learn their paperwork. They do most of their charting on computer, so I have to learn that program too. I was supposed to be off today (Thursday) but I went in for a couple of hours so that I could see how to enter all of the data into the computer and see how to finish the admission paperwork. Tomorrow I am going on 2 visits with a nurse and then I am going on two visits by myself! That's pretty quick, but I think I am comfortable with the visits. The paperwork and computer will be the biggest challenge.
We have our first visitors of 2009 here now. Dick and Jody Tuescher are here for 9 days. They have been pretty much on their own since they got here since I started working this week, but I think they are having fun. Last night we took them to Huggos on the Rocks, the restaurant by the water that we like to go to. Friday night we are going to a luau, Saturday to Volcano and Sunday kayaking and snorkeling. It should be fun! I'm looking forward to going to Volcano. We haven't been there yet since we moved and I'm curious to see what the lava is doing. When we were here in 2007, the lava was running on top of the ground and we were able to hike to it. We got some really great pictures! I hope we are as lucky this time!
I'm going to talk about the weather now, so if you don't want to hear about it, quit reading now!! As you are well aware, it is winter. Winter in Hawaii is hardly winter! The ocean gets quite a bit rougher and it rains a bit more, but that's about it. If you ask someone who has lived here for a while, especially those who have lived here all their life, it gets darn right cold in the winter!! AJ and I have laughed several times seeing how people react to the weather! It might get down to 66 or 68 degrees at night, maybe even 62 farther up the mountain, but that's about as cold as it gets. You'd think it was 30 the way people dress over here! I have seen so many people wearing sweaters, coats, sweatshirts, and even stocking caps in the morning!! It's so funny to us! These people have no idea what cold weather really is! Actually some people have said to us, "How do you live in that kind of weather?" When I tell people that I am from WI, sometimes all they say is ooohhhh. Like they feel sorry for me or something! It's pretty funny. Anyway, I hope winter is being a little nicer to all of you enduring it! We'll try and send some warm weather that way!!
That's the latest update. I'll let you know how work is going and how our weekend went next week. So until next time...aloha!
We have our first visitors of 2009 here now. Dick and Jody Tuescher are here for 9 days. They have been pretty much on their own since they got here since I started working this week, but I think they are having fun. Last night we took them to Huggos on the Rocks, the restaurant by the water that we like to go to. Friday night we are going to a luau, Saturday to Volcano and Sunday kayaking and snorkeling. It should be fun! I'm looking forward to going to Volcano. We haven't been there yet since we moved and I'm curious to see what the lava is doing. When we were here in 2007, the lava was running on top of the ground and we were able to hike to it. We got some really great pictures! I hope we are as lucky this time!
I'm going to talk about the weather now, so if you don't want to hear about it, quit reading now!! As you are well aware, it is winter. Winter in Hawaii is hardly winter! The ocean gets quite a bit rougher and it rains a bit more, but that's about it. If you ask someone who has lived here for a while, especially those who have lived here all their life, it gets darn right cold in the winter!! AJ and I have laughed several times seeing how people react to the weather! It might get down to 66 or 68 degrees at night, maybe even 62 farther up the mountain, but that's about as cold as it gets. You'd think it was 30 the way people dress over here! I have seen so many people wearing sweaters, coats, sweatshirts, and even stocking caps in the morning!! It's so funny to us! These people have no idea what cold weather really is! Actually some people have said to us, "How do you live in that kind of weather?" When I tell people that I am from WI, sometimes all they say is ooohhhh. Like they feel sorry for me or something! It's pretty funny. Anyway, I hope winter is being a little nicer to all of you enduring it! We'll try and send some warm weather that way!!
That's the latest update. I'll let you know how work is going and how our weekend went next week. So until next time...aloha!
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