Hawaiian Adventure

Hello friends so as many of you know I just recently when to a trip to Hawaii to see my brothers graduation and as this happens to be a blog about my adventures I figured I will just have to of course tell you all about it :). So we got to Hawaii Thursday morningish and when we got there I will admit it was a little drier than I thought it would be. I guess since the only islands I have been to are the ones in Indonesia I figured they would be similar but not so, it was still nice and a happy place though of course! Our group consisted of my parents and Crawford grandparents and we stayed in a cabin in Laie that was pretty awesome because it was pretty big and all you had to do is take a little like 30 yard trail to get onto pounders beach. Once we got settle in me and my dad headed off to “look at the beach” but of course when we got there we jumped in and body surfed for a little while. After I got sand in just about every place possible we decided that boogie boarding was probably the way to go and went and got some. Although I felt like it didn’t make too much of a difference with the crazy sand it was pretty awesome. One time I got caught in a crazy wave and it basically spun me all the way around, my dad said he could see my feet sticking up straight out from the water, it was a rather “exhilarating” experience to say the least, lol.

While in Hawaii we did a lot of cool different thing. On Friday we drove up to the Pearl Harbor memorial and that was a really neat place. It was a very humbling experience to go through and pay respect to those who lost their life that day. It gave me once again a new respect, gratitude, and love for my country and the freedoms we have. Saturday was Drew’s graduation and it was pretty fun! Sister Dalton spoke at it and she gave an amazing talk. Afterwards we went to Teds Bakery for some amazing coconut chocolate pies for my brother graduation BBQ we had with his friends. While there I got a coconut muffin and it was pretty much amazing! That night we decided to go to Waimea beaches to swim but then ended up stopping at pipeline because the waves were crazy!! When I was younger I had thought that some of the Oregon cost waves were big and couldn’t imagine anything much bigger even though I had seen the pictures. But man these waves were amazing, 20+ feet high! One guy even broke his surf board. My brother said that that they are rarely that high during this time of year and they mostly come in the winter, so I felt lucky. Sooo cool! Pictures cannot do them justice at all!! And the sunset was like icing on the cake. On Sunday we went to church and I think my dad was inspired because we went to the same ward as Sister Dalton and the BYUH school president. Also to our surprise the main fire dancer guy from the PCC show was there and he gave his testimony. It was a pretty cool meeting to say the least. That afternoon we went on a drive around the “other side of the island” and went up the mountains to an amazing lookout. It was beautiful!! The following Monday we got up, ate at Ted’s bakery again, hehe and drove out to a place to go snorkeling. I can’t remember the name but if you have ever been there, I’m sure by the picture you’d know where I was talking about. My cool grandma got in the water with us as well and I even got  to see a turtle!  After that we went to Waikiki and ate at cheese cake factory and then strolled down the town. We didn’t see the Kardashians but some people came awful close to looking like them, lol.

 

 

 

That night my brother got one of his favorite meals, ahi poke that came in the little blue paper dish thing that chicken comes in and said “cook thoroughly” on the packaging but my brother insisted like a million times it was ok and so I tried it. It actually wasn’t too bad, but would I eat it again? probably not. Good news is I survived and thus far no worms that I know of, yet.. On Tuesday we took a trip out to the middle of the ocean to go swim with the sharks. Like most normal person I was rather nervous when we got to the spot and the guy threw out a bunch of meet and the sharks jumped around and chomped the meet. We then got in the cage and snorkeled down and it was actually to my surprise pretty amazing! The water was super clear surprisingly almost like when your looking in the aquarium which is way different that I would have expected for the middle of the ocean;  and the sharks were pretty big, some 12 ft + and looked a little friendlier…kinda... Good news is we all survived even though my brother got pretty sea sick and almost had an opportunity to “feed the sharks”. In the afternoon we ate some of the most fabulous coconut shrimp at the shrimp truck things, which was surprising it was so good as the shrimp no didn’t come from the ocean, but from smelly little mud ponds. That night we went to the Polynesian cultural center and ate some awesome purple bread! and some some other fabulous food of course :), then watched the amazing show. So cool! It almost made me want to be a cool Polynesian dancer but I suppose for now I will just have to stick to my pathetic white Zumba dancing awesomeness.

Over all Hawaii was pretty cool, I think my favorite part was of course that nice time where I could relax on the beach and watch the waves…. or the little crabs sneaking out of their holes and run across the beach. If you know me well I’m sure you could imagine how much I appreciated that, ha. I was I could have gotten some pictures of them, but they were so dang fast, he he. In conclusion, all I can say is a little bit of paradise of 6 days is not to shabby and highly recommended :).

A Sweet Unexpected Reunion

The other day I was seeing some sweet 5 year old little twin girls and was talking to their mom when she randomly said, “I remember you”. At first I was confused but then just assumed she had recognized me from church or I reminded her of one of my relatives because that is usually what ends up happening. However, she then went on to say, “I remember when you were my girl’s nurse back when my they were born premature in the hospital. You were that nurse that helped us when one of our little girls had stopped breathing for a couple of seconds and that was one of the scariest times of our lives”. At that point my mind immediately stopped and after getting over the complete shock that someone had actually remembered from my nursing days, what to seemed to be at first an impossible memory flooded back in to my mind and I remembered those little girls. I remembered taking care of them on a number of occasions both in the NICU and peds unit when they were not even 4 lbs. I remembered being a new nurse spending 12 hrs monitoring their heart rate, trying to what seemed like an impossible task of getting them to eat an oz of formula, and one time spending whole the night adjusting their oxygen as their breathing was all over the place. I also remembered that night when one of the girls was feeding with her parents and she stopped breathing for a couple of seconds. Luckily after much stimulation she came back to normal but that scared her parents a lot and I had to pull my own emotions together and help them.

Now you may think that it was a cool experience that she remembered me  but I don’t think you can fully appreciate the significance of it unless you understand where I was in my life during that time. Reflecting back 5 years ago I remember it was during that time that life was not so easy for me. I was up to my neck in grad school, working nights, and even had night mares of babies turning blue and hearing lots and lots alarms. One night I was caring for some of the little ones and I remember being tired and frustrated because I wasn’t sure what life was going to bring me, I wasn’t sure I could handle the stress of doing this work for much longer, and for some crazy reason I couldn’t see how I was making any difference for these tiny babies that I knew would never remember me anyways.  It’s amazing how satan can influence you when you are at a weak moment in your life and how he makes you think and feel things you know aren’t true. But through it all I remember praying and feeling a great since of peace and I knew that for some reason that was where the lord wanted me to be and that everything would workout.  Now as I look back at that experience 5 years later I bet you can imagine the feelings I felt as I saw those little happy healthy, talkative little girls. It was such a miracle to see that these tiny helpless premature infants had grown and become beautiful little people with their own distinct personality, thoughts, and opinions. It helped me better understand god’s love and the potential he sees in us even as little infants. In addition, I never thought in a million years anyone would remember me as their nurse, but somehow amazingly she did. I know he could have put a number of different nurses in the position that night to help that family but I am grateful for some reason the lord chose me. It’s amazing how life seems to come back around at you like it does. Thinking back to that time in my life I would have never ever imagined I would have become basically their doctor, yet here I am. It was a sweet reunion and I thank god for that tender mercy he gave me and the lesson I learned that day in my office. It was once again a confirmation to me that god really is in control and knows best what we need to learn, where we need to be, and that sometimes we do make a difference. I am grateful I was able in a small way to instrument in his hands for that family.