More Hawaii

I know that I said that I would have more pictures of our Hawaiian trip posted, so please excuse the delay.  I haven't had a lot of time recently to blog (surgery rotation, looking for a new home, trying to get ours ready to sell, etc).  Perhaps, it is my wish/hope to go on another trip before June 15th (my "report" date), but I wanted to share some more pictures from our wonderful trip to Kauai.

This is obviously a lighthouse, but the water and the green color of the landscape were just to die for!

More of that same point

This was one of my favorites.  SHAVE ice.  It was incredible and below that big, colorful, tasty ice shavings is yummy ice cream!

Enjoying my shave ice in Hanelai.

Waimea Canyon

More of the canyon at a lookout point

We got out of our rental car to hike a little bit and this was some of our terrain!

We went to a beach called "Glass Beach" where (unfortunately) a lot of garbage, including glass was disposed into the ocean years ago, and much of the glass came back to land and due to nature's forces has now made this beautiful beach.

This was also on Glass Beach

One of the blowholes on the island.

A beautiful bird during our chocolate farm tour.

During our chocolate tour, we had a chocolate tasting, which was fun and interesting.  I discovered these tasty treats called cacoa nibs (covered in dark chocolate of course), that are now one of my favorite snacks and are also packed full of antioxidants!

Marc had very mature descriptions of his chocolate "palate."  He never ceases to entertain me!

We loved being able to use our iPhones in paradise.  Little did we know that just one month later, we'd be able to call the Twins our hometown team!

Beautiful view from our hotel grounds in Princeville.

We took very few pictures of ourselves....

We definitely stopped at the one Wal-Mart on the island MULTIPLE times.  Most of our meals consisted of mac and cheese and PB&J, so we made trips to Wal-Mart to get meal supplies.  We thought it was funny that they had a free shuttle!

BEAUTIFUL waterfall on one of our driving tours.

Toward the end of our stay, Marc and I decided to take a tour of the vacant Coco Palm.  This was "the hot spot" in Kauai before one of the hurricanes destroyed it in the 1990s.  Elvis stayed here a lot and actually filmed the movie "Blue Hawaii" here, so we of course had to stop in!

Outside of Elvis's bungalow.

The Coconut Grove

A destroyed piano in the storage area.  I like to think that Elvis tickled these ivory (although not real ivory) keys!

View from our room's balcony.  Not bad for using hotel points and getting 25% off of those points! I love that Marc still has great perks left from his old job.  Too bad he doesn't get them now!

Our trusty rental car which we named "Merlin" because it was a Dodge Caliber (close to Excalibur). 

There were roosters EVERYWHERE!

One our way home...open air airport! 

It was a great trip and one we'd definitely LOVE to repeat.  Who knows, maybe (cross my fingers) another fun trip will be in store before I start residency!

Stay tuned for house hunting stories!

Our life for the next four years

On Thursday, I walked on stage in front of all of my classmates and their families and friends and opened my envelope, which read "Congratulations, you have matched to The University of Minnesota in internal medicine/pediatrics."  Well not exactly like that, it was more of a list, but you get the point.


I was so thrilled and I think Marc was even more excited!  I will be so sad to leave so many good friends, but now they will have a real winter to visit along with some awesome shopping!  The city itself is beautiful (above-picture taken from http://classic.cnbc.com/id/29350033?slide=2) and filled with so much to do in all seasons. Now begins the crazy rush to find a place to live and pack, move (including moving our nearly 14 year old cat Max), and unpack and get settled and actually practice medicine as a doctor....lots of responsibility is headed our way!

Minneapolis/St. Paul has a population (including the suburban area) that is larger than the entire state of Arkansas, so we will be in for quite a change, but Marc and I both have been wanting to get back to a bigger city.  His former home was Chicago and in college I lived within 20 minutes of Charlotte and we both really missed all the opportunities and activities that those larger cities offered, but we will shortly be back in the hustle and bustle of a large city.

With my rock, Meredith, throughout med school.  She made my life during medical school so much fun and really got me through school and the rest of my life during med school too!

Opening my envelope on stage!

I am sure we will have many updates as we progress through this move, but we are excited and I can't wait to get back to Minneapolis for a visit knowing that is where we will make our home for the next four years!

Matched

Just a quick update to say that I "matched."  We found out yesterday IF we matched and find out Thursday WHERE we match.  This will be a crazy and potentially life-altering (meaning a BIG move is possible) week!  Stay tuned to find out where I will be for the next 4+ years....

If you want to read a bit about the process here's a link:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/match-day-medical-students-learn-their-fate/

Hopefully I will have good news to share Thursday (or soon after, come on celebration is in order!)

Trip to Kauai

Since I had the month of February off, Marc and I decided that a trip just for fun (not for interviewing!) was badly needed.  With all of the miles I racked up going on 17 interviews I had crossed the threshold for a free ticket to Hawaii, and Marc, with his many, many miles from his travel in his old job, also had enough (just on Delta, he was mainly a United and American flyer).  Because of our MULTIPLE unfortunate experiences on Delta (aka Doesn't Ever Leave the Airport, courtesy of someone else's facebook status), we decided to dump all of our miles and go to Hawaii to get rid of them. Last minute we found 2 "low mileage" (50,000 miles each) tickets and also were able to use points along with a discount for the points to get a hotel in Kauai.  We had a crazy route to get there, but we made it and wow was it beautiful!  I had been too Kauai, although just for the day, back in 1996 during a trip to Honolulu and Maui, but it was a different experience this time and I have to say, we actually ran out of time to do all the things we wanted to do on the small island, which really surprised me.

We spent one night in Honolulu solely because we came in late and couldn't get a flight to Lihue in Kauai. We spent much of the first day just driving around, going to Pearl Harbor and finding the bail bonds office for Dog The Bounty Hunter--surprisingly one of my favorite shows!

American flag flying high over the USS Arizona Memorial

The list of people who were killed on the USS Arizona on December 7th.

Part of the ship

The USS Arizona leaks oil daily and it can still be seen on the water's surface since the day it sunk.  It makes me wonder how long oil will be in the Gulf of Mexico...

A high view of the Memorial

People exiting the memorial.

...and on a much lighter note, the offices of Dog The Bounty Hunter!  They weren't there since it was Sunday, but maybe on our next trip we can find them!

Stay tuned for more about our trip...

Ode to my VW

It is official.  I have officially sold my 2001.5 VW Passat.  I handed the title over yesterday and as I was driving off the lot, tears streamed down my face.  This was not the first time I cried over the sale of my car. I even cried as we drove to LOOK at other cars.  I don't think most people are attached to their cars quite like I was/am.

I remember seeing this beautiful silver Passat at Car Wars at War Memorial stadium spring of my junior year in high school.  I fell in love with it, but it seemed to be a bit too "new" of a car for me and I never thought I would get to drive it.  On the day of my very first prom, my parents decided to randomly drive around town with Marc, who the saint that he was came from Ohio as a college sophomore to go to prom with me.  I thought it was weird that my parents wanted to stop in the Central parking lot, but they did and that is where I found my 2001.5 Passat.  I couldn't believe it.  I was so excited about the blue and red interior lights that my dad said reminded him of an airplane cockpit.  I just honestly couldn't believe it was mine.  (Of note is that prom happened to fall around my birthday AND my first car was a lemon, so we were looking for a different one!)

My car made it through high school, carpooling my little sister and our neighbor Katie Gehrki. Then is was off to Davidson and it drove quite a few times across Tennessee to and from North Carolina.  We had many fun road trips together and shared some good miles.  Each summer I packed it to its brim to come home, or wherever I was headed for the summer.  It lived outside, always hoping for the closest parking spot to my dorm.  At some point, ants decided to make it their home too and I had to take it to get them out!  It rode the streets of Charlotte, dealing with all the traffic on I-77 and I-85, to Lake Norman and many trips to Starbuck's and Sonic.  I loaded it up one last time from Davidson in December of 2006 to head home--it had seen me through college.  Next, on to medical school living in the horrible student parking lots and late hours spent in the library. Then it was the car we drove away from after our wedding (picture above--the only one I could find on my husband's computer!). We formed some great memories together and it was always reliable, and provided great entertainment and a great ride.

Not to say that I don't love my new car because I do, but after nearly 9 years of my bond with my Passat, I am still sad and sincerely hope that it finds a new, very friendly, loving home.  Perhaps a high school student who it will see off to college and maybe even all the way through college as well.  I will never, ever forget my silver Passat.  Thanks for the great memories!! (thanks to you, for reading!)

Decisions

In case some of you are wondering why the description of my blog talks about making some of life's first major decisions, I thought I'd explain.  I'm sure some of you have wondered..."hmm..she's 25 been to college, gotten married, and is nearly done with medical school and just now is making big life decisions?" Well, honestly that is really how I feel.  I don't think I had the option of foregoing college.  I don't even remember being asked, "what are you doing after high school?" but rather "where are you going to college?"  The decision of where to go to college was also really easy.  I found a place (Davidson College), loved it and applied early and got in.  I didn't even apply anywhere else, so that made the decision easy (and the fact that applying early was a binding agreement).  It turned out to be the best place for me.  It was perfect--I was surrounded by wonderful people and had amazing opportunities presented to me.  In fact, I still believe that my alma mater continues to give me opportunities, particularly during these residency interviews.  I love Davidson and wish I could go back!

Getting married....also an easy decision!  Marc and I started dating when I was 15 and I knew very early on  that Marc and I would get married, it was just a matter of when.  8 years later, we got married!

Medical school, also an easy decision.  From the time I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a doctor.  Even after changing my major from biology to political science, I knew I'd still get to medical school.  I received only one interview and one acceptance.  The only decision that I had to make regarding medical school was whether to go straight from college to med school or to get my MPH first.  I really based that decision on the great Davidson friends that would be in my medical school class, and turns out that was a great decision. I have such great classmates and am very glad to be at this point in my life.  I still want to get that MPH, but I can do that at some point.

I feel very blessed to not have struggled with many life decisions yet, but now I guess my time is coming!  We (being all of my classmates) are beginning or completing our rank lists for residency program.  We have now all completed our interviews and now have to rank the programs we liked the best.  For me that means not only finding the program that best fits my needs for training, but also that is in a city where Marc and I can make our home for the next four years.  The whole process isn't quite the decision that most make when getting their "first job."  I make my rank list, the programs rank their applicants, and then where we match is where we end up, so again, I am somewhat dodging the decision bullet!

More decisions will certainly come our way as this process continues.  I guess I am finally entering the adult world after putting it off with 8 years of school!  I know that Marc and I will end up in the place where we are supposed to be.  I have learned that God's plan is most certainly purposeful even if we can't understand it at the time, so I will trust in Him to lead us to the perfect place, but thoughts and prayers would be much appreciated!  Thanks for reading this long post!

Half Birthdays

Half birthdays have always been a big deal in my family, thanks to my wonderful mom!  For every half birthday, at least from the time I can remember until I left for college, my mom made each of us "half" a cake.  As a child, I often wondered how my mom could make only have of a cake, but I eventually found out that either she would hide the cake (if it was a bundt cake) or she would make a sheet cake and cut it in half and stack it.

Once I got to college, I couldn't have the homemade cake, so my mom would often order me a cake to pick up at a local bakery.  My half birthday is November 1, so they were often right at Halloween and were appropriately themed.  I think rather than tell the bakery that it was my 1/2 birthday, she pretended like it was for Halloween and then told me happy 1/2 birthday.

This tradition has been picked up by some, including my friend Aisling, who somehow convinced friends while she was studying abroad in England, that it was an American tradition for people to buy half pints on someone's half birthday.  Now that she has returned to England to live on a more permanent basis, I wonder if she is still sticking to her "American" traditions!

Recently, on January 27th to be exact, my youngest (as of this very moment) nephew had his very first 1/2 birthday, so I thought it was appropriate to celebrate and mark the occasion, and perhaps even to start a trend in the Doose family.  I baked my little Dean a 1/2 birthday cake.  Obviously being 6 months old he couldn't eat the cake, but the adults enjoyed any excuse to have a cake.  Here's a picture of my entirely from scratch cake.  I thought it might topple over!