Happy Match Day!

I know it is taking me forever to finish posting about our Hawaii Trip, with Kevin back on his trauma rotation, life is busy around here.  I will get to it, I promise.  First, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on the fact that today is Match Day.  For those of you that don't know, Match day is when all the 4th year medical students across the nation get to open those envelopes that tell them where they "matched" for residency.  It is hard for me to believe that our match day was a whole year ago, and easy for me to remember how emotional and upsetting that day ended up being.  In retrospect, a whole year later, I realize how GOOD of a day that was for us!  With the impending arrival of new interns, we have just a few short months of being first years left, and I can officially say we had a wonderful first year. 
We bought our first house, which we painted and half way furnished:

We have enjoyed exploring the area, hiking, wineries, the Fingerlakes and such:

I got a new job, which I love, we survived our first (very mild) upstate NY winter

and Kevin loves his work.  From the beginning, we were welcomed with open arms in the the "Ortho Family" community at Upstate and we are so happy to have met so many wonderful people.  So for all the 4th years out there, Happy Match Day and remember to keep an open mind and realize that things will turn out way better than you expect!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day in Paradise?  What else can you ask for ... nothing.  We celebrated our second Valentine's Day as a married couple doing absolutely nothing, and it was wonderful!  We decided to spend the day just relaxing on the beach and whale watching, so that's what we did.

We enjoyed drinks from the bar and relaxed until sunset.  I may have mentioned before that these chickens are everywhere on Kauai .. well I learned the hard way that they will eat anything!  I put my pina colada down for a second and they stole the pineapple out of it, while spilling my drink, and then they enjoyed the spilled part of the drink.  I didn't make that mistake again the rest of the week.

For dinner, Kevin and I made fish tacos out of our delicious Mahi Mahi ... Coronas completed the picture.

To top off an already pretty good Valentine's Day my parents sent my annual V-Day tulips all the way to Kauai!

Day 2 - Fishing!!

No vacation is complete in our family without some fishing!  Kevin booked a trip with Captain Don's sport fishing out of Nawiliwili Harbor.  We soon learned that fishing in Kauai is not ideal, at least not to anyone except Kevin.  The water was very rough, and half of our boat was sea sick most of the day .. me included.  However, we did have a successful trip, fishing wise, and all of the whales that we saw were the redeeming factor for me!

Sunrise

First Fish!

an 80 lb ahi! (yellowfin tuna)

My turn

Another ahi ... just 60lbs smaller

an even smaller tuna

Last fish! a Mahi Mahi

Kevin's Mahi Mahi ... they lose their beautiful color as soon as they are caught

We didn't get any pictures of the humpbacks, but I want to explain a little bit how incredible it is to experience the humpbacks in Hawaii.  The Pacific humpback whales (there are Atlantic ones too) swim from Alaska and Canada to the warmer waters of Hawaii in the winter, where they mate and give birth.  As an animal lover, I was very excited to get the chance to whale watch in Hawaii.  You don't have to do anything special to see the whales, they are everywhere!  We would watch them from the beach every evening (we brought binoculars), we got to see all types of behavior, but the breaching is my favorite.  It is so amazing how they can propel their entire body out of the water.  While on our fishing trip, I sat on top deck of the boat for the trip back in to harbor, and I saw several whales incredibly close, including a HUGE breach.  It was awesome, I'm just sad I didn't catch anything on camera!

Since we caught so many fish, we were able to take home (our condo had a full kitchen) enough ahi and mahi mahi for all of us to eat dinner (on two separate nights).  Here is Kevin cooking our ahi, it was delicious!

Our Vacation in Paradise .. Day 1

Kevin and I have both been enjoying his radiation rotation for the month of February.  He has had a lot of time off, which makes my life a lot easier.  It also means that we got to go on vacation!!  Kevin's parents very generously invited us along to join them in Kauai for a week in paradise.  We had an absolutely fabulous week, and I'm going to share it here, day by day.


Kevin and I flew out of Syracuse on Saturday morning, stopped in Ohio, stopped in LA and finally made it to Kauai Saturday evening around dinner time (local time, it was around 11 pm to us).  After Kevin's parents picked us up from the airport, we enjoyed a quick dinner with them and then went to bed!!

The next day, well rested, we were super excited to get going.  Kev and I woke up early and took a walk around our resort and to the beach nearby.  We were staying at Marriott Waiohai Beach Club near Poipu Beach Park, and it was beautiful.  We enjoyed the sunrise and some early morning whale watching.

 

 

Poipu Beach, Kauai HI

After breakfast we set out for the day, our goal was to explore the East Shore and North Shore of the island.  Kevin was so excited to take the top off of the Jeep we rented .. and sure enough it rained 5 minutes after leaving the hotel.  He didn't mind because it was blowing in the faces of his mom and I in the back!

Our first stop was Kilauea Lighthouse, it is the northernmost point of the main Haiwaiian islands, had beautiful views, and was a great place to whale watch.

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From there we drove through the towns of Hanalei and Princeville.  I wish I had pictures of that drive because the area is really beautiful, it was a very enjoyable drive nonetheless.  We stopped for lunch at Hanalei Bay, which is a breathtaking beach.

We continued our drive until the end of the road ... which brought us to Ke'e Beach.  We relaxed on the beach for a bit, and watched the really rough surf (which is typical for the north side of the islands .. especially in the winter).

The Na Pali Coast is beyond Ke'e beach, and it is absolutely beautiful.  It is only accessible by hiking, helicopter/plane or sea.  Unfortunately we did not have the ability to see it any of those ways, so we would definitely like to return someday to fully explore that area.  The surf is too rough to go around the island by sea in the winter, but high on my list is to take a kayaking tour around the coast, while camping on beaches ... some summer, sometime.  We did take a quick hike up the beginning of Hanakapi'ai Trail, which had some amazing views, and was really steep!

 After our hike, we made our way back to the resort.  We had mai tais on the beach while whale watching, and then enjoyed dinner at Keoki's Paradise and an early bed time!!