The Big 30

I couldn't have asked for a better 30th birthday!  I was fortunate enough to have the day off from work and Stephen showed up with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.  He also planned a fabulous afternoon/evening at the beach with friends.  It was a wee bit cold, but we went longboarding along the beach and then beached it up with a big bonfire, roasting hot dogs and s'mores.  It was pretty darn great, only wish I had some more photos...  Yes, some of my friends wear very colorful jeans, what can I say??

48 hrs. in Portland

I had a visitor this last weekend so we toured the area.  It all began Friday night with an introduction to the Portland food scene.  We ate at Pine State Biscuits, gourmet breakfast biscuits.  I've been wanting to eat here forever and it didn't disappoint.  I could go on forever about food in Portland...

Saturday was spent at the coast.  Took a brief tour through the Tillamook Cheese Factory and walked away with a bag of squeaky cheese.  Could have settled for a giant sized ice cream cone too, but had to make room for fish & chips!  Cannon Beach has a fantastic cute little seafood joint, Mo's, but turns out they are remodeling and don't reopen until February.  Unbelievable!  Don't worry, we found another equally fantastic place with delicious fish & chips, just wish it was on the beach.  You may be familiar with Haystack Rock from your favorite movie, The Goonies.  Turns out the weather was 10x better on the coast than in Portland. Who knew it'd be sunny??

Then we drove up to Astoria to drive over the giant bridge, admire the house where The Goonies was filmed, and listen to the sea lions bark away.

Ended the night with dinner on the hipster street, 23rd Ave., in downtown Portland since the food carts hadn't opened yet.  Booooo.  And don't confuse hipster with hippie.  Two different things my friends!

Sunday morning included a quick drive to check out Multnomah Falls.  Normally your can hike all the way to the top, but not in these icy conditions!

Rotation #2 San Diego, California

The hardest part about working at an Internal Medicine clinic is not managing patients with 10+ chronic illnesses, keeping tabs on lab work, or even adjusting medication doses (I recently made 5 different medication changes all at once for a patient), but rather saying goodbye to patients you've developed a relationship with.  I saw the cutest and sweetest 90 year old lady for the second time the other day who asked for my card so she could talk to me if she had questions.  When I told her this was my last week, she was extremely disappointed.  I wished her the best.  Then there was a jokester I saw who really appreciated the joke I cracked about the Dermatologist checking his prostate.  He just lined it up so nicely for me, I just had to.  Loved the hearty laugh I got out of him.  Going into school I thought I wanted to do ER after graduating, but you just don't establish that relationship w/ your patients since you never see them again.  Primary Care just might start being more attractive to me....  It's also surprising how many patients have remembered my name after hearing it just once.

Apart from the enjoyment I've experienced from meeting so many different people (accents from around the world), I've also had the opportunity to develop my skills.  I got thrown in on day one to see the patient by myself w/ free reign on deciding which labs to order, if any imaging is indicated, which mediation to prescribe if needed, etc.  I've really appreciated this, especially since in my last rotation I slowly advanced week by week.  I had my end of rotation evaluation w/ my preceptor and the first thing he said was, "You really scared me that first week."  Ha, only because I didn't know what to do w/ so much free reign for each of my patients.  He proceeded to say I've really progressed and will make a great PA.

I've actually really enjoyed Internal Medicine.  I might consider it as a future career option.  It's much more challenging and there are no crying kids or teenagers.  I decided I like to keep my relationship w/ the young ones outside of the medical world (yes, I miss my high school kids TERRIBLY).

Like I said, this rotation has been very challenging and extremely good for me.  I discovered a patient w/ debilitating dizziness who actually needed a pacemaker placed.  Then today a patient coded (became unresponsive) while my preceptor was placing an IV due to his extremely low blood pressure.  I only wish I could have done more, but the code team (comprised of 10+ members - ridiculous) showed up w/in 30 seconds.  He turned out to be fine.  This is the only picture I have of Scripps Clinic located in the Anderson Outpatient Pavilion.  Yes, there is valet parking.  Yes, only in La Jolla.....  Let's just say, my clinic (attached to the hospital) was less than 1 mile from the beach w/ a golf course separating the two.

Now that's I've addressed my learning experience, time for the good fun!  I ended up living w/ a friend of a friend and her roommate.  SO MUCH FUN!  They are the funniest and I had such a great time w/ them.  Not to mention the the 8 other girls I became good friends with.  True, there are no guys in San Diego, but who needs guys when we have so much fun on our own?  I wish you could understand even just a part of how much fun and amazing these girls are.  I wish I had a picture w/ everyone.  They all threw me a going away party last week - we tie dyed t-shirts, ate pazookies (per my request), and they gave me a framed word collage of all the best inside jokes over the last 6 weeks.  I'm going to miss them for sure.

Here's what I've been up to in the last 6 weeks.....

I've been to the beach on average 2-3 times each week and visited 7 different beaches - hard to pick my favorite....Take a look.....

La Jolla Shores - Went here several times during the week when I got off work early, only about 7 minutes drive.

La Jolla Cove - only made it once, but one of the more picturesque beaches

Pacific Beach - my "go to" beach for Saturdays, not too far and not too busy

Mission Beach - Mid Singles Activity on the beach one Saturday afternoon.  This only reaffirmed the fact that one day I want to own my own beach house.

Moonlight Beach - played some beach volleyball w/ some friends then a bonfire and pizza for FHE.

Torrey Pines State Beach - not my favorite beach, but it made for a great lunch break.

Coronado Island - This is probably my favorite beach of San Diego.  Such wide open white sand w/ the picturesque Hotel del Coronado in the background.  Good thing I made it here the day before I left!

Beginning the first weekend I was in San Diego, for 6 consecutive days there was always something going on.  I decided there was going to be minimal studying while I was here.  The last few weeks while here have included birthday parties, BBQ's, beach parties, volleyball, exploring downtown, going to the movies, baseball games, free concerts in the park, the county fair, 4th of July fun, eating at In-N-Out Burger, Disneyland (see previous post), exploring - you name it.  Basically, I had the time of my life.  I may seriously consider moving back after graduation.  Here's some pics to represent my time well spent in SD.  Enjoy!

My 2 main goals while in SD:
1) learn to surf.  Status: never happened.  It's gonna have to wait.....
2) eat at In-N-Out once every week while here.  Status: accomplished!

Cruisin' to the Caribbean

Going on a cruise has always been on my bucket list.  I knew I'd probably only get one shot at it, for the time being anyway, and thus wanted to go on the best possible cruise. And that best possible one was a 7 day Southern Caribbean cruise leaving form Puerto Rico and docking at 5 different islands - St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten - with only one day on the ship.  It was incredible.  Originally I had planned on going with my Utah roomies Amy & Allison.  Unfortunately that didn't work out so I got some other peeps together and there ended up being 8 of us total.  So much fun!

The best thing about a cruise is that is completely stress free.  You don't have to decide where to eat dinner, what to do that evening, where to stay, or how to get to the next island.  It's definitely the way to go for island hopping.  Although, it's probably not my favorite way to travel, it's something you gotta experience.  And it was exactly what I needed after an extremely stressful year of PA school.

Getting to Puerto Rico was a nightmare and I will never buy a cheap ticket again if it means this is the way I'll be traveling.  I flew from Portland to Los Angeles with a 4 hr. layover, then to New York where it was tightly scheduled with a 30 min. layover.  I even double checked with the airline and they said it was plenty of time as my gate was only 4 gates down.  HA!  Too bad we sat on the plane for at least 20 min. due to technical issues.  I didn't even land at JFK until after my flight was scheduled to leave.  That didn't stop me from pushing my way from the back of the plane to the front so I could be the first one off.  I got re-routed on a later flight so I got to have another 4 hr. layover.  By the time I got to Puerto Rico and met my friends on the ship I had been traveling for 24 hrs.  But hey, if that means a week of sunshine and warmth, I'm ok with it.

Here's the whole gang on one of the elegant dress up nights.....

Rob, Nicole, Danielle, Kristina, Candace, Lacee, Nate, Janelle

Our first stop was St. Thomas.  A friend recommended that we take a ferry over St. John since 2/3 of the island is a national park with some amazing beaches.  Between taxis and the ferry it probably cost about $25 each way, but it was totally worth it!  It was gorgeous.  Never have I seen such crystal clear water.  There was also some snorkeling we did around the huge rocks you can see in the water.  A few of my friends even saw a shark!  This was definitely my favorite beach out of all the islands.

Our CRAZY cab driver, but don't worry we left in one piece

The next day was a day at sea on the ship.  We mostly just lounged about in the sun, went down the slide a few times, and ate to our heart's content and then some.

Barbados was day 3 and probably my least favorite.  The people are pretty harsh, or at least that's how they come across.  Yelling at each other for taking their business (us).  At least we saw a pirate ship!

These next pictures I didn't actually take since I lost my camera that day.  It had fallen out of my pocket in the taxi on the way to the beach.  Fortunately, the same driver was planning on picking us up AND the guy selling us snorkeling gear knew the taxi driver so he called her and she found and held on to it until she came back to get it.  Whew!  That was scary to realize I had lost it!  We went snorkeling on a double decker boat (I really wish we had taken a picture of it!  There were a couple beach chairs upstairs to lounge on).  On the snorkel tour we saw a ship wreck (my excitement was dashed to pieces when I found out after asking how it wrecked, that it was placed intentionally.  Really??) and then we snorkeling with 5 or 6 sea turtles.  They were huge.  And they would swim right by you, touching as they passed.  Not to mention I touched them quite a few times.  Amazing!

Then we took a quick stroll through downtown and ran into a physician with his wife, a nurse, from Texas.  Danielle and I talked to them for quite a while.  The wife was concerned about Danielle's bright red sunburn.  Thus the conversation started.

Day 4's stop was St. Lucia, one of my favorite days, because..............we went zip lining!!  Another thing I've always wanted to do.  The adrenaline was pumping.  We weren't as high up as I thought we'd be from the ground, but it was high enough.  We went from line to line and zipped across the air.  There were a few surprises along the way.  At one point, we had to swing on a rope from one platform to another.  It was hilarious to watch the few people who missed and swung backward.  The second surprise was repelling, which was basically just dropping about 70 feet in mid air.  My favorite part!  I love that feeling!  I could be entertained there for hours listening to people's reactions - screaming, yelling, laughing, cursing.

St. Lucia has two very famous mountains, or twin peaks, called the Pitons.  I was disappointed we didn't get to see them while we were on the island, but.......I noticed them at the dinner table as our ship was cruising away, a breathtaking view of them.

St. Kitt's was our next stop, which was very similar to St. Lucia - both very mountainous and jungle-y.  We took an island tour, van style, of the town, some old sugar plantations, and botanical gardens with a monkey stop on the way.  This cute little guy came in our car (money making business you see) and wondered from person to person.

This is a unique view since the Atlantic Ocean is on the left and the Caribbean Sea on the right.

After our fun exploring, we went to the beach, a black sand beach with a cute little grill/shack selling jerk chicken and burgers and wondering wild monkeys everywhere.  Wish I could have enjoyed it more, but unfortunately the sun didn't want to come out that day.  Nicole ended up getting stung by a lion fish while snorkeling, which resulted in a sausage like giant swollen middle finger.  There was nothing much to do except ice and hope it wasn't poisonous.  We almost left early to take her to the hospital.  She's fine though.  We went to the medical center once we got back on the ship.

Our last stop and another one of my favorites was St. Maarten, a combination island, split between the Dutch and French.  The other islands weren't very developed and so this was a huge contrast to the previous 4 islands.  It almost felt like we were in California or something.  Most everyone had booked a snorkel trip, but $60 seemed like a lot to me, so Candace and I just went to the beach instead, where I met some older gentlemen who asked if I had a boyfriend.  Bahaha, no it wasn't like that, they were nice.

We then met back up with the rest of our group (and got a French chocolate filled croissant on the way).  Some of us then walked the full length of this beach and then some (prob like 3+ miles).....

....to end up here.  This was my absolute favorite!  It's called Maho Beach and has an airport with the run way literally coming right to the beach.  Watching planes come in to land is amazing and they are flying just above your head.  And then when the planes take off, they go in the opposite direction and blast this incredibly fast burst of wind towards the beach.  We're talking like immediately knock you over if you're not holding on to anything amount of wind.  In fact, it says, "Do not stand.  Danger.  Jet Blast."  So of course, I stood and held on to that fence for dear life.  What an experience!  I couldn't even open my eyes or put my head up.  I'm surprised my swimsuit even stayed on, it was trying to fly away too!

Then we ended with some tasty mango smoothies.  We had been looking all week for these.  You'd think they'd be easier to find while in the Caribbean.  Good timing finding them on the last day at the very end of the day - perfect ending to our cruise.

A few more pics of the last night of our cruise.  Our waiter at dinner was from the Philippines.

After getting off the ship from our 7 day cruise, I think the majority of us were just ready to head home, especially since we kept noticing the ground sway even when we were on land.  Gotta love those sea legs.  But we still had a full day ahead exploring Puerto Rico!  I was excited to finally have the opportunity to use my Spanish!  I spoke to a couple different cab drivers, all of whom were impressed that not only I spoke Spanish, but that I spoke it well.  It's great to receive compliments from the native speakers.  Nicole and I got off the ship early (since we only had carry ons) and took a taxi to church.  We stayed for the whole block to wait for the rest of our gang who were stuck on the ship until their number was called.  It was an English speaking ward, but fortunately there was also a Spanish speaking ward that I went to for sacrament meeting as well.  The ward was an interesting dynamic - it was mostly young couples.  Half of the ward were FBI or other government officials and the other half students (medical, dental, etc).  Looked like a fun ward to be in.

After dropping our stuff off at the hotel, meeting up with everyone else, and relaxing a little, we took off to explore Old San Juan.  I love the architecture with the bright colors - almost felt like I was back in Europe.

We spent a good chunk of time at El Morro, a fortress protecting the city.  As you can see, we had a good time exploring.  There were tons of people out flying their kites on the lawn in front of El Morro.  I loved it.

Saved the best for last....couldn't pass up this photo op!