It's been a long time since my last post. Suffice it to say, we had an amazing end to 2015 and start to 2016. It's strange to think about it being 2016 because that's the year I've been talking and thinking about for the last four years and it was almost as if it wasn't actually ever going to arrive. "Hey Deanna, when are you done with medical school?" ... "Oh, not until 2016." Well folks, it's 2016! We are about to head out on an incredible journey.
I finished the interview trail as you know, and now it comes down to ordering the programs I visited in a list (and the programs will do the same for me and all the other applicants they interviewed). The list can be entered online as soon as tomorrow (1/15/16) but it doesn't have to be officially submitted until 2/24/16. Part of me wishes it was just due tomorrow so that I had to just make a decision and be done with it. And, in fact, I may just place an arbitrary deadline on myself so I don't drag it out for too long with last minute "tinkering" of the list.
So what will 2016 bring? Match day occurs on 3/18/16 at 9 AM PST. Tom graduates with his J.D. and a Masters of Science in Finance on 5/14/16 and I graduate with an M.D. on 5/27/16. Whichever program I match to will start anywhere between the first week of June and July 1st. Typing all that out is just crazy to recognize that we're at that point!
Now for catching up on life events since I last wrote. We had a lovely Christmas in Washington this year. Tom and I celebrated at home on the morning of Christmas Eve
 |
| Our beautiful Costco tree |
 |
| Tom excited for the gift opening |
I finally got a new, ergonomic, office chair. Too bad I spent 4 years already at the cheap, not-back-friendly-chair huh?
 |
| Some assembly required |
We joined the "Tacoma Glassman's", as we used to call them, at their new home in Lakewood--so I guess they are now the Lakewood Glassman's :).
We met up on Christmas Eve and decided to join in on a tradition for a lot of different people in this country--going to the movies at Christmas time. We saw staw wars together. Now, since I haven't seen star wars since Episode III came out, I was worried I'd be totally lost on the plot, but it turns out it's pretty easy to pick up on what's going on (thank goodness!).
After the movie we went home for the feast of all feasts! We had some of the most delicious crab and halibut I have EVER had! It will go down in the record books for sure. We basted the crab legs in a garlic lemon butter and baked them in the oven, a cooking technique I have never used before but I will certainly be repeating that again! After we were all so full we thought we would burst, we joined together to watch Charlie Brown Christmas and relax with tea and conversation around a jig saw puzzle.
Christmas morning we cuddled up in the living room to open our stockings and then dined on overnight-sticky buns and played a few rounds of golf--the card game that is.
We were so full from all the eating that we had to get out and do something before the presents were opened. It just so happens that John and Diana now live next to one of my favorite parks, Fort Steilacoom, and we took the dogs out for a Christmas morning stroll.
The "Redmond Glassman's" joined the fun in the afternoon. The gift of the year this year was the Chinook book. Tom and I have already been cashing in on the savings (we've booked a date night at the 5th Avenue theater for Valentines with our buy-one-get-one coupon already!).
 |
| Sitting in SeaTac waiting to board our plane |
I've posted many photos of the trip on Facebook, so I'll keep this shorter than I might usually do. We took a red-eye from Seattle to Atlanta and met up with my parents (who had flown from Missoula-->LAX-->Atlanta). After a 4.5 hour red eye flight, we didn't quite feel like we had had a good night's rest. So, we landed ourselves at Starbucks for a pick me up and little did we know that 45 minutes later, we'd end up with our coffee and tea (one of two espresso machine was down!). We had a nice breakfast together in the airport and then boarded a plane to Bonaire, arriving at the Flamingo airport (I kid you not, that's what the aiport's official name is) to sunshine and 84 degrees!
 |
| The line of caffeine seekers |
Customs was a BREEZE. Literally they stamped our passports and that was it. No questions, no problems.
 |
| Happy but HOT! |
 |
| We made it! And so did all of our luggage :) |
Our new home for the time there was absolutely spectacular. I kept telling people that it was literally paradise there (I can see why my parents keep going back). It was 84 degrees all day and 77 degrees (at the coldest) at night every single day we were there. It was like ground hog day, but better!
Our typical day went like this: wake up when we want to wake up (NOT to an alarm), eat some muesli cereal, yogurt and coffee on the deck overlooking the ocean, pack up our PB&J lunches and head out for a day of exploration, return home and rinse out the dive/snorkel gear with fresh water, sit poolside with a book, shower/change, take a sunset stroll, come home for dinner, read a little more on the deck with the ocean breeze keeping us company and head off to bed. We were truly relaxed.
Just a few snap shots from the day-in-the-life on Bonaire:
The main (and nearly only) industry on the island is the production of salt. There are these man-made salt ponds in all stages of development (as can be seen by the color of the ponds that shift from pink, green, and blue) where the water evaporates and they skim off the salt and ship it out. They make both table salt and industrial salt for all those wintery roads far away from Bonaire.
When I first saw the salt piles from a distance I thought they were snow capped mountains!
The salt industry led to the use of slaves for managing the salt ponds and loading the salt onto ships in the harbor. You can still see the slave huts all around the island in different colors as they signified to the incoming ships where to port to get the different kinds of salt
 |
| Tom nearly didn't fit in the slave hut |
These pyramid structures were the signals for boats off shore to know where to dock for the type of salt they were seeking
 |
| Never a dull moment in the slave huts |
Flamingos are prevalant here and we got to see a bunch on our trip
We hiked the tallest peak in Bonaire. Now, before you get too excited I guess you should know that it's only 765 meters or so, but when you look at it from this view it looks pretty sizable (if you ask me!)
 |
| View of the point from the lake on the island |
Brandaris was the name of the hike and along the way we passed hundreds of cactus, a bunch of lizards and iquanas, goats, and birds.
 |
| We all thought it looked like he was wearing a tiny black hat |
 |
| Tiny goat |
 |
| Iquana on the move |
See? It was high up!
This was the view point from a valley part way up
Then we got to a point that was almost near the summit and all we had to go off of, in terms of the best walkway, was these spray painted yellow dots.
Or, these little painted arrows
 |
| small arrow, straight up |
We got to literally climb on hands and toes. It was a BLAST! This was my attempt at a selfie at the top...I almost got us all in there. :)
Look at that view!
Bonaire is clearly a diver's paradise. Any scuba divers out there should DEFINITELY make a trip to Bonaire happen. But, just because it's all set up for divers does not mean that there's nothing for snorkelers to do!! We snorkeled every day and each day we consistently saw something new that we'd never seen before, or something more impressive/interesting than the day before.
New Years on the island is a big deal to the locals. I'm not sure why, or where it stemmed from, but EVERYONE bought fireworks and put on a show. And I'm not talking just a few smoke bombs and crazy chicken fireworks (you know, the ones that scream really loud?). No, they had full-on professional looking displays at their homes. It started a few days before NYE with a pop and boom here and there. Then around dusk on NYE it really began. The major shows started around 10 or 11, and I kid you not, they lasted until midnight! Some started at midnight and continued until around 1:30! We couldn't manage to stay awake until midnight, but even if we had wanted to sleep through midnight, we wouldn't have been able to because it almost sounded like a war zone outside of the condo! The photos do not do it justice by any means, but just imagine your most impressive 4th of July show and then picture that being in a 360 degree view around your house (see facebook for the video).
 |
| Our last meal of 2015 was a GREAT one! |
 |
| We commonly said "over the cactus" as our landmark for the good ones :) |
 |
| Happy New Year! |
 |
| Beautiful angel fish! |
 |
| Apparently Tom is better about controlling buoyancy and being centered in the water for a photo than I am |
 |
| Enjoying our punch and snacks! |
Our other excursion we did as a group with my parents. We toured the mangroves by kayak. We had a fantastic tour guide, Ben (he actually had a Dutch name but I couldn't pronounce, let alone spell, it).
 |
| The wall behind him was actually a 3-D painting that you could explore with those paper 3D glasses |
The waters were calm and smooth, we just coasted through. It allowed for us to hear and see the peaceful beauty of the mangroves. There were natural and manmade channels we had to traverse and sometimes that required grabbing onto the roots hanging down from above and pulling our way through (as Ben said, like Tarzan and Jane).
 |
| We were given the option of making Tarzan noises, Tom took Ben up on the option :) |
 |
| At the end, mangroves officially conquered |
We also got to snorkel through one of the channels allowing us to see the juvenile fish living among the roots as well as a ton of little jelly fish! The jellies didn't sting you (and I can't remember why) and it was so cool to be among them. There was also a ton of this orange sponge, incredibly vibrant!
 |
| Orange sea sponge |
 |
| Believe it or not, that's a jelly fish! |
Our final morning we were greeted with a fresh rain scent rainbow from some overnight showers (the only rain we had the whole trip!)
Our flight didn't leave until 3 PM that afternoon so we had the chance to spend one more day out on the water. The sun was glorious and we got to see some amazing things on our last snorkel of the day at the salt pier (where they load up the salt to the ships)
 |
| Here we saw Baracuda, sea turtles, and a bunch of huge Tarpons |
The trip was filled with incredible food (can't beat a PB&J!!), amazing sunsets and great memories.
 |
| The sad farewell |
I think Tom and I may be back some day. It was hard to leave, but we were happy to get to the airport early to find the Seahawks playoff game on in the airport restaurant.
 |
| Just what we needed |
We were only able to watch the first half before we had to board. Then, we knew we weren't going to get coverage in the air until after we flew over Cuba (the dish signal doesn't come into range until then). This, of course, added to our sorrows of saying goodbye to Bonaire (OK, so maybe I had a harder time leaving than Tom did!).
 |
| Another stamp in the books |
But we were able to get coverage with about 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter--which, was the most important part to watch! Go Hawks!
It took us at least 48 hours to re-adjust to the pacific time zone. We flew via Atlanta and spent one night there before flying into Seattle. We landed in Atlanta and it was 36 degrees and my body didn't know what to do with itself! Good thing I packed ALL of my long sleeved items in the carry on bag because we had to wait outside for a shuttle to take us to the shuttle for the hotel...
 |
| Brr! |
When we arrived in Seattle on monday at 9 AM, we felt like it was 1 in the afternoon because we had just flown for 5 hours and that's what our body-clocks were set to anyway. So by 6 PM we were struggling to keep our eyes open! We managed to only make it until 7:20 PM before we couldn't stay up any longer (after all, it was 11:20 PM and we had been up early for flying all day). So, we've slowly tapered ourselves and I'm proud to say we made it to 10:30 PM last night! I think we're back on track now :). Alas though, we didn't win the power ball...
 |
| View of the dreary January day from the 4th floor Seatlle U Law Library |
We went to the library to catch up on "life" on our first day at home and we were welcomed, rather unpleasantly, back to reality when we found that the truck had a dead battery! It's not totally clear why, but we're guessing one of the doors must have been just slightly ajar. We got out the jumper cables and got the truck started...BUT...only after I inadvertently crossed the cables on my end. Tom rapidly corrected my error (after the sparking and little bits of smoke coming from under the hood....guess you'd call that a blonde moment), and we thought we were good to go. Well....it turns out I blew the fuse in Tom's radio. I'm so grateful that that was the only damage. I could have BLOWN US UP! Well, I'm going out to buy a new fuse today but let's hope that it's the only thing I did, and not something more serious (although we've been driving it around without any issues, so I think that's a good sign that we're in the clear). Life lesson learned at not too high of a cost at least! Plus, on the bright side, now I know all about how to locate, remove, and replace fuses on vehicles thanks to some youtube videos and internet forums :)
 |
| See the busted fuse through the yellow plastic? Whoops! |
For now, I'm getting ready to start for my next rotation: Emergency medicine at Harborview and UW. I start out with night shifts so I am still trying to acclimate to staying up late, so I'm going to keep tapering my bedtime later and later if I can. Tom, on the other hand, has started his externship at the 9th circuit court and will e keeping a pretty routine schedule. His first day was yesterday and he worked from 8-5:30 and then has class on M/W nights from 6-9 pm so by the time he was done with his day he was ready for rest! It's always exciting but overwhelming and nerve wracking to start into a new role. He's getting his feet under him this week, but I know he is going to excell here just like he did at the SEC (x2) and the supreme court last Fall.
Whew, I think that catches the blog up to speed.
Comments
Post a Comment