Aloha!

Aloha from Hawaii! We have arrived on the island and are loving it! I finished my assignment in Oakland and we left the last week of August. We went down to Long Beach and saw Nate's brother and a friend of mine and then flew out here a couple days later. We had an eventful flight. An hour over the Pacific Ocean we had to make an emergency turn around and go back to L.A. Our 5.5 hour flight turned into a 10 hour flight. But we got here eventually. We stayed in a hotel our first night here and moved into our condo on Saturday. We got very lucky with our housing. We are in a 2 bedroom condo 3 blocks from the beach in Waikiki, with an awesome mountain view and great breezes. We really like it! Below is a panoramic of the view:

I started work last Monday, and have seen that an Army hospital is much different than a civilian hospital. The orientation has been a pain, but the unit seems good - and that's what counts.

We have spent our first week here walking down to the beach almost everyday and exploring the island. We hiked a mile into the tropical forest yesterday to get to a waterfall, which was not flowing as much as normal because it hasn't rained very much lately. It is beautiful here, and there are so many climates on the island. There is so much to explore -we'll let you know what we find! Take care everyone!