We made it to Hawaii!!

Yes, we're finally here in beautiful Hawaii! We got here at the end of May and are enjoying all the new scenery, environment, culture...everything. I had a bit of a slow start enjoying my time here, but it's getting better and better all the time. It's not that I wasn't loving the ocean and the views and stuff...I think it was just hard knowing how far away I was from anyone I knew and not knowing how to get around very well, especially on the crazy buses. Nate's loved it here since day 1. I also took a little longer getting used to the humidity and things.
Nate's working at the John A. Burns School of Medicine doing research on fertility type stuff and is really liking his work and the people he works with. The hardest part of his job (i think) is that his boss is Japanese and then the other 2 people in his lab are Chinese and Japanese. The can speak english....but are still pretty hard to understand. He's excited because he was officially asked to continue working in the fall which will qualify him for a tuition waiver which is what we were hoping for! Yeah Nate!! He's also taking a Kaplan course to help him study for the MCAT which he'll take....sometime. He goes to work 2-2.5 hours early everyday to study so he can still have his evenings free to spend with Zak and me...isn't that sweet?? We're so proud of him for getting the job in the fall and for all the hard work he does! We're also really excited for his kaplan course to be done!...at least i am!
Zak and I spend our days doing....whatever we want! =) We were living in Waikiki the first month we were here so the beach was just a couple blocks away. Zak is still a little hesitant with the ocean (because of the waves) and started off hating the sand (which he has since gotten used to). We'd go to the beach or just go walk around Waikiki checking things out, go swimming, go to the park, go to the store, go meet Nate for lunch, etc. Some of Zak's favorite things to do here are CHASE BIRDS, check out all the police cars/ambulances/fire trucks, and swim (in the hot tub). He's the only kid at the beach that would rather chase the birds than swim. We hear SOOO many sirens here and every time we have to run out to the lanai (balcony) and see if we can see where it's coming from and he laughs his head off. He's picking up a lot more words and has a big new fake laugh he does and also is 'swimming' really well. He'll let us plug his nose and put him under water, he jumps off the edge to us...we can't take our eyes off him b/c he'll jump if we're not looking too, and tries to swim under water.
Some of our adventures here have been hanging out at Waikiki Beach, taking a drive around the whole island to check it out, going to Waimanalo (sp?) Beach, going to the Pan-Pacific Festival, going to King Kamehameha Parade, going to Pearl Harbor and visiting the USS Arizona Memorial, Ala Moana Shopping Center (HUGE), snorkeling, boogie boarding. We've seen crazy Japanese drummers, Hawaiian dancers, awesome fish and birds and flowers..
Ok, I'll end this it's getting super long