Work updates and haircut

Well I finally got what I've been waiting for...a permanent case at Hawaii Behavioral Health. Yay! She's a 12-year-old girl who is diagnosed with Autism, but the people that work with her say it's more likely that she has Rett syndrome. Her name is Darla and she is non-verbal, has seizures, is low-functioning, and very strong. I work with her from 7:30am to 2:30pm Monday through Friday. Today was my second day by myself with her, which went a lot better than yesterday. Yesterday she hit me, pinched me, scratched me, ran away from me, cried...it was really bad. But today she was sweet for the most part and more responsive to me, so that was good. I had help from the BISS on the case, who is pretty much the person in charge of deciding how to implement the goals in her Individualized Education Plan. Anyway, it will take some time for her (and I) to adjust, so the next few months will be difficult, especially because she's going to be transitioning into middle school next month. Plus I have to stay at the Spaghetti Factory for 20 hours a week to keep my insurance until I'm eligible through Hawaii Behavioral Health.

There's also news at Ben's job: he's training to be a relief night supervisor starting on Friday. The good part is that he'll be making a little bit more money and it'll look good to have managerial experience on his resume...the bad part is that he'll be working overnight shifts a couple nights a week. He's planning on sleeping while I'm at work during the day, and then hanging out with me when I get home in the afternoon. It's going to be hard on him to switch his sleep schedule all the time though. But he might not have to, since his shifts now are always 5pm to 1am. So we'll see how it works out.

We saved a little bit of money today by me cutting Ben's hair at home! We've been talking about it for a while, and I was going to go with him one time when he got a haircut, but I never got around to it. He's been needing a haircut for a while now, and Ben had bought some cheap clippers, but he wanted to do it on a day when he had time to go in and get it fixed if he needed to (which is understandable given that I've never cut anyone's hair before). So, today it was. I have to say though, I think I did a pretty darn good job considering I had no idea how to "blend." It's harder than it looks, with crappy clippers anyway. But haircutting, especially on guys, seems like it's not really an exact science, because you can't really tell if a few hairs are out of place. It was fun though. Here are a couple pictures of the work-in-progress:

Leona's visit

Leona (Ben's mom) came to visit us for a few days, and we had a great time with her. She arrived on Thursday evening and left on Sunday morning to go to Maui where she was meeting up with Brad (Ben's dad). It was nice because Leona rented a car while she was here, and we don't have one, so we were able to go to Costco and this really cool natural foods store near us called Huckleberry Farms (I'm on a natural food kick). Ben switched his schedule so all three of us could spend Friday together. We went to the Aloha Stadium swap meet, and a celebrity impersonation show at Ben's hotel which was...interesting. Ben cooked his mom a mother's day dinner at our apartment, and we all had breakfast at our apartment a couple of times, and I realized that meals at home together are way better (and cheaper!) than eating out together, which is what we seem to do a lot. Leona was the first family member to meet Ali'i, and she brought him a toy, which was really sweet. We love having people out to visit us, and are really looking forward to going to Vancouver in August.


Before Leona came, I had just bought a baby gate to put in the front door so that Ali'i doesn't go running after noises in the hallway when we have it open for airflow. Ben thought he looked so cute sitting behind it.

Wedding ring!

We bought my wedding ring today and I love it! I'm just sad I have to wait another year to wear it. It's funny because I've already started driving Ben crazy by talking about nothing but the wedding for the past four days. I'm sure I'll get sick of it soon though and want to take a break from planning. But until then, I'll just continue to be obsessed. :)

Wedding Date!

We finally set our wedding date!! We're going to be married on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 and we are so excited!! It's cool because it's our anniversary already, so we won't have to memorize a new one. It's almost tempting to have it out here, but we wouldn't ask everyone to fork out the cash to fly out here. So it will be in Washington, possibly Portland, but we really don't have any ideas yet. I've already got my wedding gown...I picked it up from a thrift store, so it's dirty from having been worn, and some of the beading needs to be repaired and it's about a size too big. But I got it for $30, so I figure even all that won't add up to the price of a new dress. Plus I really like it. I'm going to buy my wedding ring soon too, just to get it done and make sure I get what I want. We've already started thinking about having our favorite local Seattle band, the Senate, play at our reception. That was Ben's idea, and it would be so cool.

In other news, we took Ali'i to the vet today to get the second of two shots for his heartworm treatment. I didn't have the heart to leave him overnight because I think they were just going to put him in a kennel until we came to pick him up the next day. Poor thing, he starts shaking like a leaf whenever we go in a car, because every time it's been to go to the vet. So he's been in a lot of pain I think because apparently the shot makes them really sore. We have to try to keep him calm for the next month then he goes back and they kill the baby worms. We asked for tranquilizers, but eventually decided against them because we had heard that pets can have adverse reactions and didn't want to keep him drugged up all the time. He's going to hate us, but it's like you tell your kids, it's for his own good.

I'm finally posting :)

Well I've finally gotten my act together and decided to post, and there is a lot to say! We've had some big changes lately, and one of them is that we got a dog!! We are so excited to have him as the newest member of our family and we love him so much...he's our little baby. His name is Ali'i, and he is a Pitbull/American Bulldog mix. He's four years old, and we got him from the Humane Society on March 27th. We think he's the best dog in the world. Our life with him has been very eventful so far. He is very independent and needs some obedience training because he is a dominant dog and will push us as far as we let him. We're softies, so we've pretty much been letting him get away with murder. He doesn't always come when we call him, and because of this, he got hit by a car a little over a week after we got him. It was really horrible; we were so scared. Long story short, he was okay, he just got some nasty road-rash on his back right foot. It's almost fully healed now though. Another misfortune is that he has heartworms, which he's going to get treated for on Monday, so we hope that goes well. We're going to leave him overnight, and I hope they are nice to him. :) We are looking forward to when he is recovered because he has been going nuts not being able to go out and play. We took him to the park a lot when we first got him, but he's not supposed to get too much exercise because it can exacerbate the heartworms, and after his treatment he can't go out and play for a while either because that can cause bad complications. He is a very high energy dog, so it's hard for him.

We also just moved into a new apartment on March 24th, which we like a lot more. I really didn't like living in Waikiki, but it was more convenient for Ben because that's where he works. We now live at the top of a hill in an area called Makiki. It's actually closer to the Spaghetti Factory, which is nice for me. It kind of sucks going up the hill every day when we come home, but we're thinking it will help get us in shape. The rent is a bit more expensive here, but it's pretty much to be expected for living in town. Honolulu is not a cheap place to live. Our place now is a lot nicer though. We aren't overrun by cockroaches here *knocks on wood*. The one thing that is kind of funny is that this place is very green. All the walls are seafoam green, the couch is forest green, the rugs in the bathroom are dark green, everything. But it's okay, we've gotten used to it. Plus, green is Ben's favorite color. :) We aren't completely settled in yet, but I'll post some pictures when it's a little more tidy.

Good news, I got a new job!! I'm so excited. It's in my field of study and it pays decent. About the same as Ben's job, which is funny because we made about the same hourly wage when we lived in Seattle too. The job is with a company called Hawaii Behavioral Health, which is sub-contracted by the Department of Education to provide services mostly for Autistic children but we also work with mentally retarded children sometimes. I am what is called a "paraprofessional" or "skills trainer" who works one-on-one with the child usually in a school setting to provide them with appropriate education and to work on life skills. So each paraprofessional is assigned to a case, and until I get a case, I'm just subbing for other paraprofessionals. So I can't quit at the Spaghetti Factory yet because I don't have enough guaranteed hours at HBH to get insurance. I've only worked with one kid so far, but it's been really awesome. A lot better than serving spaghetti to cheapskates, that's for sure. So I'm currently in the process of becoming something of an expert on Autism.

Ben has really gotten into motorcycles recently, so he's been trying to convince me that we should buy a motorcycle, which I wish we could afford. In the meantime, we've rented one for the day a couple of times and gone riding around the island. We have so much fun. We went on February 6th, and again on March 12th for Ben's birthday. It's great because Ben drives and I take pictures. Last time I think we came home with about 200 pictures. We are lucky because Ben's parents gave us a couple of helmets, so we didn't have to buy those. I just bought my jacket on our last trip so now we're both safe.

Mass update

I can't believe I've neglected this for three and a half months. There are definitely a few things that have happened.

First my new job. I've been at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani now for 3 months so I'm no longer on probation and I'm in the union now. The people there are awesome. It's more like the Silver Cloud where we can joke with the guests and the employees get together outside of work pretty frequently. I think I mainly love that I'm not just sitting there by myself while everyone else on the island is sleeping.

One other update on the job, some how (no one else wanted it) I managed to lock in a set schedule at work that guarantees me full time. I am now working everyday from 5pm to 1am with every Wednesday and Thursday off. I like knowing my schedule more than a week in advance and it gives Cass and I Wednesdays to spend together.

Cass is still at the Spaghetti Factory and she's looking for a new job but we're both so happy that she worked there at all because though Spags we met Laura, Danielle, and Dorian. They are exactly what you look for in friends. They drive you crazy most of the time but they are there for you no matter what the circumstances. We now get together with these guys at least once a week and play games like Scrabble and Pictionary or go out for dinner or drinks. We even got together with those guys to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. We were sad that we couldn't get home for the holidays but we were so grateful to have had people to spend them with. These guys have become kalabash family.

Christmas was a blast. Laura, Danielle, and Dorian all came over Christmas eve and stayed the night so that we could wake up and unwrap presents in our PJ's. Among the really cool things, I got Cass one of those digital photo frames because I know how much she loves watching the screen saver on the laptop and she got me a surfboard from Costco.






Even though we only live six blocks from the beach it only took one outing to make me tired of carrying the board all the way to the water. The first chance I got I went to a bike shop (I was replacing my seat that had been stolen while I was in a movie theater) and I bought a surf rack. I still have yet to catch a wave but I'm getting better at paddling around. Cass says I go really fast. I've been enjoying my schedule at work because I can get up at noon, goof around for a couple hours, go out surfing (paddling) for an hour and a half, and still have time to come home and get ready for work.

To be Continued