Oh my goodness! Things have been super busy lately!

My sister and niece came to visit me on Saturday. It got off to a rocky start since they were actually supposed to have gotten in on Friday but became stuck in LA overnight and were able to get a standby Saturday morning. It was such a bummer to miss out on basically a day since they were so exhausted from the two days and 35 hours worth of traveling.

We managed to have a great day beach day at Ko Olina on Sunday followed by a luau on Sunday night at Paradise Cove at Ko Olina...kind of cheesy but fun nonetheless. And yummy drinks.

I had to work all day Monday due to a quarterly board meeting as well as having two of our chapter employees in from LA visiting so there was a lot to be done. But I have the rest of the week off and am already having a blast. I can't wait to post all of the pictures on here later this week! In the meanwhile, follow me on Twitter as I update on all the places I'm going and I'll post pictures frequently too!

It feels so good to be at the beach in paradise. :)

The whole time I lived in Charleston I really wanted to LOVE the place. And I liked it a lot. There were even parts of it I loved. But it just wasn't the one. I've always loved California and it's warm but not too hot weather and laid back style and thought that's maybe where I belonged. God only knows I've never been happy living in Maryland and can't stand cold weather.

Now when I walk out of the house to take the dog for a walk in the morning every day, the words, "God, I love this place" echo through my mind like waves lapping over each other.

It's just incredible. The weather is amazing to say the least. The beaches...well, I don't know that there's any going to back to Ocean City, Maryland and being close to satisfied at this point. Even the people are really great. Not all of them. But most.

I've met pretty much all of our close neighbors at this point. My next door neighbor to the left even said he would see if his company was hiring for me. As I was walking the dog last night I had a nice conversation with an older couple who have lived here for 30 years and promised to email me information on their veterinarian. 

I just feel so...this sounds cheesy but blessed to be here. Nick isn't always around and that's the downside to his job but I've already met some amazing friends through him. And I'll continue to push myself to meet more people. The nice couple directly across from us are awesome. The guy is a West Point grad from the year before Nick graduated from the Naval Academy. They're engaged too and getting married next month. They already invited us to dinner at some point in the near future.

There are of course negative sides to living on the island but I feel like they're worth putting up with to be able to live in such paradise. Traffic is the biggest. It's hideous. I hear it's worse than LA and I believe it.  I've been trying to find a local job, which is actually harder than it seems. The area I live in is developing quite a bit but it's not really there in a business aspect yet. The major places to work are in downtown Honolulu or Waikiki. Which are over an hour commute each way...with a decent day of traffic. It's horrible. And I won't get started on parking.

I did interview at a restaurant at a golf course one street over from out house so I'm hoping to hear back soon.

Also of course natural disasters are something to be aware of here. The tsunami scare was a big warning to us. Nick and I have since developed a list of disaster preparedness food and water and miscellaneous that we're working on assembling. It was good to have the scare and be warned because now I feel like we'll be a lot more prepared next time.

Being a homeowner has been interesting. About three weeks ago we decided to work on our yard and plant grass patches/plugs. That was tsunami day. We couldn't get out to rent a tiller to till the compost in with the dirt/clay base of our backyard. The following day, a Sunday Nick went out to rent the tiller...but when he got back and dropped it off with me he told me he'd been called into work. We only had the tiller for a day and I didn't want to spend our evenings that week working on the yard. I had no idea how long he'd be gone so I got to work. It was quite a job ahead of me. We had gotten the compost laid down the day prior but using the actual tiller was really hard. Once I got the entire yard tilled I broke apart trays of grass into approximately 5" by 5" "plugs" of grass to plant. The plugs are expected to grow together in 3-6 months. I got almost half the yard planted by the time Nick came home. I got him to cut the rest of the grass into plugs for me and I got the rest planted.
It's been about three weeks now and there are tiny sprouts of grass poking up next to the plugs so it must be working.

I finally got the house pretty organized as of last week and even cleaned everything really well for the first time. Of course it's all just in time for our third and final shipment to come tomorrow. Then I'll have more cleaning to do and more things to put in their places. Then I have to get around to filing our insurance claims for all of our things that got broken in the move over- our dining room table, our dryer, a bedside table, shelves, and more than one lamp.

This weekend was really nice because, since I got pretty much everything done that I could get done on the house at the time, I was able to take it easy. I went to Ko Olina beach with my friend Megan. Ko Olina has man made lagoons which separate the waves from the beach. They provide a nice little outlet of calm where you don't have to be concerned about being dashed into rocks or taken out to sea. The sun was so hot we kept thinking we were burning but we were sunblock suited up. The sun is just really hot here. The water was perfect though- it seemed chilly at first but it was satiating in the heat. In Charleston what bugged me about the water is that at some point in late summer, the water became so warm that it wasn't satisfying to go in it to cool off. Here I think it's perfect.

I've been working on a lot of stuff lately- little projects other than just job hunting. It's definitely been keeping me busy. But it was nice to finally let myself relax at the beach. This is a really exciting month now that we've both gotten to know the area a bit more. I'm sure this is just the beginning. Some more exciting things to come very soon...

Every time I step outside here I feel like I'm in a constant state of awe. Seriously, how did I get to live here?

It seems so funny now finding out so long ago- over 5 months now- to the actualization of living here. And it's crazy to think that while it's been warm and sunny here (I'm already completely acclimated to the warm- I can't stand cold weather!) back in Maryland they set records for snowfall and blizzards. Literally the day after I left, the airport began canceling flights, two blizzards came in one week, record-setting snowfall, even I-95 was shut down. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

I'm really lucky I left when I did because it would have been over a week later I would have finally been able to get here.

I'm still adjusting a little bit with the time difference. It's definitely not hard to get up early here since it's kind of like sleeping in in Maryland. :) Unfortunately, Nick and I have been sharing a car off and on so I've had to drive him to work a few times if I needed the car that day so I would get up at 5:30am and be exhausted by 9:30pm that night...doesn't help get on schedule.

I think I'm just about there now. Five hours is a lot to adjust by. I think I'm closer to California time at the moment, but that works.

Last Monday we got me a car. A little aqua '99 Toyota Corolla which I have promptly named "Little Clunker," due to its slightly clunking engine. Also "Little Beater." That's actually more of an island term- the crappy little cars that people drive a lot of times when they live here are called beaters. Much of the island is military so people just get temporary cars. Also, you don't put a lot of mileage on cars here since it's not like you can suddenly plan a road trip out of state. The funny thing is my new (to me!) little car had 117,500 miles on it when I got it last week- the one that I sold had 117,555....Weird.

We moved into our new house on Friday. Well, I got here and got to read a few pages of my book before realizing I had no toilet paper in the entire house. I walked over to the office to borrow a roll (take a roll? not like I'm giving it back) and by the time I got back to the house, the moving truck wasn't far behind. We have three shipments total coming. Our biggest one on Friday was from back in October when they boxed up almost everything from Charleston, SC. The second which is coming this morning is from the end of Nick's being stationed in Groton, CT. The last one which I think will probably be sometime next week will be the final one they took from my house in Baltimore, MD the week I left. Oh, and technically four shipments- Nick's car isn't here yet either. We'll be expecting that sometime next week.

I hate dealing with movers. I feel bad asking them to unpack everything, but it's what they're getting paid for. Also if they don't unpack the stuff while they're there, for one you end up with a ton of packaging materials you don't know what to do with until they come pick it up. But the biggest thing is that if something is broken, you can't claim it because you can't prove you didn't just break it after unwrapping it.

In our shipment Friday, our dining room table didn't make it- the legs broke on the journey so now it's sitting awkwardly in our living room. My bedside table lost the whole handle and looks pretty ugly now. My favorite Target lamp is no more. Our couch has some slashes on it. And they dropped a dolly on the side of my car and put a nice gash in the front of the fender. We'll get reimbursed but it's a bummer. Especially with the dining room table because I have no idea what to do with it at the moment. It's big. I don't know if they'll be able to fix it (I think a claims guy will come out and tell me that) and I really don't want a new one- I love my old one. It was a $100 Craigslist purchase in Charleston and well worth it. Beautiful oak table.

So at the moment, I'm waiting for the second shipment to get here and today will be spent trying to organize everything and put it in its place. It's helpful that the moving company unpacks everything- it saves a ton of time. But then you're left with mounds of THINGS in every room piled up high. Sigh.

Nick is working extra long tonight and I might not see him until tomorrow. He took the car since I have so much to do here anyway.

Other than the craziness of moving, Hawaii has bowled me over so far. It's incredible. Especially the area we live, called 'Ewa Beach (pronounced Eh-vah). We stayed in Kailua the first week with friends on the base and Kailua was incredible. There was even a beautiful beach you could walk to that was on base. I went two days in a row I didn't have a car. I saw 4 different kinds of crabs I had never seen before, sea anemones, got stung by a jellyfish, and even rescued a tiny little octopus which tried to squirt ink at me. Twice. (His little tentacles were so cool! They kept sticking on my fingers as I was trying to get him back in the water so he wouldn't die.) 

Oh, and I almost had to be rescued by the base lifeguard. The water is NO joke here. I was walking in the water up to my calves when it suddenly dropped off up to my chest. And rocks appeared. And waves that wouldn't let me get away from the rocks. Fun. (I did end up with some scratches on my knee, a pounding heart, a talking to from the lifeguard who warned me that the area wasn't safe for swimming, and I got knocked down a few levels in the embarrassment department

Kailua is on the rainier side of the island. It was pretty nice while we were there but they said it had been raining a lot prior to my arrival. And toward the end I drove in and out of rain quite a bit.

The Ewa side of the island doesn't rain as much. It's not too hot here. It's been between 74-88 every day and sunny. But the crazy thing about the rain all over the island is that you can drive into or out of it. If it's raining on one side, just drive out of it. Half the time it will be raining on one side of you and sunny on the other side (see my picture)- which is why you see so many rainbows here. I think I've seen six already in just over a week.

The house is beautiful. It's a new house but needs a lot of work. We've been trying to cover the windows in our bedroom at least with duct tape and sheets and beach towels. And I guess we didn't realize that grass doesn't come with the house- our backyard is a red clay. I have light colored carpets- clay and light carpets do not mix well when you have a dog. So despite the decently sized back yard, we have to continually take the dog for walks. Kind of a pain when I got so spoiled by my parents yard and just being able to let her outside.

We began investigating how to get grass since I think grass and blinds are priority. We talked for ten minutes to a guy at the base garden shop on all the steps we need to take- sand down first for filtration, top soil mixed with spongey rocks since apparently clay is no good for growing, purchasing multiple cubic feet of grass and tearing them individually apart and planting each one a few inches apart. We're waiting for a sale on all that.
We also priced blinds through the base. Nick isn't around much to be able to install a ton of blinds and we thought instead of getting the cheap ones from Walmart/Target, since we already have really awkward sized windows we would get professional blinds done. We're looking at really nice white wood grain horizontal blinds for the entire upstairs and light off-brown verticals for all the downstairs which would match our sliding glass door. We priced it at $2500. Ouch.

Owning a house is definitely not cheap. So many other little costs like those- and just filling up the house, buying a bed and stuff for a spare bedroom. Ugh. Money.

Our realtor actually took us out to dinner last night at the Cheesecake Factory in downtown Waikiki. CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY PACKED area. It's the most touristy part of the island and there is no off time. It doesn't get less busy on a Monday during the day because everyone there is on vacation. It was insane how packed it was. Definitely trying to stay away from there as much as possible. On Oahu they try to keep all the hotels in one area of the island so it's not like that all over. And that's pretty much where they all are. The beach was incredible though and looked like a postcard with the sun setting colors and the palm trees in the foreground. The shopping was incredible. Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Fendi stores. Crazy. But I'll stick with staying out of Honolulu and Waikiki whenever possible. Even the restaurants were ALWAYS packed. Man, that's be a hard but lucrative place to work.

Some of the other crazy things I've noticed so far- traffic is horrendous. I heard someone say it got voted #1 worst- Los Angeles was number 2. Ouch. All the street names are crazy to pronounce. I try to say every one I see out loud to practice pronunciations. You mostly just try to pronounce every vowel. But in some cases that isn't easy- Kamehameha Highway is a popular road here. I still haven't figure out which part of the name to stress. But at least I have the pronunciation right. I think. And just when you think you have pronunciation down- you get three vowel in a row and just have no idea. And then there's the state fish: the Humuhumukununukuapua'a fish. Yeah, try that one when you think you're good at pronouncing Hawaiian. I just figured out this week how to say my street name.

Banking has been an adventure. There are no Suntrusts here. No Bank of Americas. No M&T Banks. Basically nothing there is back home other than Navy Federal Credit Union. There are lots of local banks. Bank of America actually froze my account for suspicious activitiy the day I needed to get money out for my car. AFTER I had already called them to make sure it wouldn't be a problem. I spent 45 minutes on the phone in a bank parking lot. Nice.

Superbowl kicked off at 1:25pm. The only thing live here is football. So during the season there will be 8am games. That's some real tailgating. The 10pm Jay Leno show comes on at 9pm. I still haven't figured out any other TV show times. And I miss good ol' eastcoast Comcast cable. I'd even take ghetto South Carolina's Comcast over this weird Oceanic Time Warner. There's no TV on demand! I miss my Pilates on demand from Exercise TV.

Hawaii is also the place that those "Prices and participation may vary" disclaimers were made for. My first night here we tried to order the 3 mediums for $5.55 from Dominos- only to get "Yeah, that's the mainland price." (They call the other 48 states the "Mainland.") It's 3 mediums for $7 each here. And Subway's $5 footlong is $6. Just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Everything is more expensive if you don't buy stuff on base (which I can't by myself since I don't have a military ID). I heard one of the ladies say they had to go to a regular grocery store one day after commissary hours and spent $7 on a gallon of milk. I bought gas the other day for $3.30 a gallon. Yup, miss mainland prices. It's not a bad trade off to avoid the cold weather and snow. And hey, while talking gardening to the garden center guy, he told us plants grow year round. I'll be planting my own herbs and some veggies too. Oh, and hey, my Verizon cell service works better here than anywhere I've ever been. I didn't even know I could have that many bars!

Well, it's definitely an adventure here so far. I'm not going to have much of an adventure the next few days as I go crazy trying to organize everything-unless your idea of adventures include finding our that hand soap spilled all over my favorite towels. But hey, I do have Nick's bike so maybe I'll ride to the beach once or twice.

And when he is here, we decided to try to explore and have real adventures as much as possible. Every weekend we can. I like that idea.

PS. I have a house and cable now finally so I'll try not to slack on updating. I currently don't have access to pics on my camera though. (Just thriving on pure camera phone pics at the moment.) Darn USB cord went missing. Hey, maybe it will be on today's shipment!