A trip to the beach...

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. Work has been crazy for Jon and me both these past 2 weeks, and we've gotten behind on the unpacking. I will attach a picture in a couple of days so you can see, it is better but not completely done.

So, Jon is away for a couple of weeks (Army business), and I decided on Sunday that we'd worked hard enough all week at home and for IBM, and doggone it we were going to go to the beach. Mind you, the weather here on Sunday was less than desireable. We have hardly gotten anything except beautiful skies and sunshine in Kapolei since we've been here, but Sunday was on-again, off-again misty rain. I didn't care. I needed a mental-health check, and I wanted to spend it at the beach.

The girls at the entrance to Lagoon 2 at Ko Olina.

The great thing about O'ahu is that you can drive a mile or 2 down the road and find totally different weather, so that's what we did. We live about 5 miles from Ko Olina Resort by Marriott. (http://www.koolina.com/) It is a beautiful, expensive, fancy resort (and timeshare) on the ocean. However, the beach in their area doesn't have sand or beachfront, it is almost all coral and rocks. So, Ko Olina has built 4 man-made lagoons so that you can enjoy the ocean while staying at their resort. And, since all beaches are public in Hawaii, anyone can go to the lagoons and swim even if you aren't staying there.

So, we went. And, it wasn't raining there. (It did eventually, but we got a good hour of fun in before it started.) That hour was all I needed to recharge after a really rough week. You can see in the pictures that the rain was coming, but I didn't care.

We plan to visit the beach again this weekend, and hopefully enjoy better weather. In the meantime, enjoy the beautiful pictures!

Making Progress (slowly)...

Ok, we made it through the weekend. We spent most of the weekend unpacking. I took another picture of the living room so you can witness the progress:





To the untrained eye, it may still look a bit messy. But, when you have 17,000 pounds of "stuff" to unpack, reorganize, move from room to room, and then argue about where to put it, it takes a longer time than one would expect. This is actually the fastest that we have ever unpacked, and we're only about 3/4 done, as you can tell. I attribute some of that to the fact that Alissa and Alex are older and unpacked a lot of their own stuff. And, when they weren't helping, they were paying attention to Abby (which took a huge load off of Jon and me.)


The other part I attribute to Jon and me. We just decided that we didn't want to let the boxes sit around like we did in Tennessee. It took us a LOT longer to unpack there, and in Ohio. I think we lived without our stuff so long here that we were just so darn glad to see it. That made unpacking less of a chore.


Plus, we bought ceiling fans for the living/dining area and the 4 bedrooms, and Jon put up 2 of them over the weekend. (With the high cost of energy here, it will help keep our electric bill in check.) He did a great job! (I mostly just handed him tools and picked up the trash after him...) You can see one of them in the picture above.


So, more unpacking to do, but we've made great progress. And, the convertible gets fixed later today. It's sunny here and everyone is healthy and happy. And, living in Hawaii is less scary and more adventurous now. We're getting used to it. We've met some great neighbors, and went to a fantastic neighborhood cookout. So, life is good. We are blessed.


This weekend will bring a trip to Bellows Beach, on east O'ahu. According to my hilarious and very kind Canadian neighbor, it is "...the most beautiful beach on O'ahu." It is supposed to be a must-see. We'll bring along the meat tenderizer to combat any man-of-war stings. (Alex has been researching dangerous sea life, and she found out a lot about these man-of-war.) We're told there are some at Bellows, and they are very small baby ones. The sting isn't dangerous per se, but painful without meat tenderizer!!


We'll keep you posted on the beach, and hopefully have some more great pics. Have a great Valentine's week!


Tiffany

Our stuff arrived yesterday...

So, the movers called us at 5:00 pm on Monday and say, "Your shipment is here. When do you want it?" Jon says, jokingly, "Can we have it tomorrow (Feb 5)?" They say, "Sure, we'll be there at 8:00 am."

Yay!!!

The moving team was here at 7:55, ready to go. By 1:00 pm, all our stuff was in the house. Yes, it's a mess. See below for before and after pictures of the living room.

"Before" - Taken Feb 4th

"After" - taken Feb 6th

But actually, we're making big progress - the picture may not look like it to most, but I can tell. (I suppose after 6 moves you figure out a system of unpacking that you can stick with.) The kitchen is almost fully unpacked and put away. Everyone's beds are put together, even Alex's (and if you've seen her bed you know it is a project in itself just to get that bed assembled.)

We'll get there. Actually, we may be mostly unpacked by Monday. (Since the Pro Bowl plays here on Sunday, we won't dare leave the house for fear of being trapped on the freeway!) Now that Alissa and Alex are older, they have been unpacking their own rooms.

So after work, gotta get back to the unpacking. Anyone want to come and help?