Mele Kalikimaka

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....well, Hawaiian style!  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...!
It looks pretty good from 12,500 feet away.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Spear fishing

I think this will be a new friday after Thanksgiving tradition. We don't have it all figured out yet but we had a lot of fun. So far the fish are winning. Scott, Rob and I went and hope to go again soon. Lots of fast fish. Or maybe we were just slow after our big dinner the day before

My new office is located at the north end of the Kohala Coast, overlooking Kawaihae Harbor.  I've gone from working upstairs, alone without windows, to working in an office with three other people, my own office, and a view of the ocean.  The work is an easy transition (all my accounting and bookkeeping and HR experience is paying off).  The people are friendly, easy-going, and the pay is generous.  In my first week the payroll service company was pretending to recruit me (after I spoke up at a meeting with them) and the people I work with were telling them to leave before it sounded appealing to me.  It's kind of fun being fought over so quickly.  I've sent along pictures of my office and the view.  My office is just inside the little building.  The other building is the processing plant and visitor's center.  The two corner windows on the left of the picture are in my office.  The picnic table is for the office personnel and looks out over the water.  The other view of the harbor is the view from my office window.  Yeah, this is the life!  The last picture is of Bruce at the hospital last night.  We think he touched his eye with pepper juice and it caused an abrasion.  They had to irrigate his eye and he is on antibiotics for a week.  I hadn't seen him in this much pain since the kidney stones.  :(  Today he is better.

With Bruce being able to work on the house full time, we should be able to move in by spring.  Every month we don't have to pay rent is money in our pocket!  And with Rob Malouf here for a couple of months to help with the framing, we are hoping to have it closed-in by Christmas.  I can't wait!  The view at the new house is better than the one at the rental; we can see the ocean, Maui (on a clear day) and the Kohala Mountains.  I hope everyone is planning to visit sometime.  I can't believe it's November already.

New job!

Just an announcement!  I have a new job.  I start work on Monday, October 25th.  I will be an assistant to the finance manager for the Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company; cleverly disguised as a "bookkeeper".  I am very excited about the position.  I won't be doing dailies anymore (someone else does the accounts receivable, accounts payable and payroll).  I'll be working with job costing and projects related to bottom-line boosting.  It's full time and comes with benefits.  Take a look on their website:  google Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company.  (Don't be confused by their address in Kona.  The office where I'll be working is located in Kawaihae which is about 16-17 miles from here and relatively close.)  I'll be working days, Monday through Friday, so I'll have my weekends off and be home by 5:00 everyday.

I've attached my latest painting.  I'm not giving up on art; but this will help while Bruce is building the new house.

Garden Update

How does your garden grow? Ours is going gangbusters! We are so excited so see how well our garden is doing. I can't believe Bruce and I have finally found a compromise between my childhood experience of a garden (tomatoes on the deck) and his childhood (1/4 acre of garden). See the progress:

Our first official visitor

After nine years, our first visitor to Hawaii was Tomoko Ino and her sons. Many of you may remember Tomoko. We met when she came to America at 15 years old as an exchange student. It was another one of those times when we were in the right place at the right time. She stayed 3 weeks that first visit and we became family. She called us Mom and Dad and we called her our Japanese daughter. She visited several times after that, even joining us in Florida in 2000 when we took the family to Disney World. The last time we saw her was the summer of 2001. After 911, her new husband didn't want her to travel to the U.S. It was too dangerous.

We have known her now for 18 years. Now that we are in Hawaii, travel for her is so much easier and she asked her travel agent (a former student of hers) to watch for a travel deal she could work around. She e-mailed us the middle of August, just before Amy went back to school, that she could come from the 20th to the 30th of August and would that be okay. Of course! We were thrilled that she would come to see us so soon after our move. She told us she would be bringing her two boys. What a treat for us. Their names are Reima and Ryoma.

When she arrived, she announced that she was pregnant. Three children in Japan is a big family. We are very happy for her. She is hoping for a girl this time. We met her adorable boys. They warmed up to us quickly and when we asked her what she wanted them to call us, she said 'grandma' and 'grandpa'. We were hoping she would say that!

She stayed with us for most of the time, staying at a local resort for a couple of days so her boys could enjoy the amenities there. We did lots of shopping, went to the beach, went to the zoo and the famous Big Island Candies company, and took the boys snorkeling. Bruce had a great time playing grandpa. She cooked for us twice and brought our favorite goodies from Japan.

Saying goodbye was just has hard this time as it was every other time she visited. We would really like to go to Japan and see her. Her invitation was very gracious and if we get the house done next year, we may just have to plan a trip there. The idea of an eight hour flight seems so much easier to take than 14 hours.

We miss her already.

Our First Square Foot Garden!

Denise and Cory should be pleased to know that they have inspired us to build our own square foot garden and here is the result.

We used old wood that Tom wasn't using and gathered our supplies from local home improvement stores. We bought some small plants and some seeds. It is very satisfying when after only 4 days the beans are 2" tall! We built the garden boxes about 2 weeks ago and see how well it's doing now. We already have a tomato about the size of a marble and the three older pepper plants have multiple peppers beginning to grow.

We can hardly wait to enjoy our first harvest, which may be sooner than we thought!

A View from the Top of the World

We made it to the top of Mauna Kea, the tallest peak on the island and actually, the tallest peak among all the pacific islands. It is quite the view. There are several observatories up here, one of the four most important observatories in the world. It was a spectacular sight of stars after the sun went down.

Sitting at almost 14,000 feet, we were cautioned about altitude sickness, of which I experienced a little. I thought for a minute we would have to leave before the sunset, but the ranger there told me about 'pressure-breathing', which helped to oxygenate my lungs better and I was able to stay. It was a very weird feeling; feeling like I was going to be sick for a while and very light-headed. I was glad it passed.

The visitor's station sits at 9,200 feet and we didn't have a problem with the altitude there. On our way down the mountain, there was a car accident which closed the road and they sent everyone back to the visitor's station. Because we had to go back, we were able to sit in on a 'star tour' and look through the telescopes they have there. We saw a great view of the moon; like you could reach out and touch it. Bruce saw Saturn and was able to see rings and a couple of moons. I was farther down the line and it disappeared behind the horizon before I could look. I did see a star cluster, though, which with the naked eye looks like one faint star, but when you look through the telescope is actually many stars. It was cool.

It was also cold. We were actually wearing coats and were very glad to have them. It felt pretty funny needing coats in Hawaii, but if you ever plan to go up there, be prepared!

The other pictures are of the beach when Bruce and Scott and our friend, Ken, went diving. Ken is out here for a couple of weeks working with Bruce. The weekends are for playing, though, and they did!

After being so cold last night, it was pretty nice to go to the pool this morning and enjoy the sun and warmth. I always feel like I'm on vacation the days I can go to the pool. Pretty fun.

Getting settled in our new (temporary) home

We have been rather spoiled for the last 15 years or so, not needing to live in a rental house while we built another house or remodeled one. The last rental house we lived in was on Bridle Hills Drive when Lisa was in first grade. That's been quite awhile ago.

Finding a place to rent in Hawaii was a much bigger challenge than we thought it would be. It wasn't that there were limited places to choose from or that the rents were so incredibly high (although they are a lot higher than in Logan); no, the hard part was finding someone who would allow the dog. We follow generations of people who rented houses and brought with them un-trained dogs and poorly behaved dogs. Many landlords simply say no, no matter what.

We were offered the opportunity to house-sit for a family in our ward while they were on vacation on the mainland. This gave us another two weeks to find something and, of course, it was at the very last minute that we decided on a house (the only house left that would take all of us). We moved in the night before Bruce left for Utah and Nevada to do the fireworks show, but didn't sleep in the house until after he left and the people in whose house we were staying came home. It's a 3 bedroom/2 bath house with a 40x8 foot screened-in lanai and an ocean view. We agreed to do the yard work in exchange for a discount on the rent.

The day before we moved in we saw a sign in the village for furniture for sale. It turned out that the furniture was used furniture from a hotel complex. And everything was garage-sale priced. It isn't what we would have picked out in a furniture store, but it will certainly do for now and until the rest of our furniture is here from Logan (whenever that may be). We bought a sofa-bed, a bed for grandma, a large side chair, a couple of nightstands and a couple of other pieces. Combined with what Bruce had already scavenged before I arrived on the island and we have almost all the furniture we need. We also bought a new bed for ourselves; the only thing we've bought new in the way of furniture. But now we can welcome anyone who wants to visit!

The pictures are of the outside of the rental house. I'll take more pictures inside when we've got everything figured out. We're still working on a couple of tables where I can sew and/or bead and/or paint. I'm anxious to start a new painting. The water here is so inspiring! I may just do a couple of landscapes or seascapes to begin instead of flowers.

Arriving in Hawaii

We are finally here and working on finding a new home. In the meantime, I thought it would be nice for anyone interested to see where we have been and where Bruce and Amy were living for the two months before Scott and Grandma and I arrived. We moved last Thursday into a temporary situation; housesitting and dog-sitting while a family in our ward are on vacation on the mainland. They are gone for two weeks so we need to find a place by the time they return.

The pictures are of Tom's house, an old farm house on a pretty big piece of land that we may have considered renting if they had allowed the dog. But the house was expensive and I'd really rather be in Waikoloa; it's warmer and not so damp.

The beach shots are of Bruce and Scott's first shore dive from Puako. They call it Disneyland for divers. They saw a bunch of fish and a shark. Scott also saw an octopus. It's great now that they both have all their own equipment. Bruce will have to post his pictures separately.

We are loving the climate, the people have been very friendly, and we are getting connected to the ward very quickly. I start working for Tom on Tuesday, putting his books in order after over a year of him not having a steady bookkeeper. I hope it won't be too grueling.

Once we have a place to live, I'll post more pictures of where we will be. We are hoping to rent a place for a maximum of 6 months and build a house in the meantime. We have a lot picked out, but haven't finished the deal yet, so no more about that until it's a done deal.

Amy's hard at work full time at the hospital and tutoring three mornings a week in English for a high school student in Waimea. It's great to see her use the skills she learned last winter for something productive.

We miss Lisa; she's doing well in school and staying focused. I'm always glad for her calls to tell me what she's up to. We look forward to her visit at Christmas. (which seems like a lifetime away at this point.)

More later...

It is done.

We are officially out of the house! I must say it took a great number of people hours and hours to get us ready in time, but here we are, staying with friends now while we take care of some small but important things before we can leave the valley.

I am grateful for the people who came to help, especially Sara and Eu de la Guardia and Cindy and Jeremy Ollis, the Bohmans, Mary Sharp and Emily Gehring. They saved me at the last minute when it didn't seem like there was so much to do and I kept finding cabinets and rooms with more stuff.

My nemesis, it seems for this move, was cleaning supplies. I kept finding more cleaning supplies! And with the condition of the house, you would think I never used them. :P I threw out much of the bottles and cans and various containers of cleaners, but when the container is full, how can you just throw it away? Every time I turned around, there were more cleaning supplies! And when we come back next year for all our stuff, there will be at least five boxes of nothing but cleaning supplies!

I keep thinking I'm going to dream about cleaning supplies. And as it turned out, I only used a handful of my favorite cleaning supplies to clean the entire house. What a perspective shift. It has caused me to re-evaluate my compulsion to buy the latest and greatest newest cleaning item whether I needed it or not. In my new house, you will not see shelves of multiple brands of the same type of cleanser. There will be only one of exactly what I use and I plan to use them more often than I have in the past.

By the time we left the house today, it was clean and the people moving in were so anxious to get settled, I felt so grateful even to them that they are the ones renting the house. I know they will take care of it. I'm anxious myself to get on the road. The closer I get to the coast, the closer I get to Bruce and Amy.

And so it begins. The adventure really started some time ago, but for me, leaving the house was the first major step to getting there. Hawaii, here we come!

Aloha!

The Things You Find When You are Cleaning Out

Desiderata:

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy."

Found in Old St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, dated 1692.

Isn't it amazing how applicable it is even today, 318 years later.

"It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcomings. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even through checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." --Theodore Roosevelt

I am proud to be married to the strong man; doer of deeds; who dares mighty things...

My last day of work

Today was my last day working for Volocron. I am hoping it is my last day working outside my home for some time to come. A few years ago, when I worked for the school, I worked from home and my time was very flexible. I always had holidays off and at least a week during the summer and a week during the winter. If I wanted to run to the store or run a load of laundry, work didn't get in the way. Once I started with Volocron, I was much more tied down since I worked in their offices, not from home. It was a difficult adjustment and after being there for a year and a half, I am quite glad not to be so tied down. I will always be glad of the things I learned there. Each job has given me new education into the accounting/bookkeeping field.

But now I would like to leave bookkeeping behind me and focus on my art. I may need to do some part time bookkeeping to help that to happen and that's okay. I just don't want to be working so many hours that I don't have time to do things at home and work on my art. I'm looking forward to painting hibiscus, plumeria, and other native Hawaiian flowers, as well as fish. I have some fun ideas for painting fish and I can't wait to get started.

While I've been cleaning out the office, I've also run across several stories that I've written. One is mostly done; one is in the editing stage; one is started; and the last one is only outlined. I really need to get back to my writing. That's another goal of mine once we are settled in Hawaii.

Every day I get closer to the time when I get to go out there. Everyday something gets done. Once we have a new car, I won't be quite so uptight. I'm sorry the Grand Prix was totaled from the accident. I'm just grateful no one was hurt and it wasn't my fault. I count the days off the calendar. We're about half way there from the time Bruce left. There is much to do, but I feel mostly calm about all we are doing. Maybe I'm getting so used to eating elephant that it just comes natural now.

I keep looking at my suitcases and thinking that when I leave here, that's all I'm taking with me. Bruce said the boxes we shipped earlier arrived today. It's hard to believe that everything I will need for the next year at least is gone and I still have a full house to pack up and/or sell. The garage sale is slated for May 22nd. I'll be glad to have all the garage sale stuff gone.

Now I enter a new phase of our journey. Here I come!

The culmination of months of beading have finally led to my first jewelry sale coming up on Saturday.  I am hoping to sell most of it, but I'll be happy to sell even some of it.  Here are some samples.

The first step

Bruce has arrived in Hawaii today.  He called after picking up his rental car and stopping at one of our favorite restaurants for a bite.  It is perhaps a bit surreal at this point, but when he gets into the swing of things with work and we know for sure where we will live, AND we are together again, it will become our life and we will live it.  Making the change is difficult; a challenge that I think some wouldn't want to tackle.  I am grateful everyday to have the Lord with me as I plan and prepare.  Sometimes I look at what must be done and it seems so simple.  Other times, it seems so complicated.  I suppose this is my elephant to be eaten, one bite at a time.  And each day I take another bite.  Everyday I accomplish at least one thing and everyday I am one day closer to the day when I arrive in Hawaii, too.  Thank goodness I can still sleep at night.  

We are apart, but we are one in spirit and vision.  

Aloha

Every Baby Grows Up

With my parents heading off the mainland and me heading into school, it seemed appropriate to have a place of my own where people can follow what I'm up to.

http://versatility1701.blogspot.com/

It's official

Yes, official. We are moving to Hawaii! Wow. As we sort out the details (and try not to let our brains explode), it looks like we'll be there by mid-June. I've already given notice at work and we're in the process of selecting flights that are cheap and work with taking the puppy. No time now for sitting around. We already started going through our stuff to see what we keep and what we take, and what we sell.

We will live in Waimea, or nearby, which is in the center/north part of the Big Island at around 2500 feet elevation and 10 miles from the nearest beach.

Everyone is invited to visit, just let us know when you're coming!

For Amanda

Lets go diving. Scott is getting certified so lets plan a family dive trip sometime. All divers or snorkelers welcome also any spectators that don't want to get in the water. The reason this is for Amanda is when we were at Ambers reception Amanda said I should post more pictures. So these are for her. Also I hope it wets her appetite to go diving. The picture on the dock was his first open water dive the air temperature was about freezing but the water was 92 so he didn't spend much time changing.