Christmas 2011

Hopefully all of you have received your Henderson Christmas newsletter. If you didn't, send me an email and I will send it along. If I missed you, it would be because I didn't have your address, or I lost it, or I couldn't find it because our spare room isn't quite set up for an office yet and papers are still everywhere. In any event, MERRY CHRISTMAS! to everyone and we hope you all have a wonderful New Year.

It's amazing to think that it's almost January. Living where the season stays virtually the same all year, I can't figure out if time goes by faster because there is no change, or slower because there is no change. And it does seem strange to have the windows open and the sun shining warm for Christmas, but I'm satisfied with the little tip of snow at the top of Mauna Kea for now.

I have a couple of pictures for you. The first one is Bruce being interviewed on the local radio station, promoting the Blue Wilderness Dive Adventures Dive Shop where he works now. It was pretty cool for him and for Scott, too, to meet the dj's they listen to on the radio in the morning. Scott and I listened on the radio while Bruce did his 'gig'.

Then we have Scott, taking a break after washing the dog on Christmas Eve.

Next is Rama with his Christmas bone. It was almost gone by the time we came home from church!

The last one is Amy on Skype. We were able to talk with her for about 45 minutes this afternoon and wish her Merry Christmas and listen to how she's adjusted to being in Boston. We miss her terribly, of course, and some moments are better than others. We're already planning our trip there to pick her up when she's done.

Amy prepares to leave on her mission.

Amy arrived last Friday night to spend a little over a week with us before she enters the Missionary Training Center in Provo in preparation for her mission to the Boston, Massachusetts, Spanish speaking mission. We are very excited for her, but we will miss her so much! As part of each missionary experience, she went through the temple before leaving and we were so glad she wanted to go to the temple here. As it happened, she went through on the evening she arrived. Here we are in front of the Kona Temple just before going in.

The finished house!

We moved in in July, but we just finished the landscaping. I can hardly wait until the palms are taller and all the flowers are blooming.

Where do we find the time?

Sorry, no pictures this time. Just some thoughts. I don't know how we do it. I don't know what drives us to keep going, to push harder, and reach our goals. As if we didn't have enough to do what with Bruce spending every spare moment at the house working to get it finished, diving at least twice a week (which takes from early morning until about 2:00 in the afternoon), and working at the Nut House (the macadamia nut company where I work) on various carpentry projects that they keep coming up with; if that weren't enough, we spoke in church on Sunday last and Bruce is now spending his evening and nights with the scouts at scout camp which is about an hour drive away and usually cool and raining (not great conditions for camping). In the meantime, I'm still working full time, leaving the house around 7:30am and coming home around 5:00pm in time to change clothes and go over to the new house to do whatever I can - usually touch-up paint and cleaning at this point. I also prepared my talk for church, and tonight I'll be doing my part-part-time job as board secretary for the village association board meeting. In between my comings and goings, I manage to do the laundry and some housework (although not nearly enough). And this weekend, Denise and her dance team arrive for a week-long dance camp which is being organized by the bishop's wife, but they will be staying with us. And somehow, it all seems do-able. As each thing gets done, we move on to the next and talk and laugh about the day when we can sit on the lanai in the evening and not feel pressured into needing to get something done. Yet, I know it will never be like that. As soon as the pressure of working on the house is done, I'll start thinking about painting, or beading, or sewing curtains, or something. It's the way we live. It's always been the way we live and we should just figure out that it will always be that way. We can rest when we're dead. Until then, here comes the sun and here we go...!

Getting closer all the time

If it looks like a lot of work; you're right! But slowly, we're making more progress. The tile is almost done. We've got some things to finish up the electrical and the plumber will hopefully show up this week to finish installing the plumbing fixtures. The appliances are in the garage waiting to be installed and the washer, dryer, and grandma's fridge will be delivered the end of the month, along with the carpet (cross your fingers). We still have all the outside to do; but this is getting us closer all the time. At the end of the pictures is the rental house we moved into temporarily. Amy complained that she didn't know what it looked like. The owners are letting us stay as long as we need to, so no worries there. And Bruce and Scott got haircuts this evening, because I wasn't going to listen to them complain anymore about how hot their heads were and couldn't watch Scott with his hair in his face anymore. So here are the before and after pictures of them. Enjoy!

more progress

First, I want to thank everyone for their comments after my last post. I was truly feeling sorry for myself that day and you all made me feel so loved and remembered that I felt ashamed that I thought you weren't there. Even Tomoko wrote from Japan to say she reads the blog and even though she wasn't sure what I was talking about, she thought I was sad and wanted to make sure I was okay. I love you all. Thank you again.

For those who are keeping track, I've posted a couple more pictures of the house project. We're getting pretty excited. The next step is countertops and tile. The carpet has been ordered, the appliances are sitting in the garage and Scott is out of school after Wednesday, so he'll be able to help more. (Although he's already lined up a job starting the end of the week).

And for those of you who thought Scott was always going to be the "baby" of the grandchildren - he's going for his driver's permit this week! Do you feel old, like us? We'll let you know if he gets it.

One other thing to mention: Bruce and Scott are on a crusade together and won't cut their hair until we move into the new house. They both can almost get their hair into a proper ponytail. It's quite the contest. Pictures will be posted as "before" and "after" when the big day finally comes.

The last picture is of the afternoon rainbow yesterday. I love rainbows and, of course, this is the land of rainbows. The thing I love about this one is the blue sky in the background. Normally, there is a dark cloud behind the colors, but here we see rainbows even with a blue sky. Sorry, just one of the things I love about Hawaii...

Confused, but trying...

"Hello, hello! Are you there? Hello!" Do you remember that from Dr. Seuss?

I think I don't understand the purpose of a blog. I guess it's supposed to be a place to voice your opinion, speak out, and show off. The part that throws me is the comments section. I keep expecting people to react to what I put on the blog. But I guess there's Facebook for that. I have such a short amount of time to communicate this way, communicate at all with anyone outside my circle of activity. I don't follow Facebook and I rely on the blog for little bits of someone's thoughts about what I've decided to share. I know there are those of you out there who read it. I like to read your blogs, too. I will try to post my comments to you more often as well.

I think I wouldn't feel so neglected if they didn't offer the 'comments' option...are you out there?

Progress - making time for the new house among all the other things we do...

Scott's room

Looking down the hall from the garage door

Master Bedroom

The "Blue Room" (office/spare room)

view of the Great Room from the hall

View of the Great Room from the dining area (boxes are cabinets yet to be assembled)

Main bath vanity

Master bath vanity

Tile to be used in Master bath - Bruce is planning something creative

Tile in Main bath - sorry it's so fuzzy

Carpet for the bedrooms - the one we chose is in the second column from the left, 4th up from the bottom.

We've put in some long days and long evenings getting this far. For all our intentions to have Bruce working on only the house, he started his Dive Master program and is diving several times each week and took a part time temporary job at the Nut Factory (where I work) taking care of the office remodel. It's turned out to be a bigger job than they originally said, so it is taking more of his time than we planned on. This week the electrician and his wife and baby arrive to do the finish work on all the electrical. It will be exciting to have lights in the house. Then there's the rest of the cabinets to be assembled, the tile floors, the carpet to be installed, the tile in the bathrooms, the countertops, the nailing of the lanai decking, the rest of the baseboard to be put in and painted, the driveway to be poured, the landscaping to be started, and the finish plumbing...well, we've got a ways to go, but we are making progress!

Scott's latest sport - Track

a new temporary home

Amazing things happen all around us.  In January, our landlord telephoned to see what our plans were regarding the expiration of our lease the end of March.  At the time, the wiring for the new house was scheduled and we were fairly confident we could have the house close to being finished within the two months, if all things went well.  We decided to go ahead and terminate the lease on schedule.  (We're such optimists!)  Bruce left for Utah right after the electrician finished and when he returned, not only had nothing been done, but we were delayed another four weeks after that getting the inspection passed on the electrical work.  This, of course, meant that we couldn't move forward with anything other than the painting of the outside of the house.  Our friend of many years, Todd Wilson, came out the end of February and helped Bruce do just that, but at the end of that project, with the electrical inspection still not passed, the framing inspection to go, and the inside of the house still looking like it did in December, our hopes of getting it to a point of moving in by the end of March was pretty silly.  We told everyone we knew we were going to be homeless the end of March and put out feelers for a temporary place to stay.  Several people came forward with offers, including our friend from church who lives in a 2-bedroom condo, our sheetrock contractor (who didn't even know us), and a woman I work with who owns a house in Waikoloa that would be available at precisely the time we would need to move (her tenant of 8 years had just given notice).  Because the renter had been in the house so long, they knew they would need to re-carpet, re-paint, etc. so they offered the house to us for the same rental price and allowed us to bring the dog (which normally wouldn't have been allowed).  They also said we could have the place as long as we needed it, month-to-month.  What a tremendous blessing!  We moved in last weekend and now all the pressure is off for getting the house done - except, of course, for the pressure we put on ourselves.  Here are the pictures of the new house (not the new rental) so far.