Short note

Short note today. Out shipment finally arrived!! We are so excited! We plan to move into the house tomorrow afternoon and evening. I'll write more either tomorrow if I have time or on Thursday. Too tired tonight. Until next time...aloha!

Weekend activities

Well, this proved to be a very successful weekend. On Saturday we went to this couple's house where I found the bedroom set and I showed AJ the rest of their furniture. We decided to buy pretty much everything they had! We bought their oak dining room set, which has a table with 2 leaves, 6 chairs and a hutch. It's very beautiful! We also got the couch that I talked about in the last post, and the entertainment center and TV. It felt kind of strange to be buying so many things at one time! But we think that we got a good deal on everything. I'm excited to get it all set up in the house. We are planning to move things Wednesday evening. I meet with the realtor on Wednesday afternoon to do the walk through. Then we will have the keys and officially have a home of our own! YEAH!! Don't get me wrong. Gus and Sandy have been terrific! But it will just be nice to have our own space and get things organized instead of the way we are currently living. Just a few more days...

Today was a pretty quiet day. We were able to see most the Packer game before we left for church. Unfortunately, they couldn't pull off the win. Oh well, there's always next time. The one bright spot of the day was that the Cowboys lost! And the Bears tried really hard to lose, but unfortunately they have a lot of luck or something. Again, there's always next ttime! We were done watching football by early evening. It's kind of nice to have the games done and still have time left in the day.

Jenna helped pick coffee yesterday. She thought that was pretty cool. AJ straped a little bucket to her waist and she went off picking like crazy! Today she helped AJ and Gus wash their work trucks. She was in her swimming suit and was in charge of the hose. As you can imagine, she was soaking wet and she loved every minute of it! Then she got to sit in the hot tub. She has it made here! She will probably really miss it when we move into our own place. We can always visit I guess. Well, that's all for now, so until next time...aloha!

I'm back!

Yes, I realize that I have been MIA for a few days. I'm back and ready to give you the latest news! Some days have not been too exciting so I didn't have much to write. Who wants to hear about me paying bills, shopping at Walmart (Sorry, S. S. Not a lot of choices!) or cleaning?? Sounds pretty boring to me! Gus and Sandy came home last night, so we were up late visiting with them. It was great to see them! I spent most of the day yesterday cleaning. OK, I know I just said I wasn't going to tell you about me cleaning, but I did MAJOR cleaning yesterday! We had our stuff EVERYWHERE!! We have been living out of suitcases and we had food piled on counters and papers piled on the tables and the counters. We had totally taken over Gus and Sandy's house and I wanted it to look like we were never there. I cleaned just about everything in every room. Jenna and AJ thought it looked good, so I guess I did OK. Thanks Mom, for the lessons! :) We moved all of our stuff to the bedroom in their lower level. Now I REALLY can't find anything! Oh well, just a few more days. We get to move into the house on Wednesday. Hopefully we will have things set up enough to sleep there.

In addition to cleaning, I did some furniture shopping yesterday too. I have been checking Craig's List - there are a lot of things posted on Craig's List! I even found job postings. Yeah, I know...Duh Lynn! Those of you familiar with Craig's List probably think I'm an idiot, but I've never really had a need to check it out before. Anyway, I found a lot of really great furniture. After I picked Jenna up from school, we stopped at this house to look at a bedroom set. It was beautiful! It's made of mahagony and bamboo. The couple is moving to Arizona and it just doesnt fit in with the decor there. But, it's perfect for the tropics! It's a 5 piece set and it will fit nicely in our bedroom. The bed is a queen and it comes with the mattress, box spring and comforter and pillows. It was priced better than anything else that we have looked at, and it was much better quality. While I was there, I looked at a dining room set made of solid oak. We could probably get by without a dining room set since we have the patio furniture, but they have it so reasonably priced that we decided to get that too. They also have this really cool couch. I'm not sure what you call it, but it's like a sectional, except that it comes apart and you can have a couch and 2 chairs if you want or you can have one big piece. It also has compartments in it that can go in between the sections. It's hard to explain, but it's pretty cool. We're thinking about getting that too. A lot, I know! But our whole house could be furnished from this one place! It will save a lot of time looking and we don't have to get up early tomorrow to try and beat the crowds! I think the people would sell us the house if we wanted to buy it! Sorry, not yet! So now we just need to line up help to move everything to our house...hopefully on Wednesday evening! I'm so anxious to get moved in! I can't wait to get everything organized. It's getting a little old living out of a suitcase. When we moved our stuff out of the upstairs of Gus and Sandy's house, we didn't have a lot of boxes so a lot of stuff is in plastic grocery bags. It's not fun at all trying to find things!!

I'm sitting at an outdoor internet cafe right now, and I have to tell you about the scenery! First of all there are pigeons everywhere. They don't bother you, they just walk around looking for food. There are also a few chickens and roosters walking around. There are vendors here with their stands of whatever they are selling. A lot of them bring their dogs with them. Most of them are on leashes, but there are a few that are running loose. This one dog that just runs crazy when he gets here (I've been here before and have seen him do it) starting chasing the roosters! The poor thing was running as fast as it could and was flapping it's wings trying to get away. The dog chased it all the way across the yard until the rooster ran under a table. It was pretty funny to watch! I wonder how many roosters the dog gets in a year?? Appearently not very many since there are chickens and roosters everywhere! Jenna was telling me the other day that there are chickens on the playground at school everyday! I just about hit a turkey with my car yesterday on my way to school. I told Jenna I would have cooked it up for supper if I would have hit it! She liked that idea! I didn't!

Well, I'm really long winded today! I've either bored you to sleep or have gotten you up to date. Either way, that's all for now. So until next time...aloha!

Monday and Tuesday

Well, you know that you are out of shape when you only walk 2 days and you're stiff when you get up after being in the car for half an hour. Pathetic! I haven't even tried to run yet! Just walking up and down these hills is tiring! I don't know how those athletes can do the triathlon! They are truly amazing...obviously a gift from God! I called about being a volunteer for the Ironman and was told to sign up online. I did, but I haven't heard anything from them yet.

The last couple of days haven't been too exciting. I've spent some time researching car and renters insurance. AJ is looking at buying a truck, so we've looked at a few of them. His boss will be back from vacation this week, so we will need to give the truck back. We've found a couple that he likes, so hopefully we will have something by the end of the week.

Today AJ went to Hilo, a city on the other side of the island. He had a meeting for work. Within the past 6 months or so, beekeepers have discovered mites on the bees in Honolulu (on a different island). Recently, mites were found in bee hives in Hilo. This is a big deal because before this, there have never been mites in Hawaii. Mites are a parasite-type pest that can get on the bee. It feeds on the bee and eventually it can cause the bee to die. There are treatments available to kill the mites, but the people in Hawaii are not real familar with this because they haven't had to use it before. I may not have my information exactly correct on the mites, but AJ is in bed so I can't ask him. I'll let you know if I need to correct anything. Anyway, part of the reason he was hired over here is because of his experience with working with mites. He mostly listened to what people had to say at this meeting but he also offered his opinion. I think that he will become more involved with the treatment and control of the mites if it becomes a problem on the Big Island. I think that's pretty cool! In my very biased opinion, I think he is the perfect man for the job!! :)

Ok everybody...I need your help!! I spent a little time online today looking for a webcam. I didn't realize how MANY there are to choose from!! Is anyone familar with webcams? What is a good brand? How many megapixels should I get? What specs should I be looking for? I really have no idea what I'm looking for, so if anyone has any ideas, I would be open to them! Thanks! I look forward to your opinions. Until next time...aloha!

Monday

Taking a day off. See you tomorrow! :)

This Weekend

This weekend we got a little more accomplished. We went to a few sales on Saturday morning. We bought a patio set. It was in great condition and it was very reasonable. We thought we got an early start, but we learned that if we want to get a chance at any big furniture, like living room or bedroom furniture, we need to be arriving at 6:30 or 7am or else everything will be gone. So we will try again next week. We went to a fruniture store and found a bedroom set that we liked. We put a down payment on it that we can get back if we want to. We want to look at more sales before we buy anything new. So, hopefully we will find something next weekend.

This afternoon we went to a beach. I can't remember the name; it was the first time that we had been to this beach. Jenna and I called it "the airplane beach" because it was just north of the airport and we had airplanes flying above us the whole time we were there. It was actually pretty cool to see. Because the planes were getting ready to land, they were really close to the ground. I saw one plane that said "Hawaiian Airlines" on the side of it. It had a light burned out on the wing! The beach was nice. It had a really long beach of pretty nice sand; not as nice as some other beaches I've seen, but OK. It was windy today, so the water was kind of rough. We weren't able to go snorkeling, but Jenna and AJ built a sand castle. It started to rain about mid-afternoon, so we had to leave. Jenna was pretty disappointed about that. Hopefully we can try another beach next weekend and hopefully we can stay longer. The beach is about 1.5 miles off of the road (actually 1.6 to be exact. AJ checked it). The road is not paved and it is VERY, VERY, VERY rough!!! We had a truck with 4-wheel drive, thank goodness or I'm not sure we would have made parts of it. It took us 15 minutes to drive the 1.6 miles to the beach! I told AJ I would give the beach one more chance, but I'm not sure the drive is worth it! It's a quiet beach, so that is one advantage! There aren't too many people willing to drive their vehicles on the road. We did see a few tourists on the road though...hopefully they don't hurt their rental cars too much!

Well, tomorrow Jenna begins her second week of school. I'm so grateful that she likes it! Today at church she saw one of her classmates. They were both pretty excited to see each other. Her name is Angelic. Jenna said that Angelic was the first new friend she made in Hawaii. Before we moved Jenna said to AJ and me, "I wonder who my first new friend in Hawaii will be?" Now we know! What a blessing!!

Well, I'm going to go to bed. I'm going to get up early and walk in the morning. I haven't done any form of exercise since I finished the triathlon at the end of July. (Well OK, I guess I have run once since then!) I'm feeling really out of shape and I don't think that I could run right now. I need to get back into exercise mode again. As you know, Hawaii is basically a mountain...an island still being formed by the volcano. Because of this, the roads are either UP or DOWN. There are very few, if any, flat roads! I'm not kidding. It's tough to walk, much less run on these roads! When we move into our house, there will be a road by the ocean that is relatively flat. A lot of runners and bikers use this road and I plan to join them as soon as I can run a little way without dying!

The world championship for the Ironman Triathlon is held in Hawaii in October. I'm thinking about doing it! No, I'm kidding of course!! I am thinking about volunteering to help in some way. I'm calling tomorrow to see where I might be needed. I'll give you the scoop later. Right now, I'm going to bed, so until next time...aloha!

Sales and Huggos

Today I went to garage sales. I found a few things for the kitchen, some TV trays and a bed for Jenna. I thought it was a futon, but it doesn't fold up to a couch, so I'm not sure how the lady could call it a futon, but oh well! I also got sheets for her bed and a lamp. Tomorrow we are getting an early start and hope to find living room furniture and a bed for AJ and I. It's pouring down rain here right now. I hope it's done by morning. It will be no fun looking for stuff in the rain! Tonight we ate dinner in town at a restaurant called Huggos. It was a nice place to eat. We sat outside under huge umbrellas and the "floor" was all sand. There was live entertainment - a guy playing the guitar and singing Hawaiian songs and a Hawaiian lady doing hula dances. It was pretty cool! We decided that this is definately a place that we will take people when they come to visit. Jenna finished her first week of school. She absolutely loves it! We are so happy about that. Her teacher told me that Jenna is fitting in nicely. What an answer to prayer!! Praise God! Well, that's all I know for now, so until next time...aloha!

Politics and Wheel of Fortune

What do politics and the Wheel of Fortune have in common? Well, nothing. But they have both been active on the Big Island. The Wheel of Fortune crew was here this week taping a week's worth of shows that will air in February. I knew they were going to be here and I was hoping to get to a taping, but I forget exactly when they were coming and when I found out, I was too late. I learned that Pat and Vanna and the crew were taping the shows on Monday and Tuesday of this week. They were at a resort just north of Kona. It was the same resort that Gus and Sandy got married at 3 years ago, and AJ, Jenna and I were here for it. It would have been cool to see the show live. Oh well! Maybe next time. As for politics, supporters have an interesting way of campaigning here in Hawaii. In the morning while people are driving to work, supporters of the candidate stand along side of the road with signs and wave at everyone passing by. It's not only in the morning, sometimes they are out there during the day and in the evening too. Jenna says she is tired of seeing those people everyday! Parent's night at her school was cancelled for tonight. One of the teacher's husband is in the hospital in Oahu, so parents night was rescheduled. I'm thinking about going to some sales tomorrow, and we are going on Saturday for sure. Please pray for success! Until next time...aloha!

Not much to report on today. I found a little shop that has gently used furniture, household items, and clothes. There was some really nice stuff there and I found a few things that I liked. The owner gets new things in every week, so I might be checking it out frequently, just to see what's available. I also was able to go to the house to take pictures and measure the rooms. We hope to go shopping for furniture this weekend at some estate sales. I was having a hard time knowing what to get for furniture because I couldn't exactly remember what the rooms looked like. It should be a little easier now. I will email pictures when we get settled into the house. Jenna really likes school, but she is still adjusting. She is very tired after school! Tomorrow night is parent's night. We get to visit the school and see what she has been doing. Of course, we only have this week to look at, but it will be nice to talk to her teacher and meet some of the other parents. Well, I'm ready for bed, so until next time...aloha!

vog vs. fog

Today I went furniture shopping. Not a very fun job! I don't know my way around very well so I waste a lot of time and gas trying to find things. It's very frustrating!! I don't really know what we want either, so that doesn't make things any easier. We're going to go to some sales this weekend. Hopefully we can find some nice stuff for not a lot of money. That will probably be a challenge! It was hot today...upper 80's. It was a little clearer today than the past few days. It has been really voggy. Vog is kind of like fog in that it makes it look cloudy and visibility is reduced. Vog is the result of gases that are released from the volcano that mix with water vapor and very small particles, primarily sulfur compounds and sulfur dioxide. The sulfur dioxide can be a health concern. It can cause burning of the eyes, coughing, difficulty breathing, and a feeling of chest tightness. I'm not an expert on vog. I just know it's been in the news a lot lately because there have been air quality warnings out. In fact, I'm getting all the info I'm sharing with you from a brochure that AJ picked up at the fair on Saturday. It says that the further away you are from the volcano, the less likely you are to have any problems, (which seems obvious) but the sulfur dioxide can still be in the air. We are pretty far from the volcano where we live. I haven't noticed any problems with any of us. We haven't been down to see the volcano yet. The last time we were here the lava was running on top of the ground (instead of under the ground), so I'm anxious to see what it's doing now! We may wait to see the emissions from the volcano decrease, or I guess we could wear a mask if we felt it was necessary. Well, not much more to say. Jenna had another great day at school! She really likes it and I'm so thankful for that. She gets out early tomorrow. She'll probably want to go to the beach! It's been all of 5 days since we've been there. She is such a deprived child!! Well, until next time...aloha!

1st Day of School

"I LOVE SCHOOL MOM! I want to go here forever!" Those were Jenna's first words to me when I picked her up after school today. She loves it! She said all of the kids were very nice and everyone wanted to show her where to put her stuff and be in her group. She has 15 kids in her class - 4 boys and 11 girls. The teacher is very nice. She has been teaching a long time and I'm told she is very good. And from what I observed, she is. Jenna says she is better than good, she's "Awesome!" I was a little surprised at the amount of homework that she had tonight. I don't know what other 2nd grade classes have for homework, but it seemed like a lot to me. She had to read from her book, write a sentence about the story she read, write long vowel words, and write each spelling word twice. She hasn't had to do anything for so long, it was hard to get her to sit still to read. Once she got going, she did fine. It will just take some time to get into a routine again. Her school day runs from 8:15-2:30. On Wednesdays she gets out at 1:30. It's a Hawaii thing; all schools get out an hour early on Wednesday. I'm not sure why. AJ says maybe they play football and don't have lights. Oh wait! That's only in Darlington! :) I met with the realtor and signed the contract. We plan to move in on October 1. We could move in now if we want, but we decided to wait until we have some furniture. We can save a little money this way too. I plan to look for furniture tomorrow. Hopefully I find something! I need to go check out the yellow pages, so until next time...aloha!

Football in Hawaii

We went to the Kona Baptist Church today. It's a nice church that we have gone to in the past when we've been here. We're told that more families are starting to attend, so we'll probably give it a try for a while. So far I really like it. It reminds me a bit of our church in Darlington, with really friendly people with a dedication to serve. I feel very blessed that all of our prayers for the major decisions have been answered. Now we can work on getting furniture for the house and get prepared to move. After church we went to Costco. It's a warehouse like Sam's. I was pleasantly surprised that the prices for groceries are much, much better here than in the regular grocery stores. A gallon of milk is only $4.83 for skim milk, and $5.11 for 2%. I'm not sure why there is a difference. We got home in time to see all of the highlights of the football games. Because of the time difference, the games start over here at 7am. We knew the Packers were winning before we left for church! We were able to watch "Sunday Night Football" at 2:30 this afternoon!! I told AJ it will be nice to be able to watch the whole game instead of falling asleep trying to stay up until 11pm. I'm glad to see that the Pack is 2-0. Rodgers is doing pretty good! And I'm sooooo sad that the Bears lost!!! (come from behind victory, I believe...way to go Panthers!) Anyway...tomorrow is Jenna's first day of school. She is very excited! Please pray that it goes well for her. I'll give you the scoop tomorrow night. By the way, it may look like I'm up at 12:30 or 1am writing this, but I'm not. For some reason, the time on the blog is about 3 hours ahead of me. It's usually between 9-10:30pm when I'm doing it. I do get some sleep! So until next time...aloha!

Quiet day

Not much to report on today. AJ worked half a day. Jenna and I were at home cleaning and doing laundry. When we registered Jenna for school, the teacher gave her a little homework to do, so she worked on that today. Gus's landscaper came and did some work. He gave us fresh bananas off of his banana tree and some papayas off of Gus's trees. I can't wait to try TRULY fresh fruit! This afternoon, we went to the fair. I don't think it was the county fair. It was pretty small, but it had the typical fair stuff...expensive rides, expensive food, and expensive games. There was a trapeze show...that was pretty cool to see at a fair. We went on the ferris wheel. It was neat to be at the top and see the ocean on one side and the mountain on the other! Well, not much more to say tonight. I'm tired, so until next time...aloha!

It's not that bad!

OK. I think I need to clarify a few things from last night's blog. I have recieved several responses and emails about the bugs!! Gee, nothing like scaring people away before they even get here!! All of the critters that I talked about are here and you will see them from time to time, but it's not like you're stepping on them all of the time. The ants, yes, unfortunately they are always around and you do step on them. At least I try to, just to kill a few! :) The ants are harmless, just a pain. The geckos are harmless. They're more afraid of you than anything. The rest of the bugs I talked about, you don't really see too much unless you have a lot of vegetation around, especially the spiders. We're staying at Gus's right now and he has A LOT of vegetation! He has lots of plants and flowers and fruit trees...the perfect habitat for spiders and millipeds. The house that we will be living in (the realtor called today and we were approved! More about that later.) has rocks for grass and just a few trees. I don't think we will have as many critters there as we see here. Besides when you all come and visit we won't be sitting around that much, so you probably won't even notice! One person asked if there are exterminators here. Yes, there are and some people have there houses "bombed" on a regular basis. I think that is mostly the older buildings. Our house is really nice and not that old. I hope that I have been able to calm some fears. I REALLY want you all to come and visit!! The beauty of the island totally outweighs a few bugs! OK, so on to the latest update. We were approved for the house. We decided to wait until October 1 to move in. I really want our own place, but we are living at Gus's for free and we can save half a month's rent if we stay here, so that's what we decided to do. In the mean time, we will look for furniture and have stuff ready to move in, instead of paying to live in an empty house. I went to an estate sale today, but didn't find much. We're planning to do some looking around this weekend to see what's out there. We got everything taken care of at school today and Jenna will start on Monday. That's a relief. She's ready to be in school and is excited to start. She met her classmates a few days ago and saw a few again today. She can't wait until Monday! We're planning to go to the fair this weekend. Should be fun! So, until next time...aloha!

Creepy, crawly critters and other observations

Well, we have officially been here for one week. It feels MUCH longer than that! I'm actually surprised and quite pleased with all that we have accomplished in one week. We heard back from the realtor and it looks like we were approved for the house! She is just contacting the owner about a few things. We will probably be able to move in soon. We enrolled Jenna in school today too. She will start on Monday. It feels good to have those things taken care of. Now, we just need to get the house settled and then I can get my resume updated and start looking for jobs! The fun never ends! :) One thing that I have noticed is all of the critters roaming about. I guess in the past I was always gone somewhere so I didn't notice all of them. There are chickens everywhere! They love to cackle or crow or whatever it is that they do...VERY early in the morning! It's very annoying! There are geckos everywhere too. They're kind of cute and I don't think that they do any harm. They just startle you every once in a while when they dart across the wall. I'm told that the tan colored ones are native to Hawaii and they are being "attacked" by the green colored ones. The green ones were brought into Hawaii from Bangledesh, and they are aggressive towards the tan ones. They don't hurt humans though, so I guess I won't worry about it. There are a lot of creepy, crawly critters that I could do without! There are ants, millipeds, ants, fruit flies, ants, roaches, ants, and really big, ugly spiders all over the place!! Mom, it would drive you crazy! The ants are always, always everywhere you look! In the kitchen of course, but also in the bathroom, living room, and bedroom. I'm not sure why, but they are everywhere!!! It's a very good incentive to always have the kitchen cleaned up, or else you risk having the entire colony in your house! The spiders are huge and creepy! There are lots of the yellow and black garden spiders that spin HUGE webs. The webs are actually kind of cool to see, except of course when you WALK into it and it gets in your face! I'm learning to pay attention to where I'm going when I walk through Gus's plants in the backyard. The absolute worst ones are the BIG, really BIG, really fast, black spiders that move so fast you'd think they have a hundred legs!! Fortunately I've only seen one so far, but I've seen them other times when we have been here and it still creeps me out!! OK, enough about the critters! On to other things. In case you were wondering, a gallon of gas is about $4.50 a gallon. I've seen it a little less than that a few times. A gallon of milk costs...ready for this?...$7.00 a gallon!!! Isn't that crazy?? Groceries definately cost A LOT more here than in Wisconsin. I'm hoping to shop at local farmer's markets and buy in bulk to save a little money. Unfortunately, it's just something that we are going to have to get used to. The sun sets at about 6:30 or 7pm and it is completely dark soon after that. That's kind of hard to get used to, but we also have beautiful sunsets over the ocean every night too. It's a trade off, I guess. I love reading your comments and emails. Thanks for your interest in my babbling about our lives. It makes us feel closer to everyone, even though there are many miles between us. So until next time...aloha!

More progress

Today was a little less hectic than the past few days. AJ went to work. His day went well. He's trying to blend in and learn everyone's name. Jenna and I went to town to take care of a few things. We turned in the rental application. Hopefully we will know by the end of the week or early next if we get the house. It would be great if we did. I'm anxious to get our stuff moved and start getting things settled into our own house. I know Gus doesn't mind that we are here, but sometimes I feel like we are invading his space. Our pallets should arrive next week and I'm planning to go to an estate sale this weekend. Hopefully I can get some nice furniture for not a lot of money. We visited the Christian school again and decided to send Jenna there. They have smaller class sizes and academically they are way ahead of the public schools. They score above the national average in all subjects. Plus, she'll be getting a Christian education, so how could we go wrong with that? She won't be able to start until next week though because the state of Hawaii requires that all new students have a TB skin test done prior to starting school. The local health department only does TB skin tests on Friday, from 2-4pm. It has to be read on Monday during the same time, so it will likely be Tuesday before she can start school. It might take that long to do all of the admission requirements anyway. We have an application to fill out and she has to be tested to see where she is academically. After this, our application has to be approved by the superintendent. I don't think we will have any trouble getting accepted; I'm just getting anxious to get her in school! She's ready to be in school. She's already bored with me, unless she's at the beach! I don't have as much to babble on about tonight, so until next time...aloha!

successful day!

Today we made some decisions. We bought a car for me. It's a 2005 Toyota Corrola. It's champagne in color (goldish) with tan interior. It's really nice. Jenna likes it because the interior reminds her of sand and it is a perfect match to her booster seat! :) We found a house that we really like. It's a big house with three bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It has a huge living room area and a nice kitchen. In the basement, there is a big family room, a bedroom and bathroom. It's probably bigger than we need, but the cost of it is about the same as everything else that we have looked at and it's a lot nicer. We're filling out the rental application and will hopefully know soon whether we will be able to rent it. The only drawback that I can think of is that the yard is all gravel. There is absolutely NO grass! There are a few trees, but there is no grass. The yard is nice sized and would be nice if it had grass but I guess the owners didn't want to deal with mowing the lawn. Oh well, we like it anyway. Now the only decision to make is a school for Jenna. We looked at another public school today. We liked it and are debating between this one and the Christian school. The problem with the public school is that we can't enroll her until we have a physical mailing address and we're not sure where we will be living. Plus, the public school started at the beginning of August so she has already missed more than a month of school. The other thing that bothers me about public school is that after elementary school, the public schools are not that great, so we would probably move her to a private school. The Christian school (which is a private school) is nice because where we live doesn't matter, and they started 2 weeks ago so she won't have missed as much. We could start her right away. The Christian school is smaller and real family focused, and we wouldn't have to change schools when she gets into Jr. High (IF we are still here. Please don't panic!) The only drawback is that we have to pay for her to attend there. We hope to have a decision made tomorrow. After we did all of these things we took Jenna to a beach in town. It's a great beach for snorkeling, called Keiki Beach. Keiki (pronounced kay-key) is Hawaiian for child. The beach is great for kids because the water is shallow and sheltered by rocks. We went snorkeling here a few times when we were in Hawaii in 2007. We saw 3 sea turtles at this beach today, one was about 18 inches across. I didn't have my camera, but I'll send pictures some other time. The turtles like this beach and are frequently there. Today we watched one eating moss and some other stuff off of the rocks. It was pretty cool to see! AJ plans to start work tomorrow. I will finish researching the schools and try to get Jenna enrolled so she can start this week. Hopefully we can get the house and I can start getting things settled. Our pallets should arrive next week. Things are coming together nicely! Praise God for that!! Until next time...aloha!

Busy busy day!!

Before I tell you about our day today, I have to fill you in on a few things that I forgot to tell you about on Saturday. Those of you who know Jenna well will appreciate this. Before we got to the beach that we call the "Movie-star beach" we ended up at a different beach. Because of the construction of new villas, we took a wrong turn and ended up at a different beach. We turned around and eventually found the beach we were looking for. When we arrived, Jenna said "THIS is the beach that we all know and love!" She's only been there twice before and that was 3 years ago, but I guess she really loves that beach! Before we left the house to go to the beach, AJ and Jenna were bagging up coffee beans that grew in Gus's backyard. It's quite a process, but very interesting. When I figure out how to attach pictures, I'll explain it all to you. The other thing that I forgot to tell you about Saturday is that on the way to look at Bob's house for rent Jenna lost another tooth! She had just finished telling me that she thought it would come out in the next day or two, when all of the sudden it was in her hand! You can imagine how excited she was! It's all she could talk about the whole time we looked at the house! She's hoping the tooth fairy comes to Hawaii. AJ thought she should keep her teeth and make a necklace out of them - you know, instead of with shark's teeth like they do here. Yeah, I'm trying to downplay that idea! Anyway, that sums up Saturday. Today we left the house about 8:30. We talked to people at 4 schools, looked at 5 houses/condos, and test drove 2 vehicles. It was so much information! I've had a headache most of the day!! In fact, I was sick to my stomach for part of the day. I thought maybe I had food poisoning after we ate at this Mexican restaurant. It was expensive and the food wasn't that good! I got over it eventually. It's hard to choose a school when we don't know where we will be living. The public schools need to know where you are living in order to begin any sort of enrollment. We visited a charter school, which was nice, but it just didn't feel right. We went to a Christian school, which I really liked. Of course the tuition is higher there, but I think it will be worth it. We also visited a private school, which was quite impressive, but was way out of our price range! We have one more school to visit tomorrow. We toured 2 condos. I thought that this would be a good option because it's cheaper than renting a house, but we weren't real impressed with what we saw. We toured 1 house which was really nice and has potential, and we peeked in the windows of 2 other houses, one of which looked really, really nice. We are going to meet the realtor tomorrow to take a look inside. I test drove 2 cars. I liked the Corolla, but we will look at more tomorrow. It's so overwhelming to be doing all this at the same time! I know that everything will work out, but it's hard to think about all of these things at the same time!! Well, I'm tired. We were gone for 10 hours today!! So until next time...aloha!

Fun Day!

Today Jenna got up at 6am. Still earlier than I would have liked, but I think she's about over the jetlag! We sat in Gus's hot tub this morning. AJ and I both have aching backs and Jenna wanted to practice snorkeling. She stayed under water for 2 minutes! She thought that was pretty cool! We found a church not too far from the house, the Kona Baptist Church, that we attended today. Everyone was very welcoming! They get a lot of visitors every week. There was a couple from Oregon (the state) in front of us. The pastor and his wife are from the south somewhere. I can't remember where, but they have strong southern accents. I'm not sure if we will continue to attend here, but it's a good possibility. They have a large number of young children that attend and they have Sunday school and small group classes that they offer. There are a couple other churches that we may check out before deciding for sure, but we certainly felt comfortable here. After church we went to "The Place of Refuge." This is a beach that is very special to AJ and I because this is the beach where he proposed to me. It's not the most beautiful beach I've ever seen. There's not much sand, and there is a lot of black lava rock, but it's a great place for a picnic and in the winter it's a great place to watch for whales. We ate our lunch here today and then Jenna went swimming in the tide pools. And yes, she went snorkeling again! She wouldn't float on her stomach; she would only put her face in the water enough to get her mask and snorkel under. Oh well! At least she's doing that much! After that we went to another small beach area near where we go kayaking. She played there for a while, made a sand castle and a few friends too. We went back to Gus's planning to relax the rest of the evening when the neighbor came and invited us over to try some authentic Hawaiian food. So...we went! We tried "lou lou." (rhymes with cow) It was pork, chicken or corned beef, seasoned with spiced salt and wrapped in taro leaves, which was then wrapped in either tea or banana leaves. It was placed in a steamer and steamed all day. To eat it, you take off the tea leaves and eat the rest. We didn't eat the taro leaves, but the meat was very good! We brought a couple home with us to eat tomorrow. Jenna really liked it too. We also tried "dragon fruit." It's a colorful fruit that looks like it's peeling apart. You cut it in half and slice into small pieces. The inside is either white with lots of black seeds or bright pink like the outside. We had the one with the white inside. You eat it like watermelon...the inside is eaten and the outside (like a rind) is thrown away. It was good. It tasted a little like kiwi fruit. They also had tsushimi. I'm not sure I spelled that right, but it's raw fish. I didn't try that. I know I don't like that. I've tried it in the past and it's just not something I can handle. The Public Health Nurse in me is screaming "NOOO!!! It needs to be cooked!!!!" Anyway, it was an interesting evening. I also met a nurse and a teacher while we were there. They both had good information to share about jobs and schools. That's part of the plan for tomorrow. We are going to tour schools and look for houses or condos. Finding a place to live will make it easier to find a school. Please pray that both of these scouting adventures go great! Thanks so much!! Until later...aloha!!

Saturday 9/6 events

It's been a busy weekend! Saturday was a beautiful, sunny day for most of the day. Jenna slept in until 5am! She's getting closer to getting over the jetlag! I slept in until about 6:30 or 7 before getting out of bed. I'm still soooo tired! We left about 9 for the beach. When we were in Hawaii in 2005, we took Jenna to a quiet beach that had a rock cove-like area out from the swimming area. It really protected the swimming area so huge waves weren't coming in to it. We have this really funny picture of her striking a pose in the water. Some of you have probably seen it as my screen saver or in a frame at the health department. Anyway, we called that her "movie-star pose," and we call the beach the "movie-star beach, or Hollywood beach." It's one of my favorite beaches in Hawaii. I'm working on someone else's computer, but when I get mine set up, I will post some pictures of this beach. There are palm trees all over and the sand is white. It's just a very beautiful place! So this is the beach we went to on Saturday. It's just as beautiful as I remember it! AJ and Jenna went swimming and I took a nap under a palm tree. I woke up and decided to check on those two, and much to my delight...I saw Jenna SNORKELING!! AJ had taught her how to snorkel in the short time that I was napping! I couldn't believe it! She was doing great! I was so proud of her. She was using my snorkel gear, but it fit her well enough that she was able to figure it out and be comfortable with it. We bought her her own snorkel gear later in the day. She's already used it three times since we bought it! That evening we went to Bob and Debi's house for dinner. Bob is the other foreman at Kona Queen. They have several dogs - labs like we have. It was nice to see familiar dogs, but it made me miss Koko'o and Ellie! Debi made leg of lamb for us. I'd never had lamb before...it was really good! Debi has lived in Hawaii most of her life, so we talked a lot about schools, houses, and churches. It was nice to talk to someone local to get a good idea about these things. Bob and Debi actually have a place available for rent that they showed us. It was nice, but it was the first place we looked at. There are hundreds of places advertised in the paper, so we will look at more places on Monday. Although the day started off beautiful, it ended up with lots of rain. I thought Kona only got 9 inches of rain a year, but I was wrong. North of Kona, in the Kohala region, they get 9 inches a year. Kona gets more than that...I'm not sure how much, but I'm told that the rainy season is almost over. Everything is very green and beautiful. Until later...aloha!

Friday, September 5

Well, this is my first attempt at blogging. Hopefully it will work! Today was a pretty quiet day. It was cloudy most of the day and it rained off and on. I guess this is the rainy season in Hawaii. Hopefully it will be sunny tomorrow. Jenna was pretty disappointed that we didn't go to the beach today. We did "boring" things as Jenna put it. We went to the bank and set up accounts. We went to Walmart and got a few things and we went to the grocery store. We also went to Kona Queen (where AJ will be working) to meet the crew. It was nice to meet people and spend time getting to know them. The secretary at Kona Queen told me that Kona will be getting a Target in the next year! I was really excited to hear that! There aren't too many places to shop around here. Macy's is the only well known department store in the area, unless I want to fly to Honolulu or buy online and have things shipped. I don't need much right now, so I'll get by with what I have. Now, if they would just build a Kohl's, I would be set! :-) That's all for now. Until next time...Aloha!