Hawaii Time

I'm sure you all have heard that things go a little slower over here on the Islands... well they do! Not that I mind the occasional relaxed setting, but some things I was content with doing on schedule. At first I thought, it isn't really because people in Hawaii like to move slow, they are just kind of 'forced' to. First let me explain what it is like to drive in Hawaii. The drivers here are usually really polite and don't fret about the occasional cut-off and actually let people in ahead of them most of the time. However, right after we got here, I heard on the news of a deadly shooting over road rage?! So we have both ends of the spectrum here, but my opinion as to why everyone drives a little slower is because of this crazy thing called the Speed Limit! The highest speed limit I have seen here is 35 MPH and that is on the Highway. Most roads range from 15-30 MPH. That is really slow... at least for me. Plus all police drive in their unmarked personal vehicles. So you never really know what to look for when you want to speed. So... everyone just takes it nice a slow. I have also noticed that the fast food lines take forever. I decided to get some fast food one day, and thought that I would pretty much be done within 5-10 minutes, which is long for most drive-thru lanes. It ended up taking 40 minutes! No way out after I sat there for 10 not moving. Was it worth it?? Come on, it is always worth it for Taco Bell ;)

News:
We got a floor fan that is really powerful and we blow the air in from outside to get some breeze, and it actually brought the temperature in our house down about 4-5 degrees! I can really tell the difference. Plus Ben read online that by opening our room window, leaving our bedroom door open, and putting the fan out in the hallway allows some area of low pressure somewhere and the fan will pull the cool air from our window out to the living area... anyway, the point of the story is that we actually had to use blankets last night! First time we were cold since we have been here!!
We went to church today. The first decent social interaction we have had since we have been here. Calvary Chapel Kona Coast. It was good. I met a few mom's. We are looking forward to meeting new people, but it is really small and unfortunately there is only one other person in our age group that attends right now :( Bummer...

I hope everyone is doing great!
Take care,
Aloha

Happy July 4th!

We want to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July! I hope you all have a great day.

A couple days ago Ben got a call from Ron (the guy that did the lease on our unit) and was told that our neighbors below us complained about noise. BUMMER! We try to be quiet and courteous because we know what it is like to live near loud and obnoxious people. Now we are those people?! When Ben told me this, we tried to think of everything we may have done to cause an issue. Maybe it was when we were building the cabinet that holds the TV at 8:30 p.m., or if we were playing our movies too loud, or when Ben sat out on the lanai taking phone calls in the evening, or maybe it is our small little one year old that doesn't walk, but RUNS everywhere and falls all the time! So Ben thought the good thing to do would be go down and introduce ourselves and apologize for the noise, and to let them know we will try extra hard to keep quiet. I have seen the guy that lives down there, he is huge and scary looking! And Ben didn't understand why I was nervous to go over. Well, we went down and guess who opened the door? Yes the husband... well he was super nice. His wife wasn't able to come to the door, so we just talked with the husband. After that I felt better about the situation. The next day, the wife came over and gave us these flowers. How nice! She told Ben that the noise was loud walking? I am still not sure if it is Noah just running around or if Ben and I were walking to hard. Anyway, now we know and they know we are not trying to be rude. People are indeed friendlier in Hawaii.

News:
~I forgot to tell everyone this, but the very first time we drove into town, Ben let this guy turn in front of us and he threw out the Shaka sign! For those that don't know, Shaka is the hand gesture where the thumb and pinkie finger are out and the other three are curled down. It is a sign of greeting, or just to say 'Hey', but this situation, he was like "Hey dude, thanks!" Anyway, it was pretty exciting. What a way to get greeted the first time here.
~We went to a black sands beach yesterday with Noah. He was terrified of the water. This is odd because he usually loves the water. I sat on the beach with him on my lap, and as the water would come up and hit us he would cry. After 5 minutes or so, he got used to the fact that the water moved more than what he was used to and calmed down. He even let me take him into the water for a bit. He wouldn't let Ben hold him though, maybe because in the swimming pool, Ben always lets him fall in submerging his whole face.

That's all for now!
Aloha.

The sun is out!

The sun is out today in Kona! It has been 4 days since we have had sunshine. Talk about depressing! This morning I went to an urgent care facility to be seen about my sinus infection. The doctor said that it wouldn't go away alone, and that I needed antibiotics. I am glad for this though, because if I went in and paid $140 for him to tell me to keep up my home treatments, I would have been upset. I am looking forward to feeling better!

I am here at the coffee shop again looking out at the ocean, and it looks beautiful! I can see para sailer's, a huge cruise ship, people jet skiing... really something to see. The ocean is a baby blue/green color. The waves are mild, the water is pretty calm.

News:
The DMV is amazing! Extremely efficient. I guess anything is better than the awful line in Colorado Springs. Just so you know, you need to have vehicle inspections in Hawaii. We needed to go to the DMV to transfer the title of our new car into our name. So the line had about 5 people ahead of us... it goes so fast they don't even have seats for you to sit in. We get to our turn, and all we need is proof on inspection, and $5 to transfer the title! We get to keep the plates that were already on the car, and we didn't have to pay to re-register the car! Doesn't that make sense?

Until next time,
Aloha!

Aloha from Hawaii

Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

We have finally made the move! After months and months of changing our minds, we decided on a place. I am still unsure if this was the wisest place to start, but I am glad to say we did it anyway. My first opinions of Hawaii are... hot, hot, and very hot, the ocean is beautiful, I sweat like crazy, people are friendly, we have a nice condo to live in, we got a car, there is an awesome coffee shop right on the ocean w/ free wifi, air conditioners are life savers, it is constantly overcast (or what the locals call 'vog', volcanic fog) which I wasn't expecting (some say it is because of the last volcanic eruption... who knows when that was), bugs, gecko's, little crabs, mountains, lava rock, few beach's... Overall I must say Hawaii has been... kind of a disappointment though :( I guess I should say it is just different than I thought. I am not saying I don't like Hawaii, because it truly is beautiful. I was just expecting something different and that has been the disappointment. This may be because I have had a sinus infection since we got here that won't go away, and we haven't been able to do anything fun yet. So far, our time here has been... hotel rooms, eating out, applying for a lease on a place, buying a car, buying household items, opening a bank account, no internet except at Denny's and the coffee shop, millions of trips to walmart, kmart and costco, trying to handle Noah's attitude problems, and trying to rest so that I can feel better. No trips to the beach yet! Doesn't that seem crazy?!

We haven't been able to get out and meet anybody yet because I have been sick. So that has also been hard. Ben and I feel like we don't have anyone to talk to but each other. Not that that is a bad thing, but it would be nice to meet some people.
It is starting to sink in that I am very far away from all my friends and family. Every night around 7:30 I have an emotional break down with lots of crying... Ben has been here to comfort me and we are constantly praying for strength and comfort. I knew it would be hard, but I could never have prepared myself for how hard it actually is. It is so hard to not be able to hug my parents. I miss the wonderful time I had spending with my friends. Sometimes I think, what is more important... the place you live, or the people you live near? I want to think I will be able to make some new friends, but I can't ever replace those friends that are so dear to me in Colorado. I truly hope everyone knows how special you are to me, and how much I miss you all. Please come a visit if you can/want to. We have a bed and place you can stay! We will try to visit as much as possible too.

For now, that is all I can think of. I will try to update everyone as much as possible on what is happening here, and I appreciate emails and pictures of what is happening in all your lives. Anything that will help me stay connected to you is wonderful. I pray the Lord is blessing your lives. Please take care!

Until next time,
Aloha!

It's happening...

Well, just as I knew it would, the time has come to start saying goodbye to our family and close friends. It is extremely difficult to do this. Since we only have two days left, our days are full of sad encounters with our friends and family. I have gotten to say goodbye to some people here and there, but today I had to say goodbye to my father-in-law, brother-in-law and my sister. Why does it hurt so bad? Lord willing, it isn't the last time I will ever see them. I will be back in a few months to visit... I am praying for the Lord's comfort and thankfully I have an amazingly supportive husband with an amazing shoulder I am sure I will be using a lot in the next few weeks. Tomorrow I have to say goodbye to my grandma and opa and all of our dear friends from our bible study. I will need so much strength to get through that... and then I have to turn around and say goodbye to my mom and dad. This is I hope the hardest part of our move! Until next time...

A kite as a life lesson

"What's going on? What's new?" We've all been asked these questions or some variation of them, and our response is often "Nothing" or "Not much". I understand that a lot of times we're just responding out of habit and aren't really spending much time really thinking through our answer. But if you stop and ask yourself that question and really put some thought into it, does the answer change, or is there really nothing new going on in your life?

I often use a kite as an analogy for life. For a kite to fly it needs two things, wind pushing against it and an anchor. Without the wind constantly pushing against it, the kite won't fly. It's only through being under consistent stress from the wind that it's able to soar, and the harder the wind blows the higher it soars. The other side of that is the anchor; if it's not tied to anything it will float around aimlessly. If a kite is properly anchored and the wind is strong the kite will soar as high as the line will allow.

I think this is true for our lives. As I've spent time thinking about how God has called us as believers to live I don't see living a comfortable life as necessarily part of that plan. I believe a good indication of a problem is that we don't have anything pushing us, nothing new in our lives. I'm not saying that we should always be stressed out and in constant flux. There are certainly times in our lives where we need to recover and take some time to rest, but that should be the exception not the rule. In our lives we should constantly be looking for a challenge, looking for ways to grow, getting out of our confort zones and really pushing ourselves. When we don't have anything in the physical that we can depend on, all we have left is God. Our security, comfort and happiness should all emanate from God while we continue through the struggles in our lives. With God as our anchor and trusting that He won't allow the wind to blow beyond the abilities that He's given us to handle it, we can be excited that through that stress we are soaring higher and higher.

We've got something new coming up in our lives, and as with all change there are things that make us both excited and nervous. I don't expect our move to Hawaii to be easy (though it's certainly not the worst place to move to :)) especially not emotionally, but I'm excited to see how stepping out of our comfort zone is going to bring us closer as a family as well as closer to God. Moving away from the carefully crafted support system leaves us no choice but to rely on God and each other. I believe that Amber and I won't fully understand the impact of what we're doing until much later. I'm excited to look back in 3-5 years and see how this act of stepping out in faith has changed the landscape of our lives.

So ask yourself "What's new"? If the answer truly is nothing, then re-examine your life and see where God may be asking you to step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself.

Image by Logan Williams

Our upcoming move

Words can't express the emotions that I am experiencing as the time comes closer for us to move. It has been one of the hardest journey's of my life. As most of you may already know, I was born and raised in Colorado, leaving only for vacations 1-2 times a year. I grew up in the same house and always watched different friends move away. I honestly never imagined it would be me leaving because the 'normal' for me was to be here. Ben on the other hand grew up moving around all the time. He traveled every six months for long periods at a time. So naturally he loves to move and travel. This has been a challenging area in our marriage because when he would say "let's go", I would say "let's settle down". Well, now that we have been here 4 years, I figure it is time for me to sacrifice my comfort zone and embark on a new journey with my husband who is so eager to try something new.

So Hawaii, here we come! Don't get me wrong... I am thrilled that the Lord has given us the opportunity to move to such an amazing place. But... it is also very far away from the people I love so much. I grew up near my extended family and I loved that so much. I really enjoyed being able to spend weekends with my grandparents and have sleepovers with cousins. Now that I have Noah, I really want him to be able to spend lots of time with his grandparents. I feel like this move is going to keep him from that, even though I know many people who still have great relationships with their grandparents and didn't live near them.

Right now I am crying a lot and praying that the Lord will help me battle this emotional roller coaster that I know I must face. I am looking forward to having just Ben and Noah around to grow closer as a family together. I don't think I am going to be able to say "I am glad I did this" for a while though, not until I am healed from the emotions of leaving my parents, my siblings and my very special friends. God is good and I will do my best to lean on Him when I am sad.

Please for those of you who read our blog, pray for me and Ben and little Noah. We truly cherish you and will miss you so dearly.