Ben and I were driving to church last Sunday, and a couple miles into our trip, we found this gecko on the hood of the car. Poor guy! The windshield wiper was his safe place... it helped block the wind I think. Anyway, he would try to move a little and the wind would grab one of his legs and he almost blew off a couple times. Haha... awesome! Just another average day in Hawaii!
Aloha!
I have always wanted Noah to feel safe and comfortable in the water, so now that we have a pool in our townhome complex, I have been getting him into the water as much as possible.
I grew up with someone terrified of the water, and it was a challenge because I wanted to enjoy the water with her and I couldn't help her feel more comfortable with it. My little sis (sorry Ashley) would get into the swimming pools shallow end, and would play on the beach at the lake, but would never attempt deep bodies of water in fear of drowning. We even took swimming lessons together as children, and she never progressed to the next level, because she would not jump in and swim to the teacher. So because of that, I really want Noah to get used to the water so he can save himself from drowning if he fell in, and so that he can have fun and feel safe when swimming.
He is 16 months old, so I thought that bringing him in with me, and helping him to feel safe in a different environment was pretty much all I could do to get him started. When we go to to pool, we usually bring a floating device that he sits in and he just floats on top comfortably and for a short time during our pool time, I would get him out of the float and swim around the pool with him. He is very comfortable with me holding him. I can put him in up to his neck and he is fine. Well one day, Ben and I saw this couple with a young child, and the kid was actually swimming by himself. The child would submerge his whole head in the water and bob around kicking his legs and moving around. I thought it was amazing! We began talking to the parents and learned that the child just turned two! I never thought a child could do something at such a young age. When we got home, I looked up infant swimming lessons online, and found out that children as young as 6 months can learn how to swim. They can learn techniques to save their life if they fell into a pool. So I read about teaching your child basic swimming skills, and I have started teaching Noah these basic steps.
Day 1: Today we worked on closing his mouth and holding his breath under water. Our goal was to encourage him to dip his face into the water, hold his breath and come back out not choking on pool water. At first his mouth was wide open and he sucked a whole bunch of water down, but we encouraged him and said make a "mmmm" sound and he dipped his own face in without us doing anything. He came up not choking at all. He did it again and again! It lasted a total of a couple minutes of the same step before he was done with it, but I am so excited that he understood that when your head is in the water, you don't inhale. He naturally learned how to hold his breath underneath!
I can't wait to see him learn more and more. I am really excited he is feeling comfortable with it already!
Check this video out to see what our ultimate goal is...
http://www.infantswim.com/home.htmlI hope you all have a fabulous Friday!
Please forgive my gargantuan looking toes... that isn't what this post is all about. My feet do look better than that in person btw. Anyway, I have been waiting for the chance to get a pedicure and I finally did it. Just so everyone knows, there are two (sometimes three) things that I need to do to pamper myself every few months. Those include the rare professional massage, eye brow wax, and getting a professional pedicure. I hate doing my toes! I love to have a beverage, read a magazine, sit in a massage chair and have someone else deal with the nastiness of my feet. I am in pure bliss during these spa pedicures. Typically it costs me $25 plus tip for one of these, and I don't need another one for a couple months. Worth it! Today I decided to indulge in a design, which costs an extra $3 per toe. I got a little jewel in the middle of the flower. I wanted share my joyful experience and recommend that if you have never had a spa pedicure... then try it! I hope you are all having a great Monday!
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
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 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!
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!
