OH HAPPY DAY!!

Our furniture finally arrived!! YAHOOO!! It actually arrived on Friday. We got the call around 2:30 pm. But they closed at 4 pm. And of course they aren't open on the weekend. That would only make sense. That would help things happen too quickly! So we had to wait until Monday. We almost weren't able to get it then because Scott was going to have a staff meeting right in the middle of the day causing timing problems with getting a truck and unloading at the location where our pods were and the time they close. It was a mess. Luckily his staff had mercy and let him postpone the meeting. Thank goodness, I was ready to scream if we couldn't work it out. But we did and our stuff is here and it's a happy day. We still need a sofa so we're scouring craigslist for just the right one.

Free spirit.

Just a funny little thing that happened at the beach the first Sunday we were here. We thought it would be nice to sit on the beach and watch the waves on a Sunday afternoon. So we're sitting there, I'm reading my book and people watching. I noticed this old lady, maybe in her 70's or 80's. She had been swimming in the ocean, then came up to do some Tai Chi (I guess that's what it was). I watched her a little thinking to myself, "I hope I stay active at that age". I glance down to read again and Scott says, "she just took off her swimsuit!" She had wrapped her towel around her and taken off her suit, then went and rinsed it out in the water (I'm not sure what good that did.). Then, she proceeded to get dressed right there on the beach. First were the panties, at first she was 'somewhat' discreet, using the towel still as a cover. But when it came to putting the bra on . . . off came the towel and hello! Yup, right on the beach. She's a free spirit.

Sandblasted!

So I decided that today I would start working on my tan that every resident of Maui should inherently have. And since Scott was at work and Camille was at camp with the YM/YW, I thought, "why not, I've nothing better to do!". So I packed up my beach chair, beach towel, donned my swimsuit for the first time since arriving, grabbed my book and sunscreen spray and headed out.

Now today has been a bit breezy, but I could tell that the sun was out at the beach, and that would help me not get hot and sticky. Well, it was downright blustery at the beach. Not cold by any means. It was a perfect tempurature (sorry to make you jealous, Jill!). It was just blasted windy!! I stayed for a little while. I waded in the water a little bit, read maybe a page from the book, sat and people watched for a few minutes, watched a marajuana exchange, laid on my towel to start that tan, then turned my chair to face the sun to get the front side. . . I doubt I was there more than half an hour. Oh well, there's always another day.

Oh yeah, our stuff arrived today!!! YIPPEEEE!!!! Too bad we still don't have any sofa to speak of. But I do have a bed in there. I can't wait. TTFN!

Our new home!

Like our new place? There's enough room for everyone! (tee-hee)

The Road to Hana

A veiw from the road. The ocean is very blue out here.

This is a lava tube! It was pretty cool to walk through.

This beach was amazing, it was all black lava rocks. This was an amazing place, but the drive to get there was long and windy (long i). I wish it was closer, I'd come here alot if it was.

This picture is taken at the same place. So is the lava tube.

Same cool beach, these rocks were out in the water a bit. As you can see, these kids were jumping off these rocks.

This leaf was gargantuan, that means really big. It was about the length of my leg. The picture doesn't do much justice.

One of the many waterfalls on the road to Hana.

Slippahs on da beach

Shaka, brah!

The shaka sign which usually means "hang loose", means there's no need to worry or rush. That's the hawaiian way of life. Scott, or "Boston" as he is sometimes called, finds it hard to grasp this concept at times. But he's learning . . .

For anyone needing the "decompression chamber". Press play!

A new day!

The second day was a little bit better. After braving the shower (I didn't dare take a picture to scare anyone, you might think we'd all end up with a flesh eating disease), we headed to Denny's to get some breakfast. According to 'tom-tom' (our gps system) the only one was in Kihei. So off we go. After breakfast we headed to the beach . . . (the two people in the picture are an old man and women, lucky for you the image is too small to see how bad they both looked, at that age, she should not have been wearing a bikini). And we found that there is another Denny's in Kahului. We've all come to the conclusion that 'tom-tom' has a brain tumor.

Welcome home?

Well, we made it! This is at the airport. Scott bought us leis, aren't they pretty? I was happy to finally be here. All the stress of moving was done. All I really wanted now was a shower. I was so tired that morning that I didn't rinse the conditioner out of my hair so I felt like a greasy mess all day. YUCK! But we had a lot to do before we could relax and take a shower. We weren't sure about whether we could go pick up our own vehicle at the port yet, so we rented a car for the day. It was a good thing too, our car came the next day. Then we had to get air-mattresses to sleep on. And we had to get the keys to our place.

Our place wasn't very impressive. Our neighborhood doesn't care about their yards, they let them die, don't plant anything, especially this house, they have quite a big backyard, but don't do anything with it. It's sad really. Anyway, I know Scott was very disappointed. So we piled in the car to get out and to grab some lunch. We searched forever for just the right place, we drove over to the other side of the island around Kihei, then on toward Lahaina, then circled back to Wailuku and ended up back in Kahului at the mall at Ruby's diner. We took so long that both Scott and Camille had gone beyond hungry to splitting headache and were both so frustrated and famished they couldn't eat. Then at the dinner table is where Camille's emotions exploded. It all hit her like a tone of bricks that we had moved away from her happy place. That broke our hearts and so we were all a mess. Needless to say, our first day was not a good one. We decided to go and sleep it off.

I hate the game of tetris!

As you can see, we packed as tight as we possibly could but we still had to leave a few things behind. Some of the things that didn't make the cut were my Christmas tree and 2 big wreaths and Scott's shop vac. It's a bummer, but those can be replaced. Luckily I was able to get my porch rocking chairs in! Not that I have a porch yet - they may be used indoors once we get them. Of course my Dyson vacuum made it. Mostly everything we wanted to take made it in. Now if it would just get here already!

A Stow-away!

I think our cat "Branford" knew what was happening. All day long of the last day we were packing up, he kept sleeping inside my suitcase. He didn't want to be left behind I guess. Unfortunately, we had to leave them behind for now. We won't see them for a few months. We sure miss the poor little buggers.

That night, after everything was packed up, we noticed that Branford had snuck out of the house. He usually doesn't come back for a few days when that happens because he's too stupid to find his way home. We couldn't stay up and search for him because it was already past midnight and we had a plane to catch the next morning. Needless to say we were pretty worried. Camille was in tears! But there wasn't much we could do right then. The next morning Scott's parents, who stayed in our empty house on an air mattress, said that Bran' had come home in the wee hours. They said he headed straight for the litter box!! HA-HA, that stupid cat came home because he couldn't go in the 'woods'!! Talk about a true indoor cat. At least he came back.

Just a quick note!

I just wanted to let everyone know that we've arrived safely (over a week ago) and all is well. Well . . . as well as can be expected without furniture and comforts. And we still have another week without those comforts.

I can't post any pictures yet because our card doesn't fit the laptop. :-( We finally got internet on Thursday. HALLELUJIA!!!! I can't believe how much we depend on the dumb thing. And I guess no one in our neighborhood uses wireless, so we couldn't log on.

Right now our furnishings consist of 2 queen-sized air matresses, 3 beach chairs, a boogie board and an ironing board (that was luckily left in the house here). With creativity these can be configured into "dining tables", "desks" and "entertainment centers". Scott thinks we've moved to the ghetto. For some reason, they don't care about their yards in this neighborhood (unless they are Japanese) so it looks totally dead . . . especially our yard. Maybe the water is expensive, like everything else here. We are currently looking for another place to live.

We've had a lot of frustrations, like trying to get our car registered, they inform us that we need to have "hawaiian insurance" first. So we call Geico, have them switch it all over to hawaii, call upon a new friend from the ward that we've only met once, for the use of internet, who has to call her mother because hers doesn't have a printer, and we all go there to print out the new "hawaiian" insurance, then run back to the place to get the car inspected just so they can then tell us that they don't accept copies, or email printouts, it has to be the original!!! OH FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!!! Apparently 'hawaiians' have a problem with giving you all the information upfront that would be helpful. Is this their way of messin' with 'haoles'? I'm sure they get a big kick out of it. The other frustration, or shock rather, was when I called to get the electricity switched to our name. They asked if we'd had an account with them before, of course the answer was no, so they said it would be a security deposit of . . . are you ready for this . . . $909.00!!! WHAT? Yeah, that would be based on the 2 highest months at this particular property. HELLO, WE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THOSE BILLS!! And honestly, we can't figure out how they got such a high bill in one month to begin with because there is no a/c in this place. I said I'd call back later. We still haven't done that because we're waiting on all the reimbursements and paychecks that should be coming. Oh, and Scott's first check from work won't come until NOVEMBER!!! (so if any of you out there owe us money, now would be a good time to pay up, and soon).

On a more positive note, today was General Conference. It starts at 6:00 am for us. Yes, that would be 0600, bright and early. But the bright side of that is, we are done by noon! TADAH! But running off to the beach didn't happen because then Scott had Priesthood at 2:00 pm, but then we're all done by 4 pm, so the beach will most likely be in the forecast.

Well, that's it for now. We have some great pics coming as soon as our stuff arrives. Sorry it wasn't as quick of a note as I thought it would be.