535th Wahine Spouse Flight April 2, 2011

Yesterday was one of the coolest days I have had since living in Hawaii. It was the spouse flight for the squadron! Now I did this at Charleston and it was cool, but this my friends was AH-MAZING!


The morning started out early for a Saturday. After showering and getting ready, I had to make sure I had all the correct patches, for we were wearing the guys flight suits. After we situated the kids with S. ( watching a friends kids too...so for the day he had 4 kids!) We were off for our 8:30 show at the squadron. I had just enough time to drink half a cup of coffee and eat no breakfast before JBAKE and E picked M and I up to head over.


We had a brief, briefing on what the C-17 does here in Hawaii. Just a glimpse of how much work our husbands really put in at the "office". Then there was a drawing to see which 2 people would be up in the cockpit for take-off and 2 more for landing. I unfortunately did not get to do either...darn you number 13! Then it was off to the bus for the quick ride to the plane. The jet is so big. Sometimes I forget how much crap can go in the back of it. I have seen them up close many a time and still it takes your breath away when you start walking up into it. Holy HUGE!
There was only 20 ladies and plenty of seats so we had lots of room to move around and sit where ever we wanted.

It is a little unusual taking off in a jet like this. It isn't like a regular airline where you can see out the window. There are windows...at the jump doors and above 2 of the seats. So it can make you a little disoriented. No one got sick or even felt ill. We were all a little dizzy or rather tipsy! Once in the air they let us get up and basically do what ever we wanted. We went to the windows and started taking pictures, and goofing off doing funny pictures.



The highlights of the flight, other than spending it with the lovely ladies, were:
*North Shore of Oahu. We could see Haliewa, Turtle Bay.
*East shore of Oahu. Kaneohe, and Kaliua
*North Shore of Molokai. Good gracious there were some amazing cliffs. If only we could have been closer and with no doors! It looked a lot like Jurassic Park. (even though that is on Kauai)
*MAUI!! JBake and I were up on the cockpit for the last half of Maui and the beginning of the Big Island.
*Big Island. Volcano, lava fields, coffee plantations, amazing coast line. I think the first island I want to hop to is the Big Island. I was in awe of its beauty. The volcano, the beaches. Oh MY!






North Shore of Oahu

Kaneohe and Kailua

Cliffs of Molokai

View of the Big Island and Volcano












By this time most of us were very hungry and just ready to get back to Oahu. We had about a 35 minute flight back and most of just sat back and talked. We landed with a big bump...but all survived. They opened the back of the jet once we were on the ground. We cheered until we all looked and realized how sick it was making us. Goodness I was dizzy. I couldn't look. Once we stopped and we all cautiously looked out we were parked right in front of another 17! So cool!

We headed back the squadron fully anticipating on leaving, when we were told they had a whole spread of food for us! Sandwiches, veggies, sodas, hot wings and cake! It was great..since I hadn't eaten breakfast and my stomach was eating my spine. It was a great end to a fabulous morning.
I spent some time with old friends and even had some laughs with new friends!

Finally...

WE GOT A HOUSE!!! It is nothing spectacular but for now it is ours. I made this decision after loads of hmmm and hawing. Was this what we wanted? Would we be happy? Would there be enough room, so that we aren't climbing all over each other and everyone can have their own space? Where am I going to put all the crap (and it is crap) that I wasn't able to get rid of before we left Charleston? Well friends, I am not sure I have the right answer to any of the questions. I had to make a choice. I had to decide. So I did. I was done playing the "maybe we can..." game. I am going to have to be very creative as to where we store things. I see a big storage unit in our future. No house was going to be perfect. All of them had flaws. I actually made a PRO/CON list between new or historic. Here is what my list looked like.

Historic

PRO CON 1. Neighborhood 1400 SQFT 2. Huge already fenced yard no garage 3. I can paint Window A/C's 4. house has character no storage 5. close to school away from most friends 6. no traffic construction across the street 7. Feel like you live in Hawaii far from Steve's work 8. privacy small kitchen 9. only 1 neighbor 10. sewing room 11. Can move in ASAP (like Friday!)

NEW PRO CON NEW feel like you live in Arizona garage no yard 1880 SQFT no privacy (on top of neighbors) plenty of storage! 4 plex (we would be in middle unit) playgrounds can't paint huge kitchen all look the same close to work noisy lots of friends farther from school kids can ride bikes to friends houses can't move in until middle of April central A/C

In the end what it came down to was that, we need a yard and I can't live in the middle of 4 houses. I made a choice between a garage and a yard basically. Ok the kitchen was a struggle. It was hard to give up a new big kitchen. But hey I will make it work. I am excited to start on this journey here. I finally feel like we LIVE here and I can get off this weird vacation where my kids go to school and husband to work and I have no where to call my own! So like I said was it the right decision? I don't know. What I do know is that it is made and I can now start shopping and painting and decorate! I will post pictures as soon as I get into the house again. If anyone has ideas on how to make storage in such a small place work let me know! I will leave you with the one picture I have. I took it while sitting in the car waiting to see it for the first time. Don't judge a book by its cover! Oh and another maybe CON for the historic...I asked if it was haunted. Yes I seriously asked. The leasing manager said she hadn't ever heard anything about this house...but some of the ones across the street being renovated she had heard that the maintenance guys don't like working on them!


Our house!!!!!!

USS Abraham Lincoln...I think

So this post is oh I don't know about a week late. Last Monday our friend called and said want to go see that big ship leave this morning? Why the heck not! The "big ship" was the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

It was returning from a 6 month deployment and had pulled into Pearl about 4 days before. The coolest part other than how GINORMOUS this thing was, is the families could fly here to Hawaii and get on board and cruise home with their sailors and pilots! HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE??!!! (this also explains why we saw so many kids and civilians standing and waving to us) You can read the article from the Star Adviser here. You can also read, if you are really really interested about its arrival to Pearl Harbor here.

So here are a few pictures that we took while standing out by the O club. Oh and while sitting at the beach the other day we watched another submarine come back into port. It just cruises by like no one's business. Apparently there is a Japanese Sub here right now. They had no idea what had happened, or at least to what extreme things had happened until they docked. They don't get the news or Facebook while out to sea. I think that should be changed.

Anywhooo enjoy the pictures!
Watching the "big ship"

Jet inside the ship

Our first view

twidling my thumbs

So I have this really bad pain in my butt. No its not the kids, it is a legitimate pain from my run yesterday. I stretched and stretched, drank loads of water but still it hurts to walk. Hmm maybe no 7 miles for me tomorrow.

So March begins the 3rd month of being in Hawaii and living in a hotel. Rock on...NOT. Again it hasn't been terrible, kinda enjoyable to have someone clean your bathroom, give you clean towels and make your bed. But it does get old not having your own things. Yes things I have mentioned before.

So today I went to the housing office to get an update. I didn't get good news, but I got news that made me optimistic. Hopefully Friday we will know one way or the other. What it really means is if we get this house SWEET! If not we wait till the end of April. Well I don't want to wait till the end of April. I don't want to be in a one bedroom hotel room with two kids and a husband. So hopefully we get this house. The downside to the situation is that this house is a duplex and not renovated. That means that its OLD and has window a/c units. I guess it could be worse. The best part is that it has a yard and is fenced. No work on our part! With the renovated houses you cannot install a fence and um hello..I have a 70 pound dog to contain not to mention 2 rambunctious kiddos. So I think if they offer we will snap it up. Now I just have to wait and see if they offer it to us. Fingers, toes, legs, arms and eyes crossed!

Hopefully I will have an update Friday...with good news!

XO

****well still twiddling my thumbs. The lady never called me today so I have no idea if we have a house or not. I am taking it as or not. It is really annoying. When you say you are going to call just call! It's called being professional for gosh sake! So now I get to wonder all weekend and you better believe I will be at their office first thing Monday morning.****

a perfect Sunday

Saturday Night S and I tossed around the idea of going to breakfast Sunday morning. We aren't BIG breakfast people but I had a craving for pancakes, french toast or waffles...I wasn't being picky! Just something that I didn't have to make to be honest. We looked up a few places and believe me there are some GOOD places for breakfast on the island like:

*Boots and Kimos in Kailua, where the pancakes with macadamia nut syrup are to die for! (haven't tried them yet, but have been told by countless people)
http://www.yelp.com/biz/boots-and-kimos-homestyle-kitchen-kailua

*Cinnamons in Kailua, Red Velvet Pancakes anyone?
http://www.cinnamonsrestaurant.com/

*Mac 24/7 for pancakes the size of manhole covers. This place was featured on Man V Food...one of my favorite shows!
http://www.mac247waikiki.com/

All of these places sounded perfect..other than we would have to drive to get to them. I said to S wouldn't it be fun to go with some friends, because well everything is better with friends! So I texted JBake and after some back and forth we settled on.......Brunch at the O CLUB! Hahaa! Yes I know that wasn't on our list but hey it is right down the road and convenient and well good!

We get there and have an 10-15 minute wait, guess that was "island time" estimation. We waited an hour! We sit down and well I think they were just overwhelmed with people coming for VDay or they were understaffed because service was horrible. We finally tracked down a waiter, got our coffee, orange juice and Champagne and dug into the food. It was actually really good. The kids enjoyed it and were very well behaved. I think we put them in a sugar coma with the whip cream/syrup combo on the waffles. We spent a total of about 90 minutes at Brunch which was actually more like lunch because we didn't sit down till noon. We closed the place down.

After we stuffed ourselves silly we went outside to take a few pictures. We still had no picture of the 4 of us together in Hawaii! Blasphemy! JBake helped us out and snapped a few pictures for us just to prove that we are actually here. We headed back inside to go out to the car and only the girls made it outside. Somewhere walking through the club the boys got sidetracked. We found them about 30 minutes later in the bar looking at old photos and drinking a bottle of champagne they found out of coffee cups. Hey we paid for it, it had to be left over from Brunch! We said our good byes and headed back to the room. It was a great outing with friends, but wait what to do with the rest of the day?

easy peasy lemon squeezy...BEACH!! We got back to the room and started to change and pack up the necessities of going to the beach, when my phone rings and it is our lovely friends wondering if we wanted to go to the beach! Why yes of course since that is where we are headed anyhow! We met down at the base beach and sat back, watched the kids play, drank lava flows and Bloody Mary's and chatted the afternoon away. Then the kids realized it was dinner time and wanted to eat. I did have dinner bubbling away on the crock pot in the room, but it was just too easy to say sure lets go eat at the beach shack place right there. So we walked over and eat a decent meal. Took the kiddies home, put them to bed and we followed quickly behind them.

It was a PERFECT day with family and great friends. It made up for the horrible day on Friday which I have now put behind me. I am blessed to be here. I will wait until the time is right to get the house that is meant to be ours. My kids are healthy and happy, I am in love with the perfect man, and I am rocking a decent tan :) Life is good. This is just a little hiccup in the grand scheme of things.
DISCLAIMER: this in no way means that I won't complain about the house issue in the future...just not today :)

I want to go HOME!

So yeah I am going to vent, since my husband is on a mission and can't answer his phone, my mom is not answering hers and no one else will pick up I am turning to the blog world to VENT!

I want to go home. I mean my home, my things, my place to call my own. Not my parents house or really the house in Charleston. I just want to go to someplace that is mine. I thought, stupidly, that this move wouldn't be so bad. I could handle living in a hotel for 2 months with 2 kids. Well it hasn't been terrible. The kids have adjusted and call the hotel home. But today I go to the housing office and they tell me that the houses we were slated for won't open until April/May and that sorry you are probably too far back on the list to get one now. What happened is the people that were in 6 month leases will be in front of you. So I say "well what does that mean for a move date?" Maybe in June or July when the other renovated houses open up. WHAT THE F#*K! Where the hell am I supposed to live until then?

The base hotel we are in will only let us stay till the end of March...and even that is on a space available basis. We thought we had a reservation in April but they said that isn't because it is all Space A because we exceed what they have for PCS moves. HOLY SHIT...so where do we go after March? I have no idea. A hotel I guess where we pay 200 a night out of our own pocket to live.

Get a rental house you say. Oh we have thought of that. We only brought one car because we were told 2 months for a house. S can ride his bike from anywhere on base to the squadron. No need for 2 cars. Plus now we don't have a car payment, gas, insurance of maintenance to budget for. If we move off base he would have to have his own mode of transportation. He alerted at 4:45 this morning. You think I would be getting up with 2 kids to take him 20 minutes to the base and then drive back. He couldn't just take the car because well I have 2 kids to get to school. Not to mention that if we move off base we would have to switch schools again and we just got them settled in their new schools. So that isn't going to happen.

So yeah I am pissed and have no one to talk to, so I came on here and vented. I really don't feel any better and I still want to go home. Oh and on top of that the poor dog is with my parents and losing weight because she is depressed and needs to come out here because we feel bad taking advantage of my parents generosity in keeping her. They signed up for 2 months of dog sitting, not 6.

So if anyone has any great ideas on what we should do, let me know. That doesn't involve moving off base and paying out the ying yang for rent, buying a car and having payments, insurance, gas and maintenance to worry about, making the kids switch school again, I am open to them all. Maybe I can pitch a tent on the beach or on the side of the road like the other homeless people do.

Bottom Line: I WANT TO GO HOME.

back from "Vacation"...

So we have spent the last 10 days in 2 different hotels. We first stayed at the Embassy Suites in downtown Waikiki...fun you say? Well it was for the most part. The bad part is having to drive (well to be honest S had to drive) Big A and little A all the way to school which is 30 minutes away in traffic. So it was early mornings, but that was made better by the awesome Embassy breakfast buffet! Big A was in heaven getting to have eggs and fruit every morning. The kids have also become fans of POG juice. (Papaya, Orange, Guava) We just call it pink juice and little A just drinks it up thinking it is princess juice.
Our week there went quickly. We walked around the mall, the main streets of Waikiki, went to the zoo and ate every meal out (YUCK)! It gets very tiresome deciding which place the kids will eat chicken fingers or mac and cheese at. They saw a vegetable and gobbled them down...I think they were a bit deprived of vitamins!

The second hotel we stayed at was the Turtle Bay Resort. I highly recommend it! It was beautiful and the people we super nice, the rooms was clean and big. Breakfast was tasty but expensive and dinner was good but we had to eat the same place both nights because it was the only place to get something for the kids to eat. Dessert was fantastic though!
We only spent 1 full day at the resort. We arrived Friday afternoon and played at the pool and watched the sunset. Saturday we got up had breakfast...mmmmm good, and then went to the beach. You get one hour of snorkeling included with your room. So S and big A set off to explore and see what they could find. A seemed to enjoy it and could actually do it. He now insists that we buy him his own "gear" so we can snorkel anywhere at anytime. I went out for a few minutes after the boys came back in. Lots of fish out and the water is pretty clear. The surf was rough so it was a little cloudier than I think it usually is.

Speaking of the surf....WOW...it wasn't even as big most winter storms make it. The waves were amazing to watch. The resort was hosting a paddle boarding world tour so there were guys out there giving the guests a preview of the event. They are so crazy! They basically surf of the waves while paddling to keep themselves going. INSANE!!!

Sunday we got up to a rainy morning but that didn't deter the boys from using their free hour of snorkeling. They headed out while little A and I sat under and umbrella on a lounge chair. They didn't last as long this morning but S said they saw a lot more fish, still no turtles but we will come back to find them!

So now we are happily back at TLF on base. (never thought I would say happily!) It really is nice to know that we don't have to pack everything up for a long while. That is the bad part too...we don't have to pack for a long while because it doesn't look like we will have a house for a while still. Hopefully the end of March or early April. Trying to no think about it to much. The kids are happily adapted to staying here and they are glad to have beds to themselves again. It is also nice to not have to play the where are we going to eat game...we are going to eat right here in the room!!!!

here are a few pictures of the Resort.