Paradise Found

Hey all!!!

No internet access at home yet, so I'm on the freebie service on post at a restaurant type place. We get 30 minutes of time if people are waiting in line, and unlimited I guess, if no one's there.

Anyway! Hawaii is still gorgeous! We snorkled big time last weekend at Hanauma Bay. The kids are SO GOOD at it, it's amazing. I'm pretty creeped out at being that close to fish. I don't like birds or fish. hehehehe They want to swim with those huge sea turtles next.

I have pictures from Hanauma Bay's day, but I don't have a way to get them online yet.... Sept. 7th I get my cable tv and internet at the house. I can't get the pictures from my camera to this freebie computer... so any more pics will have to wait.

My kids were finally able to start school today. They needed TB tests given and read and physical appts made. That was hard to do without a car, but a girl from a Hawaii wives website helped me out big time and drove us around.

So I have now bought a car... a silver 2004 Volkswagon Jetta. I love it! It's the newest car I've ever owned! And we have the loaner furniture in our housing unit now, so things feel a little better. Our own household goods haven't even been picked up from South Carolina yet... so god knows how long it will be before we get them. And our motorcycles are in with them too!! WOE!

The kids have to go to a school out in town, instead of on base. I'm not too wild about that... but we'll see how it goes. I've heard that blonde haired/blue eyed kids can have some bully troubles.... I'll have to get special permission to move schools to DOD base schools if they have problems. But for now, they're in with a mostly local, Hawaiian population of kids/teachers. They ride the bus (different busses) and HOPEFULLY this will work out!!

I guess that's it for now. I got my Netflix account changed over to this address, and I logged in today and see they have received my last 5, and have shipped out the next 5 to my new Hawaii address. Can't wait to see what my turn around time will be now!! hehehe I know there's a Distribution Center in Honolulu, so you'd think it'd be a 1 day turn-around, since H. is about 20/30 minutes away.

Anyway, take care! I hope everyone is doing well in South Carolina! Any troubles from that Hurricane Katrina? I have no tv, no daily newspaper and no internet... so I'm feeling very cut off from the world. The weather here is fabulous! It rained a good bit yesterday, tho. It creates red mud from the red dirt here... and that stains permanently! We've found that out already.

Chris is doing great at his new job as a Medic. They're preparing for a December-sometime deployment. I'm so glad he didn't have to go in September as we originally worried. His unit has been having a lot of PT tests, and he maxed his run out today!! Pretty awesome for an "old guy". LOL!

Bye for now!!

Aloha! We made it to the island with no problems... just one very long flight. The kids did really well, considering the flight from Atlanta to Honolulu was 9 hours and 21 minutes long. They showed 3 movies, only one of which was really a kid movie. In between each they showed our flight's progress up on the video monitors - that was really cool. A map of the world was shown, and the picture of our airplane showed where we were, how far we'd come and how much longer was left. Distances, altitudes, temperatures, etc were all shown.

When we finally landed in Hawaii, it was about 7:10pm local time. It was already dusk! We were 4 rows from the back of that huge plane, so it took quite some time for us to actually get off... but when we finally did, we were SO happy to be moving! Made our way down to the baggage claim area, and there was C!! He'd brought fresh, real-flower leis for each of us! They were so fragrant! And beautiful! I was surprised at how heavy they were... and we each got two! LOL Here's a shot of us w/ our leis:

I'd checked 6 suitcases - the maximum we were allowed. Rounded those all up, carted them out to the car (a Jetta he'd borrowed from a friend for the whole weekend) and he managed to get them all inside the car. Not easy! It was an extremely quick drive to the hotel, as it's basically ON airport property. Or might as well be. It was not what I'd hoped for because we can't just take a walk and get to anything good. So when C is at work, the kids and I are stuck here at the hotel. But anyway, that first night we went to bed immediately because by the time we got checked and moved in, it was after 9:00pm here, and that felt like 3:00am to us because of the 6 hour time difference.

I was up at 4:50am the next morning, too! So we got an extremely early start to the day. Ate a quick breakfast and we were off on a very full day. C drove us up to the base (Schofield Barracks) and showed us around. A lot of the housing does look rather run down... be interesting to see what we get. Visited his barracks which is nicer than the hotel we're in! Drove around base, saw the "lemon lot" where other Army families put their used cars up for sale. Nothing along our lines there.

Next stop... The MALL! I'd read and heard alot about the Ala Moana Shopping Center, so we headed there. It's just as you get to Waikiki, and it's pretty huge!! It was different than I'd expected, tho! It's not an indoor mall. You park on the ground floor, and then walk around the outside edge of that first floor. Ride the escaltors up and then the shops are in a circle around you and you walk up and down the center aisle. But it's all open and sooo nice!! Flowers everywhere make it REALLY pleasant. There are 4 levels to the place, and it's got quite the selection of shops, from Old Navy and surf shops to Fendi, Tiffany's, Gucci, Armani, Chanel and SO many more. Made for some good window shopping, for sure.

The weather here is fabulous!! The car we were using doesn't have A/C, but we weren't melting, either. After the heat and misery of South Carolina, this place is truly Paradise. I don't find it too hot and I think there's not a whole lot of humidity either. It's warm... high 80's I'd say. It's warm enough, though, where a good swim in the ocean is really inviting!! So we drove on into Waikiki... it was a Friday afternoon, and we actually found a place to park on the street. Below are pics of our first swim in the awesome waters here and a couple of the "typical" scenic Wakiki shots that I just had to take!!

After Waikiki, we drove over to Pearl Harbor. We were in search of a lemon lot there, too. Drove right by some amazing ships... I just took this out of my car window:

Next day: Saturday. Day 2.

I woke up even earlier than the day before! 4:08am. Going to take longer to get used to the time change than I'd thought. Got another early start to our day! We drove up to Kaneohe Marine Corps Base (K Bay) first. We took the H3 through the mountains to get there and there were some really pretty views along the way. Here are mountains still with a morning cap of fog along the tops:

After leaving K Bay, we headed north along the Windward side of the island, stopping for lunch along the way. Each beach we passed, I read a corresponding description of from a wonderful book called "Oahu Revealed" from Wizard Publications. Tiny towns here couldn't be more different than what we saw on the southern side, Waikiki area!! We drove along, rounding the very peak of the island (Kahuku Point) and started down the official North Shore! Turtle Bay Resort was first and then we came to Sunset Beach!! It looked too good to pass up, so we pulled over and jumped out of the car. Getting to the beaches here is SO easy!! You park, you roll out of the car, and walk a few feet and there you are! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!

Here are my pics from Sunset Beach:

After leaving Sunset Beach, we continued driving south along the North Shore, passing Waimea Bay (can't wait to return and actually stop there!), and at Haleiwa, we turned inland to drive back to Schofield Barracks again. We went right by the Dole Plantation, driving thru miles of pineapple fields! Spent the rest of the day looking for a car... never finding anything. We also went to the Navy Exchange (NEX) and bought snorkleing gear for the 4 of us. Once you've spent the money on the gear, it's a free activity from then on!!

Next day: Sunday. Day 3.

We loaded back into the car, intending to go to Hanauma Bay for snorkling. We arrived there at 9:15am and the lot was full already!!! Definitely a thing to do on a weekday, I suppose. So we kept on driving around the point at Hawaii Kai there, and came upon a scenic vista stopping point, so we pulled off and viewed the following scenes of Halona Blowhole:

Continuing the drive up the Windward coastline: We came to Makapuu Beach. The islands in the picture below are Manana (Rabbit) Island State Seabird Sanctuary and Kaohikaipu Island State Seabird Sanctuary and the water is Kaupo Bay (Cockroach Bay). LOL!!! Ick! But it certainly is gorgeous!

Next stop.... Bellows Beach!! This is found on Bellows Air Force Base... it's open to civilians on the weekends, and to military people only during the week. I'd seen pictures of it before, and couldn't wait to get there myself. The kids were dying to try their snorkling gear out, so even tho it definitely wasn't ideal conditions, we did it anyway. LOL They were AWESOME at it!! It didn't take very long before they were both floating around, washing wherever the waves took them. I even learned, too!

After the time at Bellows beach, we moved further up the coast to Lanikai Beach which was fabulous!! The water was calmer and we snorkled a good bit there, too. We took turns going out deeper to coral reefs and looking at fish! I was apparently too busy enjoying myself to take any pictures here, because I don't have any! LOL

Time to post my final mainland post here, finally! We had more than a couple of setbacks that just cost more time, but finally we're set to go on to Hawaii.

We leave home around 10:00am Thursday (August 18) flying to Atlanta, and then straight on to Honolulu from there. We are #2 on the housing waiting list, so I don't think we'll be living in a hotel too awfully long, for which I'm grateful.

I don't know how long it will be until I can start posting pictures and stories, but I hope it won't be too long. C already has a laptop over there, and our home computers will follow in a month or two.

For those with my phone number... feel free to call, just remember the 6 hour time difference!!! LOL When it's Noon here, it's 6am there.

See you all on the flip side!

This may be my last entry written in South Carolina. I don't know how much longer I will have internet access, because tomorrow (August 5th) is my last day of work and I'll have to cancel service at the house real soon. We were supposed to have closed on the house tomorrow as well, but that was moved back to sometime next week, hopefully the first of the week.

The kids will start school here on Monday so that they don't acquire any absences on their record for this school year. That will make it easier for me to do the last minute business things before leaving, too.

C is enjoying his time on the island, it sounds like! He's doing really well in his job, and had his first real unplanned Medic duty when a guy broke his leg during PT this week! He said it was weird, having to work on a real person for the first time, but he did it and it sounds like it went as well as it could have!

My best friend from college is coming to spend a long weekend with me this weekend!! Yay Shanny! It will probably (hopefully) be our last weekend here, too. We'll go to the pool, and the beach and maybe downtown. I don't know! Just so long as it's fun and relaxing! I need to get my hair cut one last time here, and buy some suitcases to pack the things we want to live with for the next month or two (until our household goods arrive via boat to our new house in Hawaii).

Here's the latest picture I've received from C and his cool new phone (thanks Barbara!) This was taken from the parking lot at the Pearl Ridge Mall near Pearl Harbor... of the USS Arizona Memorial. Maybe you can see it out there in the distance.......

Soon I will be there with my fancy new digital camera, taking picture perfect postcard shots! That's the plan, anyway. =o)