ALOHA!

ALOHA!

We have lived in Hawai'i for one whole year!  And to celebrate, Eric and I made plans to not leave our house for the entire weekend.  So I thought maybe, in between binging different things on Netflix, I could blog a little about our life over the past year! 

Mostly we have spent our first year here catching up on all of the small day-to-day moments that we missed over the (intermittent) two years Eric was in Korea.  Even though Eric and I have had the last year to do that, it hasn't felt like enough time yet to be fully caught up.  We just can't get enough of each other.  So I think it might surprise (maybe even shock) some of you if I told you that even though we live in paradise, we rarely leave our house.  

I know.  I know that we live in paradise.  I know that living here is truly a once in a lifetime experience.  And yes, everything here is as incredible as you can imagine.  It's just that we are LOVING being together in an actual house again with all of the comforts we didn't know we missed so much after four years of living in an RV.  And since we are super spoiled having a beach and a sandbar less than a mile from our front door, when we do leave our house, we don't have to go far and can come right back home in less than 2 minutes.

But that's not to say that we haven't explored any of our new home state!  We just.... go out for a little bit, and then hurry right back home.

This is very zoomed in.  It is illegal to get within 50ft of a monk seal in Hawai'i.

U.S.S Missouri

Nightly view from our living room couch.  The sunsets here are magical and always different colors.  I loathe these blinds but there's nothing I can do about them.

In the last year we've managed to get all of the little things of living in a new area figured out.  Things like traffic, learning our way around, exploring the three different Costco's here, and setting up our house and stuff.  We have the nicest neighbors, and even they will tell you that they rarely see us outside our house.  I joined a gym about a month after we arrived and I continue to do HIIT 3-4 times every week, but my perimenopause would have you believing that I haven't stepped a foot inside it.  Eric and I have learned to avoid Waikiki, that the Windward side is magical, parking is a constant headache, and so far, Waimanalo Beach is our favorite of all the beaches here.

Something that surprised us about the Island is how big it feels.  Back when we were going through the PCS process we knew almost immediately that we would be moving to Hawai'i, giving us more than 8 months to prepare.  We didn't make any big announcements about it, not even to our family, but Eric and I would talk about it a little with only a few people that we saw every day.  One of the things that we kept hearing about was a thing called "island fever" - something people say when they feel claustrophobic living in a small area where there is no easy (or cheap) way off.  But we have never felt suffocated here.  Probably because we don't leave our house.  But even so, the island feels huge to us!  

So far, Eric and I have hiked three different trails on O'ahu, explored (or tried to) the Big Island, and just last week Moloka'i Island too.  There are still three more islands to see!  We spent that one week in the Philippines.  And along with everything there is on O'ahu, I don't think we'll ever run out of things to do here.

Koko Head Crater looking down - we hiked this earlier this year when our kiddos came to visit.

Y'all already know how I feel about Manila, but seeing the Big Island was really cool!  Except that the two Kona Low's we got that week made the weather absolutely horrific and we couldn't actually 'see' anything.  (A 'Kona Low' is a slow-moving, extreme winter weather storm - this Kona Low caused over a billion dollars worth of damage to the State.  But we didn't get just one, we got TWO back to back!  And when we thought we were in the clear, the second one formed and hit as we were getting to the Big Island.).

Our first day on the Big Island was more of the extreme amounts of rain that we had been dealing with on O'ahu.  Everything was flooded so we couldn't see out our windows and the roads were washed out.  But the rest of our week there wasn't *as* bad so we were able to meet up with dear old friends, hike along the rim of a volcano, see all four national parks, night snorkel with Manta Rays (one of the top five experiences of my entire life!!!), and compare the black sand beaches to Vik, Iceland.

Kamehameha the Great - the first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawai'i.

Night snorkeling with Manta Rays!

We had a heckuva time getting off the Big Island.  First we lost our rental car keys.  After 45 minutes of pure panic we found them in the garbage.  And then, because of the second Kona Low, O'ahu was not allowing any in-coming flights, forcing us to wait three hours at the airport until they felt it was safe enough for planes to land there.

Our experience on Moloka'i was way different, thankfully.  The weather was picture perfect!  But different because it's a totally opposite vibe of the Big Island or O'ahu.  Moloka'i is teeny tiny, just 38 miles long and 10 miles wide, and everyone knows everyone (literally).  There are no street lights, stop lights, chain restaurants, resorts, or any touristy infrastructure of any kind, not even air conditioning.  While there is a steady stream of flights on and off the island, it's just "puddle jumper" airplanes that get you there and back.  There were no crowds so the beaches were *pristine,* no traffic, and the speed limit never went above 45mph.    

Moloka'i from the air.

Lanai in the distance.  We're planning a day trip there at some point.

The view from our Airbnb balcony.

They call this the "Phallic Rock," but I thought it looked like a turtle.

It probably goes without saying that Hawai'i is a gorgeous place.  There are no words for how absolutely gorgeous it is here!  The colors are more vibrant than anywhere else in the world I've been to.  And staring out at the ocean truly feels like we live on the edge of the world.  

But Hawai'i is so much more than its beauty - the culture, language, the food, people and their customs are deeply important and are truly what makes Hawai'i so special.  The illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 17, 1893 makes us even more appreciative of our time here (but to be honest, we shouldn't be living here at all  Hawai'i should be its own country run by its rightful King or Queen.  And we should only be visiting.  That's just my two cents.)

At some point Eric and I have to get our acts together and attempt to spend more time truly experiencing all of the things that make Hawai'i so special.  We will!  Don't worry, we will.  Just for right now, we are happier than ever and trying to stay in the moment.