This thing called Island Time

Today our first official day of reality and boy was it an eye opener!

We got internet today,... it took 3 hours to set up. You see here they are on Island Time, which pretty much means slow and when we feel like it. They aren't rude about it at all! In fact they are really sweet and helpful while working really slowly. He was telling me all about the area, talking about where a few other beaches are, best places to shop to get deals, what to buy where.

All great info and I did make some notes while we talked but I really just wanted my TV and internet hooked up. So from a mainlanders perspective it felt like forever and lets be honest 3 hours with 3 kids running around while your focus is on something else is forever. He really was very personable, when he left I felt like we were friends now lol. I know about his kids and wife, area he lives, hobbies. All that was missing was setting up a play date.

Its not just the cable company either, every thing is at a slower pace here. Something that I admit I am struggling a little bit to get used to. No rush or hurry from the locals at all, you can spot the transplants pretty easy, they tend to look annoyed and are checking the time a lot.

Lagoons oh my!

After that adventure in the first few days with the waves my son has been a little afraid of hitting the beach. Now where we are living is about 15 minutes away from these 4 lagoons, that while public are over with resorts so they get traffic but not as much as one might expect. The parking is a bit of a challenge I admit, unless you are willing to pay for it, which we totally are, $10 for all day is totally doable for us.

The water was so beautiful, sand perfect for building and had some shells to look for and see how pretty.

We only spent about an hour this first time, because my husband was still recovering from a sun burn he got the last day at the hotel when we spent way to much time at the pool!

The lagoons made for a perfect ending to our first week in the new house. Tomorrow we start school and my husband heads back to work from leave and reality sets in that this isn't vacation and is where we live. Shall see how that reality goes.

Whirlwind in paradise!

Yesterday we pulled the trigger on a house and officially sign today!

So yesterday we went shopping, we needed air mattresses, a TV, TV stand, kitchen table, patio set we are going to use in the living room until our stuff gets here. You know the essentials haha. Really we got those too a couple of dishes, towels the more boring stuff :)

The big downside to the new house is the drive as I mentioned.

This was after a storm. shut it down!

Otherwise its beautiful, there is always a great breeze, windows open and the misty showers are glorious! I think I was made for island life. I hate the cold and this weather is perfect for me, loving the heat and sun! You really do see rainbows like daily because of those misty showers and that its almost always sunny while it rains.

Botanical Gardens; Lili'okalani and Fosters

I am a photographer, its my day job, so while moving to a new area especial Hawaii can be great for business it can also be a bit rough. I need to find all new places to take pictures, I need to find out about permits needed, need to get reestablished in a new place with already established photographers looking at me as an interloper.

Today we hit a couple of local gardens to scout locations and take some photos of the kids. Part of me thinks I am going to love it here, once the rest of my gear shows up!

This is from Lili'uokalani Botanical Garden, which my travel book told me was a total skip garden, I could not disagree more!

I want to come back here and take some in the stream and the bottom of the fall! So beautiful! Several great spots for shots at this garden.

Even if you are just out for a walk and not worried about pictures, lots of beauty to see here, though I admit calling it  'garden' might be a bit of a stretch, more of a trail/hike.

These are from Fosters Botanical Garden. Also very pretty and way more garden like.

This Garden has fliers on the birds you will see and the different types of trees and plants. The little ones loved looking for the birds and learning about the native trees and plant life. Some are pretty amazing! 

This was one of my favorite trees, I can just picture a maternity shoot here with these beautiful flowers in the background. 

Days 6 and 7 in our hawaiian paradise; Honolulu Zoo, and Aquarium

Day 6 was a Sunday, we mostly just hung out around the hotel, swimming and doing some shopping because we sign the lease on our house this week! So excited. I am ready to have a little more space for all of us. But we needed some things for the house so since it was a bit rainy in the morning we decided to spend the day shopping and making lists for things we needed to do and get.

Day 7 we were back to some fun. First we hit zoo, became members, well worth the money, and you get a military discount on it as well.

While in a pretty large city on a fairly small island the zoo is pretty nice. Animals seems pretty well cared for.

After that we headed over to the Aquarium to look around a bit, its a pretty small place, again not overly surprised seeing as its on a pretty small island but nice for a quick visit, and in a beautiful location.

All in all I would recommend checking out the zoo for sure and the aquarium if you need something to fill a little bit of time, or if you have kids like I do that love fish!
While is started out a little rainy this weekend it turned out to be a sunny warm 85 degree day with some misty like showers now and again.

Day 5 in Paradise; Disney resort and more

Today we went to the Disney resort here on Oahu for their character breakfast. AMAZING! First the resort is beautiful, and the staff of course is super friendly and helpful. I want to go back and stay a night or two to do all the fun things they have there, they have their own water park, and characters through out the grounds.

At the breakfast which is all you can eat they have Mickey outside posing for pictures, that you can purchase later but they do also take pictures with your phone or camera for you too. The photo CD is only $32 though so totally worth it. They then have Minnie and one other character inside along with Aunty.

While you are eating to your hearts desire Aunty is coming around singing and entertaining you and the children, she is amazing!

They do have a parade with the kids that minnie leads as well.

At no point during the meal do you feel rushed or pushed out for other guests to come in, you really feel like you can take your time eat and enjoy the show. Minnie and goofy were there today and came by the table several times and posed for pictures and were great about hugs kisses and dancing with the little ones, older ones too :)

Since this was for my youngest birthday we had a cake as well, a little bit pricy $27 for this 7inch cake, but the look on her face made it more than worth it. I highly recommend going if you have the chance, its an expense, but a memory that will last for you and the little ones.

After we finished up breakfast we headed over to look at another house. This house... WOW! It was just amazing, everything about it is perfect! All of us are in love. (The master bath is out of this world) A bit of a drive for him to go to work but that seems like it will be the case with any house off post that allows cats. I am excited we may not be in a hotel for long.

Day 4 in Paradise; house hunting

Originally we were going to hit the aquarium and zoo today but he ended up needing to go do some paper work, and then we went and saw 2 houses. The houses were the best part of the day!

House number one. Beautiful kitchen and I really liked the lay out of the 2 upper floors but the main front window would have been the oldest bedroom window and thats just really awkward and unpleasant to me. No back yard at all, but the rent is good...

House number two. LOVED pretty much everything about this house. The back yard is great, tons of area to be able to plant and garden which I love, and the kitchen while smaller is nice, bedrooms are all a decent size. Everyone seems pretty happy with this one. Rent is great and includes EVERYTHING! Need to sleep on it and see how we feel in the morning I suppose. 

Tomorrow we are heading to the Disney Resort here on the island for the youngest birthday breakfast party! I am really looking forward to that. 

Don't worry I won't be doing every single day for the whole 3 years we will be living here, just until he heads back to work then it be be at least once a week maybe more depending on how exciting life is.

Day 3 in Paradise

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Today we had some military meetings to deal with so we spent most of the day around the hotel, so let me take a few minutes to tell you about the hotel we are staying in.

Its not one of the more fancy or nice ones because again we have a pet and need to have the room for possibly months, so compromises are made.

We are staying at the airport inn. Its older, like a lot older and our view... well its nothing to brag about, but the staff is super friendly and helpful. We do have 2 adjoining rooms which is nice because 5 people in one room for months might drive ya mad.

They do meal vouchers everyday for one meal for all of us, either breakfast or dinner and the portions are surprisingly huge and the food is great! I wish I had a camera last night to show you my salad! The whole family could have spilt one and the husband and I both got one.

We hung out at the pool a bit, its beautiful and goes from 3-8ft. Incredibly well maintained and clean, we have watched them cleaning it every morning during breakfast. All in all its not a bad hotel for what we need it for and really we are in Hawaii!

So far we have had a couple rain showers which lasted maybe 5 min and the sun was out the whole time, the breeze has been pretty much a constant and its been beautiful!

Tomorrow I believe we are going to try to hit the zoo and maybe the aquarium

Day 2 of our Hawaiian adventure!

We woke up at 2 am, all of us today, because thats a totally reasonable time back in Tennessee, not so much here. Phone calls aplenty this morning. The good news in that is that it sounds like we have a few people interested in our house there! Bad news they called me at 3am to tell me :) So today we are a little out of it. We have running around to do for things we need that we couldn't bring with us, housing appointment, and we wanted to do something fun with the kids, something hawaiian because so far they have seen parking lots mostly.

Housing appointment went as expected, which isn't a great thing, but we knew it was going to be a challenge to get on post housing here. So let the off post house hunting begin!

We ended up doing a little sight seeing around North Shore, the kids loved the waves, and running into and away from them.

That is until the wave knocked them off their feet. Was a great day though and a good into to parts of Hawaii.

A step away, and Day 1 of our new adventure

So I had to take a step away because things got real fast for us. When we got orders to move UCONOS and needing to list our house and him deployed, I just never had time to share all that was going on with you! However we have arrived in our new home and I keep seeing posts complaining about being here and the way things are here so I have decided I need to commit and make time to share what we are doing because their is way to much negative out there!

So we arrived here in beautiful Hawaii. We spent a week in a hotel before flying out, it wasn't much fun. I remember vacations being a blast, but as an adult its a lot less entertaining. New respect for my parents. The flight leaving Tennessee was delayed to the point that when we landed in Houston we had to run to the tram and run from it to our gate getting there after boarding had started. But we made the flight, sadly because we left so early in the morning we had few snacks on us and ended up having to spend a ton on the plane snacks for 5 people but after an 8 hour flight we made it! The kids did awesome!

After we landed we spent a good deal of time running around, getting to the hotel, getting our rental, going and picking up our cat. As a side note if you have a pet, don't move here! Its a huge pain to get your pet into this state. If you have to start early because its a long process to keep your animal out of quarantine and after seeing that place you want to keep your animal out of there! Most depressing place on earth! Anyway, after being up for 24 hours we all went to bed, but sadly struggled to get on local time that first night.

Now I know you are thinking big that sure sounds like a lot of negative but that was just the lead up and the first half day :) And really with 12 checked bags and 6 carry ons I think we rocked it :)