Holidays

I had to get up and blog tonight. I went to bed and looked at the stack of clothes sitting next to my suitcase. I started thinking about how we're leaving this condo next Monday morning and driving to Redding for Thanksgiving week. Thanksgiving. I think the last holiday I had with my family, besides Mother's Day, was Thanksgiving 2006. It's been difficult to get up to Redding for holidays for most of our marriage because either we've lived too far away or our business has required our presence here during those busy times. I haven't had Christmas in Redding in, well, I can't even remember how many years.

Anyway, as I anticipate the next week in Redding I am finding myself thinking more about the end of the week when it's time to say good-bye than enjoying all the days we are going to be there. I hate good-byes and this will be the last time I will see my family for probably a year, with the exception of those who will make the expensive trip out to see us when the baby is born. Which will probably be my parents and that's it. So for my brother and his family, my grandparents and everyone else, hopefully I'll see ya in a year? :(

I've grown accustomed to living several hours away from "home" since it has now been over 13 years since I moved away. But I've never been more than a 10-hour drive away. Taking this next step to Hawaii where driving home is no longer an option is a tough one for me. It really is the greatest personal sacrifice for me in this move. How much of my family's lives am I going to have to miss out on being so far away? A lot, I fear. Definitely more than I would like. Hopefully we'll strike it rich and I will have the leisure of coming home more frequently...with 3 little ones? Oh fun. Ha! At least the baby will be a free flyer for a couple of years.

Anyway, I'm just writing and trying to process my sadness over this aspect of our "shift." I've talked to Jenny in Hawaii about how it's been for her living so far away from 2 of her 4 children, a few of her grandchildren and her mother and sister. She pretty much said "it sucks" and it's really hard to adjust to at first, but you get used to it after a while. Not that it ever gets easier, you just get used to having that bit of sadness in your life. Great.

Then there's the whole aspect of guilt I deal with. Each time I've had a new baby I've felt SO guilty for living far away from my family, preventing them from being a part of their daily lives while they're so young. I fear that the birth of this next child, especially since we're assuming it's our long-awaited girl, will bring this guilt on with brute force. Thankfully we have technology today that helps with these distances, such as Skype and e-mail and digital photography, but it's just not the same as being there in the flesh. Of course I get to have her with me, but I want to be able to share her!

Okay, there has to be a bright side to look at somewhere in all of this or I will fall deep into the pit of depression here. Well, thank God we are not living in the days of Abraham when he was told to "go" and left his family not even knowing where he was going and probably not having many communication options, if any. At least we know where we are going and, let's face it, there are a lot worse places God could have asked us to go! And hopefully the fact that we're living in paradise will help motivate our family and friends to come and visit us! :) Making this move is a big step in obedience and faith for us and we know that the Lord will be as faithful to us in honoring our decision and sacrifice as He has always been. He will take care of us and our life there will be amazing and our long-awaited dreams will be fulfilled. That doesn't sound so bad, now does it?

We got it!

Okay, so we got that house I mentioned earlier. Our friends in Hawaii checked it out and said it's nice, clean, and has a great yard. BUT, they also said the bedrooms were pretty small and the house felt a little like a double-wide mobile home as far as size and shape goes. We had received another e-mail from someone offering their 3/2 home to us as of January 1st and we were looking into that as another option. Then the owners of the 1st home let me know they changed their plane tickets to leave Hawaii from January 20th to January 5th so that it would be ready for us the day we arrive in North Kohala. Very sweet of them, albeit a little premature. :) We hadn't officially agreed to rent the home. But we are going to take it on a month-to-month basis so we're not married to it. And, since it is partially furnished, it will give us a comfortable place to land for a few months while we look for something more permanent and whatever furnishings we may need down the road.

So even though it came a bit unexpectedly, I think this is a good plan. We don't have to keep searching everyday for what rentals are out there and asking our friends to do a drive-by. We can rest in knowing we will have a place to settle into the day we get there and won't have to house search while also getting Alex into the swing of things with his new school.

Now we're back to figuring out our next challenge--buying our shipping container and getting that and our car on their way to Hawaii after Thanksgiving!

Could this be it???

Well, I just found an exciting e-mail in my inbox. A few weeks ago I had posted an ad on Hawaii's Craigslist.com. My title said:

$1350 Responsible Family of 4 Looking for a North Kohala Home (Kapaau/Hawi)

I honestly didn't think I posted the ad right because I couldn't even find it when I searching for it later. But I just received this response:

Aloha,

We will be moving to Texas on January 20th and need someone to live in our house for about 6 months or so. It is a nice 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath house in Halaula which is about 1 mile from Union Mill Rd.

It will be partially furnished with couch, kitchen table, fridge, stove, washing machine, one full size futon bed and dresser. There is a fenced backyard and it backs up to a macadamia nut farm.

Aloha,

Niko

This sounds so perfect, especially if they want to rent it to us for the $1350 price I put in my title! I can hardly wait for the response from her again. I told her we are SOOO interested! Who knows, we may end up being able to stay longer than 6 months or we may be ready to move onto Jenny & Sully's land by then.

So here are a couple photos and we'll see what happens!

House Hunting

So, with 57 days now left in our countdown, I am looking more seriously at what our housing options are going to be in Hawaii. I really like the idea of having a home pre-rented and ready to move into when we set foot on the island. But that means renting it somewhat blindly, perhaps having a friend over there check it out for us in advance. Part of me would prefer to walk through it myself before signing on the dotted line.

This brought us to our next idea, which is to find a vacation rental on VRBO.com and rent a furnished place for a month. This would allow us to have our own space and give us a few weeks to perform our house hunt in person, which the potential landlords we have spoken to so far seem to prefer. I stayed up until 12:30 a.m. last night going through the listings at VRBO.com and sending quote requests for the month of January. I have received three responses so far. 1) $3000/month for a 2-bedroom. 2) No vacancy. 3) $9500/month (after a 30% discount, believe it or not). Hmmm, so far this plan is not working well. We may be on to Plan C.

Right now Plan C is to spend a few days living in the converted school bus at Jenny & Sully's with Alex & Aaron while we house hunt. This is a more economical approach, for sure, but potentially more stressful for me. I know myself and I am going to be eager to nest. Being 5 months pregnant will only add to that. Our 1st priority when we arrive is going to be getting through the hoops required to get Alex in school by the following Monday. TB testing, paperwork, etc. I don't know if I will feel up to living in a bathroomless, kitchenless bus with my 2 little ones for 2-3 weeks at that point. I would prefer not to.

Back to Plan A. We do our best to secure a rental BEFORE we arrive! I think I will give it a couple more weeks and then start putting calls into the few property management companies I know of and see what they have available. This house hunting from across the ocean is a challenge, to say the least. But, I have to believe that "our house" is going to be ready and waiting for us and that the doors to it will be opened at just the right time.

I feel better already. See, now this is why blogging is great. Chances are no one will read this but me and 1 or 2 others. But it really is helping me process this transition and the potential stress involved. And if anyone wants to know the details of what we're thinking and feeling, here it is. :)

Retail Therapy

Yesterday my sweet hubby took the day off work to drive me up to Carson City for a b-day shopping trip. The only thing I really wanted to buy was a new set of dishes for Hawaii, since I recently got tired of my old set and my mom bought them from me. I've made a few shopping trips to Carson in the past and I've always left feeling like a giant ball of chaos. Either I don't have enough time to accomplish what I want, or I'm overwhelmed at the sudden opportunity to shop at seemingly countless stores and without children, or the crowd is too great and I feel frustrated, or I'm not able to find what I'm looking for.

But this shopping trip was different. I could tell it was my birthday because it was a great day. Peter & I shopped at 5 different stores for dishes and ended up both selecting the same set at World Market. Score. We went in another store and bought the 3 biggest suitcases we could find for our move to Hawaii. Mine is silver and has blingy wheels, making it easy to find at the baggage terminal. Score. (haha) I went to Ross to return 3 sweatshirts for Mark and decided to take a peek at the maternity rack. Surprisingly I ended up in the dressing room with 16 items to try on. ALL of them fit (there's a birthday miracle right there). And I bought all of them, only paying $30 after my sweatshirt return. Gotta love Ross! Score. The only bummer was that I didn't have time to go to Target, but I probably ended up saving money I didn't have left to spend anyway. Score.

On the drive home, I noticed that I felt happy. This shouldn't be unusual, but it was definitely in contrast to how I had been feeling since the election results. I had also been feeling very nervous about our big move for some time. Little did I know a little retail therapy was all I needed to snap out of it! I told Peter in the car, "I think I am getting excited about moving to Hawaii now!" I am looking forward to having people over, people I have not yet met in a house I have not yet seen, and having dinner at the table we do not yet own with my pretty new dishes. I am looking forward to meeting the challenge of packing our 3 ginormous suitcases (one for me, one for Peter, one for Alex & Aaron to share) in just a matter of days and living out of them for several weeks. Then finally flying with those few possessions to Hawaii where, hopefully, we will meet up with our shipping container and unpack into our new home.

I haven't felt excited about this move for a while now, and I've felt almost guilty about it. It is so clearly God's next step for our family, I have no doubt about that, I should be thrilled! But I could only focus on the great cost (financially and relationally) of making this move and the stress and sadness of it all. But I'm getting there. My heart is catching up with our decision to go for it. I would say I'm still soberly aware of the costs and that does put a damper on my excitement level, but I'm getting there. And if I start to slip into the pit of despair again, PLEASE someone take me to the mall!

I'm in a Blue State

Well, considering the election results tonight, I am somewhat speechless. I actually sobbed (yes, SOBBED) when the announcement was made. That surprised me. In some ways this feels like a death. My birthday is tomorrow and I really was thinking it would be a celebration in more ways than one. Yeah, this is a huge disappointment. No two ways about it.

I don't really know what today's vote will mean for the future of our country or for the future of my own family. This is the only encouragement I have to hold onto right now: ...for no authority exists except by God's permission. The existing authorities have been established by God, so that whoever resists the authorities opposes what God has established, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For the authorities are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you like to live without being afraid of the authorities? Then do what is right, and you will receive their approval. For they are God's servants working for your good. That's God Word. That's what HE says about this election. So I can accept that.

It is interesting to me that Obama was born and raised in Hawaii. California is a blue state and so is Hawaii. We are for sure a red family, despite how blue we feel tonight. So we will be a minority in more ways than one. At least Obama is and will be pro-Hawaii.

God bless America and especially Hawaii. :)

Ship It or Start Over???

As I've been doing my research for this move, I've been shocked at how expensive it is to move our belongings across the ocean! And having talked to Jenny & Sully about it, they say the cost has nearly doubled since they made the move six years ago. Dang. So far, here's what we have:

Cost of buying 20' container: $1700
Cost of shipping container: $4300
Cost of delivering container: ???
Cost of UHaul to deliver our things to the container in LA: ???
Cost of shipping our car: $1000
Cost of our plane tickets: $1900

So, with two expenses yet unknown, already we're at almost $9000! After seeing this we've decided to try to sell our Landcruiser. If it doesn't sell, we'll go ahead and ship it over. I'm told we can sell it for more money in Hawaii than we can sell it for here, so we could possibly make the $1000 back. I came to the point of wanting to have one final moving sale, make as much money off of our stuff as we can, ship a few boxes of irreplaceable items over via USPS, and take only what we could fit in our suitcases! Peter talked me out of it, though.

For one, I don't think we have enough time to go through all of our boxes again and figure out what to sell, what to mail over and what to get rid of. I've done that process once already. For two, it would really be a pain to have to shop for and replace EVERYTHING we own. Considering we'll be having a baby a few months after we land in Hawaii, I just don't want to have to deal with hunting down all that baby gear, kitchen & household stuff, etc. The idea of buying all new things is fun in a way, but another part of me likes the idea of having some sense of familiarity in our home while everything else in our life will be different. That's enough change for me.

Basically we're paying again for everything we own just in the cost of shipping it over. Oh well. At least we can write it off as a moving expense. :)