Kindness

My brother was our first visitor to our new home here in Hawaii.  He was here for 10 days, and we explored so much of the island in that time.  We wanted to make his first trip to Hawaii memorable, and it certainly was.  [I will blog more about his visit later.]

Towards the end of his visit, he and I met up with a new friend to go stand-up paddle boarding at Kailua Beach Park.  [Side note: It is so much harder than it looks!] 

Shortly after we paddled out, I noticed Jon's sunglasses were missing.  They had fallen off his head and consequently, were now at the bottom of the ocean.  He didn't seem to mind, though, since they were just a cheap pair he had bought for the trip.  However, when I noticed the missing sunglasses, I had a brief moment of panic because Jon was also carrying our underwater camera (the one that Dan had just bought...see the last blog post) and I feared it had the same fate at his sunglasses.  So I called out to make sure he still had the camera.  He did.  We were good.  

Time passed.  We paddled pretty far out.  We fell on and off the boards.  It was a great morning.

  

Until... 

Jon realized what I had initially feared = the camera was no longer in his pocket. 

My heart sank.  I could have cared less about the camera.  It's a material possession.  It can be replaced. I was more concerned about all of the pictures we had taken from his trip to Hawaii that could not be replaced.  

So Jon, our new friend, and I tried to quickly devise a plan.  Jon was going to stay put in the ocean.  He believed that the camera had just fallen out of his pocket, so it couldn't have been far from his current spot.  Our new friend was a very good swimmer and could open her eyes underwater, so she began to look around beneath the surface.  I paddled back to the shore to try and find someone who would perhaps let us borrow their snorkel gear so we could better see underwater and possibly find the camera.   The first few people I asked spoke very little English and/or they did not have any goggles.  I was getting discouraged, but I continued to walk along the beach.  I finally came across a couple who was willing to help. They were headed out to snorkel anyway, and they gladly responded to my request to help us look for the camera.  What a blessing! 

From there, the couple met my brother out in the ocean and they all began to search for the camera.  I sat on the beach with the paddle boards.  And as I sat, I prayed.  I knew it was a "trivial" prayer request, but I prayed that somehow we would be able to save our pictures.  

Time passed.  More time passed.  They swam out pretty far and everyone made a valiant effort to find our camera.  But to no avail.  It was nowhere to be found. 

RIP Camera

Obviously, my brother felt horrible.  And I was sad. But I tried to encourage him. I wasn't mad at him at all.  It was an accident! And I totally understood that.  It could have easily happened to me if I were the one carrying the camera.  Even though we had lost several pictures from his trip, we were thankful for the memories and opportunity to experience all we had done in the first place.  Plus, we had several other pictures from other cameras to document his trip. Nonetheless, my brother insisted upon buying us a new underwater camera, which was extremely generous of him.  

This all happened about 2-3 weeks ago.  

Fast forward to this week.  Dan texts me from work telling me to call him ASAP, which I now realize is a horrible thing to text someone! See, Dan typically doesn't get cell service at work, so I had gotten used to not hearing from him throughout the day.  So a text of this nature immediately sent me into panic mode, thinking something was wrong.  Thankfully, nothing was wrong, but he was calling to share a very strange voicemail he had just received.  It was from an unknown number. The woman left a message saying she thought she had found our underwater camera! What in the world?! We both were shocked.  Even if this were true, we were baffled at the thought of someone not only finding the camera, but also how they would have tracked us down.  Our name wasn't on the camera.  And even if it was, certainly our contact info wasn't.  We were so confused.  So Dan passed on the number and suggested I call to inquire.  

I called the number and a pleasant voice answered.  I explained how we received her message about the camera.  She was so excited I had called back!  Her husband had been snorkeling at Kailua Beach, and he found the camera.  He took it home and dried it out and they were able to view the pictures! Apparently, they had looked through the pictures and seen a picture of Dan in his Army uniform.  Then  they noticed a stethoscope in another picture.  From there, they somehow found Dan!! 

While on the phone, we made a plan to meet up at a local grocery store so she could return the camera.  And she ended the conversation, by saying, "And don't worry, I know what you look like so I'll be able to find you..." Totally weird slash creepy, but I met her yesterday morning, and got our camera back! (I took a friend with me to meet her just. in. case.) 

I'm still not exactly sure how they found us (and if it wasn't such a random act of kindness, I would have been way more freaked out), but I was certain God had answered my "trivial" request.  Of course, His timing was different than mine, but He heard me and He answered me.  He cares about even the smallest details! 

Here are two underwater pictures that were rescued (so thankful!):

Yes, that's a real shark. More on that story later!

Cute, lone sea turtle just swimming along.

Keep Smiling...

Final Countdown

After several "big" things were checked off the list, the move was quickly approaching.  Here's a recap of our last few days in Erie.  

Monday, June 4

Family left (sad).  My car got loaded on a truck.  We ran errands.  I met some co-workers for happy hour (one last goodbye). Mom was supermom.  We began cleaning the apartment.

Tuesday, June 5

More packing.  More cleaning.  Mom was supermom again. We ate out.  I stayed at the hotel with my mom and finalized some paperwork for Syd's big travel day the next morning. Dan stayed at the house with Sydney.  He cleaned and took care of getting Sydney and her crate ready.  He was superhusband.

Wednesday, June 6

Dan picked Mom and I up at the hotel at 3am and we headed to Cleveland to send Sydney off on the plane.  The process of flying Sydney was another ordeal, but thankfully it all worked out.  The biggest thing we were concerned about was the weather.  Airlines are not allowed to fly dogs if the outside temperature is above 85 degrees.  Her itinerary had her flying through Dallas, which was already in the 90s.  My mom stayed in Erie, in part, so she could take Sydney back home with her if she couldn't fly.  When we got to the airport, the attendant pulled up the weather in all 3 states she'd fly.  Honolulu was at 83 degrees that morning.  God is good! 

On our way to Cleveland

Hated this part.

There she goes!

Breakfast at Bruegger's (my favorite) at 6am

We stopped to see the Ackley's new home and say goodbye one more time

Final GG at Romolo's and final goodbyes 

Love them!

Packing up final items

It took a lot longer than anticipated

We got overtired and silly

Mom tried to convince us to eat everything left in the pantry

I forget why this was funny, but it was at the time

This too

Laughing at how ridiculously heavy my bags were

They were really heavy

Helium voices

Last picture in the house.  Mom took it.  I couldn't.  I didn't want to get sad.

At 11pm we went to Walmart to get our 7th piece of luggage.
We re-packed everything in the hotel parking lot in hopes to redistribute the weight.

After midnight, just hours before the big move! 

We stayed the night (more like a few hours) at the hotel with my mom.  She was beyond wonderful and was a huge support during the busy days leading up to the move.  The three of us made a great team! 

Keep Smiling...

P.S. I'm all caught up!! This means I can post about fun Hawaii things now

Moving vs.Vacationing

Backing up a bit...

Last December, we found out that we were moving to Hawaii.  We knew the military match date was December 15th and eagerly anticipated the news it would bring.  As the date approached, we found out that we could check the results online a day early.  Huge deal.  So December 13th at 11:50pm we broke out the computer and literally watched the clock until it hit midnight so we could "refresh" the page as soon as possible on December 14th. To our surprise, we (obviously) found out that we'd be moving to Hawaii.  

It's hard to sum up what we were feeling in those initial moments.  Ideally, we would have liked to defer and stay in Erie.  And if we got a military residency, we thought it'd be Texas.  Those were the options that we were mentally prepared for. A one-year internship in Hawaii was something totally outside of our realm of possibilities.  We were truly shocked.  Maybe even a bit disappointed.  But I felt a strange peace about it.  I vividly remember thinking, "This isn't a mistake."  It was so beyond what we could have planned for ourselves, that it was clearly God.  For whatever reason, He wanted us in Hawaii for a year.

Now, when friends and family found out, obviously we heard a lot of, "Oh my gosh!" or "No way, that's awesome!" or "I'm so jealous!" Things of that nature...

We wanted so badly to feel that level of pure excitement, but moving to Hawaii is a lot different than just vacationing there.  We were definitely excited, don't get me wrong.  But there were so many logistics involved, that it was overwhelming to think about.  

Okay, so that was December...

We didn't hear anything from the Army for months.  And we couldn't officially plan anything until our orders came.  We knew the end result.  We had to physically be in Hawaii.  Our stuff.  Our cars.  Our dog. Everything. For those of you who know me, you know that I'm a planner.  I like things organized.  I like checking things off to-do lists.  etc.  It was very hard for me to let go of the control I wanted to have but never actually had (if that makes sense).  

In January, we started doing some of our own research, and I'm so glad we did. We learned that moving a dog into the state of Hawaii is quite the process.  Rabies don't exist on the island and so they require pets moving to Hawaii to have blood work done proving that they're rabies-free.  In addition, the quarantine facility in Hawaii needs the results of the blood work 120 days before the pet arrives on the island.  That's 4 months.  If the results weren't in in time, then the dog would have to be quarantined until the 120-day period was up.  And the test itself could take up to 3 weeks to process.  Once we found that out, we immediately met with our vet and got the ball rolling with the process.  Of course everything took time.  And cost money.  But after weeks of waiting, we found Sydney's approved arrival date was, I believe, May 31 and we moved June 7.  We were that close! 

The months passed and we continued to go on with the busyness of work and school.  But we still anxiously awaited our orders so that we'd know our official moving date.  More importantly, though, we needed to start planning.  Everything took time and we realized the clock was ticking.  I think it was sometime in April when we got our first packet from Tripler.  With lots of paperwork to complete, our moving to-do list slowly started to unravel.  

Orders finally came in May and a few days later we shipped Dan's car.  We carpooled for the last month we lived in Erie, but it really wasn't bad at all.  I loved having extra time in the car with Dan as he'd drive me to work each morning.  And after a long day of teaching, walking out to these two was really fun:

Throughout the month of May, we did what we could to "pack."  Thankfully, we didn't have the burden of packing up our entire home since the Army took care of it.  But we could remove things from the walls and spent lots of time sorting through stuff that we didn't want the movers moving.  Reverse packing was almost harder than packing. We tried to get rid of a lot of stuff, too.  Two garage sales and lots of trips to Salvation Army and Plato's Closet. 

We spent several long nights in the garage going through stuff.  We sent many tubs and boxes home with my parents each time they'd come out to Erie to visit - things that we didn't need to take with us to Hawaii for just one year.  

Getting rid of last year's 4th of July sparklers that we found while cleaning out the garage

Along the way, we picked up some typical "Hawaiian" items, and they helped us realize the extent of the awesome adventure we were about to take. Duh, we were moving to Hawaii. We knew once we arrived, it'd be amazing, but it was easy to forget at times. 

On one of the many shopping dates with my friend Tanya, she noticed this Hawaiian shirt in the dog section as we were walking by.  She encouraged me to get it, and I'm so glad I did.  It took lots of treats to get Sydney to let us take this photo. 

Then, my mom couldn't resist buying us Hawaiian luggage.  They actually came in handy (as we later flew with 7 bags!)

One of my students gave me the most thoughtful gift during my last week of teaching.  A beautiful Vera Bradley bag and an assortment of Hawaiian items.  

My cousin sent me a care package right before we left.  It was so thoughtful and a perfect reminder just before the move.  

We had heard that it could take up to 6 weeks for your household goods to go from the mainland to Hawaii.  Knowing this, we had hoped to send our items early to split the time, so that it'd just be 3 weeks on either end without our stuff. However, since we got our orders to late, the moving company was booked when we called. Rather than coming mid-May, they started packing up our home the 29th of May. I had to work throughout the moving days, but Dan was home (thankfully).  In retrospect, it's probably better that I didn't see everything being packed up.  It would have made me nervous.  

Instead, after day 1 of packing, I came home to this...

This box made me laugh.  We're really not hoarders, I promise. 

After Day 2...

Day 3 (May 31) they loaded every last box and piece of furniture on the truck.  We were left with an air mattress and the stuff we were going to fly with.  Strange staying in such an empty house.  

Even though things were stressful at times, we were thankful for the encouragement and prayers of family and friends.  We learned to be patient and trust. And now that we're in Hawaii, it's neat to look back and see how God worked out every detail. Even though everything didn't happen when we wanted it to, it all worked out.  Moving preparations are one thing. But I don't know if you're ever mentally prepared to move to Hawaii! We're still getting used to it!

Keep Smiling...