Hawaii Update

Boy, I need blog therapy...I'm really bad at this whole thing.  My excuses for being so terrible at blogging are the following: 1. I don't have my computer or laptop anymore, 2. I rarely have time, even though some days I feel like I have nothing to do (hmm that's odd), 3. I'm bad about taking pictures and uploading them quickly to be able to blog about things and 4. I never remember to blog and when I do, it's usually late at night when I sleep is my main concern.

It's been a little over 2 months since I last talked about us moving to Hawaii.  So here's an update on the details...
At the beginning of June, I finished my 4th (most stressful) year of teaching.  It was tough to leave such a great environment with some really awesome people.  I am most sad to leave my 2nd grade teammates.  They are amazing women, teachers and friends.  That said, I can't wait to get back to teach at Rohwer again.

After finishing up school and packing up all my goods, we celebrated Gracie's 2nd birthday.  It such a fun weekend!  Friday night was with the Andresen's, and Saturday with the Hernandez and Feldman.  It was so fun to see her play and open presents this year.  My most favorite part of both days was playing with her in the bounce house we rented (Thanks Grandma P!)

Daddy and Gracie in the bounce house!

After the birthday weekend, we I began to clean, de-clutter and pack things we were not taking.  Justin traveled quite a bit this summer to Canada, so that left me with the long list of to-dos.  While cleaning/packing, we encountered a very special item from my past.  Here's me in a really cool bowling jacket that I was awarded with my doubles partner Misty "The Mac Mommy".  We were Doubles Champs in the State of Nebraska!  Unfortunately, this is not traveling with me to Hawaii for there will be no need to announce my awesome bowling skills for a jacket.

It even says my name on it!

We finally had our "store in Omaha" stuff out of the house, "please someone take" pile gone, and the "yes, this is all going" items still in the house for packing day.  The house was finally ready to be listed and put on the market.

Justin and I also traveled to Hawaii for four days to find a place to live.  We flew to Denver, then made the 7 1/2 hour flight to Honolulu.  When we arrived, I saw paradise!  Tropical flowers, palm trees, greenery I've never seen before!  But that was somewhat short lived once we left the airport in our totally touristy car (Mustang convertible).  Yes, I know every place on earth has their "Yikes" places to live, but you rarely see those on vacations.  And yes, I know I wasn't on vacation but everyone said I was moving to paradise!  Anyways, like I said it was somewhat short lived when we got down to Waikiki.  Beautiful beaches, awesome shopping and lots of people watching makes for a neat place to be.  When we house hunted, we looked in the Kapolei, Makakilo and Mililani areas.  These are on the Leeward side (west side of the island). Kapolei is new development where Makakilo and Mililani are older homes but all 3 areas are suburb-y feeling, which I liked because it made it feel a bit more home-y. We found some really great places, but no one wants to wait a month or two to rent out a place.  They want to rent like ASAP.  So by the end of our trip, we did not find a place to live, but we were able to find some great locations and areas to continue searching for our future home.

July begins.  We put the house officially on the market and scheduled 2 open houses for the 2nd and 3rd weeks of July.  So we I continued to clean every day and waited for showings and the open houses.  Well, after a month of being on the market, we had a total of 4 people walk through; 3 of which were on the day of the 1st open house and the other person showed up during dinnertime.  No scheduled showings, no offers.  It's really hard to believe it is taking so long because we had our offer in 2 weeks after the previous owners put it up on the market.  I just keep telling myself that the perfect next owners are waiting for the perfect time.  Here is what the house looked like all through July...

 

Super cute, huh?  So much character, move-in ready, huge patio, great neighbors...what more could you want?!  Next perfect owners, please come fast!!

End of July hits and our home no longer looks or feels like our home.  The movers came on July 27th and seriously had our whole house packed up by 4:00 p.m. Crazy!  I did not see the house with all the boxes and everything packed, which I'm glad about, but I did see the house totally empty, which was very sad.  The movers began the shipping process the 29th.  As I type now, all of our belongings are on a train making its way across America to the west coast.  From there they will put it on a barge and ship it thousands of miles across an ocean.  An ocean, people!  Gosh, who would have thought this is where we would be in 2011.  Not me.

Our great family and friends threw us a "Get the Hell Outta Here" "Going Away" party at the end of July so we could say our farewells and see you laters to our family and friends.  It was definitely a party, and we loved seeing so many people that we care about and love.  We are truly blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives.  This is what makes it hard to leave Omaha.

August is here, and we are currently living with Justin's mom, and waiting for the 14th.  Why the 14th you might ask?  We are officially leaving the mainland on Sunday the 14th.  Hard to believe the time has come for us to leave and say goodbye.  Hard to believe how fast the time went from when we decided to go to now.  Hard to believe all the things, events, babies, weddings, etc. that we will miss while we are gone.  Hard to believe that our new home will be on an island a few thousands of miles away from our real home.

As I've already stated, I'm a bad blogger and need some therapy or maybe counseling or maybe consulting, so I will try my hardest to update along the way.  I'm sure you are all anxious to see Hawaii through our eyes. So, until then...see you later!