Hello Hawaii!

Gosh it feels good to sit down and do something regular after the week I’ve had!  To say things in our lives have been crazy over the past week would probably be one of the world’s biggest understatements.  This time has been filled with many smiles, a lot of what-ifs, and even a few tears.  I promised to keep you up to date on our move, so here we go!

Just one of the three truckloads we dropped off….

Last weekend and the beginning of last week were spent doing something dreadful…..moving!  How is it possible for one little family of three to acquire so much stuff over a period of about 6 years!?  Since we’d already spent a couple weeks sorting and running yard sales, last week was all about packing the 9 bags we took with us, and donating about 3 truck loads of stuff to The Salvation Army.  It was wild.

Then came the cleaning.  Thank goodness I have a wonderful mother who has willingly jumped in to help us clean, pack, or watch Charlie every single time we’ve made a move.  She will definitely be the reason we get our deposit back from our rental, and I am so thankful for her.  Nick and I also spent a good day cleaning though, and gosh was it fun…..{Did you catch my sarcasm there!?}

After getting all moved out and making everything nice and tidy, we still had a lot of work to do.  We were all set to fly out early Wednesday morning, but getting everything we needed into our luggage and then packing boxes to be shipped to us once we arrived was a trick in itself.  We stayed up super late on Tuesday just packing and chatting.  Miraculously, everything got done and we made it onto the plane first thing Wednesday!

Charlie did so good on our flights!

I have to just stop for a quick minute to let the proud parent in me shine through…..I can’t even explain to you how perfect Charlie was on this trip!  We had two flights, one just about an hour and a half, and the second six hours.  The first, though, got delayed (with us stuck sitting in the plane) for an hour, and we barely made it onto our second flight.  Which meant no extra time for our little guy to stretch his legs, get lunch, or even use the bathroom.  Oh my!  He was such a trooper though, and we heard very little whining despite everything.  The man sitting behind us on the flight even told him “You should get an award for being so good!” as we were getting off the plane.  I’m a pretty lucky mommy over here.

We arrived to Hawaii about 2pm local time, but about 6pm our time…..and we had a 2.5 hour drive at the end of all those flights!  We made it while only getting lost once or twice though, and got settled into our little vacation rental.

Beautiful Hawaiian Sunrise.

It’s taken a few days of recovery, and we’re still waking up incredibly early (the time difference is 4 hours behind Colorado where we used to live) and going to bed as the sun goes down.  Oh well.  Not a bad schedule to have….means we get to see the sunrise more often!

We’ve spent the last few days doing all the not-so-fun stuff about moving.  Buying a car, looking at some possibilities for our housing situation, buying groceries, opening a bank account, etc.  It’s been a whirlwind!

Shipman Beach, Big Island Hawaii

We have managed to get a few fun things in, though, including a couple trips to some natural hot springs nearby, and a 5 mile hike to a secluded beach!  Yesterday was Charlie’s first time at a real beach, and his reaction was totally worth the blisters on my feet, and the crazy number of bug bites I have (the mosquitoes here are of the ninja variety….I haven’t seen a single one yet, but I look like I have the chicken pox.  Ugh.)!

This week we plan to get into more of a routine.  We still have to figure out where we’re going to live after Wednesday (yikes!) but it’s time to get back to work.  Which means you’ll see me around Facebook more often again, and you’ll be hearing some murmurings about a Mystery Create-A-Long that I have coming up!  I am really looking forward to settling into our schedules again….and having some uninterrupted work time.  In fact, the boys are off playing right now while I write this up.  It’s nice to have a little quiet to get my work done.

Have you ever made a big move?  How long did it take you to get settled in, and what is your best piece of advice?  I could really use all the advice I can get!

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