Well, it HAS been a long time since I wrote.  We have now been here for 1 year!  So, you ask, do I like it better?  Maybe, a little.  I have good friends now.  We are very active and not sitting in the baking-hot house as much. 

 

We found that the dollar movie theatre is a great place to escape when our house gets over 100 degrees.  I am also neck-deep in the management of our homeschool group.  MHEN is a christian-based group for Military families on Oahu.  I am in charge of field trips and Scholastic book orders and sometimes other stuff.  Morgan and Ethan have activities almost daily.  That keeps us out of the house.

 

The house has not grown on me much.  It is about 800 sq ft. and doesn't have a/c.  The walls are just planks.  If we hammer a nail in the inside, it will show up on the outside. The good news in this is that the rats can't get inside the walls.  Yes, rats!  Lots of rats!  Dead ones, and noisy ones, and ones that have to be chased and hit with badmitton rackets under the house.  Rats that jump over rafters in the crawl space with glue traps stuck to their backs.  The good news is that we don't seem to have a serious roach problem and the rats won't come inside the house because of the dogs.  But, we will need to be tented for termites.  The yard is still a mudhole when it rains, which is daily this time of year.  We aren't flooding like last year, though.  The earthquakes were scary.  The first one was while we were on the beach, so I was worried about Tsunamis.  The other one, no Tsunami could get this high up the mountain, but our house rocked back and forth and we weren't sure if we would fall into the street or not.  We didn't!   

 

Hawaii is a beautiful place for a vacation, but living here is difficult.  It is soooo expensive.  I am working at ToysRUs to help out, especially since our house in NC is empty.  Johnnie loves it here and so do the kids.  But houses aren't as important to them.  Ethan would like to be able to ride his bike more and Morgan gets upset that she can't swing in the yard when it is muddy.  But, they all love to go wheeling.  They can go at a moment's notice and be having fun within an hour.  John is planning on taking us to Kauai in July to go wheeling and sight seeing.

 

You know we took pictures by the tree Elvis sang under.  Look in the Polynesian Cultural Center photos.  We saw whales, learned how to cut pineapples, experienced rainbows and colored sunsets everyday, and hiked Diamondhead twice.  We are taking advantage of every opportunity in case we get to come home a year early.  John is applying for a position back in DC.  We will see...

 

Thanks for checking in on us!

 

Love,

Kathy