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Kayaking in Kaneohe Bay

We had a fantastic time today. We headed over to the other side of the island and rented kayaks from the outdoor recreation facility at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Base.  Mike's brother, Pat, had joined us for the day, thinking that we were going to be just hanging out on a beach somewhere.  He was quite surprised to discover the real objective!

Since none of us are real outdoorsy types, it took us well over a half hour to get the kayaks into the water, loaded and occupied.  Then Pat capsized and we lost the snorkel gear that I hadn't exactly secured.  Oops!  We got him a bigger kayak (please note that a person who is 6"5' doesn't fit well into a regular single kayak) and we were finally on our way.

We piddled around the bay for a couple hours without any real goals.  I loved the terrific view of the mountains and we were all captivated by the sea cucumbers that we could see below us when went over a big sand bar area.  They were a bright orangish pink color and were very long with tiny little leg-looking things on one end.  Fascinating!  I just did some research online to see what these are called and found a picture; they are officially opheodesoma spectabilis or the conspicuous sea cucumber. Isn't nature great!

Now we're home and watching all the election coverage.  Looks like Obama's going to do it! 

The best laid plans...

As all parents know, we have to be flexible with any plans that we make.  Our first week of block leave was waylaid by Marisa's fever and cough.  Then Mike caught it.  Oh, boy!

Despite illness, we managed to ensure that Jillian had a great 11th birthday.  We hung up decorations while she slept and provided ice cream cake for a birthday breakfast.  She had all her presents opened by 7am so that she could be off to school by 7:30!  After school, Mike took her for her first ever Parasailing ride.  She loved it and even got to go twice since another gal needed a partner.  In the afternoon, we visited the Hard Rock Cafe so that Jillian could have a huge brownie sundae complete with waiter serenade.  That night we went to the Hale Koa Hotel (that's the great military hotel here) and enjoyed a Halloween Magic Show.  It was fantastic!

Halloween was pretty simple.  Mike and his mom took the girls out for the house to house stuff, while I held down the fort and handed out candy.  They weren't gone very long - I guess that they aren't as much into the whole trick-or-treating thing anymore.  But then Marisa had a great time handing out candy to kids.  She commented that several of the little kids were "cute" and she was very friendly to all of them.  She was such fun to watch.

So now we're hoping that everyone will be well enough next week to get out for some family fun.  Bring on the vitamin C!

Counting down to deployment

It's weird to be at a big base that is getting ready to send even more people over to the "sandbox".  There's already thousands of soldiers gone since last spring and more leaving now.  The word "deployment" is everywhere.  There's tons of support in place and yet, I just want to ignore what's coming up and this won't let me!

Mike is among the last to head out, so we have a few weeks left.  He gets two weeks of leave that happens to coincide with two weeks of half-days of school for the girls.  So, we're planning lots of family fun days.  There's certainly plenty of activities to choose from!

The Big Island is Awesome!

We had a wonderful time checking out the island of Hawaii - or at least part of it.  There was too much to do in just four days!

We visited all this stuff:

• the Naha Stones - we couldn't lift them so I guess we won't be future Hawaiian kings
• the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Visitor Center - It smelled yummo!
• Akaka Falls - a nice rainforest walk to these beautiful falls
• the Panaewa Zoo - we got to see the white tiger play with the Vegas illusionist guy who donated him to the zoo 10 years ago... cool!  Then we saw him get his dinner...gross!
• Rainbow Falls - it's not a tourist trap... you really can see a rainbow in the mist of the falls!  
• the Lyman Museum - it's not very big, but there was lots to see.  We especially liked the mineral and shell collections.
• South Point - this is the southernmost point of the United States.  There's not much there, but it's cool to go to such an extreme.
• the Mehana Brewing Company - Hawaiian beer that HAD to be sampled.  I recommend the Volcano Red Ale
• the Volcano Winery - Guava wine and Macadamia Nut Honey wine are not our new favorites, but the others were acceptable
• the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach - we saw sea turtles close up!  Jillian took some amazing photos.
• the Punalu'u Bake Shop - Hawaiian sweet bread is so yummy!

But the best part of the trip was Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.  We stayed at the Kilauea Military Camp right in the middle of the park and it was wonderful.  We did hikes at the Thurston Lava Tube and Kilauea 'Ike (four whole miles and the kids didn't even rebel!).  We drove around the Crater Rim Drive (at least the part that wasn't closed because of the volcanic fumes), visited the Jagger Museum and saw lots of steam vents.  And lava!  You wouldn't believe how many different forms that lava can take and the plants that will find a way to grow in it.  Awesome!  It was so cool and I hope that we'll find time to get back and explore some more.  If you ever have a chance to visit - do it!

Heading on vacation... already!

Now, I have to tell you that I did actually update this a couple weeks ago, but before it saved my computer conked out.  That was one of the last straws in a series of problems and I finally got the silly thing into the Geek Squad.  Now I have a brand new hard drive and things are going well.  Knock wood!

We're heading out on a mini-vacation tomorrow to visit the Big Island.  We'll be staying at the Kilauea Military Camp which is right on the volcano.  I felt better about this when I read that the Hawaii volcanoes are slow eruptors, unlike the violent ones which blow their tops.  Hopefully, we'll get to see some lava doing it's thing.

Aside from that, we've gotten into our routines of work, school and church.   It seems that everything is just waiting for the day that all the guys deploy next month.  This is a new experience for us and I'm trying to educate myself on what to expect and get tips for how to make it easier for all of us.

Settling in....

We have a rental house, but no internet service yet, so this'll be short!  I'm at the Schofield Barracks Army Community Service building - they have computers available for use at every base I've ever been at.  Very helpful.

We have a house in Mililani.  The girls both started school at Mililani Mauka Elementary School last week and are getting used to it.  We got both of our shipments last week and are swamped with boxes, but are making steady progress.  Mike is busy with an exercise, but we got to have him for the week-end (a big surprise).  I gotta get back and unpack some more now...

Little miracles

God is active in our lives - we just have to pay attention and give Him the credit for the wonderful things that happen in our lives!

On Saturday, we decided to go to the Honolulu Family Festivalat Ala Moana Beach Park.  We knew that the kids would enjoy a carnival and it's a beautiful park that Mike and I always love.  When we arrived, we quickly decided to make it a short visit because everything was quite pricey.  So, we explained to the girls that they could pick four rides and some Dippin' Dots, but that would be all that we'd be doing.  They accepted the terms and got to the business of having fun.  Of course, I don't ride anythings, so while I was watching them on the "superman ride" (fly around on their bellies), I got to chatting with the lady standing next to me.  She's in from San Jose to visit her brother and his family.  I mentioned that we're an army family that just arrived and that we're having a fun family day since Mike will be going away in the fall.  She sincerely thanked us for what we do - it was very sweet.  Well, a little while later, just as we were getting ready to leave, Mike got called over to the booth which sold tickets for food and rides.  He was handed tickets worth $100 - a gift from that angel from San Jose who wanted to help us have a full day of family fun!  And boy did we!  Jillian and Marisa rode every ride that interested them and their favorites two or three times.  We only stopped long enough to say thank you over and over again. 

The next miracle happened on Monday.  The girls and I were at the beach across the street, Chun's Reef, since we just can't get enough of the ocean.  Jillian is like a fish!  She's having such a good time snorkeling and boogie boarding.  I had just come out after my first swim and was watching the girls play, when I glanced over my shoulder and noticed a few people just arriving.  Something seemed familiar, so I looked again and realized that I knew these people!  It was our friends Annie and Mackey that we had last seen in Italy in 2004!  We had connected back then because they and Mike had the Hawaii background in common, but we had no idea that they had come home.  This is an island, but it's still big and I am completely blown away that within a week we all happened to be on the same beach at the same time and that we noticed each other.  THAT'S a miracle.  And to top it off, they live around the corner from Mike's brother and know his wife's family.  Wow!

So that's the two big miracles that are easy to spot, but there have been other little signs of God's activity in our lives, too.  We were ready to live in ugly government housing with a potentially crummy school, when we finally found a home just a block from the best school on Oahu.  There was a mix-up with Cassie's paperwork, but we were still able to get her out of quarantine after just one day.  Our sponsor let us borrow his GPS as long as we need it after we discovered ours doesn't include Hawaii maps.  We are staying in a fantastic apartment on the North shore that is covered by our per diem rate.  The PWOC here is doing one of my favorite Bible studies and I might get to help teach.  God is good!

Home Sweet Hawaii

After a long summer vacation, we're finally at our new duty station.   Hawaii is just as wonderful as you've ever heard and we're super happy to be here.  It's so darn beautiful!  We've been here just a week and it feels like home already.

Mike had a busy week of inprocessing.  My favorite part was hearing about the Swim Test.  All the Army guys and gals had to jump off a 5 meter diving board and take a swim.  In full uniform!  Swimming in boots is no easy feat.

Marisa's big excitement for the week was losing two teeth.  I got a thrill out of it too because one of them had been driving me crazy.  It made her look like Nanny McPhee and I was dying to pull it out.  I even tried to get it out when she was sleeping one night!  But she insisted that the tooth would come out when it was ready and it finally did.

It looks like Jillian is on the way to becoming a surfer.  We got her a boogie board and she's having a blast.  She's also been having fun snorkeling and we haven't even taken her to the good beaches yet!

My week was full of research about houses.  We may have a place, but I'll tell all about it later.  Right now, we're staying on the North Shore in a vacation rental .  It's a fabulous location - across the street from a beach park.  The folks that own it have a chicken business and horses on the property, so the girls have been fascinated with walking around checking things out.  They were nice and upgraded us from the 1 bedroom place I called about to the 5 bedroom apartment.  We have tons of space, Cassie is with us and it's all for the cost of a hotel room.  God is good!

What I did this summer By Erica

It's been awhile since I was a kid and required to complete this essay upon returning to school, but it seems a perfect format for updating what we've been up to since April.  Busy doesn't even begin to explain why I haven't been updating this blog!

In May, Mike escaped to an army school at Ft. Meade and left me to handle the preparations for our move.  I didn't really mind since this meant that I got my way on everything.  :-)   The girls and I finished school on June 12 and celebrated by popping down to Heidelberg the next day to see a matinee showing of Kung Fu Panda.  Loved it so much that we saw it again a couple days later back in Wiesbaden!

Over the next week we had 4 days of packing and loading for three different shipments and we shipped the minivan (known as Percy in our house).  On the 24th we were finally on a plane headed for Georgia and I was exhausted.  We got to mom's house in Senoia and had a few days of relaxing by the pool.  The girls also got to experience their first ever sunburns because of sunscreen problems.  They didn't like it!  

In July and August, we did alot of traveling around to see friends and family: 

July 3, Mike's family in Culpeper, Virginia

July 6, the Del Gallo family in Manassas, Virginia

July 6-9, Jeni Orr and her girls in Brunswick, Maryland

July 8, the Stacey family in Hagerstown, Maryland

July 9-11, the Morris family in Newport News, Virginia

July 20-23, my aunts came down from Kentucky to see us (yippee)

July 23, the Gwin family in Varnell, Georgia

July 26, the Elliott family girls in Buford, Georgia

July 27, Mike finally joined us and we went to see the Milak family in Dacula, Georgia

July 28, the Gimnig family in Lilburn, Georgia

July 31-August 3, my sister Cindy in Smyrna, Georgia, so we could attend my 20-year reunion

August 3-7, Mike's dad and stepmom in the Tampa Bay area

Military families know how to squeeze alot of relationship into a very small amount of time!  I was so thrilled to see all these people who mean so much to us.  But the next time... come see us.  After all, we're in Hawaii now!

Farewell, Paris...

That wacko keyboard kept me from updating while in Paris.  Anything I tried to type took 3 times as long because I had to keep going back to fix things.  Annoying!  Anyway, here's how the rest of our week went:

Monday - We walked up the Champs Elysees to take in the view of the Arc de Triomphe.  Along the way, we got a big surprise when it turned out that this was the day that the Olympic torch was passing through Paris.  So, we got to see the torch and the protests that went along with it.  The big debate this year is centered around the Olympics in Beijing and the Chinese occupation of Tibet.  Right next to us, the police took down a protester who was waving the Tibetan flag from atop a bus stop.  Very exciting!

Tuesday - We spent this whole day out at Disneyland Paris.  It was Disney.  It was expensive.  It was tons of fun for the kids.  What more is there to say?

Wednesday - I forced the family to go to the Musee D'Orsay.  After the day at the Louvre, they weren't exactly excited to hit another art museum, but I really wanted to see the impressionist masterpieces.  We saw Whistler's Mother and Van Gogh's Self Portrait and lots of Monet's works.  I loved it!  In the evening, we took a boat ride and, although it was cold, we thoroughly enjoyed seeing beautiful buildings all lit up.  The family favorite was the Eiffel Tower, of course.  Just as it came into full view, the sparkling lights came on - it was as if they waited for us to be close enough.

Thursday - This was predicted to be a beautiful day, so we made our way up to the Sacre Coeur.  It is definitely my favorite church in Europe.  It's beautiful and welcoming and magical.  This time, there was a choir of nuns singing as we entered and it just made the atmosphere perfect.  Afterwards, we walked to the square nearby where the painters hang out.  We had a dozen offers to do sketches of the girls (for 50 euro a pop!), but all that Marisa wanted to do was create her own art.  She lost her little mind when we couldn't produce blank paper and markers.

Friday - We decided to have another kid-friendly day, so we headed for the Cite de la Sciences at the Parc de la Villette in northern Paris.  This is the most amazing children's museum ever.  There was so much neat stuff to check out!  We had fun for hours. 

Saturday - To make the most of our last few hours in Paris, we took an early morning walk around the Seine islands.  It was so cool being so near to Notre Dame this whole week.  I loved the majesty of such a big church and the girls loved the little playground in the park behind it.  There was this rotating disk that could have amused Jillian for hours, if we had been willing to stay there that long.  But we had to say "Good-bye" and head up to Gare de l'Est and get on our train back to Germany.

It was a great trip!  Renting an apartment is definitely the way to truly enjoy Paris...