We Made it!

It official. We made it to Hawaii.

After a summer of planning, a week of interviewing, five last weeks of work, a LONG week of packing and 10 days with family in Michigan, we are finally here!!!!!

We got in Wednesday night pretty late. 10pm local which was 3am Detroit time. Tanner was a trouper for the plane ride but zonked out almost immediately when we got in the car. Our drive over to the windward side was a wet one. It had been raining quite a bit. We found our rental all the same and were greeted by Kathy and her father Phil in the drive. They showed us around and warned us about the rain. At this point, we're still kind of confused at why everyone seems so freaked out at the rain but whatever, it was time for bed.

It rained pretty hard all night and by morning, we were starting to understand what the big deal was. The morning news revealed that roads were washed out, landslides all around, including a large one at the mouth of the tunnel on the Pali (the highway Yooper will take to Honolulu for work) that closed the road completely. As we drove around that morning on our way to the first of two preschool interviews it was apparent that the shear amount of rain was incredible. There was tons of water flowing across the roads and every drainage ditch we past was a raging river. Pretty impressive really. The waterfalls coming off the mountains later in the day once the clouds cleared a bit were awesome.

My favorite part of the entire ordeal was how weirded out the locals were. If it came up the we just got here, they were all apologies and how these darn winter storms are so disruptive and awful. Yoop and I loved it. This is a "winter storm" we can get used to :)

Later in the day, we met Dave (Liz's boyfriend) and Brandon (our Realtor) to go through a few places. It was interesting. We saw many different varieties of Hawaiian real estate. Nothing that we'd make an offer on just yet but learned a lot. We're going open housing again this afternoon. Looking forward to that.

In other news, we made yesterday a beach day. Great idea. We went over to Kailua beach. Absolutely gorgeous. The waves were super small and Tanner had a great time playing in the ocean. I'd love to put in a few pics here cause I took a bunch but our USB cable seems to have been packed in the container with the rest of our house. The good news is that they DO have Best Buy here so I should be able to buy a replacement next week.

The other thing I wish I could post is some pics of is the insane amount of lizards we have at our place. The geckos and anoles are EVERYWHERE! We love them!!! Liz was over last night and confirmed the barking we have been hearing in the rafters is the geckos. There's one big one above the kitchen. The more the better as the ants and other creepy crawlys are everywhere. We also have tons of flowers out back as well as some great birds.

The last thing you all have to see pics of is our view. To die for. We can see Coconut island, the mountains (still not sure the proper name of the specific range we look at), the ocean, the marine base, a marina, Chinaman's Hat, etc. It just goes on and on really.

Well, I have to go feed my boys, Tanner is getting cranking :)

Pics coming soon, than I can finally sent the address out and share this thing....