Mele Kalikimaka

That's Merry Christmas in Hawaiian...

Kona's here!!! Well, after over 24 hours in a crate followed by an overnight at the temp quarantine facility at the Honolulu airport, we were finally able to pick up our poor confused mutt at 8am Christmas Eve morning. Unfortunately, there are strict rules about not taking your dog out of the crate on airport grounds so we had to drive him all the way back to Kailua before he was finally set free.

He wondered around the house and yard quickly smelling everything and looking entirely confused. We just followed him reassuring him that all was okay and petting him when he stopped long enough for us to catch up. It was one of these quick stops that he actually stopped long enough to relieve himself, unfortunately, it was the Christmas tree he decided to lift his leg to. :) Luckily he missed the few gifts that had made it under the tree and we all got a good laugh at his expense. Who could possibly be mad at him after that ordeal and how entirely confusing this all must be for him. That pine tree was probably the only thing that smelled remotely familiar.

Within another 20 minutes or so, we decided that HE smelled really bad and the only way to cure that, was a trip to the beach. It's amazing how strong the instinct of swimming is with these dogs. He was great. It was an abbreviated trip though once we learned the hard way just how badly the long trip had upset his stomach. Yuk. We spent the rest of the day laying low at home and doing a few chores. Kona took a much deserved rest and enjoyed LOTS of pets from his family that missed him so dearly.

Christmas Morning...

7am wake up. Could have been worse I guess. Tanner tore into the living room examining the booty. Alarm Clock (as requested - weird kid), Legos, Transformers, and SEVERAL wrapped gifts from family and friends. An elated Tanner opened gift after gift until finally, the pile was empty and all that remained was the familiar Christmas carnage of boxes, wrapping paper, and presents strewn about the living room. Loved it. About the time Daddy was hard at work loading batteries and reading directions, I managed to sneak back for an extra hour or so of sleep. :)

Following coffee, brunch, and a quick cleanup, it was off to the beach again. In the two months since we have lived here and the dozens of times we have now been to Kailua beach, I have yet to see even half this many people. Apparently, Christmas Day is a favorite for heading to the beach. Of course this time we had Kona with us too.

By day two of the beach and feeling noticeably better all around, Kona really found his sea legs. He was playing in the waves and making TONS of friends but my favorite was his lifeguarding skills. If he spotted someone he felt concerned about, he would swim out to check, do a lap around them, and satisfied, swim back towards shore. This was of course with Yooper close behind and only if the person "needing" rescue didn't seem to mind.

One interesting observation, the Hawaiian locals LOVE big dogs and were very impressed with his size and swimming ability, the Japanese tourists however, not so amused. 9 out of 10 people who seemed a little timid to very afraid around him were indeed Japanese tourists. I even one man sneaking in close to take a quick picture before backing away quickly. That guy was pretty funny actually. Most people though were great around him. One great thing about a dog his size and cuteness is that you meet a million people being with him.

The rest of Christmas 2006 was low key. Just playing with the new toys and relaxing around the house. I got what I wanted for Christmas, a new house and a day with all three of my boys at the beach :)

Life Guard Duty

All moved in...

Mostly anyway :)

There are still a few boxes around but I'm sure those that know me best know that I unpacked everything I could in as quickly as possible. The house was almost completely unpacked within two days. The only remaining boxes are those which have things that have yet to find a proper home. Many of my kitchen items, my Dad's cookbook collection, as well as things like knick-knacks and photos still are lying in various piles around. It's always the finishing touches that take the longest.

One of the first orders of business was to finally invest in some dining room furniture. We found a really nice naked furniture place in town that actually had some quality stuff for reasonable prices. We ordered a table, chairs, and a hutch that will hopefully be able to house the kitchen overflow. Hopefully :) Only now we have to wait for the order to come in. Jan 20th. Ouch! Until then, the dining room will continue to be a bit of a mess and the extra bedroom will continue to be a landfill. Oh well.

In other news, we've had a busy couple of weeks otherwise. We made it to the mall to see Santa. I was worried about a "new" Santa this year since we've been to the same guy for the last four Christmas' in Minneapolis but after some speedy re-con on Aren's part, we deemed this Santa to be close enough to hopefully avoid detection. All was fine and this guy was great.

The other Christmas event that was entirely too cute was Tanner's Preschool Christmas Program. I wish this blog could post video because that kid was unbelievable with his hamming it up for the camera. The entire program was only about 45 minutes but was great because everything was all the songs the kids sang were "Hawaiian Style". It seems that many of the Christmas carols we know and love from the mainland have been completely re-written here. Hilarious. Especially when it's a bunch of four-year-olds singing them.

The bad news is that as I write this, poor Kona is still on his way after a 12 hour flight delay in Los Angeles today. Poor thing was supposed to have a three hour connection which seemed cruel and unusual but 12? I was assured by Northwest that he was fed and watered and well cared for. Assuming the NWA website is correct this time, he'll be here at 1:30am but we can't pick him up until 8am tomorrow. We plan to be the first ones in line. If all goes well, I'll be posting pics tomorrow night of his first swim in the ocean...

Tanner With Santa

Tanner at the Rainbow Preschool Christmas Show

Big day?

So the day we've been patiently waiting for is finally here. The house is finally ours. I got the call that everything recorded this morning officially at 8:01 am. That's the good news.

The bad news is that the seller went a tad postal last night regarding shampooing the carpets. Long story but to sum it up, his Realtor is deplorable and has done an exceedingly BAD job on his end. It would appear that every time the sellers agent, Jeffery, has screwed up or needed to communicate to the seller in general, that Jeffery has made it sound like we are the problem and are completely belligerent. Funny I think because poor Leanne, our Realtor, has had to do TONS more work than she should have to just to keep up with this mess. Anyway, the carpet shampooing seems to have been the "straw" for this guy. The hope is that the few days we have until we actually move into the house is enough time for him to relax and chill out. And yes, the locks are being changed today - at the expense of Jeffery.

We'll probably reschedule the celebration picnic for tomorrow :(

Our New Address

I've had a few requests to post our address now that we have one and since it's Christmas card season and all...

Aren, Erin & Tanner
XXX
Kailua, HI 96734

I'll probably delete this post sometime after the holidays since it's probably a bad idea to have this posted online indefinitely so write it down while you have the chance :)

Homeowners, kind of...

Yesterday was finally the long awaited closing, only we still don't have the keys yet. It all has to do with Hawaiian property sales procedures. Yesterday was the closing, today was when the down payment was due, and if all goes well, Tuesday will be when the transaction is officially recorded at which time we will be on the tail end of about 15 calls that take place (slight exaggeration but really, we will be the dead last of a long list of people to know) then finally, we can take the keys.

We've arranged for the movers to move everything from storage to the house on Friday morning. I just know it's going to kill me knowing that we have this awesome house just sitting there for three days before anything can go into it. I still haven't decided for sure yet but chances are there is no way I'm going to be able to think of going back to work after that. Knowing me, I will be tearing into boxes almost immediately and Yooper will have to drag me from the place kicking and screaming that night.

I'm just dying to be back in OUR house with OUR stuff. At first with all the excitement of the move, it was easy to overlook the fact that we were living out of suitcases. It felt like vacation. We were on the road, off to new places, no work. Now we're getting settled into a routine and I just want to go home. I want my bed, my kitchen toys, my couch... I just want my stuff back. Poor Tanner has probably forgotten what most of his stuff is at this point. It will be like Christmas morning came early when we finally unpack his boxes. We even had to go buy new books because we were so sick of the same ones night after night.

The place we've been staying at has been very adequate for the amount of time we've been staying there but the complaints and annoyances are mounting. The proximity of the house to the lush jungle hillside and the overgrown landscaping means the place has lot of bugs. The vegetation here in certain areas is nearly impossible to keep up with. The place is also severely lacking in kitchen supplies. Apparently a three cup pot is all anyone would ever want and who needs lids for anything? I bought a pasta pot within days of being here and now it also doubles as a mixing bowl. Errr...

One more week, just one more week...

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Actually funny because it's not that I've been ignoring the blog but rather nothing really happened. Slow week. It was great. This week was the first time we had no obligations or deadlines or projects or errands to do since we got here. There was the termite inspection on Wednesday (good news, no surprises) and that was pretty much it. Other than that, it was the familiar get up, go to work, come home, cook dinner, relax for a minute, and go to bed type of week. Sad to say but it's been MONTHS since we had that kind of week. It was really nice.

Today was a different day though. Go, go, go until about an hour ago - it's 10:30 now. The day started by pouring the coffee to go and heading straight to the Farmer's Market in Honolulu. It was the most recommended one online however I think that was for tourists, not residents. True everything was made\grown\originated in Hawaii but most of the booths were things like honey, sea salt, coffee, and several niche type items that the tourists from nearby Waikiki seemed to flock to heavily. The farmer type booths with produce and growing things were few and far between. A little disappointed but I managed to get some great strawberries from Maui and some fresh basil so all was not lost I guess :)

Next we stopped for a quick lunch then off to Dave's Jui Jitsu tournament. I'm not going to go into the specifics of Jui Jitsu because even after an afternoon of watching, I'm still extremely clueless as to exactly what it's all about. What I can say is that it's like watching wrestling but the athletes are wearing traditional martial arts robe-like clothing. We stayed long enough to watch the end of the kids' tournament and the beginning of the adults. Tanner loved watching the kids. He's really been wanting to get involved in sports for a while but we've had to put it all off because of the move. I have now promised him that after Christmas he can do something. We'll probably start with swimming out of necessity. He's getting better but could really use some formal instruction. Anyway, we managed to see about an hour of the adults as well. There is a woman's division and yes, I'm pretty sure every single one of those girls would have taken me out in no time. Scary. We really wanted to stay long enough to watch Dave and actually stayed much longer than we had planned but his division was later and we had to leave for the next activity.

Brief stop at home to whip up a dish for the potluck and off we went to the annual meeting of the Newfoundland Club of Hawaii. It was over here on the windward side which was nice and the couple's house we were at had an ocean front view of Kaneohe Bay and Coconut Island. Super nice. The meeting itself was more of a small laid back dinner party and gave us lots of time to meet and chat with new people. Best of all, everyone has Newfies so the stories were hysterical. Good news is that Kona is not the only newfie that eats bizarre things. Bad news is that I now miss him worse than ever. Ursula, the host, has six adult Newfies, and five puppies. Three of which came out to play for a bit. Little Newfie fluffballs are too cute. Kona will be here soon though. I'm sure I'll be swearing at him in no time :)

So that was our boring week and our insane Saturday. Tomorrow should be much more tame. Hopefully, the sun will come out and we can hit the beach. After football that is...