European Count Down

We leave in 30 days!  After one year of planning our first European Trip, it is only a month away!  We have been reading, surfing the web and practice packing for the vacation I have dreamt about since I was 16 years old. When Steve and I were first married, we had a serious talk about traveling Europe or having a family.  After 3 years of discussions, Jacob arrived and Europe was put on hold for 27 years.  That seems crazy to think it has taken this long to get overseas.  2017 is an important year, and the reason we are going on this trip, I will be 50 in December, so it is my 1/2 century present.  When Steve turned 50 we took a transpacific trip to Australia.  I promise I will get pictures posted of that trip (with tips) soon.  Right now I am concentrating on EUROPE 2017! Each time we travel we always meet the nicest people.  We are very excited that we are getting to stay with our friends in Scotland.  We met them on the trip to Australia, so our HUGE world become so much smaller, when you meet great friends while traveling.

My first tip for traveling is to find a GREAT website for cheap air fares.  I have found two sites that I always go to first SkyScanner and Kayak.  They both have great ways to check for days of the week that might be cheaper to fly, or if you can fly into another airport that is cheaper but in the same area.  We got our flights from Hawaii to London for only $500.00 one way.  That is remarkably cheap, as it usually cost about $500.00 just to go to the west coast of the USA from Hawaii. There are websites, blogs and columns that suggest to book tickets on a Tuesday, because they are generally cheaper, but I check everyday because we happened to book these tickets on a Sunday.  You have to check several times a day, because the market changes fast and you have to be ready to book.

It has been such a long time since I have blogged.  My intention when I began the blog, was sort of a dairy/journal about moving to Hawaii.  I really did not even think that anyone would ever read it, or be interested in it other then my immediate family and a few friends.  Well, I was wrong.  I had blogged about a man in Kailua Kona that my family had nicknamed "The Dude".  You can read about him and see his photo in my earlier blog post.  One day at work, many months ago, a very sweet woman called me to thank me for the kind words on my blog about "the love of her life" that she had been married to for 25 years.  It was "The Dude's" former wife and she informed me he had passed away.  This was not the only person who saw my blog about Paul Martin (AKA-the Dude), and contacted me.  I learned he was a Man of God and nice to everyone. I have gotten emails and photos from his family.  I had someone ask me just the other day about him, so I felt the need to let my followers know that he has gone home.

Aloha from the Big Island,


Sally

Merry Christmas

Mele Kalikimaka! 

What a great year 2012 has been.  We have been so blessed this year and have realized this year, more than any, how wonderful all of our family and friends are to us!  If you have not heard, Ashley, our 19-year-old daughter, was in a horrible car accident in October.  She is on her way to being 100% healed and is a true miracle.  Our family and friends took complete care of us (and Ashley) and we cannot begin to express our thanks and gratitude for each and every one of YOU!!!  Sally’s parents have been acting as Ashley’s caretakers since we came back to Hawaii in November.  Blake and Amanda were happy to have us home and have their “normal” routine back.  Sally’s parents have been amazing and we can’t image what we would have done without them.

Jacob is a SENIOR in college and will graduate on May 11, 2013.  We are amazed that he is already old enough to graduate.  He has had such a great time in college and has great friends.  East Central University has been a great college and he has worked hard in the honors college.  He is hoping to go to Medical School in the next year or two, but he thinks that he may take a year off of school before he commits to another 8 years of learning. Jacob is coming to Hawaii on 12/24/12 and gets to be here for almost 3 weeks.

Ashley’s priority has been healing since October, but her professors and administrators at East Central University have been more than understanding with her injuries.  They are allowing her to work at her own pace to finish all of her classes.  She has completed 2 or the 5 classes and has a year to complete the other 3 classes.  She is enrolling in a lighter load for next semester, so she can continue to heal.  She is very active in Chi Omega and was slated to be the “New Member” educator for 2013.  She was thrilled and will be great at that job.  Ashley is arriving in Hawaii on 12/12/12 and she will get to spend one month with us. 

Blake is a freshman at Kealakehe High School and is playing football and is an active member of Model United Nations (MUN).  The MUN team is going on a “field trip” to New York in March.  WOW, these Hawaiian field trips are so much better than the ones Sally went on in Norman, OK!  There is a chance he may be going to Washington D.C. instead of NYC, but NYC is their first choice.  He is doing great in school and we are very proud.

Amanda is an 8^th grader at Kealakehe Intermediate School and is helping to put together the yearbook and sings in the Chorus.  Her field trip is going to Hilo, across the big island, but last year the chorus went to California for a week.  Sally got to tag along as a chaperone, and had a blast.  They went to Disneyland, California Adventure, Universal Studios, Knott’s Berry Farm, Crystal Cathedral, Orange County mall, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Venice Beach, etc!  Sally was exhausted after sharing a room with 7 middle school girls!

Steve is still working for Benecom Technology and they have been great to us for 6 years.  He works on “Mainland Time” and gets up about 4:30 am Hawaii time to “go to work”.   He takes the kids to school and picks them up each day.  He loves living in Hawaii and likes to watch the surfing at the famous beaches on the island.  He is always up for a day at the beach and continues to be a great chef.  He is an amazing father and husband.  He and Sally are celebrating their 25^th wedding anniversary on June 18, 2013.

Sally is working at Kona Community Hospital as the Director and Manager of Women’s Health Services.  She has 1½ years on the job and continues to learn something new each day.  She is very excited about her job and her nursing staff is great and she has made some good friends at Kona Community Hospital. Each Wednesday there is cruise ship that comes to Kailua Kona, and Sally loves living where cruise ships dock.

We hope this catches you up on our BIG move to Hawaii and our lives for the past 2 years.  We missed sending our cards last year, as Christmas snuck up on us.  It is 82 degrees each day and we never realized Christmas was coming…HA!

In Hawaii-November 2011 to January 2012

WOW!  It has been a whirlwind of fun in Hawaii for the last 4 months.  We are still LOVING Hawaii and we have had so many visitors.  I will try to recap what has happened over the last 1/3 of a year.  Can you say 82 degree and sunny?  It is NOT getting old and we have the windows open each day and night to enjoy the fresh air and ocean breezes.

Magic Sands on Thanksgiving day

November-  Thanksgiving was wonderful.  We prepared our feast the night before and put it all in the refrigerator.  Then we put the turkey in the oven at 9:00 and headed to Magic Sands Beach for the day.  It was crowded and gorgeous.   One of the nurses I work with was a "traveler" and she joined us at the beach and for dinner, because her family was in North Carolina.  We had a great dinner and were very thankful for all of our family and friends.  We Skyped with Ashley, Jake and my parents before we went to the beach.  I am very thankful that mom and dad are in Oklahoma with Jake and Ashley.

Amanda turns 13

Then it was Amanda's birthday and we had fun celebrating with her when she turned 13.  She got a guitar for her birthday, and guitar lessons.  She looks like a Hawaiian Wahine already.  She had a friend from school spend the night and we went for sushi.  By the way, her friend is originally from Texas!

Then I had a birthday and enjoyed time off and a day with Steve.  The most exciting thing I was getting for my birthday was arriving on December 12!  Jacob and Ashley were coming for a 4 week visit!  I could hardly wait.

Black Sand Beach

Christmas Picture 2011

Finally December 12, 2011 arrived and Jacob and Ashley arrived after their 12 hour flight.  They were exhausted, but so happy to be here.  I was a very happy mama bear with all of her cub in one house.  We spent a lot of time at the beach, watching movies, laughing and just being a family.  I went to work everyday, but I had three day weekends the whole time they were visiting.  What a lucky family we are to be able to be together and enjoy each other.  Christmas day was very similar to Thanksgiving day and we spent the day at Magic Sands Beach, and then came home to a wonderful dinner and my nurse friend Susanne joined us again.

At the airport headed to ECU

Jacob and Ashley flew back to Oklahoma on January 9, 2012 and there were tears and hugs.  They were going back to college and we had not decided when they would be coming back to visit.  I had a trip planned to Waikiki Beach on Thursday, January 12, 2012 and my flight arrived only minutes before LISA HARE was coming to visit!  I was so excited for my friends to get to Hawaii that I could only be sad about Jacob and Ashley leaving for a few days. That was good planning on my part!

Work was really busy, and there were so many things to do that my list was getting longer, rather than shorter each day.  The nurses that I work with are amazing and they have welcomed me with open arms.  My administration was pleased with my management skills and I am making new friends every day.  I am starting to feel comfortable in meetings and I am finding my way.  The hospital is so small that I feel like I know almost everyone that works in the hospital.  There are about 450 employees at Kona Community Hospital, and I graduated from high school with 650 classmates.  This should be easy to know everyone! LOL.

I think I will stop at this point and write my next blog that starts with Lisa arriving.  Aloha from Kailua Kona and COME VISIT!

The Dude in Kailua Kona

The Dude

When Steve and I came to Kailua Kona, HI in June, so I could interview for the job at the hospital, we noticed this guy skateboarding up and down the main drag in Kailua Kona.  We instantly named him, "The Dude".  Ali'i Drive runs along the beach all the way through town and it is our favorite street to drive on each day. The neighborhood that we live in is ONLY accessble from Ali'i Drive.  So in the morning I go south on Ali'i Drive and Steve goes north to take the kids to school.  We live about 9 miles from the hospital and 9 miles from the school that the kids go to for 7th and 8th grade.  There are 3 stop signs going north and no stop signs going south.  It takes us about 15-20 minutes to go the 9 miles in the morning and the evening because the speed limit is 35 miles per hour on most of the streets on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Which brings me back to the dude.  The first two weeks when we moved in Hawaii,  July 26, 2011 I was on a mini vacation, and we spent a lot of time driving in town to try to find our way to the stores, restaurants, gas stations, beaches, etc.  Each and EVERY day we would see "The Dude" on his skateboard between the two "ends" of Ali'i Drive.  We could never predict which end of Ali'i Drive he would be on, but we could always predict that he would be 1. on his skateboard  2. have his shirt off and around his neck 3. Be talking to himself or to some random person/tourist 4. His longish blondish hair would be flying in the wind 5. board short were his only clothing.  The first one to spot him in our car would shout " there's the DUDE".  Our day would then continue to be good, because all was right in the world in Kaliua Kona, Hawaii.

The Ironman Triathlon was held on October 8, 2011 and I got to work in the medical tent.  It was amazing and I think I started 25 IVs on world class athletes. The first two patients that I had were from Oklahoma and I was working with a physician that graduated from OU Medical school, so God was watching our for me and them!  I helped a 66 year old woman that had just completed her 43 triathlon and she did not start them until she was 42 years old.  AMAZING!  By the way, she won her age bracket.  There were so many people here for the Ironman, but we continued to see The DUDE until the day after the triathlon.

So for over a month, 40 days, we did not see him even ONE time, and we were looking everyday.  We would even have dinnertime discussions about where he could be and what had happened to him.  Amanda said, "he met a German woman, named Erma and they eloped to Guatemala to live in their loveshack."  LOL  We talked about him literally everyday and we were all worried. Then, BAM, he was back on Ali'i Drive on Friday afternoon 11-18-11, on his skate board, board shorts on, no shirt on, hair flying and talking to himself. We had a smallish celebration in the car when we saw him.

I had been saying for weeks that I needed to blog about him, but I needed a photo to do it justice.  Finally, this morning I got a picture.  I was so happy!  The DUDE is back and all is right in Kailua Kona.  One of these days, I am going to strike up a conversation with him and find out he is a multibillionaire, that chills in Hawaii for months at a time, and the reason he left for six weeks was to go "manage" his multibillion dollar company.

Steve, Blake, Amanda and I are loving Hawaii and we cannot wait for Jacob and Ashley to get here in December.  I will try to blog some more, but fun has been getting in the way!  Aloha Sally

Flowers

Hawaii is known as a "Tropical Paradise" and I am always amazed as I drive with the windows down in the car the scents that all of the trees and flowers emit.  It is like walking in a perfume store.  We live up from the beach in a house that has a fairly mature garden.  We were blessed with a wonderful rental home that comes WITH a gardener.  I think Steve was the MOST excited that he does not have to do any work in the garden. He loves a green yard, but he does not want to HAVE to do anything to keep it that way.  I think it is because his parent's yard was amazing, and he had to help his father do yard work, a lot!  

So, as we drive down Ali'i Drive, there are always a ton of tourists taking photos of all of the amazing flowers, palms, and plants.  I had an idea...take some pictures of the flowers, just in our yard.  Remember, we just get to enjoy them, and we do not even have to mow the grass or pull a weed.  Just so you know, I bought some clippers at WalMart and I am "helping" the gardener trim a few items he has overlooked so I get a better view of the ocean.

They are everywhere...on trees, bushes, hedges and I'm sure I missed a few that I cannot see until I clip some more of the bushes.

Just another day in paradise!
Sally

Moved in and getting settled

So we moved into our rental home over the weekend of August 13-14.  We only had our luggage, the dining table/chairs, master bedroom furniture and our broken (thanks to FedX) TV.  So we only made a few trips from our rental condo to get everything into the house.  It is amazing how few items we need to actually live comfortably!  I met a very sweet native of the big island that volunteered to meet us at CostCo and transport the NEW mattresses we wanted to buy!  Steve and I decided we were going to buy everything second hand and on craigslist or at a garage sale, other than mattresses.  We wanted NEW for us and the kids, so that when YOU (our friends) come to visit us, they will have queen new mattresses to sleep on! (What are you waiting for???????)





It took two trips to get a king set and two queens sets, and my friend Tammy Wilson was a God send!  She was raised in Kohala/Waimea area and is one of my L&D nurses.  We had 7 long days of hospital orientation to get to know each other.  She was in Ft Worth, Texas for the last 3 years and was ready to return home to the big island.

We waited until Monday to actually move into the house and sleep here, because Steve's work depends on internet access, and we were getting service on Monday.

God is amazing and most of our boxes were at the post office on =Tuesday, so it was perfect timing.  We received about 16 boxes of the 25 we shipped.  That brought our total boxes received to 19 with 6 more to go! As I write this. we are still waiting for one lonely box to arrive. 

We shopped for the essentials like towels, sheets, dishes, and pans and we were set!  Thank goodness for Target, CostCo and did I mention there is a Macy's in Kailua Kona?  Seriously?  I can manage with only Target and the rest of the stores are just a BONUS!



Monday started my time on the floor at Kona Community Hospital.  My CNE rocks and told me that I could spend 3 weeks getting to know my staff and learning their procedures before I assumed the Manager's position.  I spent 4 shifts on days, and then I spend 5 shifts on nights and I have gotten to meet everyone.  I have done or seen a delivery with each physician and I have worked with the great nurses and staff that I have the privilege to manage starting September 6. 











The kiddos are doing great in school at Kealakehe Intermediate school and they have an ocean view from every classroom.  Steve, Blake, Amanda and I went to open house last week and Steve and I were VERY impressed with all of their teachers.  They are very organized and acted like they really care about teaching.  They could not say enough nice things about Blake and Amanda.  Jacob and Ashley have started college at East Central University, and they are loving it.  Jacob is a junior and we talk to him at least 3 times a wekk.  Ashley Skype's with us every other day and she is turning 18 on 8-28!  She is currently going through Rush, and bid day is Wednesday, August 31!  I am so proud of all my kids!

We were eating dinner on Thursday night and it was raining as the sun was setting.  I told Amanda she needed to go look for a rainbow toward the mountain side ("mauka" in Hawaiian), and she hollered at us to come see the DOUBLE rainbow!  It was beautiful and I took these photos.  I decided to take some more photos of our yard.  I will post more of the inside of our house soon.

Aloha,

Sally