We have officially been in Hawaii a week now, can you believe that?  I have not been writing much since we got here because not a whole lot has happened.  Sam started work on Monday, so I have been stranded at the hotel all week without a car.  I will say that the first few days were a bit of a struggle for me.  I was missing home a lot, but every day seems to get a little better.  A lot of it has to do with being cooped up in this hotel room!  Don't get me wrong, it is beautiful at this resort.  However, sometimes I feel like I am at the zoo.  You can hear everything, and I mean everything!  At any given time I can hear this obnoxious parrot squawking, dogs howling, roosters crowing, and cats meowing!  A little peace and quiet will be nice to have again.

OUR NEW HOME!!!!!!

The good news is that we arrived in Hawaii at the perfect time!  We will be moving in to our brand new house on base on Monday, in a little over 1 day!  I am beyond excited for this!  I miss cooking and having a space to call our own.  For the past month people have been asking where do you live and for the first time in my life I didn't have an answer.  We have just been going from here to there for over a month now, and finally we will have a place to call home!  You know what that means, we are ready for some visitors!

This is the view from our master bedroom!   Even with the construction, it is still beautiful!

We have done a little exploring the past week and everywhere is beautiful.  I don't think seeing the bright blue water every day will ever get old!  Today we spent some time at the North Shore with some friends.  We played the role of tourists, even though we are not considered tourists because we live here now : )  Anyways, we browsed through all the cute little shops and indulged in the famous Mashimoto Hawaiian Shaved Ice.  Driving down, I was able to have a peek at the big waves, yikes, they really do exist!  My dad and brothers are going to be in heaven when they come here, I am so excited to show them around, they are going to love it!  Maybe they will come and decide to stay permanently!  No pictures of the big waves this time, too many tourists were out and about today since it was the weekend, another time I will show you!

Shaved Ice!

Lesson learned this week:  do all your grocery shopping at the commissary.  We forgot lettuce to make a salad so we thought we would stop at Safeway on the way back to the hotel to pick up a bag of lettuce.  We came out with some plain old ordinary lettuce that had a price tag of $6.29!!!

Hard to believe that tomorrow is Easter, I feel so out of sorts, I don't even know what day it is!  Anyways, I hope you all have a blessed Easter, we miss you all very much!  It stinks being so far away from family, even more so when holidays come around!

View at the hotel we are staying at

Happy boy!

Another view from the hotel

Oh, Hi there! 

Micah's first take of the ocean, he was in awe!

Aloha!

3,173 miles, 12 states, 51 hours and 25 minutes of driving, 12 gas tank fill ups, 6.5 hour plane ride, and a million diaper changes...we are finally in Hawaii!  The past 3 weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind, but they hold so many memories.  Thank you to everyone who allowed us to crash at their house for a few days, it means the world to us!  We had so much fun seeing all of our friends and family along the way, you all made this road trip so worth while!  I enjoyed seeing new places, but mostly enjoyed being surrounded by people we love.  You all mean so much to our little family and we cannot thank you enough for your kindness!  I wish there was some way to have everyone live near each other so we could see you all whenever we wanted, how sweet would that be?  A girl can dream, right?  We are so thankful for each and so blessed to have you all in our life!

Only checking 12 bags!

Now an update on what in the world is going on.  Traveling to Hawaii yesterday went quite smoothly.  I am pretty sure I had a few tears in my eyes when we dropped Malcolm and Calie off at the airport.  Poor dogs looked so sad and confused.  We ended up checking 12 bags, yes I did say 12 bags!  And no, all of those bags were not just for me!  The flight was great, no complaints here.  I was mostly worried about Micah, but he did perfect!  And Sam and I are now quite skilled at changing diapers on the tray table, so for future flights you may want to clean your tray table before use : )  By the way, the dogs arrived in mint condition, woohoo!

Aloha!

We were welcomed to Hawaii with beautiful leis and they smell absolutely amazing.  I wish I could capture the smell in a picture.  The only way you will understand what I mean is if you come here, so go ahead already and book your flight!  We are currently residing at a hotel in Hawaii.  No word on base housing yet, we should find out more information about the waiting list tomorrow.  We are praying to get a house soon because we are so ready to be settled!  I am tired of living out of suitcases!  During our road trip, the weather continuously got better everywhere we went, until we get to Hawaii, funny how that works!  It has been rainy and dreary ever since we got here!  Everyone keeps saying this is rare, I just want some sunshine already.  I know I know, I better stop complaining because most of you reading this are watching snow fall outside.  I'll quit my complaining and send some liquid sunshine your way once I finally get to see it!  Despite the dreary weather, it is still beautiful here!  I can't wait to go exploring!


Not a lot of pictures of Hawaii yet, stay tuned!  I am waiting for some sunshine!

Before the flight

Dropping Malcolm off, he looked so sad

Happy to see us, glad it's over!

Happy boy hanging out on the plane with Mommy : )

Sin City

Another thing to cross off my bucket list, Las Vegas!  What a fun and eye opening experience this was!  We went out on the strip last night and ended up staying out until 1am, I have not been out that late in a long long time!  And Micah was right there with us all night long!  No worries, you can nominate me for the mother of the year award later! 

Don't judge me : )

We walked around most of the evening, had a tasty dinner at the Bellagio, watched the fountain perform, and of course throw a little money away for kicks and giggles.  I'm sure you are wondering if I won lots of money to buy you all plane tickets to Hawaii.  Sorry, not this time!  I tried my best though for all of you that requested I win money for plane tickets!  I had fun doing the slots, I stuck to the 5cent slots.  No blackjack or anything crazy like that, I was not trying to make a fool of myself!

Boy oh boy, did we see some interesting people, I always enjoy people watching, especially in a place like Vegas.  I felt like I was in a completely different world, people passing out cards with naked women on them, people walking around with open containers, and people just throwing all their money away.  I completely understand why it is called Sin City, it truly is a place filled with a lot of fun, but also filled with a lot of depressing and degrading things (in my opinion). 

All in all, we had a great time visiting friends in Vegas.  Being around good friends makes us realize how blessed we are to have such wonderful people in our life!  We may not get to see all the people we love as much as we would like, but we do make an effort to make the most of the time we have with our loved ones!  We have arrived safely in San Diego and the anxiousness of this is real, we are actually moving to Hawaii in a little over a day is really starting to sink in!  You should see us all squished in this hotel room with all of our bags of luggage, stroller, pack and play, dog crates, phew there is barely room for us to sleep!  It is rather comical, we are trying to not get too overwhelmed about the whole process and by we, I mean me!  Maybe I'll spend tomorrow at the spa while my dear husband takes care of getting the car shipped, haha I WISH!  Hopefully tomorrow we can spend a little time downtown San Diego since this is my first time here!

I'll be taking lots of pictures of how ridiculous we look coming to the airport with all of this stuff!  For starters, I don't even know how we are going to get it all to the airport, this should be very interesting!  Stay tuned for a good laugh that's for sure!

My first slot machine experience, here's the proof!

Shops, looks just like Italy

Inside the Venetian

Wow!

Dinner at the Bellagio.  This little boy has been to the coolest places in just 3 short months!

The Bellagio, so pretty!

Are we there yet?

Yesterday we drove from the Grand Canyon to Vegas. This was supposed to be our shortest drive yet, key work supposed to be! Somehow we managed to turn a 4 hour drive into a 9 hour drive, no idea how this happened! I guess it could have been the yummy diner we stopped at for breakfast on historic Route 66, but it was totally worth it! We took a detour and decided to cruise on Route 66 for as long as we could, so that added some extra time I'm sure! We played the tourist part and stopped at a few shops along the way too!

After what seemed like forever we made it to the Hoover Dam, just to be turned around because covered trailers are no longer allowed! Ugh! We were not happy about this! So we drove to a casino down the street and locked up our trailer and headed back to Hoover Dam! At this point, we were all a little annoyed! So we drove across the dam and found a place to park. Let me just say it was 83 degrees outside and we had 2 dogs in the car who of course were not allowed to walk across the dam! And of course as soon as we start walking my sweet son decides to spit up all over my shirt and we have no burp cloths around! Are we having fun yet? Not only that, we woke him up from his nap, so he was super cranky! The combination of all this made for an interesting experience at the Hoover Dam, lets just leave it at that! We managed to get a few pictures and hop back in the car and head to our destination!

We are now in the wonderful land of Vegas! We are staying with old friends of my husband, so he is loving life and sharing lots of old stories! I have never been to a casino, so I figure now is as good of a time as any! Lets see how lucky our little family will be! Gotta win some money to send back home so people can come to see us in Hawaii! More to come about my first experience at a casino!

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world and now I know why.  It is absolutely breathtaking!  It is mind boggling how vast this canyon is and how it was created.  I must have said a million times today that it didn't make sense to me how a river could form all of this!  It is a must see, you should probably add it to your bucket list right now!  The weather was perfect, in the low 60's and sunny!  My husband has a sweet sunglass tan line and I have a goofy one on my nose, oh yeah!  We spent most of the day walking around the rim of the canyon with Micah and our dogs.  We loaded up the stroller and had a picnic lunch overlooking the canyon.  I believe we walked about 4.5 miles today taking in this beautiful view!  Let me just say, we are pooped!  Tired dog, tired parents, and maybe a tired baby=a good night's sleep tonight : ) 

Our most scenic diaper change yet!

My hubby and the pups!

What a view!

Isn't this amazing?

This view will never get old, I could stare at it all day long!

This little boy loved the Grand Canyon!  We only saw one other baby while we were walking today, I would say he is a pretty lucky little boy seeing this at 3 months old!

Family

My favorite picture!

It's A Beautiful World

My husband has been planning this road trip well before we even have official orders to move to Hawaii.  Me on the other hand, well I was not overly thrilled about hours in the car with a new baby and 2 dogs!  Now that we are in the home stretch of our trip, I am so thankful that my husband insisted that we drive the car to California and ship it from there.  I have been blessed with the sweetest little boy and two well behaved (most of the time) dogs that have made this trip a breeze!  It has been so much fun and such an eye opening experience.  I am just in awe at the beauty that has surrounded us the entire way, I had no idea I was going to see so many amazing things!  It is so awesome to see the work of God's hands all around us, I just love it!  Today while we were driving from Utah to Arizona, I sat in the back and played photographer.  I have mastered the art of taking pictures very quickly while still moving at high rates of speed : )  The speed limit out here at one point today was 80mph!  The trip today was my favorite by far, it was scenic, like driving on backroads the whole way, and there was so much to see!  I don't even know what else to say about the drive, just that it was absolutely beautiful!  The pictures speak for themselves, enjoy!

Pit Stop

Glen Canyon

Can you guess where we are now?  Sneak Peak of what's to come tomorrow!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  We are bummed we missed out on corned beef and cabbage this year!