The Big Move

Before Aaron and I moved to California we had grand plans to make "The Big Move" home as soon as we could during his 4th year.  We would load up our belongings in Fullerton, transfer them to Salt Lake City into a storage unit, and fly away to our first rotation in Hawaii. We thought that this would make it easier on us in the long run, by eliminating the need to get a moving truck every three months for a year.  As I was packing I was only allowed to keep out those things that were the most important to me. As we packed in California the few items that were kept out included my sewing machines with some fabric, a few books, air mattress with sheets and a blanket, clothes, and few canned food items.  These few items were left in Fullerton with some good friends of ours to await our return to Orange County in the Fall. Our goal was to only save out an amount that we could easily take with us in our car as we move from one state to the next for each rotation.  I think we did it.  Through this process  I have started to learn what I can live without. 

We left Fullerton around 12pm on May 25th and headed to Shonee's parents house in our home state of Utah. 

Mazie looking out the window in the mirror at us.

 The skies were clear and we thought that the trip would be nice. 


The clouds started to roll in as we approached Vegas

Mazie knew what was coming......

Later that night.....for the only stretch that I drove.....it snowed, very hard.

My knuckles were white as I drove our truck from Cedar City to somewhere near the I-15 and I-70 Junction. The snow was so bad and the flakes were so big that I didn't even dare stop.

We made it to Utah around 1:30 am.  We immediately went to bed.  On Thursday morning we slept in and then headed straight out to Salt Lake to place our belongings in storage. On our way out of town we made a stop at the farm to see the baby lambs and to drop off the 1990 Camry. The lambs were so cute!  We headed up North in the truck while Shonee's parents followed behind.  We put all of our stuff in a 10x10 foot storage unit, with space to spare.  We were glad to have Shonee's parents helping us unload as well as Aaron's Dad, his brother Blake, and his sister Catherine helping unload as well. We said our goodbyes to Shonee's parents and ended up spending the night at Aarons parents house. 

Our flight left Salt Lake at 3:30.... it was a good flight. When we arrived at LAX to catch our next flight we had to take a shuttle to a different terminal, in the confusion we ended up at baggage claim....gggrrr   With only 30 minutes to departure we found out we were on the opposite side of the airport. We had to run all the way around to the other side of the airport and go though security again.  I was upset and thought that we would miss the flight for sure.  We made it through security just fine and actually our gate was the very first gate after going through security. All was good.
The flight over was fine.  The  plane that we were on was the biggest plane either of us have been on. It was huge.  They fed us soggy sandwiches and everyone was happy. Aaron said the restroom on the Hawaiian Airlines flight was as luxurious as a lavatory could be. The flight over the ocean was 5 hours total.

We got off the plane 8:30pm local time, for us it was 12:30am.  We were beat!  I was foolish and kept putting off making a reservation for a car, I thought it would be easy to find one....not.  We hitched a ride on a shuttle to the car rental place at the airport.  The first three rental places were all rented out.  We finally found one, a Nissan Versa, and paid waaaaayyy too much for it.  We headed to our hotel and crashed.
The next morning Aaron and I were both up by 8am..... it was so weird, we just woke up.  Probably because we had just gained 3 hours by moving from California. We went and ran a bunch of errands and got lost in the city......I am so glad we have the GPS.
  

From our hotel

This was our first look at the beach.  We are in the car driving.

Nimitz hwy, this is a hwy beneath the regular freeway above.

After running some errands we decided to check out one of the malls by the beach, it is called Ala Moana Mall, which I guess used to be one of the biggest malls in the U.S. before Mall of America was built.  It is pretty big.  We walked around for about an hour and didn't see everything.   We HAD to try the pineapple ice cream though, and it was worth it.

Across the street from the mall we found Ala Moana Bay.  This was the first time we put our feet in water in this new place!! I was so surprised at how warm it was. The bay has a wave break so the water was really calm.

Aaron's classmate Phil is doing his rotation at Pearl Harbor.  We are going to be hangin' out with him a lot this summer.

On Sunday we found a church in Aiea which was the area that we were planning on living.  Our plan was to stay in a hotel in Waikiki for the first 10 days, that would bring us to the first of the month of June.  We had been in contact with a few people who were renting rooms and we were still deciding what we wanted to do.  After church a man introduced himself to Aaron and told him he was here from Orem, Utah. He told us about a condo close to the church that he was cleaning and getting it ready to sell for his boss.  He invited us over for dinner and to show us the place...... we felt good about it and went with him.

Long story short, the place had been vacant for months and the owner finally wanted to get it cleaned up to possibly sell it.  Dr. Crookston the man we met from church works for the owner of the house and volunteered to come out and help fix it up and get it ready to sell.  Dr. Crookston invited us to stay with him for the remaining week that we was going to be in town.  He also said that he would ask his boss if we could possibly stay there for the summer, since it would most likely still be vacant.  Aaron and I felt like this would we awesome.  On Monday morning I dropped Aaron off at work and then came back to the hotel and checked us out early.( we only ended up staying in the hotel for 3 nights)  I moved our stuff over to Dr. Crookston's place.

5/23/11- 5/28/11
For the next week Aaron and I helped clean the place and get things ready, I feel like it was a blessing to be able to stay there.  On Thursday of that week Dr. Crookston said that unfortunately we could not stay at the condo because his boss had other plans for the condo for the summer.  I immediately started looking on craiglist to find another place to stay.  After looking at a few places I found a lady who was looking for a roomate. I called her up and decided to drive down and look at the place.  I liked the location and she seemed like a sweet person.  Dr. Crookston flew out on Saturday morning and we were able to move in with Donna on Saturday afternoon.  It was perfect.
Dr. Crookson is such a nice man.  We didn't know him and he took us in and was so kind to us.  We feel like he was such a blessing to meet him.  In just the short time we spent with him I feel like I really know him and love him. Thank you. 


The condo







Front room








Our room

Kitchen

 

From the bedroom of the condo overlooking Pearl Harbor.

5/28/11 We got up early on Saturday morning and moved our bags to Donna's house.  After we dropped them off we headed out on our first hike, Diamond Head.  Diamond head is an old volcano crater.  It was a great first hike we got to look over the whole city of Honolulu. 





A look at Waikiki from the top of the old volcano.

Donna's House

Donna is an interesting lady.  She is a 50 year old single woman.  She works 2 days a week doing massages at the Hilton in Waikiki.  She is very simple and ORGANIC.....I think it will be an interesting experience for us and it will be great!!

Avocado tree in front

Front door

Side of the house.  Washer and Dryer are outside.

Washer and Dryer, notice the missing nob on the washer.....nice.   Oh and to save electricity we must unplug the dryer after we are done. I guess it helps save on electricity.

Looking in through the front door into the living room.

Looking from the other side at the living room




Kitchen

 Our bed room.

 Bathroom

Maunawili Falls Hike

5/30/2011

This is about a 2.5 mile hike round trip it is in dense forest.  The waterfall was cool. 

Aaron and Phil looking for a deep spot to jump off of the water fall.

Aaron and Phil are being asked if they are twins......hahahaha.  No joke, this girl thought they were twins. 

Aaron said this was fun because it was off a waterfall, but it still wasn't as high as the cliffs he once jumped off of at Joe's Res.

Some people brought their dogs up here to play in the water. Watch out for the water downstream:)

The trees were growing all intertwined.  It was a cool sight.  Just a couple Mowgli's up in the tree.

As we were walking back to our car I had to laugh at this.

After the hike we stared to drive down around the bottom part of the island to site see.  We stopped at this beach because the water was so pretty.

Phil with what we thought was a dead crab.  We later found out that this is a shell that a crab has shed.

Aaron is pointing at a turtle swimming right below him.

Close up of the turtle sticking his head out.

We tried snorkeling for the first time.  It is so fun.  The water wasn't super clear but we were able to see a few different types of fish.

We stopped at the Makapu'u lookout.  It was beautiful view of the ocean.

Shonee:
So far being here has been interesting.  It has been a little of an adjustment for me.  About a week after we got here I got quite sick, from stress.....I am better now.  We didn't have internet for a while so I spent my days at Starbucks getting my class work done.  Now that we are settled in I feel like I can relax a little and enjoy our time here.

Aaron:
Is adjusting quite well to not studying.  He is excited to have extra time to come home after clinic and study up on the crazy conditions he is seeing at the VA.  He is also learning the to use the public transportation system, he is definitely taking one for the team.  In an effort to save gas money he is riding the bus over an our one way to work.