9 moves in 3 months and we're glad to be in our home in Hawaii!

Wow, it's been a crazy couple of weeks-some of the craziest for us ever and that's saying something considering our last few months!  I won't go through all of the details but it involved a great new place for us opening up (such a blessing!) that is much cheaper than the place we were in, getting permission from land lords to find someone to take over our lease, finding that person, not having anyone get back to me over and over, finding out we had to move everything and have our old place completely cleaned with very short notice and not knowing if we could move into the new place until the very day we had to clean and be out of the old one, quickly buying mattresses and other essentials for our new unfurnished place since we sold all of our possessions in Utah, finally getting access to move in and having no electricity or internet! So stressful and there is no way we could've done this with out amazingly kind, generous people: Geoff's sister who was visiting us for a week for a "vacation" helped out with everything immensely and a couple in our ward, the Murdock's offered to help and came to help us haul everything to the new place in their mini van and cleaned like I'd never seen anyone clean before (no wonder the cleaning company they own is so respected!) I also had a dear neighbor friend spend her precious baby's nap time cleaning my fridge!  Thank you so much to all of you!  No matter where I go I am blessed with wonderful people willing to help us out and I hope to be like you some day!  So all of that was incredibly stressful but our new place is WONDERFUL!  It is twice the size of our other place and beautiful.  It has a yard for the girls to play in, a big kitchen, 3 big bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms, a laundry room, vaulted ceiling family room...amazing!  We feel so blessed!  The crazy thing is that it is $600 cheaper a month than the place we were in!  Housing in Hawaii is pretty crazy! We moved in last Monday and Geoff had to fly to Dallas for a week to present at a conference there.  By this point I was so sick and exhausted from all the stress and moving that I could barely get up off the couch (fun chronic illness strikes again!) we didn't know what to do but we called wonderful Matty & Jess & with out any hesitation they said they would be happy to drop everything & come & help me out for several days!  Wonderful people stepping in to help us again-thanks SO much, guys!
Anyway, the girls and I miss Geoff a lot and are looking forward to having him back home with us Tuesday night.  We are a family who likes to be together pretty much all of the time and have been blessed to enjoy that so much.  Geoff said that the presentation went well and he has been able to meet a lot of great people and do some good networking at this conference so that's great.
And now after all that complaining I need to tell you some of the high lights of the past 2 weeks...

Having Rachey visit was so much fun! We really enjoyed having her here & didn't want her to ever leave!

She became an excellent golf cart driver. :)

We had the chance to tour an AMAZING Bali styled vacation home.  I'll have to write a whole post about that with  all the pictures I took!  Being the architecture/design junky that I am and this being one of my favorite styles, it was a dream come true!

Enjoying yummy shave ice from Aoki's

Doing a session at our temple in Laie with Rachey!

Another thing that I don't have pictures of yet (Rachey will be sending me some) is that Rachey and I went on a boating/snorkeling adventure that leaves here from the Ko Olina marina and it was incredible!  We saw a whale! We swam with sea turtles and tons of beautiful fish! We tried to find dolphins to swim with too but couldn't find any, however zipping along in the boat looking for them was super fun too.  I've snorkeled a few times walking in from the beach and loved that but jumping into the ocean from a boat and exploring out there was even more amazing.  I just can't seem to get enough of this ocean.
I'm too worn out to write to much more, but I wanted to let you all know that we have a wonderful place to live and are alive and well thanks to all the kindness of people around us.  We hope to never move. ever. again!  At least while we're in Hawaii.  Love you all so much!

2 weeks worth

So sorry that I didn't get a blog post out last Sunday!  We were asked to speak in church (in the LDS church everyone from the congregation is asked to speak on an assigned topic from time to time) and I was asked to teach Relief Society (class for women 18 years and older, held after the main meeting. Children go to "Primary" (up to age 12) for lessons and the young women and young men go to separate classes and the men go to "Priesthood".)  Anyway, we were very busy and I was exhausted and didn't get much done after crashing when we came home from church.  (Doing quite well health wise, all things considered, and I know that's a blessing from the Lord, but still struggle with the fatigue.  I'll have to write an update post on that soon because after 13 years the doctor's finally figured out what I have that is causing all of this!)

Anyway, things have been busy and amazing and stressful and wonderful, just like every day since we've been here.  Some of the highlights this week were...

Buying our own golf cart! Some people in our ward (local LDS church congregation) are moving so they sold it to us really cheap & we couldn't resist.  It's been so fun to zip around in.  That's the preferred form of transportation here in Ko Olina.

Enjoying being outside and playing with friends in this amazing place.

Watching the sunset over the ocean.

Watching a turtle swim around right below us! You can see his back sticking out of the water if you look really close. I'll try to get better pictures next time.

Another one of the turtle swimming just below the surface.

Playing in the amazing trees here...

Looking at this!

And this!

Being with this beautiful gal

And this cutie

What's more fun than a stray palm frond? 

Finding sea glass/beach glass!

And just being together as a family

I've enjoyed the classes that residents of Ko Olina can go to.  This week I tried the weight training circuit class, "Hot Hula" and went to yoga on the beach 2 times.  I really liked all of the classes, especially the yoga on the beach.  Does it get any better than that?!  The hot hula class was the first hula class of any kind I've ever tried and it was hard!  It was really fun though & I like learning all the Hawaiian terms for the different moves.  I looked absolutely ridiculous doing though so I hope I get better at it.

I'm trying hard to stay healthy and exercise 6 days a week.  I aim for whole, real (aka as little processed as possible) foods, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and seem to feel best when I do that.  Fighting off my sweet tooth is a real challenge but I'm determined to be as healthy as possible and lose this weight I gained last year while I was so sick and lying on the couch most of the time as the mystery patient.  If any wants to join me, I'm always up for that!

Love you all!  Have a great week and new month.