Farewell California...Hello Hawaii

August 20th, 2010 at 8:45 am, we boarded onto Hawaiian Airlines to leave our home in California and made our way to our new home on the island of Oahu.  It was a bittersweet time that morning.  Many of our family and friends came out early to say goodbye.  We are so blessed to have so many people love us.  As we waved our final wave, I felt an overflowing amount of saddness and excitment all at the same time.  I did my best to stay strong for my little ones but I failed.  When we were going through the security gate, one of my little girls broke down and cried then I started to break down and cry behind her.  After a slient prayer and a deep breath, God granted me the strength to gather my thoughts and focus on what was happening. We needed to get all our children and their luggage together in the line.  Thankfully one of the security guards noticed us and opened up a new line for us so we didn't have to wait so long.  Praise God!  We quickly made our way to our gate (the whole time keeping an eye out for our kids. The scene from Home Alone where Kevin followed the wrong person kept playing in my mind).  When we got there, they had already started seating the passengers so we hopped into the line. It wasn't long before we got to our seats. [Side note: as we were waiting in the plane to get to our seats, hubby recognizes an old co-worker on the plane. I'm telling you, everywhere we go he knows someone!]

Soon we start to hear the rummble of the engines. Then....lift off!!!  As my girls gripped my hands, they both started to quietly "scream" in excitment! The plane ride from CA to HI is about 5-6 hours long.  Hubby and the children fell asleep for most of the trip. I was able to sleep for a little while but just as I closed my eyes I would feel a little nudge, "Would you like something to eat?...Would you like something to drink?" As sweet as the flight attendents were (I know they were just trying to make our ride comfortable), all I wanted to do was sleep.

At around 11:00 am (HI time), 2:00pm (CA time) we landed in Honolulu! ALOOOOOHAAAA! The weather was hot and humid, the skies were blue and....my children were hungry...hahahaha (if you know my kids they eat all the time)!  We had to wait around a bit to get the luggages we checked in.  Then we were greeted by Ray and Brandon who brought hubby to the rental place to get our rental since our SUV hadn't arrived yet. We loaded up the cars and made our way to Jay and Angeli's where they graciously opened their home to us while we looked for a place to rent.  We stayed with them for a total of 5 days before God provded us with a condo.

During those 5 days we were able to do some "touristy" stuff. We took the kids to Northshore to Giovanni's shrimp truck, Matsumoto's shaved ice and the beach were LOST was filmed. We all had our first experience at Ko Olina (Wonderful place to take your kids. Lagoon 4 has the most parking but can get crowded. Lagoon 2 is quiet but doesn't have too much parking.)

On Wednesday, August 25th we signed our lease papers and were able to move in on Friday, August 27th.  Our IGC ohana were so willing to help us move our stuff out of storage into our new home. Even Jay and Ray's brother Joe helped us and he was on vacation!  It didn't take them long to move all our belongings. Even though we didn't bring much, we still had too much stuff! Seriously, we are so blessed to have so many things!

This past week has been full of errands. From buying cleaning supplies to buying furniture. We are so tired!!  But our place is really starting to look like home. We were even able to purchase the same table we had to sell back in CA! yay!  Gotta love craigslist!  There are still a few things we need to get but overall our transition here has been pretty smooth!

Next week, hubby starts his new job. And after 4 years of homeschooling, we may be signing our kids up for public school!! Yikes!! Praise God there's a really good school just down the street from our place.  I'll share my thoughts about that topic in another post.

Until then, Aloha!