Aloha Living

Hawaiians are a very laid back bunch.  I have struggled to find a word for this attitude.  For now, we'll call it Aloha.

We are starting to settle in and find a little Aloha.  Xander has recovered from a nasty bacteria that kept him out of day care for a week.  He is enjoying his new space, which is a little spartan with no furniture.  Of course, he hasn't noticed, since most of his toys are here.  We are getting used to waking up early.  There are these wild chickens all over the island, you see, and they all crow early in the morning.  Xander has decided that this is his wakeup call.

I've stopped being astounded at how much everything costs here.  We really can't help ourselves at the grocery store.  We are not used to having so many options, and we always walk out with more than what we had planned to buy.  I'm not too hard on myself for spending money on food.

I haven't gotten tired of my picturesque surroundings.  Just this morning, we walked to the local playground, which has a view of the ocean.

X and his dada make a sand hole at Kailua Beach Park

At the Mokapuu Tide Pools.  He insisted on wearing the hat over his towel.

You can see the ocean from the playground.

Our other neighbor, the Koolau Mountains

Our furniture-less apartment

Chickens at the post office

Settling In

We've fallen into a sort of routine: I work, Bobby drives me back and forth and takes Xander to the playground, and on weekends we go to the beach.  We're still spending a little more than I'm used to.  Hawaii is expensive.  Like, very expensive.  We try to eat out of the Safeway, and I'm still trying to figure out how to get our grocery bill under control.

We found a nice daycare for Xander, and Bobby starts his new job on Monday.  We sign the lease papers on our not-perfect-but-adequate apartment today.  Bobby's scrambling to get a car today so that he can get to work.  Hopefully he'll come home with one.

We have learned to appreciate my hatchback car.  It's loaded with our beach chairs, some buckets and shovels, and the cooler.  When unloaded, the hatchback is perfect for changing Xander or tailgating.

We found a farmer's market that plays live music and is playground-adjacent.  While we are in Kailua (and possibly later), this will be our Sunday morning routine.  I know I've said it before, but it's great to be back.  There's a lot of live music here and a lot of picnics.

Hawaiians are so nice.  When I'm driving, I never have to wait too long to merge.  Someone always lets me in.  Someone stopped to help Bobby change a tire.  I think the sunshine makes everyone laid back, despite the high prices!  I'm going to have to absorb some of that cool-headedness.

The playground at our future apartment complex

The kids room at the base library

Some kind of sacred rock thingy.  The water was beautiful that day.

Renting a House in Hawaii 101

We're here!  It was not the smooth transition we wished for--poor X has the flu and my dad is under the weather.  Nonetheless, we are enjoying our first few days on the island.  I bought a Prius, which has been my dream car for awhile.  We switched our Korean cell phones over to a US carrier.  We visited the Walmart.

One thing I was not prepared for was the vicious rental housing market.  We have looked at six places so far.  We've found three that were acceptable.  The first time we liked a house, we said, "we like it, but...we'd better look at some more places."  It was rented out from under us the following day.  Having learned our lesson, we put in an application for the next place we liked.  The next day, we found out that someone else had been selected.  We just found another one that was acceptable--a far cry from the palatial apartment we left, but definitely livable--this morning.  Hopefully we'll have better luck with it.

I'm used to selecting a house, calling the landlord, and signing a lease.  We are babes in the woods in Hawaii.  Every house showing we go to has other potential renters prowling around, snapping photographs.  We're really hoping to buy next year.  I wonder if the housing market is as competitive.

On the plus side, we live here now