Braces OFF!

Ra'am was gone for the move. He was on a most adventurous backpacking trip in Idaho.
After being back for 1 day, we swept him away to 69 beach for a 5 day beach vacation (I know, rough life!).

Upon our return, after 3.5 years, Ra'am got his braces off!!!

Sunrise

One benefit to being exhausted and falling to bed early every night is that you wake up super early. That means that we've seen lots of sunrises here. And they've been spectacular.

Day 1

We're back online!
And in my orderly sense of things, I need to chronicle our first month here in chronological order.

Since it had been so long since our last move (about ten years), I had forgotten how exhausting it is! GB and I fell into bed and I don't think I remember being that tired. But it was a good fatigue because we had finally made it!


GB set to work right away unpacking. He found an excellent place to put all of his sci-fi books that are smaller- like old sized paperbacks. We have 4x4s all over our walls- they are perfect.

The light that comes in the front windows is incredible. I believe this is in the early morning.

Here's Kika......
The cats were pretty freaked by the movers and stuff, so we went and got them and locked them in my office here. After a couple of days we let them out on the lanai. Kika looked the most at ease and comfortable. But a couple of nights after we moved, he jumped off of the lanai railing and never returned : ( we miss him terribly. This is the last picture we have of him.

We MOVED!

We successfully transported most of our stuff to our new house on Thurs July 18th!

We've slept there 3 nights now... sleeping has been fitful... there's so much going on (read moving is stressful and a ton of work)... were still moving stuff out of our Hakalau house... and the moon has been so BIG and FULL this week. All of those windows are letting in a huge amount of moonlight!

We took tons of pics, but we're taking an internet break at the new house (i.e. phone and internet aren't done yet), so I'll get them up later.

We're in our NEW HOUSE!

Moving Day

It's been so long since we've moved. We lived in the Hakalau House for 9.5 years. That's a long time- a lot of accumulated memories (Luka was born on the living room floor!), accumulated stuff, and accumulated crap.

Here's some shots of what it looked like before the movers arrived. Boxes everywhere



When the movers arrived, I went to drop off the kids and prep the new house while GB directed the move.Of course we've had like 3 weeks of NO rain, and on our move day the rain fell. Perhaps it's like rain on your wedding day.... after that everything is uphill?

It rained on and off all morning. It wasn't too bad, but it did make the ramp off of the moving truck slippery.The photos and the lack thereof make it look like it was a piece of cake. I assure you it was not! We had some heavy things (like the piano), and the 6 movers worked their butts off- as well as did GB and I.

The kids happily returned from a day of play to their new house!

And we all enjoyed our first dinner together on the lanai (Ra'am is on the mainland).

Finally final...but not finale

Kudos to Jeff. It is rare a house this "complicated" has no issues for the inspector, but indeed today we got our final from the county. We can move in!!!! Karen is ecstatic!!!!

But wait there is more. Driveway (we'll have to walk the 1/2 mile drive with groceries once work starts on it), drain causeway (to help prevent another landslide), the pond (should be done this week), and of course the pool (no definite schedule). So, we will be living in a construction zone for the next month or so...small price to pay to live in our wee bit of paradise!

"Work" day

We did get a lot done. I planted a bunch of banana trees. Trimmed up some of the landscape with the tractor. Karen cleaned the new kitchen. Moved some stuff into the house. We both did some mulching and watering. Karen and I laid out where the raised beds were going and plotted out the chicken coop and chicken run. We also took a very, very long lunch break looking out at our beautiful view. Watching the birds fly and sipping cool drinks from our new refrigerator.

Some say that it will be very hard to get anything done once we move...I am hesitant to disagree!

Friday putter around day, i.e. not move-in day

We were supposed to move in on this day. However.... the electrical inspector (who took a long time to come) didn't pass the house. He's not happy with a couple of our pendant lamps. OK! That's been fixed already and our new plan is to move on Thursday the 17th. We're patient.

So instead, GB and I went over to the land to putter around our new house. The cleaning crew was there trying really hard to dedust. But at the same time Ramen was there mixing concrete for the bas relief (picture below). So while it was cleaned, there's still a fair amount of dust. Oh well!

We put together our new bed!

Wasn't sure if I ever took a picture of our bathroom vanity and mirror (that's me)
The bathtub is CLEAN. There was nasty water sitting in there for a long time. Glad to see the white.
We also were thrilled that our gate is up. We went with a modest (i.e. don't draw attention to me) chainlink one. It is, however, automatic. We got zappers that open is and there's also a keypad which you can see in the distance there. I hate that we had to put one up there (formerly we had a chain with lock), but we've had a lot of problems with people dumping trash : ( that's the highway at that stop sign on the right. sigh. I can't understand why people dump trash.... the transfer station is about 1 mile away.
After getting our gate stuff all worked out, we climbed up on top of the water tank. Pre-shed the view from there was fabulous. Now? It's the first time I've really seen our solar panels.

Here's the bas relief. Ramen is currently working on doing the bricks on the right side of this wall (you can see them on the bottom right side of the picture)

Here's our living room coming together. Until we start shlepping all of our stuff there, it looks so nice, clean and UNcluttered!

pool deck!

Pool deck is poured!

Looks like it was a ton of work. 8 guys were smoothing out the concrete and making it all look and feel good.

The Double O's: Floor, Door, and Pool

Here is the acid washed floor before it is sealed. Looks like Kaua'i mud all spread around. But the natural patterns make the concrete floor look very cool.

In the media room the floor was still wet which is how the floor outside will look when it is sealed.The railings are finished making the front door look even more inviting!


Luke is working on finishing the form for the pool deck which is supposed to be poured tomorrow...weather permitting.
We have decided to move one week from this Friday. Karen does not have faith that we will be in fact moving then (a scant 9 days away), but the moving truck has been reserved and our current house is starting to look like a storage unit with boxes piled in every corner.