Life as we know it

A lot has changed since I wrote my last post. For one thing, L is now 9 weeks old and totally amazing.

Next is that after my parents left, W’s mom came to visit, left and my mom came back. I definitely had some struggles and needed all the help we could get. So thank you moms for everything’s!

In addition to having a newborn and a c-section we’re in the middle of the moving process. We are leaving the beautiful island of Oahu and headed to California! I’m excited to be back in my home state, closer to my family and sadly still far (but closer still) to W’s family.

Our furniture has been packed and taken so we are living in a large empty house with a mattress on the floor, a small table with two metal chairs and two “easy chairs” if you can call them that.

We borrowed a coffee pot and a couple other items and bought some crappy stuff from Target to be able to sort of cook for ourselves while we repaint walls and wait for late August to come around. Then we should arrive around the same time our stuff does.

This also means not only do I never have free time (silly baby) but I also don’t really have a computer. So this post is coming from my iPad…I’ll be a little low tech in the picture department for awhile.

I’m hoping to sneak in a post during nap times so we’ll see if that works out, hope everyone is having a great week!
Xoxo,

Kayla

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Farmer’s Markets, hiking and amazing friends.

So this was one of my favorite weeks in Hawaii, and here’s why.

My friends are awesome.

Between St. Patrick’s Day parade and dinner, hiking, DIY projects, farmers markets and more…it’s been a great week!

For St. Patrick’s Day we headed down to Waikiki to watch the parade. Then we headed to Moose McGillycuddys for lunch and green beer.

  

Next we hiked to Kaiwi Shoreline trail. It was gorgeous. I’ve been to the Makapuu Lighthouse hike several times and this is just below it. For awhile it looks like you’re in a desert but once you get down to the water it’s really pretty!

It would have been a good hike to take Roxy on. It was fairly flat. It was definitely warm out, and we were there around 11 or so.

This week I also found my inner appreciation of farmer’s markets. And bonus, there are several of them in close proximity to where I live.

I love them for several reasons:

1) Inexpensive, quality produce.

2) Locally grown stuff.

3) Great place to do some people watching.

4) A chance to check out local businesses.

5) Free samples.

6) Yummy local cuisine.

7) Good place to hang out with friends.

So yeah, those are just some of the reasons while I really enjoy farmers markets. We went to one this week and last week and had some AMAZING food. Fried kale ‘sushi sliders.’ Except that I left the ahi off. Don’t they look delicious?

Bananas wrapped in okinawa sweet potatoes, fried with sugar on the outside.

Chocolate and ice creams that are made with island grown ingredients.Delicious local bread (white chocolate and blueberry).

Needless to say, I’m stuffed.

But I love that there are so many local places here that get all of their ingredients from the Hawaiian Islands. It makes it so much fresher, since everything else has to be shipped here.

Basically, my friends (pictured here and not) are awesome, and I can’t wait for some more adventures! Between board games, movies and discussions on all things femalogical and loserest and everything in between.

So answer me this in a comment below….What are some of your favorite places to check out with your friends?

And just for kicks….

And this girl:

Finally!

After waiting five months and six days (159 total days) my love finally returned to me.

And it was amazing.

We have been together about nine and a half years, and for 7.5 of those years, he has been a United States Marine.

I have been with him since he has been in service and this was the first time we went through a deployment. The longest we’d been apart previously was 13 weeks, so this was nearly double that.

And while we are used to being a part, we have done long distance for nearly our entire relationship.

We began dating in April of our junior year of high school (2004). In December In January 2005 he moved after completing all requirements for high school, and that’s when the long distance started.

But these five months of separation was definitely something different for us. And I’m so glad he is home!!!

While I’m lucky he wasn’t in danger, and I’m lucky we don’t have children….taking care of three pets, myself, maintaining a social life, working and keeping my head up is hard.

But this past Thursday, he came home! I’d never been to a military homecoming, well one when I was little but I don’t remember it….

And Thursday was a day to remember. After about a three hour delay the buses rolled up, the Marines piled out of the buses.

And there he was!

After months of waiting, I had my love back!

In preparation for his Homecoming my amazing friend Miranda supervised me into making him a sign.

It was a great day.

Roxy was thrilled to have him home. You can see her reaction here.

We’ve gotten to spend the entire weekend together, and I was shocked at how normal it is. We just got to pick up where we left off.

I could not have asked for a better last three days! ❤

Moving in is so crazy

So many things have been going on lately, I don’t even know where to start!

I guess the beginning is a good place, so we’ll go back a little bit.

On January 3^rd, I got an amazing phone call to let me know that our house was ready (4 days early!) So Wes was able to meet me to resign part of our lease, and pick up our keys!

I then had the very fun task of packing up our hotel room, which we hadn’t started yet because we thought we’d have the weekend to do that. So I got us mostly packed up and got some stuff for the house so we could start painting right away.

We had nearly everything moved out of the hotel and into the house by that evening, minus the pets of course.

So the next morning, after 65 long hotel bound days, said goodbye to the Lodge and headed toward our new home!

We had a little bit of time in the house before the movers started bringing in all of our stuff, which turned out to be a very long, long day.

Wes got to be home with me for most of the afternoon which was awesome. Then two awesome friends came over to help me out after all of our stuff was in the house and Wes was off to work.

It was so nice to see my stuff after three months without it! I was awkwardly excited to see my dishes and my cooking supplies and my bed and just these random things we’ve collected that make up our little life.

The first night in the house was great, the movers put our bed together so I dug around and found some sheets, got them washed and got to have a very comfortable night.

Roxy did really well. We got up early to take her out and since then she has slept through the night since we’ve been here which has been a huge blessing!

Work on the house has gone slowly but steadily. The downstairs is all put together and habitable.

Once the movers were done, one of the first things we did was start to paint. That was interesting to say the least because I for the life of me don’t know how to paint. When I was in high school a couple of my friends came over and we painted my bedroom and did a pretty bad job on it…..so 10 years later, I’m still clueless and we’re painting a white wall navy blue. Sounds like a disaster to me.

Luckily Wes is awesomely patient. So we went to work taping, painting, pouting because I’m a terrible painter and then Wes fixed all my screw ups. We’re quite a team. They navy actually turned out really well. Our entry way is very long so the long entry wall is blue. There are only three walls in our living room, one of which is kind of a half wall because of the stairs, so that one is navy blue as a background to the TV.

In the kitchen we took the longest wall, which also has four huge windows, and painted it a light gray, almost silver. And it has some blue hues in it, catch it in the right light and it looks almost lilac. The adjacent wall has the slider to the backyard, we painted that gray too.

A couple days later I realized the gray plus the navy blue are our Nevada colors. I have no idea how that happened, haha.

Our new couch is a sage green with grays and tans in it and there are two accent pillows that have some navy on it so everything sort of ties in.

We have no pictures or decorations hung anywhere in the house yet, so that’s something I definitely want to get to sometime soon.

Other than decorations, I feel like our downstairs is nearly complete. We’re going to sand down the coffee table and stain/paint it black. We also want to buy a black entertainment stand to replace the little cherry wood colored one we have now. We also want to buy some barstools to put on at the island.

Other than our kitchen/living room, the house is basically a wreck.

Our garage has random stuff all over the place so that is something Wes and I will have to tackle one weekend and get together, luckily there isn’t a whole lot of stuff in there. I’d love to park the truck in it, but the truck just barely fits…. Darn big vehicles!

While the downstairs is together, the upstairs is pretty much a nightmare.

Nearly a week after moving in the bedroom furniture we ordered was delivered. We bought a dresser, a mirror and two night stands to match our bed frame. I quickly came to the realization that we need a second dresser, or one of those tall skinny ones, because we have a lot of stuff we don’t hang. There are a lot of random things just lying on the floor in our room right now, plus a lot of things that need to be hung on the walls.

Then there is our guest room and our office. They are such a train wreck, it’s not even funny. The movers opened up boxes and dumped them all over the floor. At one point they dumped out my jewelry box and Wes found earrings everywhere. Super.

So I’ve been spending the last week finding random things in the weirdest places and trying to get them at least into the room they belong to.

My next projects are to tackle the files in our office and get that handled. After that I can get to work on our guest room.

We got an accent wall painted in our office, a crazy dark purple that looks pretty sweet.

We have paint for our bedroom and our bathroom but haven’t made it quite that far yet….maybe someday.

This house and the little pup are definitely keeping me busy!

Pictures to come later….

Moving in is so crazy

So many things have been going on lately, I don’t even know where to start!

I guess the beginning is a good place, so we’ll go back a little bit.

On January 3^rd, I got an amazing phone call to let me know that our house was ready (4 days early!) So Wes was able to meet me to resign part of our lease, and pick up our keys!

I then had the very fun task of packing up our hotel room, which we hadn’t started yet because we thought we’d have the weekend to do that. So I got us mostly packed up and got some stuff for the house so we could start painting right away.

We had nearly everything moved out of the hotel and into the house by that evening, minus the pets of course.

So the next morning, after 65 long hotel bound days, said goodbye to the Lodge and headed toward our new home!

We had a little bit of time in the house before the movers started bringing in all of our stuff, which turned out to be a very long, long day.

Wes got to be home with me for most of the afternoon which was awesome. Then two awesome friends came over to help me out after all of our stuff was in the house and Wes was off to work.

It was so nice to see my stuff after three months without it! I was awkwardly excited to see my dishes and my cooking supplies and my bed and just these random things we’ve collected that make up our little life.

The first night in the house was great, the movers put our bed together so I dug around and found some sheets, got them washed and got to have a very comfortable night.

Roxy did really well. We got up early to take her out and since then she has slept through the night since we’ve been here which has been a huge blessing!

Work on the house has gone slowly but steadily. The downstairs is all put together and habitable.

Once the movers were done, one of the first things we did was start to paint. That was interesting to say the least because I for the life of me don’t know how to paint. When I was in high school a couple of my friends came over and we painted my bedroom and did a pretty bad job on it…..so 10 years later, I’m still clueless and we’re painting a white wall navy blue. Sounds like a disaster to me.

Luckily Wes is awesomely patient. So we went to work taping, painting, pouting because I’m a terrible painter and then Wes fixed all my screw ups. We’re quite a team. They navy actually turned out really well. Our entry way is very long so the long entry wall is blue. There are only three walls in our living room, one of which is kind of a half wall because of the stairs, so that one is navy blue as a background to the TV.

In the kitchen we took the longest wall, which also has four huge windows, and painted it a light gray, almost silver. And it has some blue hues in it, catch it in the right light and it looks almost lilac. The adjacent wall has the slider to the backyard, we painted that gray too.

A couple days later I realized the gray plus the navy blue are our Nevada colors. I have no idea how that happened, haha.

Our new couch is a sage green with grays and tans in it and there are two accent pillows that have some navy on it so everything sort of ties in.

We have no pictures or decorations hung anywhere in the house yet, so that’s something I definitely want to get to sometime soon.

Other than decorations, I feel like our downstairs is nearly complete. We’re going to sand down the coffee table and stain/paint it black. We also want to buy a black entertainment stand to replace the little cherry wood colored one we have now. We also want to buy some barstools to put on at the island.

Other than our kitchen/living room, the house is basically a wreck.

Our garage has random stuff all over the place so that is something Wes and I will have to tackle one weekend and get together, luckily there isn’t a whole lot of stuff in there. I’d love to park the truck in it, but the truck just barely fits…. Darn big vehicles!

While the downstairs is together, the upstairs is pretty much a nightmare.

Nearly a week after moving in the bedroom furniture we ordered was delivered. We bought a dresser, a mirror and two night stands to match our bed frame. I quickly came to the realization that we need a second dresser, or one of those tall skinny ones, because we have a lot of stuff we don’t hang. There are a lot of random things just lying on the floor in our room right now, plus a lot of things that need to be hung on the walls.

Then there is our guest room and our office. They are such a train wreck, it’s not even funny. The movers opened up boxes and dumped them all over the floor. At one point they dumped out my jewelry box and Wes found earrings everywhere. Super.

So I’ve been spending the last week finding random things in the weirdest places and trying to get them at least into the room they belong to.

My next projects are to tackle the files in our office and get that handled. After that I can get to work on our guest room.

We got an accent wall painted in our office, a crazy dark purple that looks pretty sweet.

We have paint for our bedroom and our bathroom but haven’t made it quite that far yet….maybe someday.

This house and the little pup are definitely keeping me busy!

Pictures to come later….