Hello Everyone!
Whew! What a whirlwind few months! We are finally catching our breath and I will do my best to fill you in on all of our adventures here so far...
With the help of our dear friends and family, we made a final push just over a month ago and miraculously made it onto the airplane, all five of us. We had a sobering last day in Minneapolis. That morning, we woke up to an email from our new friends here on Kauai, letting us know that their second child, their unborn baby boy had died suddenly while Kimberly was in labor. These are friends that we hadn't met yet, but had developed a strong pen pal email friendship, with growing excitement for us all to work together and play together. Jonathan and Matt had been brainstorming ways to work together and develop the Nature Mentoring project, and Kimberly and I made plans to hang out at the beach with all the kiddos. It was tragic news to hear of the passing of their son, Finnley Bear, and we spent that final day with heavy hearts doing our best to pack up and clean out the last of our belongings from our house on 45th Street. Thankfully, we had many friends helping us and we somehow were able to say goodbye to our friends and family and our beloved little house. We brought the girls back that evening for one last walk through in the empty house, and they went from room to room blessing the space and thanking it for taking such good care of us. All three of our girls were born in that house, and we sure do miss it.
After a long LONG day on airplanes and in airports...
First time up in the clouds for the girls.
A heaven sent vacant corner in the LA airport.
We were able to spread out and stretch for our layover. Yahoo!
Bustin' out the stickers. Thank you, Rachel, for the ziploc of doodads!
The little lady awaiting her baggage.
...we landed safe and sound into the very soft nest that our friends, Steve and Julie, prepared for us here. Julie had spend at least a month here clearing space for us in the "barn" and setting up a wonderful new home for us. She met us at the airport with a wonderful hug and beautiful leis for us all. Here's Scarlet sporting mine.
Dang, she's cute!
Anyways, Steve and Julie told us we should plan on taking the first two weeks as a vacation, to just decompress, and we were definitely ready for that. The trouble is, we weren't really used to sitting still any more, and we had so much to sort out with our new life here, so we spent much of that time searching for groceries, and finding a used minivan, and all the other logistics of moving to a completely new place. We did fit in a few beach days though, with Maya and Maggie getting their first taste of the ocean. Here's a few photos from that day.
Sporting their new "zucchini's", as Maya has renamed her bikini.
First dip in gentle Anini Beach.
The view from our adopted favorite family spot.
And like true Minnesotans in February, we got fried to a crisp that day. We were all having so much fun, we did not realize how much sun we were getting. So the next few days we spent applying copious amounts of aloe vera gel on each other. Here's a little video of Jonathan mowing the lawn that next day. I call it, "Mary Poppins has a UV Umbrella".
We also were reminded that, yes, there are mosquitos in paradise. The girls ran out with Jonathan one of the first evenings into the bananas to help him harvest, and came out screaming with welts all over. It had been awhile for each of them to deal with the fun sensation of bug bites, and Maggie is still covered with a connect the dot pattern of scabs. Mostly, we have learned to stay out of certain areas unless there's a breeze.
A few blurry photos of the harvest and the welts.
Yum!! Apple bananas, so sweet!
So, with a chunk of the money we made at our estate sale, we were able to find a used minivan for a great price. Here's the girls waiting oh so patiently at the Kilauea Bakery while Jonathan took it for a test drive, and the results of their patience...a 2002 Nissan Quest.
The fellow that we bought it from was playing music at the Bakery with a girl named Natalie, and Jonathan of course mentioned that he plays bass guitar. They were excited to hear that and hooked up for a few rehearsals when they suddenly had a gig. Natalie is friends with Bethany Hamilton, who some of you may remember is the girl from Kauai who had her arm bitten off by a shark while she was surfing. There is a new movie coming out about her story, called Soul Surfer, and Jonathan and the other two were asked to play for the VIP opening of the movie. Pretty cool, he got to sit near all the stunt doubles, and meet the mayor, and Bethany herself. The movie is amazing, if you have a chance to see it...
http://www.soulsurferthemovie.com/
The other fun project we were filling our days with is helping Steve with his Children's Theatre production of Godspell. Jonathan did some set building, making the back of two pick up trucks for the band to be playing in on the side of the stage, and I did all the costumes. It's a modern day beach version of the story, and I was blown away by how talented these kids are. Steve has been VERY busy pulling it all together and this is the second weekend it's showing. It was a bit funny to come all this way, and then find myself at the mall again doing wardrobing. Here's an early shot of the trucks, before they were painted and detailed with Ford and Chevy decals...
We have also been spending way too much time driving to Lihue for all of the logistical stuff of moving, you know...new drivers licenses, minivan title and registration, paying the $140 ticket for talking on our cell phone while driving (good to know that's a new law here)...anyways, we are getting tired of the 45 minute drive to town, especially with gas prices at $4.25, and really just want to hunker down up here on the north shore. Here's some photos of us hanging out today in the shade of a mango tree outside the government center, waiting for Jonathan to sort out some financial stuff.
We did have an exciting arrival the other day. We woke up to find a fairy house outside the barn, down by the Kukui tree, the same fairy house from our old garden. The fairies left a note for the girls, saying they missed us so much that they flew all the way here to move to the farm too. The girls were so excited and promptly found the fairy dust to sprinkle around so the fairies can find their way in the evening. (Thank you Autumn, for filling the fairy dust bottles before we left!)
The girls have also taken on looking after an avocado tree that we planted the other day. We had a really yummy buttery avo from down the road, and when Jonathan cut it open the seed had already sprouted. We decided that was reason enough to put it in some dirt to see what would happen. The girls helped me plant it and have since been watering it every day and cooing over its freshly sprouted leaves. I mentioned to Maya that plants liked to be talked to, so she rushes outside and with a sing-song voice says, "Good Morning, avocado tree, you look happy today. Should I read you a story?" And she chooses The Very Hungry Caterpillar because it is a book about growing. She sat out there for almost an hour that first day "reading" the books from memory.
So, these are some of the adventures of our first month here, and I'd also like to share how we are doing with it all. It has been a roller coaster in many ways. At our best, we have been overwhelmed with gratitude for being here at all, and for being able to live on Steve and Julie's beautiful farm. At Foodland a few weeks ago, I was checking out behind a tourist couple, and for some reason it dawned on me that I don't have to fly out in a week, I get to stay here, and a wave of relief washed over me. On the drive home I started to see the ocean more clearly, and the mountains. We really are here. It's not just a surreal backdrop. Those first few weeks we were in complete shock. To come from the dead of winter and the energetic hibernation it takes to survive in Minnesota, and land smack dab in eternal summertime was quite jarring. My new friend Kimberly shared a secret with me that all Midwesterners who move here discover. We have this feeling about summertime that we have to make the most of every nice day because it'll be winter again before you know it. And that just isn't true here. Every day is beautiful. Even if it's raining. We are still trying to make life happen at the speed of cityness, and it just doesn't work like that here. Oh, you drove all the way to town to do all your errands, but half the places are closed because of some random Hawaiian holiday, and the grocery store doesn't have any of the things on your list? Oh well. It's all good. Speaking of groceries...the next time you walk into your local co-op or fully stocked produce section of Rainbow, kiss the colorful veggies for me. I went to 4 grocery stores the other day looking for turnips or any other produce I could make into a soup, and I had to come to terms with the fact that they just did not exist on the island that day. You'd think with the amazing climate here for growing things that there would be a full selection of food, but that is so not true. A large majority of the food here is shipped in from the mainland. The only organic meat here are chickens at Costco from Oregon, and beef from California. Oh, how I miss walking into the Seward Co-op and finding everything I want to eat. We have been completely changing our eating habits, partly because we have started the GAPS diet due to some chronic health issues, and mostly because we need to simplify our groceries. Jonathan has plans to go wild pig hunting with some fellows here, and spear fishing as well, so hopefully we will soon have a source of the local protein. We also plan to ramp up the farming here soon, which is after all a major reason we are here. Oh, this is the eve of my 35th birthday and I could go on and on, but really should get to bed. I'll leave you with a few more fun pictures and I'll be in touch again soon. Look forward to a video virtual tour of our place, and more tales of the settling in process. We miss you all!
Love, Heidi and Family
Harvesting the jackfruit, not quite ripe yet.
The view from the highway, near the farm.
Testing out a mountain apple.
She's learned to grab, so we set up a shell and coral collection.
The view from the end of our road, at dawn the day of the tsunami.
Maggie's 3rd birthday party
Jonathan always takes the most becoming shots of me.
