Cacti Spouse Day!

It's been a little while, and I apologize for not updating the blog lately.  Earlier this month, James' unit hosted a spouse day.  The batalion he works under is called the Cacti.  Within the Cacti, there are five different companies (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and HHC).  His batalion will be deploying next April, and one of the things they wanted to do was let the spouses get a feel of what a day in the life of a solider. 

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect.  We were able to participate in a variety of different exercise including battle drills and even shooting guns!  That's right, I shot an M4 and M249.  Pretty sweet! 

It was also a chance for me to meet some of wives of James' coworkers.  To be honest, I haven't really stepped out to meet the people out here.  I guess part of it is because I'm still so immersed in work that I haven't allowed myself to miggle with others.  I met some really nice ladies and I'm hoping to continue to build friendships to better prepare myself for James' deployment.  For now, here are some pictures from the Cacti Spouse Day!

Wives from James' unit

All geared out

Hiking up Kealia Trail

This past weekend James and I decided to go on a hiking trip.  There are tons of hiking trails around Oahu, especially with the beautiful mountain ranges!  James took me hiking up a trail he did with his unit a couple months back called Kealia Trail.  We entered on the northwest side of the island, but supposedly you can enter on the west side as well.  One of my fears of hiking in Hawaii is the mosquitoes.  Yuck!  Get them away.  Thankfully, this trail had no mosquitoes and another plus is that it was shaded throughout most (if not the entire) part of the trail. 

We parked our car over by the glider port area and then walked 10 minutes to the head of the hiking trail.  From there, we entered "military training area" and began our hike.  Since it was the weekend and relatively early, we didn't encounter a lot of people which was nice.  We hiked for about 1.5 hours up the trail....and it was up....all the way till we reached a view of the valley.  I love seeing all the green.  Of course, it was a lot easier to go back. :)  All in all, I think the hike was about 6 miles round trip. 

Next time, I want to go over to the west side of the island and run the trail to the lighthouse and back.  They say it's a 10 mile round trip run.  Should be fun! :)

On our way to the trailhead

View of the glider port below and North shore area

Hiking up

Pretty, but not to the top yet!

View of the Valley

   

Ko'Olina, Kayaking, Chinatown

First real weekend back in Hawaii.  We thought we wanted to relax, but that usually doesn't happen!

I think I'm so used to waking up 5AM, that 6:00 is now sleeping in.  That's what happened on Saturday morning.  6:00AM rolled around and I was wide awake!  I laid in bed for a little while and then decided it was time to get up.  James and I decided to go running.  We didn't make it too far.  I'm not a fan of running in the humidity!  Yuck!!! 

We ran over to the park, did some ab workouts, and then lunged (yes, lunged!) all the way back home.  It was probably a good 400 meters!  I didn't feel it at the moment, but man were my legs burning the next day (and today!).  

We've been saying that we want to go to Ko'Olina for a while.  Since it was still early in the day, we decided to go.  Ko'Olina is a man-made lagoon.  It wasn't a particularly beautiful day, but it's never that bad in Hawaii!  There are actually four different lagoons.  We stayed a while at lagoon #3, then decided to walk to all four.

James at Lagoon #1


Lagoon #2

We haven't really explored the west side of the island, so we took a drive along the coast line.  The west side of the island is known for it's poverty.  As we were driving down, it was sad to see all the shacks built  by locals who can't afford homes.  The road doesn't exactly connect all the way around the island, so we had to stop once the road ends.  Apparently, it's another 5 miles (dirt trail) to the very tip of Oahu.  If only we brought our running shoes!  James and I want to do that run eventually.  I think it'll be fun.  

We wanted to go kayaking, but it was too windy, so no kayaks were being rented out, so we decided to go on Sunday.  Before we moved to Hawaii, I got this book called Oahu Revealed.  It's a pretty cool book that tells you all the insider secrets.  We read there are some great kayaking places on the windward side (near Kaneohe Bay, so we drove over there Sunday morning.  When we got there, the guy said it was going out was really easy, but coming back, since we're going against the current, it will be really hard.  It kind of scared me since I haven't gone out in a while.  Actually, going out was hard, but coming back was super easy and fun!  We kept crashing into waves and getting super soaked!  Next time, I think we'll rent the kayaks, strap them onto the car and drive out to Lanikai, or a river and paddle out to the "sandbar".  

Getting ready to paddle out

After kayaking, we decided to check out the Chinatown in Honolulu and we discovered a GREAT dim sum restaurant called Legend Seafood.  So yummy!  Reminds me of San Diego, and the prices are pretty reasonable!  We walked around like tourist, bought some veggies, and then called it a day.  I think we did pretty well this weekend exploring.  Not sure what adventures lay ahead next weekend!  James has Veteran's Days off, so I might take off as well.  We shall see....:)

Acting like a tourist in Chinatown

 

Typical Asian market



Hawaii, San Diego, Hawaii

It's been a little over a week since I last posted, and let me tell you, a lot has happened.  To make a long story short, James and I went back to San Diego for about 10 days due to the passing of my grandfather.  The trip kind of threw us all for a loop as I received a call at around 4PM Hawaii time and managed to hop onto a flight with James at 9PM and arrive in San Diego the next day!  I told James as we were flying out of Hawaii, "This all seems so surreal." 

We were really only planning on being in San Diego for about 4 days however, we couldn't arrange the funeral until this past Friday, so James and I changed our flight and flew out on Saturday afternoon. 

Back in Hawaii, the biggest fear was Kayla.  What were we going to do with her for the next 10 days???  We only planned to be gone for 4 days, now it was 10 days!  Thankfully, James team member agreed to feed and give her water during the week and we came home to a live bunny. :)  Thank goodness!

So, no real updates to publish since we didn't explore Hawaii or San Diego.  We did carve pumpkins back at home for all the trick o treaters, and we took a more updated picture of Genie. 

Me, James, and Denise

Genie is sooo big now!  We took a picture and video her.  I swear, she's just like a dog.  The video might be too big for blogger because it's not loading properly.  I'll see if I can post it elsewhere.  She should be laying eggs in about a month or two.  Fresh eggs!



Genie at about 1.5 months

Genie at 5 months



Almost 2 months in Hawaii

It's been almost two months since I moved to Hawaii.  I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm officially settled in, with a pretty good routine and schedule. 

Kayla also arrived safely!  She's doing quite well and I think she likes it here a lot more as I allow her the freedom to roam around the house all day long (although she chooses to lounge the whole time!), and at night, she runs around in our front yard and eats fresh grass.  James and I have decorated the house and even went island hoping to the Big Island for Kona. 

Where Kayla spends most of her day



Front part of our yard area

 We went to Dole Plantation to taste so yummy pineapple and ice cream.  Delicious!  Note to the future traveler, the World's Largest Maze is not worth the $8 admission price.  Don't do it! 

  So hot it melts right when outside!



So far, we've explored the North Shore area: swimming at beautiful Waimea Bay and eating shaved ice at Matsumoto.  We actually go up to North Shore every Monday for some local grown veggies.  It's a bit of a drive, so we'll see if I find some place closer.  I like their selection of veggies, and it seems to last us the entire week.   

Great swimming area too!

 45 minutes later, we have our shaved ice!

Typically, each Saturday we'll go swimming over at Ala Mona.  The swim is about 2000 meters round trip.  One weekend, we followed it up by hiking up Koko Crater.  O my gosh!  It's not that it's too bad, but I'm a whimp when it comes to heat.  I felt like I was dying walking up that thing!   The view on the top was beautiful though. :) 

 Up, up, up and away.....

We went over to the Windward side of the island (east side) to Kaneohoe Bay to watch the Marine Corps Air Show and explored the beaches along that area as well.  Still on our to-do list is kayaking, visiting Ko'Olina, Polynesian Culture Center, Moana Falls, swimming at Waikiki, going up to Diamond Head and many, many more.  My hope is with this blog I can keep every body up to date as to how we're doing and what we're doing.  We do love to hear from our friends and family back, so please feel free to leave a comment, or shoot us over an email.  Mahalo! :)