Aloha

Greetings from the islands.  We are here and having a wonderful time.  I love Hawaii and I love the affect it has on me and my family.  We come here and everyone forgets the stress and fatigue we live with everyday back home.  We relax and spend hours together.  I watched as my grumpy, over scheduled family begins to get along and play joyfully with each other for hours.  They learn about the relationships they have with each other and they develop new affection for each other.  I know we don't have to be in Hawaii to get these feelings, just alone as a family with nothing to do.  Unfortunately, we don't get that very often.  I feel like I could do a better job of setting time apart for us to just focus on each other, but then everyday life gets in the way.  I am thankful for this time, and I am going to savor every single minute.  The kids are winding down now.  We spent the day at the beach, and the pool and going for long walks.  They are getting to experience a different culture and they are falling in love with the islands like their mom and dad.  We are living in a time of complete denial of what we face when we get back home.  I am in so much denial, I almost don't want to type it.  I will though.  We are moving to the Seattle area as soon as the kids get out of school in June.  We are following Mike over.  He has taken a position in his company, doing the same thing he is doing now, in a territory that involves no overnight travel.  This is coming after Mike's schedule has increased his travel to 3 to 4 nights a week.  When we have growing maturing boys, that schedule would not work for long.  Boys need their dads home.  They need daddy interaction.  They need daddy discipline.  They need daddy love.  We are so excited for this change and what it will mean for our family.  What we aren't excited for is the loss of the closeness of our friends, and our school community and our church family.  We have been here for 7 years, so we are rooted here.  It is going to hurt a lot more to pull up those roots than it ever has before.  I can't think about that part of the move.  It just makes me sad.  I also want to continue to deny that I have to prepare a house to put on the market with 5 kids pretty much acting against my efforts constantly.  The natural state of the universe is chaos, and my kids embrace that concept.  It takes all my efforts to maintain a somewhat neat and tidy house, but if I am required to keep it "on the market" perfect, I may never sleep.  I am going to lay it down at the feet of my Lord, and realize he has a plan for us, and I can rest in that assurance.  The way this move has come about has been a gift from God.  I will tell you the story if you want to hear it sometime.  But I will say one night we were praying and we prayed God would make it easy.  He has.  I will just continue to rest in the knowledge that he does have a plan and I will not stress.  For now, I am going to continue to live in denial while I am enjoying sunshine and sand, and family closeness, and joy.  Love to you all.

 Swimming in the hotel pool

 Large guy on the street with the Gator

 We stopped to watched a hula group

 First walk along the beach

 Pool time

 Super swimmer was so cold when she got out of the pool