Our First Hawaii House

I can't believe we have been living on Kauai for two weeks! It really seems like we've always lived here, though. It feels so natural to both of us.
We have had a great first couple weeks! Kent started work last week and it sounds like a really interesting job that he is really going to enjoy. (Excellent news!)  I am still on the lookout for a job. Plenty of places are hiring here. It seems like everywhere we go has a sign!! So, I am letting myself be a teensy bit more picky than I thought I would.
We haven't got our stuff off the ship yet. It should be here by the end of the month but we're not sure when yet. It has kind of been nice to live with very few possessions. I like the empty rooms and cupboards... For a little while. It really makes it easy to keep the house clean!
Speaking of the house, here are some house pictures!

We live on the top floor :)

Our awesome ocean view from the lanai

Cute little kitchen. (This is our roomate, Taz's, territory. He's a gecko.)

Front room. I love our super tall ceilings!

The front door

Our stairs up to the 2nd floor

We love our little house. We don't have a dishwasher and a noisy baby lives downstairs but who needs sleep or modern conveniences :)?! We live on Kauai!!

Hunting

We spent our first day on the island house hunting. We visited five different realty companies. They were all super nice, and we got a few options to look into from each one, but nothing felt too promising. We had made an appointment through Craigslist to see a house at 5 pm, so we decided that our last visit would be to that realty company, just to check in before our house showing.

Craigslist is famous for scams, but it is also a great resource for finding a house. So, we had been looking at Craigslist houses since before Kent was even offered the job. We had found a lot of houses and apartments that we liked, but living on the mainland was not in our favor.  Nobody could wait for us to show up, so houses were being rented and all we could do was sit and wait.

Fortunately for us (and you will see why, in a minute), this particular house we had an appointment to see had a very vigilant “RENTER’S BEWARE” campaign against it on Craigslist. These people were reposting their warning about three times a week saying that the landlord was "rude" espicially in his "tone of voice". Being the savvy Craigslist shoppers we are, we steered clear of that place! Poison! No way do we even want to get close to that thing.

So we shopped on. Then, two days before we moved, we found the perfect place! We got really excited, and called just minutes after it was posted. Gone. It was already being rented out. But, what do you know? This guy has another rental property just down the street! So we made an appointment to go see that one.

After making the appointment, we searched the address to get a better look via our good friend google maps and, yep, you guessed it. Our hearts sunk when we saw the infamous “RENTER’S BEWARE” house! We decided since we had already made the appointment, we would just stick with it and try to feel the vibe for ourselves.

That brings us back to day one and our fifth realty company (where this house was listed). We stepped into the office and were greeted by the cutest little Asian couple. They were so nice. We talked to them a little about the house we were going to see and Kent asked him about the Craigslist warning. He told us that it was a disgruntled past tenant. She was a single mom and she and her kids had not taken care of the place at all. They were skateboarding on the lanai which was not only damaging things, but it was very dangerous. So, anyway, he said that the owner had kept some of their deposit for damages and this mom got really angry. It turned into a whole big thing and eventually they just returned her whole deposit to her. He told us that the owner (who she was complaining about) was a very "honorable man". And boy did we trust him!!

That explanation was very comforting to us. Now, we were both feeling very hopeful about that place. We talked a bit more with them and he asked us where we were from originally. We told him we were moving from California but from Utah originally. He told us that they visited Salt Lake because their son served a mission there! Uh ???? Kent said, “So are you LDS?” And he said, yes. And we said, “So are we!” They are the Gospel Doctrine teachers in their ward. Our hearts were so warmed by this news. Seriously. We walked out of there feeling so excited and hopeful.

When we went to see the house later that day, we absolutely loved it! A duplex with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and a view of the ocean! Perfect for visitors. We applied and signed the lease earlier today! It is our home for at least a year! 

No luck on the car or the Robyn-job yet but we are in pursuit.

We just keep looking at each other and smiling, or just breaking out in random laughter all day. We are so happy to be LIVING here!

Island Inhabitants

The Blog lives on! I went on quite the hiatus there for a while, but I’m back now. Things we missed while I was gone: 

Kauai with Jamie and DaLena (July 2015)

Sea Turtle Internship in Maui (August 2015)

Thanksgiving and Christmas in Utah (November/December 2015)

Brianne coming home with us after Christmas for a couple months (January/February 2016)

My parents and Alison and Aunt Angie coming to get Brianne (February 2016)

My Car Accident (March 2016)

Kauai with the whole Walquist clan (April 2016)

Graduation from USU (May 2016)

Yosemite (July 2016)

The 24^th of July in Utah (July-if I remember correctly- 2016)

I think that’s the gist of it. Maybe some day I will post about some of those, but today is not that day.

Now that we’re somewhat caught up, I’ll stick with the present: We moved to Kauai!

GETTING THE JOB

When we went to Kauai on our honeymoon five years ago, we both fell in love with the island. We have been lucky enough to go back every year since then and every time we step off the plane, I always tell Kent “We’re home!” I can’t explain the connection I feel to this place. I am in love with it. I feel so natural in the island environment. That’s the best way I can explain it. And Kent. He is the biggest part of the reason I love it so much. He is at his happiest when he is on this island. When it comes time to leave, we feel like our hearts are breaking every time.

In April, we got to go to Kauai with my entire family. It was such a fun trip. That is one of the happiest moments my heart has ever experienced. To have all my loves in the place that I love so much…it was perfect. After the most perfect week of beaches, and golfing, and shopping, and hiking, and minimal sunburns, Kent and I ended up with about a two hour later departure than everyone else. It worked out that we dropped some people and bags off and then said goodbye to everyone outside the airport (for they were headed to SLC, and we were back to LAX.)

In that moment, it felt so much like we were staying. I let myself pretend for a minute that we really did live there.

We were both feeling the “end of Kauai” blues, so we decided to drive to the nearest beach and enjoy one last Kauai sunset. I don’t know that I will ever forget that night.

Moving there has always been our most ultimate goal/dream. We have been saying it since before we were married. That night, we walked along the beach and got really serious about whether or not we were ACTUALLY going to try. Kent has always been watching Hawaii job boards, but it didn’t feel like we had made a concrete decision. We discussed it for a while and decided on that perfect beach, during the most beautiful cotton candy sunset, “We’re seriously going to move here.” (Or at least give it our best try.)

That was an exciting moment. We got home and Kent and I both started scouring Hawaii job boards for anything remotely related to Kent’s profession. He applied to a bunch of jobs, got a few emails back. One felt pretty promising on the Big Island, but they ended up postponing the hiring process. He kept applying and one day got an email wanting to schedule a phone interview! Not just any job though…The Pacific Missile Range. He has had his eye on that place for years. The rest was history. He had a second phone interview and a LOOOOOONNNNNNG week and a half later, while we were camping in Yosemite with my parents and Brianne, he was offered the job.

MOVING

The moving process was quite stressful. Moving is bad enough but moving to an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean adds a whole other layer of stress.  We made a big Master To-Do List. It seemed almost impossible to get done in the short month that we had to do it.

We had to schedule a moving company that ships to Hawaii. Kent researched a bunch of companies and found the best one. That was an intense decision because you are trusting these guys with basically all your possessions!

Then, we had to decide what to sell and what to take with us. Some stuff was obvious. We’re definitely selling our guest bed and our washer and dryer. But some stuff was more difficult. We don’t need my art table, but it has sentimental value and I love it and I don’t want to get rid of it. That’s where my angel parents came to the rescue. They drove to California and helped us pack, took truck loads of stuff to Goodwill, and they rescued a bunch of things by loading it into their truck and taking it back to their house. A real true lifesaver of the whole moving experience. Thanks so much Mom and Dad and Brianney!!!!!

We were lucky enough to be able to sell everything we wanted to sell including our car. We sold it about a week before we moved and our Bishop let us borrow his car to get us through that last week. So nice!

So two days before the big move, the moving company came and packed all of our stuff into their truck to take to the port in Long Beach. We ended up going quite a bit over our estimated space which was uncomfortably pricey (eye-rolley guy).

Advice to everyone that is going to move to Hawaii (which I hope most of you are considering ;)): Pack EVERYTHING yourselves. Everything that is at all possible for you to box up, do it yourself. We boxed most of our things but quite a bit we left up to them. That was a mistake. We packed everything expert-level Tetris style. Rolled up clothes inside shoes, bowls in bowls in bowls, silverware inside the blender. We got creative, people! And these guys? They packed our vacuum inside a refrigerator box. Don’t let it happen to you!!

Anyway, it all worked out. We spent the last couple days like squatters in an empty house with just our suitcases to keep us company. It was such a unique and fun experience, if I’m being completely honest. We complained about it being stressful from time to time but there is nothing I would change. Moving to Kauai is the dream, and there is no amount of stress that could make it any less awesome! (Maybe just less expensive would be a plus!)

We packed our air mattress so we would have something to sleep on.

Think we can live with just this for a month?

Bye, little blue

Really, for reals, on our way to live in Kauai!! WHAT?!

Headed to LAX

Trying to ditch 13 pounds of weight out of Kent's suitcase. (We did it!) 

We're home!!!