Hawaii Life!

Hey everyone!
What a busy few days since our last post.. I almost don't know where to start! Since I can't contain myself I'll just with we SIGNED A LEASE! :) It was one of our favorite places we researched online and today (4-28-14) We officially signed our lease! I'll talk more about it later in the post! 

We've done a ton of awesome touristy stuff since the last post. It's been amazing, and it makes us SO excited to have visitors to show everyone all the amazing sights we've found already! We bought the go pass which is GREAT (actually my mom did for us because she is simply amazing)! It gives us access to 34+ popular tourist sights around the island for once flat price. TOTALLY worth the money when visiting Oahu! One of our favorite things was the Pali Lookout. Imagine driving up a winding road feeling like your about the go off the side of the road, that was our experience! But once you reached the top it was the most amazing experience and so worth the drive. When we arrived the main entrance was closed due to the wind.. little did we know how windy! We stepped off the bus and BAM! 50+ mile an hour winds with the most breathtaking view of the island!

Catamaran View! Very beautiful!

View from our Catamaran! (Diamond Head and Waikiki)

Click this to check out our Macadamia Nut Adventure!!
(Link to our video!)

We also checked our the Waikiki Friday night fireworks that are shot off from the Waikiki Hilton Village Hotel. It was pretty sweet with toes in the sand watching fireworks shot off over the ocean.

Dole Plantation! My favorite was the Dole Whip- so good.. like ice cream but better!

Our food from Germanine's Luau! What a great place. Must see when on Oahu!

My favorite beach! with Chinamans Hat in the background.

Well, now on to our apartment! We are literally 100 steps from the Ala Wai canal and about 2 blocks from a locals beach (right next to Waikiki Beach). It'll be super convenient when we are semi decent surfers in a few months! :) It's a cute little studio, pretty small but homey none the less. Plus not only is it near the ocean it's in a great part of town steps away from Ala Moana Shopping Center and all kinds of outdoor activities! It will be perfect for visitors... so start booking those tickets! :) It was actually super easy with the whole lease process. We worked with a really great real estate girl who is actually moving from Hawaii to Rochester, New York. What a weather change that will be for her! One of my favorite parts of the apartment is not only the view but our lanai. It'll be a great place to grow our own veggies and fruit and hang around in the sun! 

Well until next time cousins! (Hawaiians frequently call themselves or one another cousins implying that we are all family and we are all important to one another). Wish the whole world lived on that motto! 

 Mahalo! 
 Jen and Mark  

Our first sunset on (Waikiki Beach)

 

We've Arrived!

Aloha!
Well we've done it... we've finally arrived... it's crazy!
After a long and honestly quite stressful plane ride due to worrying about the babies (Cleo and Caesar) everyone is now healthy and happy living in paradise. We picked up the animals this morning at the holding quarantine facility which felt crazy considering it was a 5 month long process. We had a heck of a week with so many amazing family and friends giving us such a great send-off, but we have finally arrived in paradise (a breezy 82 and sunny)! My mom has been awesome helping, and driving through Honolulu traffic (not really as bad as people make it out to be). If we didn't have her as a support system for the first few weeks of this transition I don't know how we'd manage! 

Our whole life packed up and ready to move to Hawaii!

For me, and I'm sure Mark it feels surreal to be starting this journey. I would be lying to say I'm not scared out of my mind, and even started questioning our decision this morning at 5a.m. sitting on my phone looking at apartments as I laid sleepless in our dark hotel room. I would like to think that any drastic change gives feelings of anxiety and doubt, especially since we're taking what's left of our comfort zone and throwing it out the window! Those negative feelings soon faded when we walked to Waikiki Beach this afternoon. It was a absolutely beautiful sight with the sun shining reflecting on the ocean with diamond head sitting in the background! What a cool feeling digging our toes into one of the worlds most famous beaches!

There is something that brings out the passion with us when we're surrounded by the ocean and marine life. We really do hope to make a difference during this journey by dedicating time to volunteering at one or many of the dozens of marine wildlife habitats. Oahu is SO different than the big island, polar opposite actually. It's loud, busy, constant chaos, but at the same time it's still the same Hawaii we felt on the Big Island. It is beyond beautiful. The people are the nicest out of anyone I've ever met. The way the mountains cover the horizon and the amazing beaches that stretch as far as you can see. It's everything we ever thought it would be and more. 

 

Waikiki

Doing the shaka!

Waikiki Beach

Our View <3

We are staying at the Waikiki Pearl Hotel through next week Tuesday until we make a final decision on our apartment. Today we viewed two of the apartments we narrowed down from the internet, and it's safe to say we think we made a decision. It's a cute little studio a few blocks from Waikiki Beach, very small, but cozy and homey at the same time. It's right near a lot of the shopping, the beach, nature and one of the best beaches to swim with the honu! Sounds quite amazing to me!

What a ride it's been. I like to think that Mark and I when were together really can do the impossible. So far we've had a marriage full of life, risks, and following our dreams together! We really are best friends and I think this will be such an awesome journey making our marriage and faith even stronger! (The Catholic Church we plan to attend is 1 block from the beach...how cool is that?!)
We will be updating very soon! 
As the Hawaiians like to say...
'A hui hou'     
Until we meet again! 

  
 
Aloha!
Jen and Mark

The price of a dream....

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did."

T.E. Lawrence

We're realizing that chasing your dream requires some serious sacrifice and major decisions, which is why not everyone can do this.  We're either naive enough, young enough, or crazy enough to pretty much leave everything we know behind and start from scratch. 

It has definitely been a tough journey to get to where we are now, but we are almost on the island, which will be another challenge all upon itself which is both exciting and nerve wracking at the same time!

How much does a dream cost?  I think it varies from person to person, or situation to situation, but ours involves learning to live with less and lower your standards for cost of living.  Moving away from all of your friends and family who we have known ever since we were born.  Getting asked to be in a wedding for one of your best friends and having to turn it down because we can't fly back.  Missing a cousins wedding and another chance to have all of the family together.  Missing out on birthdays, parties, events, random get togethers and poker nights.
These are only a few of the things we are leaving behind, and it can be hard at times thinking about all of this, but this is what a dream costs and you have to be serious about pursuing it and know what you will be leaving behind.

We will also gain life experiences few will ever say they have attained.  We will have an awesome place for friends and family to hopefully visit us and spend time together in our new home.  We get to tell our children that we decided to do something crazy and move away to Hawaii to try to better ourselves and live life to fullest!  That we didn't settle for the 9-5, and just did what everyone else did, we knew we wanted something different even if we didn't know what it was, but we went after it!


We started with a quote, so I feel we should end with a quote.  Mr. Frost take it away sir!

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Mahalo!

Mark & Jen