Monday, January 30, 2012

3 little words


Hey there, blog-land!  Sorry for the long delay, but I’ve been battling with when and how to write this post for a while now, and I think it’s time to put it out there.

As many of you know, Flyboy and I lost a very important person to us just hours after the New Year.  Although celebrating his life with his family has been a true and unmistakable blessing, it has been a very gut-wrenching, inexplicably painful time for us.  We are still very much working through the grieving process, so bear with us.  I must sincerely thank those of you who have reached out to us during this time.  Without our traditional support system around us in Hawaii, the phone calls, emails, and Facebook messages have meant far more than you could ever know. 


LTJG David Reis
Flyboy will tell you that David was the best friend you could ever ask for.  They met and became fast friends on the first day of flight school, and David had gone on to become a F-18 pilot.  I think that was the only future David had ever considered for himself, and he went right out and did it.  He was like an adventure in a bottle.  I don’t think David had “average” or “boring” days – he made the most of every single minute he was given.  He was a selfless friend, and I mean that in a way that I will never be able to describe to you.  You would have to know him to understand.  David loved his friends in a way that made you feel like you were the most important person in his life, the top of his list.

That’s been a bit of a stumbling block for us in our grieving – did David know how much WE loved HIM?  I hope so, but did we actually tell him that?  Did our actions show it enough?  Thankfully, we were able to spend 2 days with David in San Diego as we travelled across the country.  We hadn’t seen him in over six months, so it was a wonderful reunion.  During that time, David was happier and more huggable than ever, and so as we said goodbye (for the 4th time, because I SUCK at goodbyes) it just seemed obvious that I remind him that I loved him.  And that I really meant it.  And that I couldn’t WAIT to see him in Hawaii.

David and Karen Reis
David and his beautiful sister, Karen lived lives that deeply touched literally hundreds of people.  Not just the “nice girl in my English group” kind of touched – the “best friend that never forgets my birthday” kind of touched.  Their funeral was unlike anything I’ve ever seen.  There were well over a thousand people there.  That church was beyond standing room only – there were over a hundred people OUTSIDE on the steps, just hoping to be there to honor their lives and say goodbye.

Having seen the impact David and Karen had made in their short lives, their (amazing) younger brother and sister challenged us to strive for that sort of impact through our lives.  They’ve dubbed it the “Reis Ripple.”  It can’t be explained any better than through their own words, so I’ll share with you the last bit of their eulogy for David and Karen:


The challenge is this. To have the same ripple effect on the lives around you. Let the ripples of your life be ripples of love, laughter, adventure, selflessness, and smiles. 



The most important of these ripples are the ripples of love. We dare you to never hang up, to never leave without saying I love you. We dare you to mean it. We dare you to spread it. Let your ripples be ripples of love in memory of David and Karen.”

In thinking back on my last hug and my last moments with David, there in San Diego – I am so thankful that I actually TOLD David that I loved him.  It’s not my usual style, just going around dropping the “L-bomb” on people, but I am so glad that I did.  I know I didn’t say it enough, and can only hope that he knew it without being told.  I know that there are a number of you to whom I’ve never actually said, “I LOVE YOU,” but I do.  I’m sure that in thinking about your own lives, you can think of someone you might want to remind.


"LOVE" by the Reis siblings at Christmas
So please, for me, and for David and Karen – go out and tell your loved ones, your friends, and the special people in your lives that you love them.  Go ahead, say it in so many words.  Tell them through your actions and show them how much they mean to you.  Treat them like they’re the most important person in your life – even if they’re not.  Make sure that they know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, just exactly how much they are appreciated.  And maybe there’s someone that you love or have loved, who you don’t even really like right now – go ahead and tell them too, just in case you don’t get the chance later.



A hui hou hoaloha,


- Kristin




If you’re at all interested – you can catch the Reis Ripple page on Facebook.  If you want to know more about David and Karen, this story will tell you a bit about them and this story will introduce you to their incredible family.


A photo from the Ballon Celebration to honor David and Karen's lives.


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

First lesson as a newbie blogger...


DON’T START A BLOG THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!  
(or moving into a new place, or New Year’s Day, or any other big events in your life)
DUH.

Sorry for anybody who felt left hanging.  Totally a bad call on my part, but I’m so happy to have something to come back to now that Flyboy and I are finally getting settled and figuring out what “normal” is going to be like here in Hawaii.

What have we been up to, you ask?  Hmm…well, let’s backtrack to December.  We were living in a hotel in downtown Waikiki while we looked for the perfect place.  Real estate in Hawaii is pretty crazy – the good rentals evaporate faster than you would believe, and pricing is ridiculous, even for the really icky ones.  Basically, take whatever you think you’d pay on the mainland, strip off about a third of the square footage and then double your monthly payment.  Talk about a rude awakening.  Whoa.

BUT…we found a pretty awesome place in a little town not far from the base we’re stationed at, with some sweet views of the mountains AND the bay.  Flyboy was sold as soon as he walked out onto the lanai, it took me a few minutes, but the sheer size of the place and the grounds of the complex helped me get on board.


We couldn’t move in until December 30, so Christmas was a little different in the hotel, but we made it work.  We spent Christmas Eve with friends (dinner, candlelight service, and karaoke) and then got up at the crack of dawn middle of the night to catch our East Coast family at the typical wake-up time.  Made my day, I tell ya.  If I can’t be there to jump on their beds, you better believe I’m gonna ring the phone off the hook!

borrowed photo, check out more from here
So what is Hawaii like at Christmas time?  You would think with the warm weather and the massive melting pot of cultures over here that it wouldn’t be a big deal.  It is.  These people know how to decorate.  Downtown Honolulu spends thousands of dollars on a display at their city center with letters the size of people, and a Mr. and Mrs. Claus the size of our first house in Texas (barefoot with feet in the sand, of course).  There’s not the big fuss over the religious syntax here – rather, everything is “Mele Kalikimaka!”  You may remember the phrase from a song made famous by Bing Crosby many, many years ago.  The words have no literal translation, but are a phonetic rendering of the English greeting first brought to the islands in the early 1800’s.
Yep, there's goldfish under there...

There’s no chimney for Santa to get stuck in, nobody hoping and praying to wake up to snow, but there’s plenty of Christmas cheer all around the island.  December is the peak season for tourism around here (both American, Asian, as well as other international visitors) so they make sure the spirit is alive!  A few things we got a kick out of were the numerous snowflakes hanging from the ceiling in City Hall (seems a little out of place here) and the giant goldfish bowl they created at the bottom of the hotel’s Christmas tree.

All in all, it was a good holiday weekend for us.  Not the big, family-filled celebration I'm used to (thankfully, my wonderful grandmother got them all together before we left for our big move).  But thanks to the USPS, I think they all knew I was thinking about them.  And thanks to Apple and their amazing FaceTime technology, I even got to see a few of the most important people in my life.  A holiday season like this one really puts things in perspective.  I am so thankful that we've got such wonderful people in our lives.  I'm thankful for the friends we got to share dinner with here in Hawaii, and I'm  thankful for the family we have back home willing to answer the phone any hour of the day.  But most importantly, I'm thankful for my husband and that he didn't let this Christmas go by unnoticed like he could have done.  So many girls I know are spending their first Christmas away from their husbands, and it made me realize just how lucky I have been to spend it with Flyboy.  Our time for separation will come, but until then I'm gonna make the most of each and every day and celebrate  all of them with him just like it was Christmas.

- Kristin



Friday, December 23, 2011

The Aloha State


So, what does a little ol’ Southern gal like me know about a place like Hawaii?  Well, when we found out we were moving, I knew pretty much NOTHING.  I didn’t even know which island we were going to be living on.  I just kept telling people we were living on Honolulu, like that was the name of the island.  WRONG.  I might as well have also said that I grew up “on” North Carolina – huh?  Oh, the locals would have had a time with me (and I’m sure they will still get their chance, probably lots of them).  Thankfully, Flyboy was on top of things.  He’d ordered 3 books and a GIGANTIC map from Amazon by the end of the night that we found out.  (Side note:  he also brought home a full sushi spread, tropical flowers and piƱa colada mix.  I don’t deserve him.)  




For clarification:  Hawaii is the state, Oahu is the island, Honolulu is both the county and the county seat (much like Currituck) and Kaneohe is the city/township.  That’s a LOT to keep straight.  But you guys are smart – you’ve got it!

So what can I tell you about this place to help you better understand where we live?  There’s so much to learn – although we’re still in the US, the islands are home to a very loyal people rooted in tradition and history.  Along with the massive influx of Asian tourists, it can sometimes seem that we are in another country altogether.  


The Basics                                                                                         

The Hawaiian Islands consist of 8 major islands, listed from west to east (seems backward, I know).



Map is from here.


Ni’ihau (The Forbidden Isle)
Kaua’i (The Garden Isle)
O’ahu (The Gathering Place)
Moloka’i (The Friendly Isle)
Lana’i (The Pineapple Isle)
Kaho’olawe (The Target Isle)
Maui (The Valley Isle)
Hawai’i (The Big Island)

We live on Oahu, it’s the island where the state capital of Honolulu, Pearl Harbor, and the majority of the population are located.  I’ll tell you ALL about Oahu in some later post (translation: I’ll tell you once I’ve learned more about it myself).

History
Westerners didn’t discover Hawaii until 1778, during which time the islands were commonly riddled by bloody battles between resulting in constant turmoil.  It wasn’t until 1810 that King Kamehameha the Great was able to unite the islands under a single dynasty, as it remained until 1887.  At that time, The Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii was drafted, stripping then-King Kalakaua of most of his imperial powers.  In 1893, amongst rumors of a new Constitution being drafted, the Kingdom was overthrown and the Republic of Hawaii was established.  The Republic remained for 5 years, until Hawaii  was acquired as a territory of the US in 1898.  More than 60 years later, in 1959, Hawaii finally gained statehood under President Eisenhower.  Hope that explains it…history is not my strong suit.  If you have any questions, just ask my dear friend Wikipedia – he knows everything.

Life in Hawaii
In 2010, the state was home to 1.4 million residents…not to mention the hundreds of thousands of visitors and military members who are in and out each year (like us).  The cost of living here is exorbitant – just under that of NYC and San Francisco.  But that doesn’t take into account the additional shipping costs, excessive cost of travel, or limited brand selection that we experience.  Real estate is an eye-opener, too.  Average home pricing runs around $250,000, whereas it’s more like $119,000 for the rest of the country.  Both English and Hawaiian are the state languages.  Hawaiian is a Polynesian language with lots of vowels and not so many consonants.  All the island names above are traditional Hawaiian.  You'll notice I put the traditional apostrophes in the names of the islands above.  Those are "glottal stops" - pauses in pronunciation that are often overlooked by non-native speakers.  But there’s also another language spoken by locals, particularly those of Native Hawaiian descent, called Hawaii Creole English.  It sounds like a cross between Jamaican and Louisiana Creole dialects.  They call it “Pidgin,” it’s the accent you hear on TV and in the movies.  You’d know it if you heard it – I promise.

So that’s a WHOLE lot of info about Hawaii – two wordy posts in a row.  Really, I promise they won’t all be like this.  I just want you guys to learn the things I’m learning along the way.  Since I feel so bad about all these words, how about a rainbow to hold you over until the next post?

Aloha!

- Kristin 

Can you guess why I’m loving this place?

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Welcome


Hey there, Blog-land!  This is my first little venture out into the world of blogging, and I’m creating this page as a way to keep our family and Mainland friends updated and included in our Hawaiian adventure.  I hope this can be a place for us to share the things we are learning and experiencing as we settle into “island life” over the next 3 years.

When we found out we were moving, the first thing I thought when I finally stopped crying, I realized how cool our new life would be – luaus, hula skirts, and saying Aloha to everyone all day long.  And when we got off the plane – what was the first thing I saw?  You bet – a big fat sign declaring, “Aloha, welcome to Hawaii!”


Yeah, I was straight up giddy.  I almost fell off the escalator scrambling for my camera to take a picture.  I’d already bought a flower for my hair back in San Diego, and I was completely scouting out the places to get my first REAL lei.  And when we got to the hotel, I was indeed greeted with a bright “Aloha” from the front desk staff (who have been my true saviors over the past month, by the way).  And, they say it again on your way out – because it means both “hello” AND “goodbye”, of course! 

But it was when I was picking out some little trinkets to send back to my parents that I found this mug, and it certainly had more than just the two meanings of Aloha that I knew of.  That’s when I started to realize how much we had to learn if we really wanted to get to know this island like the locals do.

So, I looked it up.  And that’s what brought me to the name of this little blog project I’d been thinking of starting.  At its most basic, the literal translation of aloha is “the breath of life.”  But it also means love and affection, and can be combined to translate to good morning, good afternoon or good evening.  But it is so much more than a greeting - here in Hawaii, it is a way of life.  They call it the “Aloha Sprirt” and its an expectation of all public servants and government officials, and a place of spiritual being.  Aloha is a place of balance and positive being that radiates to others.  It is a harmonious way of life that focuses on positive thoughts and feelings and the local belief is that these thoughts and feelings will pour out of that one person and multiply and spread to others around that person.

“To hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen, and to know the unknowable.”

 - Queen Lili’uokalani
What a beautiful concept, for such a beautiful place (more on that later, you guys are not going to BELIEEEEVE some of the pictures actually came from my camera, and they don’t even do it half the justice it deserves).  What an amazing thing to aspire to.  I believe that a smile will take you far, and I think that treating others fairly and with kindness is a must, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a happy, smiley basket of fun after standing in line at the post office for 45 minutes or when somebody cuts me off in the mall parking lot.  What I (and all of us, actually) need to remember is that those sour moments aren’t getting me anywhere.  My poor attitude isn’t going to make that line any shorter, its not going to get me a spot in the parking lot, and it’s not going to make me any friends while I do wait.  The only thing negativity is going to get me are some early wrinkles on my forehead and more often than not, it’s just going to rub off on the people around me – no good.  Instead, if I (we) were to aspire to achieve this elusive state of Aloha, not only could I spend my day without wasting my time fuming, but instead it could be happiness rubbing off on the people around me.

I would love to bring happiness to those around me, especially my husband (we’ll call him Flyboy for now).  Flyboy’s around me far more than anybody – and I want those moments to be the happiest they can be.  We’ll have plenty of time apart when he deploys this summer, and it’s all the happy memories we’re banking up now that we’ll be relying on to pull us through those 6 months.  He is my best friend, what if I could impart positivity and happiness on him every day when he gets home rather than venting about whatever stressors I’ve been working through that day?  So, as we embark on our Hawaiian adventure, I’ll be doing more than just soaking up the sun like I expected – I’ll be on my own personal journey…to achieving Aloha.


P.S.  Sorry for the extremely wordy first post…they won’t all be like this.  And as for the gratuitous palm tree photo – well, there might me lots of those!