I’ve been a little absent lately but I have an excuse…I’ve been living on the beautiful island of Oahu for the past few days! E and I decided not to take our Guam trip after all since the chance of us getting a military plane departing Guam was slim. As I mentioned in a previous post, we took a “hop” which is basically the extra seating available on a number of planes transporting military members and goods. The hops are sporadic and you won’t know the schedule until a few days before (nor are you guaranteed a seat), so it’s a bit hard to plan much of anything. You just have to be flexible. Surprisingly, I found flying military air to be much more relaxing that commercial flying. We didn’t have the added stress of driving to the airport, going through crazy security or dealing with the awful looks we get from traveling with a young child. All 65 available seats were taken and more than half of them were filled with kids (…although the workers said they’d never seen that many kids at once before.)
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| via my instagram |
From the beginning of our trip we planned to do Waikiki on a budget. Our hotel is located right in downtown Waikiki BUT because it is a military hotel we pay about 1/3 the cost of all the surrounding hotels. Our only costs are the room, food and the cab we took to get from the base to the hotel. We decided not to rent a car and have been doing most of our traveling by foot. I do wish we could do a little more exploring on the island, but honestly, with Kaiden it is just so hard. He would rather be splashing in the water so it’s just been a series of lazy days for us…I definitely can’t complain.
I’m sure everyone feels this way but I’m serious when I say the island culture is definitely for us. Hawaii has such a friendly, chill atmosphere. This is our second time here and so many of the natives have mistaken us for locals. We were pretty excited when someone asked us what part of Hawaii we are from lol. E grew up on the beach and my Filipino roots naturally make me beach prone.
J Did I mention Kaiden is wayyyy tanner than me and he’s been sporting some SPF 50? I’m more Filipino than him…how does that work!?! We put Kaiden on a standup paddle board and right away he went from his belly to standing position and ran across, while on the water! He is only 16 months and already has such a good grip on surfing. I’ve never seen a little kid love water so much. He is seriously fearless. He runs right into the water and actually wants to put his face under. The few times we let him do it, he resurfaced with a huge smile on his face. Let me just say, the best part about this trip is my “I could care less” attitude. I’ve been sporting sundresses and haven’t done a thing to my hair or worn any makeup since I got here. I haven’t even taken pictures. Instead of trying to always capture the moment, I’ve learned to just be in the moment. It’s been nice.
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| via my instagram |
My camera is officially broken by the way. The one night I did bring it out, I set it in the middle of our hotel desk when we got back into the room. Kaiden tugged on the strap somehow and it hit the floor. It wasn’t even that hard of a fall but it was enough to cause a piece of the inside to stay in a position it shouldn’t. I honestly thought I would feel some sort of emotion. E expected me to be upset at Kaiden but I knew it was my fault for not putting it in my bag right away. I really think my reaction to the situation was so calm because of what I’ve been learning from the By His Wounds bible study I’m going through. It’s been talking about having an eternal perspective and using Ephesians to show us the gift we have in our Salvation and how temporal our right now is. When I realized my camera didn’t work I just thought, “It’s my fault. It’s just a material thing. Stuff happens. God provided the camera and He will provide a way to fix it.” Ask anyone that knows me well enough -- that would normally never be my reaction! The Dianne I know would probably get upset at Kaiden and cry over the situation. This study has been such an eye opener and although everyday has me feeling even more humbled (which isn’t easy for me) I’m so encouraged by the deeper understanding of grace I have each day.
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| via my instagram |
Well, I should get back to relaxing. The moment we get home we will have to tackle a laundry list of preparations for moving to Germany. It looks like we will be officially leaving California mid-June. I will be traveling back and forth between Florida, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in the summer and then off to Germany by November. I leave you with this quote, “Wherever you are, be fully there.”
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| via my instagram |
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