One Year

I'm back!!! Our computer crashed a few weeks ago and we've been computer shopping and just got one last night :) I can't believe we've been here for a year. The time has flown by. I know I've been horrible at blogging, but it took 8 months with having 3 kids until I finally felt like someone threw me a life preserver and the chaos started settling down. And when Liberty hit 10 mos, I felt like I could write a 'to-do' list and accomplish some of those tasks, blogging being one of them(and that's when the computer crashed).

Here's a little re-cap of our last year:

• The kids and I flew out on March 1st to Honolulu
• We moved into our home March 9
• Our household goods arrived April 10th--we unpacked and put away 80-85% in 3 days b/c my due date was April 14
• We went on an Easter Brunch Catemaran cruise
• Liberty was born April 24
• We've had visitors 8 times (mom came twice)
• The visitor with who traveled the farthest was Christy (Jacksonville, FL)
• We went to the 4th of July festivities up at Schoffield Army Base--it was so much fun and the fireworks were so cool
• Chad worked nights for 8 weeks last summer which was fine except Liberty had colic for 14-16 weeks from 4pm-11,12,1,2,3am! I was exhausted
• Savannah started 1st grade in August and is learning Chinese and Hawaiian and their traditions....very interesting!
• We went to the Big Island twice in August, the second staying at the Hilton Waikaloa Village (awesome place for kids)

• Chad's command decommissioned Oct 31st; we received orders to a ship stationed in Pearl Harbor and our tour here got extended another year. We are now scheduled to be here until January 2013
• Mid November we went to NJ for 2 weeks, stopping in Seattle for 2 days on the way over
• Early December we went up to the Northshore and watched the O'Neill World Cup Men's Surfing Competition up at Sunset Beach
• Chad had duty on Christmas so we went and ate Christmas dinner with him on the ship- very unique experience

(a view of the sunrise behind downtown Honolulu from our bedroom window)

• For my 30th birthday Chad bought me a car (Land Rover LR3) which I love!!
• I went skydiving with my cousin Landon and had the time of my life! WHAT A RUSH! I can't wait to do it again
• We had our first tsunami and survivied!! Although Chad had to go to the ship and get it underway as to not cause massive damage if it were moored to the pier
• Just 2 weeks ago, we saw at least 30 rainbows in a 7 day period. We are so thankful for this reminder of God's love and promises to us.
• We regularly go to the pool, beach, downtown to get smoothies or look at the penguins, turtles, koi fish, flamingos at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and love to eat at Dukes

I'm very excited to see what this year brings--praying for less chaos and being able to fully enjoy all that God has given us to experience here in Hawaii. Chad deploys later this year for only 4 months!! Yay! So, if anyone wants to visit, shoot me an email :) We'd love to have visitors.