A few more sights

So its been a while since our last post and our "adventures" have slowed a bit due to complications with regard to "lack of employment".... that's not to say that we haven't done anything.

Here's a synopsis of our last 2 weeks or so...

Couchsurfing continued to blow our minds. Carly was looking on the site at "nearby travellers" and saw a name she recognized. It turned out that a guy she went to grade school with was in the Navy and stationed temporarily at the Marine base (the one our apartment overlooks). His name is Tom.

She also decided to email other CouchSurfers who live nearby in an attempt to get to know new people in the area. So she wrote to a guy named Pete who does Paragliding.

We linked up with Tom and decided to go to a place that we found out paragliders launch from near the lighthouse that we hiked to previously. We saw a guy climbing up the hillside with a big pack, so we followed him to the launch site. If the world wasn't small enough, it turned out we were following PETE! So we hiked up and watched some launches and enjoyed the view.

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(YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY PICTURE IN OUR BLOG TO SEE A FULL SIZED PHOTO)

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Tom was nice enough to show us around on the Marine Base. Security is high since 9/11 and you have to get a pass and be accompanied by military personell to see it so we are very lucky to have the opportunity to see this particular section of our neighborhood.

There's a radio tower with a great 360 degree panoramic view, a beach with some wild surf for only experienced surfers, a nice mall, beautiful homes and a double olympic length pool that we relaxed in... THANKS TOM!

Thanksgiving was unique. Unfortunately, Carly had to work, so she was busy serving holiday cocktails to the members of Mid-Pacific Country Club. Kevin, on the other hand, was invited back to the home where we first stayed when we landed... the Therriens. Tom and Donna and their two daughters, Maile and Kalei, and their grandmother, Carol hosted him as well as another family from Israel that they are close with.

The day started by relaxing on the beach in the afternoon then moved to the house for a relatively traditional thanksgiving dinner. (Kev was bad at remembering to take pictures).

Carly worked most of the weekend after Thanksgiving, but on monday we did an adventure that we've been looking forward to for a while--GOAT ISLAND!

Just off the shore at a beach part about 40 minutes north of us, is a little island with three beaches and a bird sanctuary. The beauty of this island is that--depending on the tides-- you have to either walk/wade or swim/boogie about 300 yards to get to it. Once there, you can walk all the way around it and see three beaches--two very rocky but unique and one that's so well protected by an arm of reef that it's just about the most perfect beach we've come across. The water is very calm and clear and the day we were there, there was virtually no one else on the entire island. It's an amazingly tranquil and private feeling to be alone on your own island!

This is an arial photo of Laie point and Goat island. We went to both... Goat island is at the very TOP RIGHT of the picture.

The longer island off of Laie point is a wall of reef that a tsunami punched a hole in about 50 years ago.

G0at islands beaches....

The rest of Goat island is rocky coral and a footpath around a bird santuary in the center...

23 days until we come home for the holidays!!!

J-O-B-S !

Ok. This post is the one many of you have been waiting for. We're going to update you on our JOB adventures.

We were VERY lucky with our apartment search. Pretty lucky with our car search. The job search has proved to be more challenging, but nothing we can't handle.

Carly found 2 jobs. The first is as a bartender at a local golf course. Very close to home, beautiful course with great views, and so far the hours are flexible and part time. Seems to be going fine for now.

Her second job is a part time day job with a company called CARE HAWAII. She will most likely be working with children or infants with various disabilities doing case work. The application process has taken several weeks, and the upcoming weeks will be training so the actual job will start sometime in December. It seems like a fantastic opportunity to utilize her degree, has great pay and benefits, part-time hours and may also be close to home depending on her assignments.

Kevin's situation is a bit more complicated. Things just don't seem to be going very smoothly. The dream for the last 2 1/2 years has been to work at one of the big hotel spas like the one we saw at the Hilton Hawaiian Village when we visited. Well, as fortune would have it, he was offered THE job that he has been dreaming about since then... the problem is that everything takes a VERY LONG TIME to happen. The application process has been delayed and delayed by various problems. The HR woman went on a 10 day vacation the day after offering him the job, there's paperwork, background checks, hoops of fire to jump through bla bla bla... Then, when it seemed like a start date was approaching, we found out that the 9 days that we planned to be home for the holidays are "black out dates" for employees. That means that NO ONE is allowed to request to take days off since the spa is very busy and open 365 days a year. SO... it was recommended that he wait until afer the trip home to start work.

So now, he plans on just finding something temporary to make some money for the next few weeks and then re-configure a schedule when we get back after Christmas. He'll probably wait tables or tend bar full time for now, then maybe split to part-time massage with a few nights at the restaurant--not so dissimilar to life back in Jersey.

So that's the scoop. There's no shortage of jobs here, but the laid-back lifestlye translates into a lot of waiting around for employers to make decisions.

Prayers welcome.

Getting to know WINDWARD O'AHU

Hi everybody! We want to thank you for your comments and support :) It makes us happy to know you are reading our blog.

Soooo.... We found this website- couchsurfing.com. It is exactly what it sounds like. You create a profile to meet people who are either traveling or who live somewhere that you are traveling. Got a couch?-- offer it to a traveler... Need a couch? -- look for one wherever you travel! It is free, hosts do their best to show couch surfers around the area and couch surfers participate in the household at which they are staying.

The day after our bed was delivered, we got our first couch surfer, Lindsay. She grew up in Pittsburgh, but recently moved to L.A. She stayed with us for about a week before shipping off to another Hawaiian island. We did our best to show her around and do some fun things.




We visited a little island appropriately named "Chinaman's Hat"




We went with another couch surfer, Sean , who happens to live across the street from us, to a local park to Kayak:




We went hiking up to Makapu'u Lighthouse, look at how blue that water is!!



We went out to dinner to Cisco's, home of the famous 40 oz margaritas and to Hale Iwa Joe's for Lindsay's birthday (a place at which Car is thinking about working) an open air restaurant with a gorgeous view of the Haiku Gardens:





We found a perfect spot to go for a nice 3 mile jog with nice views and a breeze, Lanikai: a ritzy section of Kailua with two "famous" islands affectionately called "the Moks".



Today, Sunday, we found a new church close to our house that we enojoyed this morning. After church, we went to the Ho'omaluhia Botanical Gardens:

You've come this far... you can go ONE STEP FURTHER and leave a comment!! Just click below each and any blog entry.... WE LOVE COMMENTS. It's why we set up this blog... it lets us know you care. :) THANKS!! More to come soon!