Summer Wrap Up . . .. . and Gone.

The last month has been busy.  I finished two pairs of booties for my niece and I will be bringing them to her in less than a week, which I am incredibly excited for.  I also finished one of my Christmas present knit projects, but I can’t share it here so that the recipient doesn’t see it early.  It is up on ravelry (tatortut is my handle) so if you have an account you can see it there.  It turned out marginally well.  Now I just have three Christmas knit projects left.  Two of them are small and one is maybe medium sized so I am hopeful on completing all three.  Also, maybe I will finally get around to finishing at least one piece of the minimalist cardigan I’ve been working on for ages.  I always get about three inches done and then set it down for so long that I forget where I am in the pattern repeat.  The yarn I picked is uneven so I can’t really read the pattern back to find my place.  I need a really good, steady method for reminding myself where I am so that I don’t have to continually frog the piece.  I think I have gotten to three inches about seven times now.  It’s incredibly annoying.

I also picked seascape back up.  It’s incredibly easier this time.  I still have to use lifelines and have frogged a few times, but all in all it is a much smoother lace effort this time around.  I’ve actually gotten off of the first chart and am slowly but surely making my way through the first repeat of the second chart.  I think the projects I’ve completed since starting seascape the first time have really given me the confidence I needed to be able to do lace comfortably.  I’m almost ready to call myself an intermediate knitter.  Woohoo!  Now I just need to get up the courage to go to an Aloha Knits meeting.

A and I have spent the last month fitting as many things into our weekends as possible.  We’ve gone to the beach numerous times, so many times that A was really sick of it in the end.  We have decided, however, that the beach in Kailua is the best beach on Oahu.  Some will argue for Waimea, which is a nice beach, but you have to get there at 8am to find a parking spot.  We’ve only successfully gone there once, and that was probably a fluke.  Kailua is better though.  The sand is that perfect powdered sugar sand, doesn’t get too hot.  The beach is also not far from the parking lot so you don’t have to walk endlessly with all of your beach things.  The water is shallow for a further distance too and the waves have never been too much to deal with.   Beyond that, Kailua has the best plate lunch we’ve had on the island.  You have to go inside Time Market to get it, but that steak is sooo good.  If we had it to do over again, we would probably live there instead of Mililani.  We also stayed for a few days around my birthday at the Hale Koa hotel.  It is a military recreation area at the end of Waikiki.  It is a decent hotel, the rooms aren’t anything fancy, but do you really go to Hawaii to stay in your room the whole time?  The beach there is one of the better Waikiki beaches because its a bit less crowded.  They also have stands where you can rent anything from surfboards, to kayaks, to a very strange water tricycle which is oddly popular.  We tried stand-up paddle boarding while we were there.  Its basically a longboard that you stand on and you paddle yourself around.  It’s oddly satisfying and I was actually pretty good at it.  I only fell once.  A fell a bit more than that.  I liked it so much that I was ready to go out and buy my own board so I could do it whenever I want, but A talked me down from it.  You have to be careful here or you will get too many hobbies.  For my birthday A bought me the most gorgeous bike in the whole world.  I’m not a huge biker and don’t know a lot about them, but it cost a pretty penny and the bike shop guy was talking it up.  It’s a vita sport from specialized and I love it.  It’s white and the seat is all fancy so that the blood flow in my butt is not all messed up and I don’t get all numb.  I don’t know how it works, but it does.  It’s a bit hard to find good places to bike here, though.  We tried biking through Waikiki to our new favorite hot dog place, Hank’s Haute Dogs, but I got freaked out when my bike wobbled and I almost fell into traffic.  We had to stick to the sidewalk after that.  I think with a helmet and some practice I’ll get used to the whole riding in traffic thing.  I was always annoyed with it in Ann Arbor and I think that’s preventing me from getting into it now.  I was a lot better when we biked on the north shore.  I just need to find a good route that isn’t super crowded with cars.  Maybe it will get better when all the tourists are gone too.  We also discovered a nice little hike on the east side of the island near Hananama Bay.  It’s called Makapu’u Point and its part of the Ka iwi shoreline.  Our hiking book says its a three mile loop and only part of it is paved.  We walked the paved part and never saw the other part so A doubts its existence.  However, I’ve found our hiking book to be quite reliable so I think we just didn’t look hard enough.  Anyway, its a pretty quick climb and takes you to the top of the easternmost part of the island and it has a great view.  Its apparently a good place to whale watch in the winter and we could even see Molokai, although barely.   We went snorkeling again at shark’s cove but still didn’t see a turtle.  However, there is a beach on the north shore very close to Haleiwa that almost always has several sea turtles very close to the shore.  There are rocks covered in seaweed or algae or something that the turtles eat so there are there a lot. We call it turtle beach and it often causes a backup in traffic along the north shore because it is so full of people and because of gawking.  We went there a few times and managed to get some close up pictures with our underwater camera.

Here are some pictures from the last month, including some of the booties

Two turtles passing each other at Turtle Beach

Hanging out at Turtle Beach

Snorkeling at Shark’s Cove

View from my paddle board

Check me out! Paddleboarding at Hale Koa

Mmmm… delicious shave ice

He’s not falling right now….

Kayaking on the north shore

Random Beach Scene

Wind surfers galore

Heading for the top

Taking a short breather

Looking towards Kailua from the easternmost point of the island

Whew! We made it to the top

Makapu’u Lighthouse

Check out the awesome picture I took

Me and my hot bike, love at first sight

North shore sunset

Typical Hawaii picture, palms at the beach during a sunset

Other than those highlights, we spent as much time together as possible because this weekend was when A was leaving for his deployment, although we didn’t know the exact day until a few days before he left.  After spending a painful three hours in a hangar surrounded by families whose children should not have been up at 3am, after hugging him and crying too many times, and after the fruits and vegetables beagle had checked all the bags, I had to hug my husband for the last time for at least seven months, maybe for a year and watch him walk to a bus and drive away to the air force base where a huge plane whisked him away to who knows where en route to Kuwait.  It was exactly as anything the army organizes can be expected to be, much longer than necessary with as much confusion as possible.  You’d think they’d have this stuff down by now, but no.  I was glad that there was at least someone there that I knew.  A wife of one of the soldiers in A’s troop, who was supposed to already have left last week (she’s in the army as well) but got left behind until this week was there, and having someone else to cry with really helped.  It’s been over twenty-four hours since they left and I still haven’t heard from him.  The phone rang earlier and I freaked out thinking it was him.  I hate not knowing when he will call, I can’t put the phone down.  I slept with it in my hand all night.  I’ve eaten too many cupcakes to admit to and haven’t slept for more than four hours at a time, although that’s as much to do with the cats as to the empty spot in our bed.  I’m just glad that I’m going to the mainland on Sunday, its giving me something to look forward to and I really need a hug from my mother.

Scuba!

We went scuba diving last weekend.  It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  I was a bit nervous when we got to the dive shop but then I got even more nervous when I found out that we could die from lung over expansion injury.  I forget to breathe at first when we go snorkeling just because its weird to breathe underwater so I was afraid I would forget here.  I found out later that you really can’t forget to breathe, you have to think about it the whole time and its hard to think about anything besides that and your ears.

Anyway, we went out on a boat from Hawaii Kai and went over safety stuff on the way out.  I must say, our driver and instructor were very interesting.  The driver’s name was Grasshopper and our instructor was a combination of Robin Williams not on his meds and Phil Hartman.  They didn’t even take us somewhere to practice, we just put all of the gear on (which is heavy, but not that heavy) and jumped into the water.  We all sat on a rope anchored to the bottom and did skills tests while we got used to breathing with the regulator.  Like I said before, you really have to think about it, but you get used to it.  Then we slowly went down the rope, adjusting our ears along the way.  Once we got to the bottom we swam around a bit, but there wasn’t much to see on our first dive.  Our second dive was much more interesting.  I think the dive site was called Turtle Canyon but I don’t remember.  We saw two sea turtles and tons of fish.  There was also a little buddha statue on the bottom.  I was literally only a few feet away from sea turtles, it was awesome.  I love sea turtles and had been dying to see one up close since we got here. I think we are going to get certified eventually.  I want to do it now, but we might wait until A gets back.

Well here are some pictures – not taken by us, we just had a little reusable disposable camera type thing, but our instructor had a nice digital camera and he sold us the pictures afterwards.

First Socks Finally

I finally finished those socks I started six months ago the other day.  I must say, it was incredibly satisfying to get over second sock syndrome and get those done.  They aren’t my favorite, they are pretty boring, but I think I did a good job and I’m proud of them.  Now I am so ready for an exciting sock pattern, with a challenge.  I’m thinking about tackling this pair from knitty called Outside In.  They are very pretty and I have some pretty blue sock yarn that would be great for them.  That’s something I’m really trying to do, use up some of my stash.  I don’t have a job yet (argh) so I don’t want to go crazy buying all sorts of yarn I don’t need.  My exception to that rule is that I can make things for Madeline with new yarn. 

While I’m on the subject, here are some new pictures of Madeline, along with my first socks.  Enjoy!

New life… new kitty!

Well so its been a few weeks now, and we’re starting to get settled.  The apartment is still a bit of a mess, but its more like we live here now, although we still don’t have a dining room table.  I always forget how much moving sucks until I have to do it again.  It’s awesome to have all of my stuff back, (especially my yarn!!) but I hate having to think about where we are going to put all of our stuff.  I never thought I’d say that I miss Willowtree in Ann Arbor, but I do miss the closets.  We have two, and it is not enough.  I need more places to hide things.

Anyway, back to the point of the post.  Yesterday, we took a trip to the Humane Society and picked out a new little buddy for Orbit.  The Humane Society here is a really nice place, all the animals live in little houses that are open air, so that’s nice for them.  I only have two complaints.  First, they are not very organized over there, we waited about twenty minutes long than we should have because their receptionists sort of sucked and didn’t notice our cat and one other cat waiting to go home with someone.  Also, they just walked off with about ten people waiting to be helped, for seemingly no reason and were gone at least ten minutes.  My second complaint is that they aren’t very thorough about who they allow to adpot animals.  All I had to do was give them my name, phone number and address.  When I adpoted Orbit I had to bring a copy of my lease so that they knew we could have a cat at our apartment.

Moving on, he’s a little orange tiger kitty and we named him Hilo.  I wanted to give him a Hawaiian name since he is Hawaiian, but none of the “names” I looked up worked.  Hilo is the name of a city, to which I’ve never been, since its on the big island.  I just liked the way it sounds, I think it goes well with Orbit.  As far as I know it doesn’t mean anything, but its cute.

Even though he’s supposed to be a buddy for Orbit, she doesn’t like him too much yet.  It hasn’t been 24 hours yet, though, so I’m hopeful.  Already today its a bit better.  Orbit has come out from hiding to observe Hilo and even came and slept on my lap for awhile, so she can’t be too mad at me.  We’ll see how it goes.

Well here are a few pictures of my new baby:

Danica Finally Done!

Woohoo!  I finished the Danica scarf I’ve been working on for what seems like forever.  I’m super excited to have another FO, but even more excited that I don’t have to knit this anymore.  It was fun at first and interesting since it was a bit different; but at the end it got seriously annoying.  I had to rush and cut the scarf a bit short so that it would be done before we left for Hawaii and I barely made it.  I took it to work and put it in the recipient’s folder at work about two hours before A and I left for St. Louis.  I’m a little bit peeved actually, because I haven’t heard anything from her about liking/appreciating it.  Whatever, though, I didn’t pay for the yarn so I guess its ok.

I will say that the pattern isn’t bad, its well written and easy to follow, I just think doing those tiny squares over and over and over again really sucks.  I will stay away from entrelac patterns in the future.  Here are some pictures of the finished product:

Days 2-5

First of all, I’m sorry for not posting pictures and updates sooner.  The internet at our hotel is basically non-existent, so we are currently at a Starbucks paying for internet and waiting for our appointment to look at an apartment.  The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind.  We haven’t exactly been busy, but we’ve been all over the place.

Day two was a quick introduction to the post by the other lieutenant in A’s troop, Jacob.  He showed us around Mililani, the town near Schofied and Wheeler where we are looking at apartments.  It’s a nice town, its definitely quiet and more residential than the other places we had seen on the island at that point.  It’s probably the one place that seems closest to towns on the mainland.  I like it, but its not super close to the ocean, or to other things to do.  Then he took us into Schofield to get gas (it’s much cheaper there) and then we drove all over Wheeler so A would get to know it a bit.  At that point, A had to go meet his commander.  His name is Seth and I guess he is a big OSU fan, so he tried to give A a hard time the entire time he was in his office.  A really isn’t much of a football fan, so he didn’t bite.  While all of this was going on, I sat in the outer office like I was in the principal’s office waiting for a punishment.  I was practically the only person in the room in civilian clothes and I felt out of place.  Several people introduced themselves to me, mostly NCO’s, but they were all nice.

After we left there we went back to Jacob’s apartment to wait to meet his “girlfriend” Leigh Ann (I won’t even go into why that’s in quotes, but they aren’t into labels apparently).  She was nice and seemed friendly, but we didn’t stay long.  We just went back to our hotel, got some take out and passed out again.  We really haven’t been able to stay up late since we’ve gotten here.  It could be jet lag, or it could be that our first day here we were going all day from 5:30am to about 9pm.  Either way, we are kind of lame that way for now.

Thursday was our day to start looking for apartments.  First we went to a realtor that Jacob had recommended, but she was not very helpful.  She only asked us whether we wanted a one bedroom or a two bedroom and then started trying to push a few places on us.  It wasn’t until I mentioned that we have a cat that she even seemed to notice that we might have other ideas about what we were looking for.  At that point, we became difficult clients for her, since she didn’t have many units that would take pets.  I tried to also point out that we were looking for help in what cities to consider, but she just wasn’t up for offering us any advice whatsoever.  I was thoroughly disappointed and we will not be going back there.  So with that a bust, we went to a Starbucks near our hotel and cruised craigslist hoping to find places to look at.  I think we called 3 or 4 people that day, but only two have gotten back to us so far.  We’re seeing one today (which is why we are hanging out in Mililani at a Starbucks) and the other tomorrow.  We’re trying to get in contact with someone about a place in Kailua, where the commander recommended we live, but they haven’t gotten back to us either.  I really hope we find a place soon because I want to unpack our stuff and start cooking for ourselves instead of eating out.  Not to mention that I’d like us to have a place for Orbit to come home to when she gets here next Friday.

That night we had to go to a troop event called Hail and Bail which they have periodically to welcome new people and say goodbye to those leaving.  It was a very interesting night.  We had to stand in front of everyone and be introduced and the commander made fun of A a little bit and I sand Hail to the Victors at him since I had worn my Michigan Alumna shirt for his benefit.   The squadron commander’s wife gave me a small lei-like thing and a unit crest as well.  All of the officers and NCO’s were wearing their stetsons the whole time but it wasn’t until after everyone poured alcohol and other random things into A’s hat, made him drink it, and then dumped it on him that they let him wear his.  Then he has to lay on the ground and get more alcohol dumped all over him.  He smelled great after that, just like a bar on a Sunday morning.  A also had to put a yellow garter above my left knee for being the best army wife in the army, a cavalry wife.  I got a framed copy of a nice little poem about the garter and it really was a neat little tradition.

Friday was our becah day.  We spent a fair amount of money on some nice snorkeling equipment and tried to go over to Hanauma Bay.  It was super busy, unfortunately, so we rerouted to the north shore to go to Shark’s Cove.  Snorkeling there was really neat.  I really like following the fish around and chasing them, but we didn’t see any sea turtles.  A says there were a lot more fish at Hanauma when they went last summer, so we might try to make it over there later today or tomorrow early in the morning.

Here’s a few pictures of Pali Lookout, which we stopped by today:

Looking back at Honolulu from Pali Lookout

Cliff view from Pali Lookout

Mountains covered in clouds

Aloha

Well we have arrived in Hawaii.  It was overwhelming right off the bat.  After a super fun car ride/drive to St. Louis, we travelled on three differenet planes to arrive in Honolulu at 5:30am.  It was probably the most exhausting trip ever.  One of the other lieutenants in A’s troop whose name is David met us and tried to help us check in and find out what hotel we were staying at.  Unfortunately, because it was 5:30am the USO wasn’t open, we couldn’t really do that.  After several phone calls and much confusion, we had a hotel to go to and it wasn’t far away since it was the airport hotel.  It’s a nice hotel, don’t get me wrong, but its in a very industrial part of Honolulu and our room has an excellent view of the H-1.

Well after we got settled a bit – with all but one bag which was only missing for a few hours – David took us to breakfast at the Navy commissary.  Interestingly, at the McDonald’s there we were able to try some local food right away.  They had taro pies, which are a lot like apple pies but with taro inside of them.  The taro doesn’t taste bad, its actually pretty sweet, but its a very unappetizing shade of pink.

At that point A and I really just wanted to collapse and do nothing, but instead we took showers (which we really needed) and called for a rental car.  They came and picked us up and we paid for the car which was one of the largest purchases I’ve ever made.  Then I got energy from somewhere so we took off for Waikiki.  That’s where I got to see the Pacific Ocean up close for the first time.  It was pretty incredible.  I waded into the water which was almost the perfect temperature.  A was less impressed than I was by the ocean since he’s seen it before, but he did send his brother and a few friends a picture with his phone to make them jealous. 

For lunch we ate incredily expensive burgers at Cheeseburgers in Paradise which weren’t bad, but weren’t worth $10 each.  Then we just wandered back to our car and headed back to the USO to finish up checking in so that A would know when he had to report at the post.  We were pretty pumped to find out that he didn’t have to go up to Schofield until Monday, so we had almost a week to do whatever we wanted.

We ended the day with some takeout from a local, indeterminate asian restaurant.  The food wasn’t too bad, but I don’t know that we’ll go back there.

Here’s a few pictures of the beach at Waikiki:

I’m an Aunt!

It’s official!  My sister’s baby arrived early this morning (2:33 am CST) and its a girl.  Her name is Madeline Marie, which is super cute.  I am literally thrilled, because she wasn’t due until after I leave for Hawaii (Monday…. holy crap!) and since she came early, I get to go see her before I go.  I bought a super-last minute flight to Minneapolis for Friday.  That means that I only have three days to get all of my stuff ready to go for moving.  The only picture I have so far is a cell phone picture, but there will be more after this weekend, I promise.  So welcome to the world Madeline Marie.  If nothing else, your two aunts will be knitting up a storm to keep you clothed through the Minnesota winters.  I seriously am holding back on rushing to my yarn shop to buy some pink yarn and knit something with frills.    It’s very hard.

My first niece!

Pictures, finally.

My sister’s shower was this weekend, so now I can debut the sweaters to the world without fear of spoiling the surprise. The shower was awesome, especially because there were petit fours from the two old ladies of Essexville. I absolutely adore those and can not believe they are only $4 a dozen. I am sooo having those at my big wedding. Let’s hope those two old ladies are still around making petit fours in a year and a half.

What was also nice about the shower was the older ladies cooing over the sweaters and being all impressed with my handiwork. I’m definitely still a beginner (these are my fourth and fifth completed projects) so hearing from people that my having knit something is impressive to them helps me to feel accomplished. Well anyway, enough bragging, here are the sweaters.

I think I might cry.

The movers came on Thursday. My life has been whittled down to 39 boxes and some furniture in two crates on the back of a large van. It’s amazing how depressing that is. My walls are bare, everything except my clothes and some essentials are packed away, ready to fly to Hawaii. Watching my books and my yarn get packed away was probably the worst part of the day. Those are my babies. I of course stashed about ten books and enough yarn for several projects to get me through until I am reunited with my things in Hawaii.

Probably the most interesting part of the day was when I called A to ask the transportation office whether it was ok for them to come back on Friday to pack things because it was raining. They were worried about things get wet and then moldy, so I wanted to see what the Army said. A called them and they were apparently unworried about it, and it was up to us. But then they called the moving company headquarters and a freak out was passed from the headquarters all the way down the chain to the driver at my house. He got about 5 calls all at once from everyone saying to be careful because the client was nervous. That’s me, apparently I was nervous and the Army scared the shit out of everyone because of it. Honestly, its comforting that the moving company takes our concerns so seriously. Needless to say, the rain let up and the stuff got taken away.

They are super serious about it. They inventory everything, including the serial numbers for electronics and tag them all. All of the boxes are labeled with our order number and some other numbers, including his rank. Its honestly a bit overwhelming how thorough they are.

I don’t know if I can take this emptiness for a month. At least A comes home in a couple of weeks. Emptiness is less depressing when you’re not alone.