Doctors and Nurses and Owies, Oh My!

Nothing like having everyone in the medical field know you by name. In two weeks time (only in Hawaii for a week and a half), we have had 7 doctor visits (2 in Utah/Urgent Care right before we flew here), 4 nurse visits (TB testing), 2 ER visits (for the same injury just two hospitals), and all 3 kids have been on antibiotics.


To explain, Kenna had an ear infection causing a high fever and cough for 5+ days, and Brynlee had bronchitis. (Both needed antibiotics) In order to be employed or go to school here in Hawaii you have to be tested for TB so that comprised our 4 nurse trips.

Then Thursday (before moving in) we came to show our friend the new house and check to make sure it was ready for our stuff to be delivered Friday and Whitney decided she wanted to be more like me. She was climbing on a pogoda/flower bed decoration and it tipped over and smashed two of her fingers. The thud and following scream raised the hair on our necks! Mike scooped her up and ran to the sink - upon examination we knew we were in for an ER visit. Laurie kept Kenna, which was a huge help!


We went to the local hospital where they gave her some tylenol with codine and they were going to stitch it, but I asked if we needed to go to a plastic surgeon or specialist to try to save her fingers. He called a doctor in "town" (that is what Honolulu is called) and sent us off to the next ER an hour away. It was worth the stop - at least they were able to make Whitney more comfortable with the meds. We didn't get home until 3 AM, and no stitches afterall. The crush fractured the bones of her left middle and index fingers. They said that they didn't want to stitch it to avoid infection. If it got infected, there was a high possibility the infection would spread to the bone which is hard to treat and could result in losing her finger. Although it made for a long night - I am glad we went. We returned the next day to see the orthopedic hand surgeon who is excellent.

The pagoda
It used to be much taller - there were several layers that
looked like the top one stacked up taller than Whitney.

So - like mother like daughter. We are starting a short finger club - ANYONE WANT TO JOIN? It is a little painful - but it doesn't last too long, right Whitney?

Moving, Again

Our New Home

Since we loved it so much the first time, we decided to move again. The day after we arrived, BYUH housing called because they had just added a new house and wanted to see if we liked it better. After checking it out we decided it was a better fit for our family. Luckily our stuff hadn't come yet. They were still working on the house so we couldn't move in until the next Friday (after having been here for a week and a half). Our other house would have been fine, but was on the main highway and had no storage. Our new house is newly remodeled and is right across the street from the girls school. We are greatful the timing worked out so well and we were able to get into this house. I think that we will like it. The down side - we have almost doubled our commute to the beach - 348 steps! It's rough!


Our stuff made it to Honolulu a few days before we could move in so the moving company just held our stuff for an extra couple of days. We had to be pretty creative with meals and toys. We were very excited to see our stuff. Unfortunately, we have to wait a little longer to figure out what "normal" is. Read the next post to see why. So many people have been great and very willing to help. It has helped us feel not quite so far from home and family.

It was like Christmas in February getting to unpack all of our stuff. Things we missed most


--kitchen appliances/utensils/cooking stuff

It is crazy trying to feed a family cooking with only a frying pan and sauce pan and no microwave. We realized how much we take simple things for granted. We bought some canned veggies to eat with a few dinners - but the funny thing about that is you need a can opener. We didn't think about that at the store though. Luckily our friends the Tuellers had an extra they loaned to us.

--my boppy

--our computer - hence the lack of blog posts

--a couch - but it didn't come - we will be replacing it soon since it isn't very much fun to lounge on our tile floor

--toys



Whitney and Makenna found the Easter decorations box and helped us unpack it. (Not sure why they thought we needed Easter decorations in February) I came out and found Brynlee like this - not complaining at all. I was amazed that she just laid there. They even put the grass stuff to make hair.



The moving company would have unpacked everything, but since we had to go into Honolulu, they didn't even have time to get all the boxes inside. Laurie came over to let them finish getting boxes inside and lock up. This picture is Saturday evening - after a day and a half of unpacking, we still hadn't found the legs to our table. What can you do? The tile is awfully hard so it was a quick meal!

Famine

CHECK BELOW THIS POST - I'M PERIODICALLY ADDING NEW THINGS. HAWAII PICTURES SOON!

I wrote this awhile ago in hopes that I would get caught up, but that hasn't happened. Most of this is past tense, but I am not going to take the time to change it - do you want a post or not?! We are now in Hawaii and going on three weeks of living out of suitcases. There are only so many meals that you can cook with just a frying pan and sauce pan, plastic utensils and no microwave. We are excited to get settled and figure out what our new "normal" is going to be. Everyone here has been so kind and willing to help. We are so grateful to everyone! Especially the Tuellers!!! Hawaii pics to come soon!

I apologize for the famine in the past three months. We have been absolutely crazy! As you read you will see why. I keep hoping that I will do posts periodically, but then end up doing marathon sessions instead. I have lots to post. Just to prepare any avid readers of this blog, there is a good chance there will be another famine. So you may want to read just one post per day so it doesn't seem so bad. We have accepted at job at BYU Hawaii where Mike will be the Director of Communications and Marketing. This will be a HUGE change and adjustment for everyone, but we are excited for the memories and growth that will come from it.

There was some serious contention surrounding this decision and our share of singing "Love at Home" on the couch, but we finally decided to accept an adventure of a lifetime. I am already excited to leave the cold - January is a good time to leave Idaho. This will be an amazing experience for our family as well as for Mike in his career. One of the first questions the girls asked was if they could do their homework on the beach. There is a public access very close to our house. I counted 199 steps from our driveway to the beach. That will be a lot of fun. We are very sad to leave family, but hope to get lots of visitors.

With all that said - would anyone still like to reprimand me for being a slacker blogger? I have to reduce my household items to 6,000 lbs and will be without it for up to 35 days (that includes the computer - so there is yet another famine on the horizon). Hopefully once we get settled, I will be able to be a more faithful blogger. Promises, promises.

In an attempt to get caught up, I haven't been working on recent posts, but I better start from now and work backward or none of it will happen. So keep looking below this post for new stuff. And note the dates - they should be about when they actually happened.

2nd First Day of School

They didn't start school until after Presidents' Day because they had to get a TB test and it takes 48 hrs to read so their first day was a week after we got here. The girls wanted to wear the same thing they wore for their first day of school in Idaho. I did much better this time around - no tears. But I got a phone call from the school every day their first week with one of them in tears. The first day I was in devotional so the phone was turned off. I felt really bad because Whitney was pretty upset. But what can you do? They are both doing much better now, after a lot of time spent at the school. I have been glad to be able to get to know their teachers and friends. And luckily we are just right across the street.

Devotional was great! Sheri Dew was here and spoke about needing to be strengthened against Satan because he is working harder than ever. One thing that really spoke to me was the need to come to understand how the Holy Ghost speaks to me personally. A simple concept, but something I have started trying to understand better. It was excellent. If anyone is interested the talk can be found on byuh.edu under devotionals. Maybe that isn't at all what she said, but that is what I heard. I love how the holy ghost works that way.

Brynlee's Been Sick

Brynlee got two teeth a few days before she turned 4 months - yes 4 MONTHS! She wasn't fussy or anything and Daddy is the one who found them - not nursing Mom. But shortly after that, she got sick and was so fussy I knew something was wrong. The instacare doctor in Utah told me that she was fine, so we got on the airplane the next day. She continued to get worse that week so I finally took her to the doctor on Friday. It was really scaring me because she would get into coughing fits that she couldn't even cry. Before she got sick she was sleeping 11-12 hours/night. It was fabulous. But then she got sick and the only way to settle her down was to feed her. I couldn't just let her cry because that would send her into a coughing fit. Flashback to newborn nights. The Hawaii doc thought it was RSV, tested her and sent us home on nebulizer treatments. They helped, but she still wasn't improving so we went back again on Wednesday - the RSV test was negative, and he determined it was bronchitis instead. Fortunately, the antibiotics did the trick and we have our happy Brynlee back. YAY!

One night I had to run to our friends' house to borrow their cooler, and Brynlee got really mad. After screaming awhile, she crashed on Mike - the screaming he didn't love, but really enjoyed snuggling with her. I tried to wake her up to feed her, but she was just too worn out. Poor baby. Side note - the reason we needed to borrow a cooler was because the fridge in our house didn't work. Unfortunately, we had milk and eggs and cheese in there. To save the food, we borrowed the cooler. I was very grateful that I didn't go to Costco to stock up like I had been planning because I was too worn out. The only casualty was a gallon of milk - it could have been much worse. BYU was great and quickly came to replace it.





I didn't realize this until I was looking at pictures, but her little "stork bites" on her eyelids turned dark when she got sick. Maybe they will be a good indicator of illness.

Happy Presidents' Day!

This was the first time Mike has ever had Presidents' Day off, so we ventured out to the zoo. When in Idaho, we bought a zoo pass which we have used several times - definately enough to pay for itself. There is a list of zoos that will honor that pass across the country. When we were going through papers in preparation to move, I ran across the reciprocal zoo list. Jokingly, I said, "And I bet Honolulu is on there." And surprise, surprise - it was! So our trip was free! Even better! They have three tiger cubs that were born in September that were adorable. It was very fun to watch - I think someday I would like to have a pet tiger. I'm pretty sure that's illegal. Maybe in heaven.

On this trip and also the one before it, we learned that our GPS isn't very familiar with Hawaii yet. Our first failed attempt was trying to get to a Walmart. It sent us into the middle of a very residental area, and told us we were approaching Walmart on the left. There never has been or ever will be a Walmart there. By the time we finally did find a Walmart, we were tired and a little on the grumpy side. I miss having super Walmarts where you can get everything - including all the food you need. Even "supers" here only have basic food items. Oh well. Finding the zoo wasn't quite as bad, but it took us a round-about way that took longer than it needed to.

There are some really amazing trees here. I never knew there could be so many shades of green. It is funny because driving to Honolulu takes at least an hour so it is kind of a drive. We have tried to play "I Spy," but it doesn't really work. Everything we spy is green! But absolutely beautiful!

The hippos (that is not derogatory to my girls - there really is a hippo in that water)



"Llama Face!" Aunt Jenna and any other Johansons who enjoying quoting The Emperor's New Groove will appreciate this one. We took this picture so we could post it with that caption.



They had a really cool fish exhibit with huge, very colorful fish. You can walk all around it and then the kids can crawl through a tunnel to get to the middle to see on top and it looks like they are in the water.

Banana Harvest

We haven't gotten him a machete yet, so the one small borrowed kitchen knife had to do. The roosters had gotten to the bottom few, I didn't even know that roosters really flew anywhere, but I guess they do when they want a banana up in a tree. They were tasty. The girls were sad that our new house doesn't have a banana tree. I guess we will have to plant one like Uncle Alan.

1st time IN the water

On Valentines' afternoon we hit the beach. It has been pretty crazy weather, locals say it hasn't been this windy ever - maybe we brought the Idaho wind. Oops! I didn't get to put my suit on because Bryn needed to eat, but that's how it goes. I will someday, right? She doesn't love the beach because it has been so windy and she can't breathe - I should tell her that it really is overrated. I tried to photoshop out the farmers' tan with no luck - I guess we'll have to let the sun do it instead.



Jumping the waves with Dad's help (Kenna's turn)



Whitney's turn

At $4.50/gal We Slurp Milk!

Happy Valentines' Day! This is the third time we have moved on or within a week of Valentines' Day. We purchased our house in UT and also in ID then now moved to Hawaii, so Mike likes to claim that he has given me a new house for three different V-days now. This is definately the most exotic.

We had our traditional pink heart-shaped pancakes and pink milk for breakfast. Until we moved here, we always cleaned up our spills with a rag, but not now when milk is $4.50 a gallon (almost twice as much as gas!) So here there is sense in crying over spilt milk.

Spill #1

Spill #2 - Dad even helped this time

A Cockroach a Day

For the first week we killed about a cockroach a day. They are such nasty little bugs - Dad is the designated cockroach disposer, but now even the girls are figuring it out. It was that frequent for about the first week, we haven't had them near as much since then.

Good Morning, Hawaii!

Since we were all up at 5:00 our first morning here and the sun didn't rise until 7, we took advantage of our opportunity to watch the sunrise nowhere other than the beach. It was beautiful! I loved being watching it pop up over the horizon, you can actually see it moving. We haven't been up as a family for the sunrise since, and that is ok with me. Everyone adjusted pretty quick to the time change - I am sure it helped that everyone was sick and so tired!!!!

Aloha!

Yay! We made it!!!! We flew in on February 9th - it is a 6 hour flight and the girls did amazing! We are such lucky (blessed) parents. A woman behind us complimented us on having such well-behaved children. And they really are - I am continually amazed by them.

This is our new home (not on the road, Silly, we do not actually live right here) - Aloha, Hawaii!

By the time we got our luggage and did the paperwork for buying our van, we were all tired and hungry. We asked the girls where they wanted to eat their first meal in Hawaii and they chose Jamba Juice. Not exactly authentic Hawaiian, but yummy anyway.

Our happy, chubby little angel, in her carseat - again.

Are we there yet?

By the time we arrived on our side of the island, night was falling and we weren't home yet so we stopped at Kualoa Beach to put our feet in the sand.



Just wait - these will be tan Hawaiian babes before you know it.

And we're off!

I told Mike we were not even going to pretend to lug all this stuff around the airport - even if the cart cost us $50! But it was only $3 and worth every penny! The girls were given a few goodbye activity bags and goodies for on the airplane which they loved. Thanks Romrells and Aunt Melinda!

We stayed at Uncle Jason and Aunt Katy's house and Jason took us to the airport (Thank You!)- with all of our stuff, we barely fit! Good thing the girls aren't very big!

The girl's first airplane ride! (not entirely true - they don't remember their real 1st - Whitney was a year and a half and Kenna 3 months) And a long one it was! 6 hours! They did great playing ponies, laughing, talking, drawing, etc. Neither in-flight movie was for kids so during the second movie we let them watch Barbie and the Diamond Castle on the laptop. Thanks, Aunt Jenna!

Good-Bye May Seem Forever

We had so many people to say goodbye to. I hate goodbyes! And it seemed like we said them for about two weeks! Talk about dragging out the pain! It's torture. The goodbyes made it really seem real. If I didn't think about it I did ok, but once we started taking pictures of people, that meant it was for real and made it very hard. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people that we missed getting pictures of. Especially the Johanson family. With sick kids, we didn't get the camera out - so I guess you'll just have to come and visit so we can get pictures of you here! Trying to find pictures made me realize that I don't take enough pictures. We miss everyone! Keep in touch! Please don't feel bad if we didn't get your picture on here. This is my first attempt at scrapblogging - you wouldn't know it, but this took me way too long to put together. We'll see if I keep practicing or go back to the simple - post-a-picture way.

Good ol' Air Crisps

Now known as Ritz Toasted Chips - this was the trial run to see if Air Crisps were back just in a different bag, a different shape under a different name. And the ruling was unanimous in the affirmative. If you look close enough - Jess has her arm around Lynette feeding her one. :) In high school we used to dip these in cream cheese while we talked until all hours of the night. That was before we thought about how un-healthy that combo is. But it still tastes yummy! We had some fabulous friends that adopted us when we moved to Montana when I was a Jr, and Lynette a Sr. They made the transition do-able. These are just two of them. What fun memories we have!

Welcome Home, Uncle Matt!

After getting our stuff packed up and tying up all the loose ends we headed to Utah to spend some time with Mike's family and welcome his little brother, Matthew, home from his mission to Uraguay. Everyone was able to be there. Unfortunately, Makenna and Brynlee were both sick so we didn't get to play as much as we had hoped. But what can you do - sorry to anyone who got sick from us! We love you, Uncle Matt!

Yay! Here comes our missionary!

Brynlee was 3rd of 4 babies that were born while he was gone.

So he had lots of new people to meet.

Great Teachers

Whitney and Kenna were both blessed to have awesome teachers this year. We have loved Edgemont Elementary. We would have loved to have brought their teachers with us - the girls really miss them. Their last day of school was teary for all of us. Our friend Britnee, found us in the hall in tears and she just hugged and held onto the girls. They always loved seeing her at school and felt like she was their big sister. What a sweetheart!


Whitney and Mrs. Hutten

Makenna and Mrs. Merkley

(also Whitney's K teacher)

The girls and Mrs. Jaussi, the librarian