We packed a lot in before leaving Hawaii. Austin got her braces off, and she got implants in and crowns, so she has a wonderful smile now. I took Joseph and Jessica to the airport May 26th, and they flew to California to start their life there. They left a big mess behind in the garage that they had been living in for over a year, and it took me a while to clean it up, but I got it done. We had helped them save a lot of money while they lived with us, but they spent most of it on hotel living and eating out before they left Hawaii, so we're not sure how things will go for them in California. But, they have a place to stay, and a few leads on jobs, so there is hope.
I had Lasik eye surgery. I had been wanting to have it for a long time, and been saving for a while. Austin had been paying us with her tip money (cash) for her car she owned, and we had lots of garage sales, and just ended up with several thousand dollars in cash. We didn't want to try to travel with that much cash, or ship it with our household goods, so we decided to pay in cash and I would have Lasik eye surgery to correct my vision. It was pretty funny walking into the eye surgery office with that much cash in my backpack purse. The lady who took the payment from me was so excited to have that much cash to give to the other lady who handled the money. I guess she had always told the lady that someday she would give her a cash payment of several thousand dollars in bills and coins. It took her about an hour to count all the cash I had. I had it all separated into $100 increments in envelopes, but she had to open each one and count everything. Some of it was small bills and coins so it was a lot. Austin came with me to my surgery and watched it happen, then she drove me home where I had to sleep for the next 4 hours, so she watched the boys while I rested and recovered from the surgery. It went well, but I did have to use eye drops every few hours for the next several months, and got headaches for a while too. It was worth it though, I love not having to wear glasses.
Travis completed an air assault course just before we had all our company come (it was about a month long course (he would usually come home at night though). We had Maia and Jaimie (Travis' sister and husband) and Travis' mom come visit us. We went on hikes, and explored gardens. We went to the temple with Maia and Jaimie and did sealings. I turned 40 years old on the 12th, and to celebrate Travis and I went on a hike to Mt. Olympus. It was awesome, it was a difficult hike, with a little rope climbing involved, but it was a lot of fun, and was an absolutely breathtaking view. I even found some mountain raspberries at the top, that I had never seen anywhere else on the island.
Austin and I went on our "staycation" senior trip together June 14-16. She was supposed to go to Japan for a senior trip, but COVID ruined all of that, so we decided to do stay on the island, but go and do all the fun activities that we normally don't do, because they cost too much and eat out and have fun just the two of us. For several months we worked together and sold cinnamon rolls and bread to the ward members and neighborhood to earn the money for it. A lot of people loved our bread and cinnamon rolls, and I'll still (6 months later) get people messaging me and asking me when were going to make more, and I have to inform them that we moved, and just give them the recipe. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. We ended up making enough money to pay for our "staycation" and also to pay for me fly with Austin to BYUI in September and help her get set up. We had a great time on our "trip", we went on a horseback riding tour (it made me really sore) and a zip line tour on the north shore area. It was so beautiful and fun. During the zip line tour they would have us do different things like go backwards, or upside down, or race. It was fun, but a little scary at times. The last thing was basically stepping of a two story platform, and then our cord would "catch" us and slow us down before we hit the ground, they basically pushed us off, and your free fall for a second. I definitely let out a little scream on that one. We had delicious food at seven brothers (my favorite grilled cheese sandwiches ever!) and pounders for dinner, Austin had ribs and I had a delicious pizza with a marzcapone sauce, arugula, kalua pork, mangos and honey drizzled over the top. Another day we went to coral crater (brought Betsy too) and did a fun ropes course together, and had cheesecake factory and watched a movie in the theatre, and got movie food with it. Austin had gotten sunburned the day before so we rested for a while after that, I got sunburned too, but not as much as Austin. Another day we had Jamba Juice, went to the swap meet and shopped around. We went to Buca de Beppo (with Betsy) and then to Dave and Busters, It was a lot of fun to play games with the girls, and not just have to follow little boys around while they play. We were exhausted by the end of our trip, but it was so much fun to hang out together. I know most teenagers wouldn't want a "trip" with their mom, and I feel very lucky that I got to spend some good quality time with her before she goes off to college.
After all the fun of having company and mine and Austin's trip it was time to get down to business with our move. Austin was able to sell her car for the same price she bought it for, I couldn't believe her good luck, but was happy for her. The moving company was coming the 29th of June and starting to pack us out, with a final pick up date of July 2nd, with us checking out of our house and moving to the hotel the same day. The next few weeks were spent cleaning, and organizing, and preparing to move. It was exhausting, but we finally got our households goods picked up, the house cleaned, and checked into the hotel. We were able to have three rooms in the hotel, (the holiday inn express in waikiki) which was especially nice to let the girls have their own room, samuel and caleb sharing a room, and then travis and I with the two little boys. The hotel had a pool, and fun activities to play with like mini golf. Unfortuneatly after the first 2 days the pool shut down, so we decided to switch hotels, because our little boys love the pool! We ended up having to switch everything (we had so much stuff, even though I tried to only pack what we needed). We had about 16 pieces of luggage, plus everyone carryons and backpacks, about 30 things to carry. We were able to get two rooms at the Hale Koa (the military resort) and switched everything to our new rooms after a few trips, and waiting for a few hours for our rooms to be ready. Luckily there were lots of places to play outside with the kids while we were waiting, and the girls stayed with the luggage. The kids loved the new pool at the Hale Koa, it had water slides and a pirate splash park area. We were there every day for two hours (the max time allowed per day, and we had to reserve it). We had 10 days in the hotels in Hawaii, and had a lot of fun doing different hikes, and going to the beach, pools, and climbing trees (the boys' favorite).
Finally the last day arrived. Our flight wasn't until the evening, so after we checked out of the hotel, we left our luggage with the valet until we were ready to head to the airport. Travis dropped us off at Dave and Busters to play for a few hours, and he dropped off our mini van to be shipped. We had to bring our car seat with us so that we would have it in the airplane for Gideon, and also for the rental car we would be getting in Texas until our minivan arrived. But Dave and Buster's wouldnt' let us bring it in, so we tried to hide it behind one of the trash cans outside the establishment while we played. We still had more time we needed to kill, so we watched a movie too at the theatre and got jamba juices. Travis finally made it back to us and we were ready to head to the airport. Travis' chaplain assistant had borrowed one of the unit vans and was picking us up, but he ran into traffic so he was pretty late picking us up from Dave and buster's area, also our car seat was thrown into the dumpster while we were playing, so Travis did some dumpster diving to retrieve it, but the smell was so bad, that even after Travis washed it a bunch in the bathroom it was irredeemable. So, now we no longer had a carseat for Gideon. Our ride finally arrived, and then we had to drive back to the hotel and pick up all our luggage, and then drive to the airport in heavy traffic. We arrived at the airport with 45 minutes until our flight was leaving. We managed to get all our stuff through the agricultural scan and to wear we needed to drop off our bags for our flight. It was a mess, We were supposed to take everything and weigh it at a kiosk and print off our tags for the luggage, and then get in the ticket counter line to drop them off, but due to our time constraint, Travis started taking everything into the line and got to the front, while I was frantically trying to print our tags and guess how much they all weighed, and having kids go back and forth taking things to him, and trying to keep the little boys with us, who kept running off. We finally got our bags dropped off, and made it to the security line. As we were going through security, I got pulled aside to get checked as I had forgotten I had an extra pocket in my pants and had left a hotel key card in it, which set off the sensors. While I was getting checked, Gideon, who had already made it through security and put his backpack back on, ran back through to find me. Austin ended up having to go back over with him, and take everything off and go through again, to get him back. Once I was let go, it was me, Austin, and Gideon and bin full of computer stuff. I didn't see any of our other things or other people in our family. I didn't have my phone or my purse and couldn't see anyone else in our family. One of the security guys came and told me we had a banana in our things (it's not allowed to bring produce through). He said he saw it through the x ray thing and needed to search our bags to find it. The only problem was I had no idea where our things were at. Sam came up at that point and said Dad and everyone else had all our things and were on the way to our gate. I told the security guy we didn't have any bananas (no one had had bananas for days) and that I didn't know where our bags were. The only bag we had was Gideon's and the guy checked it. He said we would have to pay a fine for the banana, I told him I didn't have my purse or my phone, that my husband must have grabbed them and was heading toward our gate for our flight that was already boarding. I was about to lose it, when the security guy finally gave in, and let us go. I had to carry the tray with all the computer stuff in it, because I didn't have any bags to put it in and rush toward the gate. I was holding Gideon's hand and he kept tripping and falling, probably because we were trying to go so fast. We finally made it to our gate to see Travis and the rest of the kids and our things, I was so upset that I was visibly shaking and told Travis that next time it is not helpful to leave me behind. I'm pretty sure I was having some kind of nervous breakdown, I know that Travis was just trying to be helpful, but I panicked when I couldn't find my stuff, most of my family, and then there was some kind of invisible banana that I needed to pay a fine for. Anyway we were the last ones on, but we made our flight, and we were all sitting in the same row. I just want to cry and sob, but I was in public so I couldnt' lose it (I was actually grateful for wearing a mask to help hide how upset I was). I was just still so overwhelmed that I could barely speak, and let silent tears roll down my cheeks for the first part of the flight. I finally was able to gain control of myself and release some of the tension I had been holding in due to the stress of moving so many people and things. We had an overnight flight, so we tried sleeping as best we could, but most of us didn't sleep much. We had an over 3 hour layover in Houston, and after waiting in an airport lounge for an hour or so, the USO opened and we were able to hang out over there for a while until our flight to Killeen, Texas. It wasn't a very big USO, but it was nice to have somewhere to hang out for a while, and Travis got some more sleep in, while I watched the kids. We finally made it to the Killeen, and we got all our luggage and I picked up our car rental. 4 of the kids and I took the rental car, and Travis and the other kids and the rest of our luggage went with another chaplain from fort hood brought his truck to help pick us up, as the biggest car we could rent fit 5 people.
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