What we've learned so far...

So for our first real-time post I’m going to share a few things I’ve learned in the last 19 days:
1. Double rainbows are really bright and vivid. (They’re beautiful, but they didn’t bring me to tears)
2. Playing music from home makes me kind of sad, which is frustrating, everything is tied to memories of the past 5 years in Oklahoma.
3. Moochi Ice Cream in Hawaii kicks Moochi Cream in Japan’s butt!
4. In Hawaii a yellow light at a traffic signal really does me drive faster.
5. My hope that one of the hardest parts about living in Hawaii would be learning to cope with my gums hurting from all the acidity in the pineapple I’d be eating every day weren’t true. (The best pineapple and other island-grown fruits are sent to the mainland!!!)
6. An air mattress was never meant to be used for a real mattress.
7. You get in shape really quick when you walk literally everywhere. (luckily the car has come in, no more 5 mile walks to look at apartments!)
8. Snorkel masks are not created equal! We bought the nice kind but I have a sneaky suspicion they are not geared towards mainlanders with protruding nose bones! John and I both have bruises from our masks
9. Living in a place where I visited on pacrim brings back all the nostalgic feelings from that trip. Truly a life changing experience.
10. We live directly across the street from the church our group visited while we were here. Such a coincidence! Yes, the island is small but it’s not that small.
11. Learning to live on ‘Hawaiian time’ isn’t so bad.
12. A lot of what people ‘warned us about’ turned out to not be true when we got here. Well with the exception of traffic. that IS bad. But milk isn’t $6 or 7 a gallon, it’s like $4.25. Christmas trees don’t cost $600 and gas is only $3.39. So yes, things are a little more here but not some unbelievable amount.
13. There are definitely times I feel like we moved to another country. We are often the minority when we go out (not that that bothers us) it’s just a very different culture than what we were used to in Oklahoma City. We welcome the adventure and can’t wait to explore the island more!
14. People are the worst on craigslist here!!! They don’t take stuff down once it’s sold, it’s so frustrating!!
15. Just because a collapsed volcanic crater is extremely shallow with beautiful reef and tons of people around doesn’t mean we should feel 100% safe from any ocean threats! Hanauma bay was shut down this weekend because three 9-foot hammerheads were in the bay!!

16. This is going to be an amazing time for John and I to have adventures and to grow even closer. The idea that we really only have each other seems pretty basic… hellooo we’re married. But with our families and close friends so far away it’s really pushing us to rely on each other more.