Ohana {family}

On Sunday, we found a church home.

You know that feeling you get when you walk into the cozy, comfortable, familiar house that you grew up in?

Mmm...and the smell of apple pie :)

Ok well, there wasn't any apple pie, but there was tons of other delicious Hawaiian and island food!

The moment we walked into the church (service held in a movie theatre), we were drawn to this lovely couple who were the greeters for the day.  In fact, it was their first time ever being greeters.

As Benjamin was writing our names down on name tags, we noticed that he had almost the same long hair as Brent so I'm thinking this was some kind of #longhairdontcare Jesus divine intervention.  Erin, Benjamin's wife, was standing there like an angel, holding a precious little baby angel named Aveda. The moment I saw her, I thought to myself, is it too soon to ask to be her friend?!

No Madina.  It's never too soon...

By the way, that's my new strategy for making friends.  I just straight up ask.  Don't judge me.  I usually know if there is a connection within seconds of talking to someone.  So if I see/feel it, then I'm like, "Can we please be friends?!"  I mean, you'll never know if you don't ask, right?  AND it has worked 100% of the time.  :)

Naturally, that's exactly what I did.  We got to chatting and next thing you know, we found out they're both from Texas!  We are all essentially science geeks, wanderers, and have so much more in common, including our love for the Lord.  Erin has been such a wealth of knowledge about being a minimalistic island baby momma, since they too had a baby while living in an itty bitty apartment.  They have already showered us with tons of baby stuff including a baby swing, swaddle blankets, bibs, and a Bumbo! 

We are now a part of a bible study group and we meet every Wednesday evening at a little Manoa Valley classroom.  We start by worshipping in song, then we spend time doing SOAP studies on scripture.  It's such an awesome time to meditate on God's word with lovely people.

 

 That's our Pastor Sam waving aloha!

New Hope Voyager is all about relationships

What's better than spending life building a relationship with such an amazing Ohana, doing church as a family, and best of all, sharing, worshiping, and nurturing the most important relationship that we will have, the one with our Saviour Jesus Christ!

Brent, Ariella, and I are happy little island people :)

Happy living y'all.

With a little help from our friends

This week has FLOWN by!

Brent works with some really amazing people.  Not only is he super grateful for them, but so am I!

Not just because Ross made me banana muffins, I promise :)  

Ross and his wife Kimber are so awesome, we've hung out with them a few times, and Brent is on their dragon race team.

The object of the race is to row really fast and in synchrony

AND they are throwing us a baby shower in August.  We are so very blessed.

It's amazing how your schedule suddenly fills up with all kinds of fun activities when you make friends.

Wednesday, I had a dream that I gave birth to Ariella early, and in my sleep (must be my consciousness getting ready for my pain-free childbirth).  I woke up and there she was in the bed with us!  While amazed, happy, and in awe, I realized that I was absolutely not prepared for her arrival, and had no diapers on hand to change her.  I woke up totally freaking out!  Since I believe that my anxiety is only a product of unfinished business, I set out on my baby shopping mission.

 So this happened...

Mama's Fiat is full of goodies!

Pack 'n' Play all assembled by moi :)

Brent's favorite baby item, by far.  B.O.B. Stroller & Chicco car seat

My exercise ball is also my favorite chair, and will later be used for laboring

I also bought her a cute little bathtub from Babies 'R' Us.  

The last things to come in will be her cloth diapers, which I ordered from a really neat store I visited in the Manoa Marketplace called Baby Awearness.  The sales lady, Marisa, was so incredibly nice, gave me all sorts of useful information on cloth diapering, and she also became one of my new friends.  I had so much fun hanging out with her and her 3 & 1/2 year old son the next day!

Hayden the yogini

Beachin' it

Sharing a delicious Acai bowl with a little birdie friend

The crazy thing is that Marisa is also Arabic (which really blew my mind).  I mean, what are the odds that there would be two free spirited Arabs on an island?!

Brent and I had our first (and as Brent would excitingly add) our last birthing class this past week.  The class was way more fun for me than for Brent for sure.  He made it through the first few hours okay, but then got super antsy the last hour of it where all we talked about was breast-feeding and elimination communication haha!  I can foresee a future consisting of many communication elimination posts, simply because I am so intrigued by this subject!  Check it out if you're curious :)

The birthing class yielded yet another sweet friend named Bubba, who is due a week before I am.  They also happen to live in the next building over from us!

Ari giving her new friend Kai kisses 

As if all this wasn't exciting enough, I can't wait to tell you all about our new church family!  I got a new SD card for my camera and failed to format it prior to using.  I'll be posting about the New Hope Voyager Crew as soon as the Google machine helps me figure out how to fix my photos!

Happy living y'all.

Moving, reflux, and fireworks, OH MY

Alas! We have moved into our new condo AND we have Wifi.  I can now happily resume my life on social media.  Thank goodness, because the screen on my phone was starting to make me a little cross-eyed.

I should also mention that I started this post yesterday with so many witty sayings...but sometime between then and now, my computer ate my words and I can't come with anything clever or witty at the moment.  Brent was shocked when I told him that pregnant brain is indeed scientifically proven.

Just to sidetrack for a second, I have now acquired a whole new meaning of the phrase, "a bad case of the heartburns."  As soon as Brent and I went to bed last night, I started having the most horrid case of heartburn.  And I mean, it was baadd, y'all.  Brent found it to be hilarious, so we both started laughing hysterically.  I begged him to stop, but he wouldn't.

I warned him...

I felt like the 4th of July fireworks were happening in my esophagus. 

and what happened after that was definitely not pretty.  I had to wash the balcony the next morning.  YUCK.

We got to watch the 4th of July fireworks from our comfy snuggly bed.  Pretty cool eh?

Our California King Bed :)

Left:  Water view from our bedroom window Right: Our colorful bathroom 

Dining room table

Views from our living room window

Kitchen and such

Nifty little bar area

There are quite a few things that make me really happy about this place.  However, there are two things that really stand out in making me super happy.

1.  There is a door that separates the living room/dining room and our bedroom.  Why is this a big deal you ask?  Well, this means that my kitchen will smell like that delicious Vanilla Lime Yankee Candle that I got for 75% at T.J.Maxx, and my clothes won't smell like yesterdays supper.  It's my mother's fault.  She is obsessed with having air purifiers everywhere since Arabic food can sometimes release strong smells.  She loves our house to smell good and her clothes not to smell like the couscous, Bourak, or Chekchouka that she was making for supper.

2.  We have a California King bed.  Thank you Lord.  I am taking full advantage of these last few months before Ari is born to savour the sweetness of zzzZZZZzzzz.

So this is why I knew that God wanted us to live here.  For starters, remember from this post that finding this place was so incredibly easy.  Easy just like everything has been during this entire transition.  It had been hard calling realtors and trying to look at places since Brent works all day.  He just happened to have a day off during the week.  That day, I called a realtor who I had been trying to reach for a week.  I told Brent that she probably won't answer but I'll leave her a message again.  Guess what?  She answered!  We were looking at this condo within 15 minutes of getting a hold of her.  (She complimented my big southern hair, since she's from Texas.)  The rent price includes everything, from water, electricity, cable, and internet.  In addition to all this awesomeness, she didn't have us sign or pay anything before we moved.  She just took our word and gave us the keys.  This worked out great because since Brent still had not been paid since he started work in early June, we literally did not have enough money to pay rent + deposit.

As if this wasen't enough greatness for a weekend, God did it again.  We FOUND a church yesterday. We have gone to about 4 different churches since we've been here and none of them felt like home.  Well on Sunday, we were welcomed home by New Hope Voyager :)

We also met 2 pretty awesome couples to add to our Hawaii friends repertoire, 1 couple from Brent's work and another couple with a precious little girl from church.  I have a feeling we will be great friends for a long time to come.

I am so happy!

So happy living to y'all too.