We're Here!!!!

On Tuesday, February 17th, Carl and I landed in paradise. And the best part is: we don't have to leave!!! I can't begin to tell you how excited and overwhelmed we are. Everything about our journey so far has been unbelievably perfect. Our landlords currently live in Seattle, but they have a large group of friends that live in Kona. Most of them are between the ages of 28-35, they go to a different beach on the island to camp at least once a month, they skate, surf, play games, and all kinds of cool stuff. A week or so before we arrived Melissa asked us if we'd like for one of her friends to pick us up at the airport, and of course we said yes. So when we arrived, Mike was waiting for us. He brought us to our new home, we dropped off our stuff, and we headed to the Kona Brewing Co. The 2 guys that live in the house we share a property with are the brew masters there, so we got a free pint and felt like locals within an hour of landing in Kona. Everyone we've met so far has been super cool. Last night Ryan, one of the brew masters, invited us to a poker party. We started around 7 and didn't quit til around midnight, and believe it or not I only lost $3. I bought in for $20 and walked with $17. Yay!

This is my view as I write this blog. Its taken from our lanai (porch). Its zoomed in a little, but not much. Our house is about 1/2 mile from the ocean. We're on a hill, so we have a perfect view.
This is a picutre of us on our lanai. Yes, Carl is wearing a hoodie. Believe it or not its pretty chilly here. We're really glad we brought our winter gear. During the day you definitely should wear shorts and t-shirts, but in the mornings and evenings the temperature really drops. Actually, right now its 1 pm, and I'm wearing a hoodie. We went for a walk earlier and were sweating, but once you get under the shade and in the breeze you cool off really fast.

When we landed at the Kona airport, which is spectacular by the way, Carl bought me this beautiful lei.

There is an awesome Farmer's Market by the water that we've been walking to every day to get our lunch. Before we moved here we had 1 of 2 reactions from most everyone we told we were moving to Hawaii: (1) that's so awesome! i wish i would have done something like that too. (2) its too expensive there. Well, our experience has been quite the opposite of the second statement thus far. Our rent is $300 cheaper than in New Braunfels- its a little smaller, but still cheaper. And the food at the market is CHEAP!!! A head of butter lettuce is $1, a box of cherry tomatoes is $2, humongous butter avocados are $1, yellow and orange bell peppers are less than $1, and the list goes on. All of you who buy those sorts of vegetables at the super market can understand my astonishment when I saw the prices. And to top it off, the produce is of such an amazing quality that you don't even need to use salad dressing. This is a picture of the salads we've been having every day for lunch. We bought some chopped macadamia nuts at the market to put on top as well.

We can't wait for all of you to be here in August!!!!