Alright, here's the news flashes I promised:

Well helloooooo there fellow blogger readers. I know, I know, I deserve a severe beating for the neglect of this poor blog. Indeed if it was a pet, it would have died and partially decomposed by now. But, I have an excuse. Ihave been doubled up on school work this last semster to make it well, my last semseter. I finished (at long last) my associates degree. I will be starting the bachelor's program in a few days, so I am sorry to report, I am still in the same blog neglecting boat as before. Funny thought, this blog was supposed to be updated by everyone here on this adventure. Lindsey and Chris have their own blog, and April is still trying to master the english language. Once she has that down, she'll move on to electric devices and keyboards. Yes that was a direct 'invitation' for all you to call her and request that she posts as well.



Ok here's an update so far (readers digest style):



We moved into the Kaneohe house on July 26th. There is a slide show of the place we've lived in for a few months now. The paint drawn picture is NOT to scale nor is it close But you can kindof get the general idea. The second floor of the house is not over top of the first. It is up and behind. We live on a hillside, you get the idea. There is a small breezeway beneath the second floor, behind the bedrooms on the first floor. I also ran out of space to draw the lanai on the north side of the house, so i just squeezed it in. Now lets talk about the occupants and living quarters. Most of you know that Matt and Jenny Littlemore (jenny my sister) moved in with us a few weeks ago. They and their boy Ethan, are settled in. Matt landed a Big Shot job with Central Pacific Bank and jenny and I stay home with the kids. For now. She's going to get a part time job and I'm starting a handyman business. So we'll work our schedules around the kids. Go ahead, snicker and laugh all you like, we're doing our best. Lindsey and Chris have the downstair master bedroom and bathroom. Jenny and Matt use the east bedroom and Ethan is in the west bedroom. The upstairs master bedroom, well I say master because its a little bigger than the other one. Is where April and I sleep and Abbi has the other bedroom. We put a bed in the common area upstairs and that has become Hannah's room. The gray areas are closets and you should be able to make out the furniture from the pictures and bmp file. Now for those of you planning on staying with us, you will be using the common area upstairs as a bedroom. We'll have dividers for privacy. Since the upstairs common area isn't really a common area at all, it serves its purpose as a sixth bedroom nicely. We all share the kitchen, laundry room and dining room. Lindsey and Chris tend to use their bedroom as an all purpose studio and don't often use the activity rooms. Kind of like having live-in hermits. Now some of you are saying, 'wow, thats a lot of families to have in one house,' well Lana, it is, make no mistake of that. Its not always easy blending ideals and who uses and cleans the dishes etc. Jenny is a champ when it comes to organizing and planning and together we've devised a system that separates days and responsibilties. So far so good. For me its actually quite fun having everyone here. I am a social person as you've already figured out, and I enjoy having family around. As for everyone else's feelings, well, you'll have to take that up with them. Our current lease ends next July, so we hope to be here until then, there may be some disbanding before then due to financial reasons but I'll make everyone aware of that as it befalls us. We are very happy to be in this home. We looked at many houses in this price range and they were all frankly, pretty NASTY. Old dirty, bad neighborhoods etc. We have a very clean culdesac with stellar neighbors, and the best part WE HAVE ACCESS TO THE HOA POOL!! YAY! The house we live in is in the ahuimanu home owners association, so there is a large club house and pool here at our disposal. Cool huh. The pool is about the size of a standard Hotel pool, no slide but hey, fresh water swimming is a nice change! There is a small kiddy pool nearby and a club house a little bigger than mom's west wing. Not nearly as nice or equipped but functional for huge parties. Sometimes there are frogs in the pool which is pretty funny actually. Only one or two and they are small and don't bite (hard). The kids think its nice. We live in an area called Valley of the Temples. Its actually a very very large cemetary with different religion's 'temples' scattered through the trees. The valley is actually a valley surrounded by jungle encased mountains. There is a large peak at the northern most end of the valley that is all too similar to Ben Lomond peak. Actually it looks more like willard peak but its the lone monument that makes it stand out. Nights are very cool here. Makes for good sleeping. We got this house from an add in the paper and are working with a Real Estate agency called J L Realty. Our contact as it were, is James Ogawa. He is a gentleman and a scholar in all respects. Mid to late 30's clean cut, family man. Soft spoken and really genuine good guy. We recently found out that he is LDS too. Infact he came by one day to see some tile work I did on the upstairs bathroom and as we were walking the grounds looking at other work I want to do, he asks out of the blue 'how's your ward?' Because of my Utah background, I didn't hesitate at the question, and began to answer before I realized what he had asked. "It's good, really big, lots of nice folks and....hey, how did you know we're LDS?" He smiled and said, "well, you're from Utah and you had a copy of proclaim my gospel open upstairs, and you know, you can just tell when you meet someone that has been endowed." I slapped my sideand laughed. "April and I had the same conversation about you a day or two after we met!" He chuckled and followed me around to the front of the house. This is a excellent situation for us, because we now have the preferred 'ins' with the real estate guru. Cool too huh.
April is still working for the ER at tripler army medical hospital, and I am still a full time student and stay at home dad. For now....I am plotting my escape. I have a deepend respect for my own mother and I marvel that I wasn't murdered by age three. My kids are really good kids for the most part and some days I want to bury my head in a pillow and die. My hat is off to Mirj for raising a whole herd, and to my own Mom for raising four small kids alone. Sheesh. Lindsey is working at Castle Hospital and Chris is a Salesman for Fastenall. He's working his way up the ladder really quickly. I am still engaged in a 'project' or two. But that's another, um, story, for another day.