Hello Family J
It has been 1 ½ months since we left our home in Missouri.
Ironically I feel settled, since our hotel is so familiar. My new friends are
all the staff of the hotel and Hiking Hawaii café, or random employees I choose
to start chatting with. Throughout the week, Robbie is working and currently
taking a Commanders Course at Schofield. His 1975 Scout needs some ‘fixing’ to
be street legal here and to receive a state inspection so we share one vehicle,
which could either mean I stay down in Waikiki or become a chauffeur at 6am so
I can run errands! If you might think I have been sitting around tanning in the
sun each day, I have only had a handful of completely relaxing days since we
arrived but most entail phone calls about home loans, doctor appointments, job
searching, finding food for myself, journaling, an occasional devotional, and
lots of walking to and from places. J
The 65th Engineer Battalion’s “Hail &
Farewell” was last night at Schofield where Robbie was welcomed into the
company officially and I got a fragrant lei from the Battalion Commander and
his wife, Cindy. We were able to see our friends Shannon and Paul along with
their 6 week old Riley! The day he was born was about the day we arrived. It was nice to be a part of a social event
because we see tons of people (tourists, strangers, traffic) but haven’t had
much of a chance to get connected. The dive team is a smaller company within
the battalion down at Hickam so we won’t be around most of those folks. Bummer.
However, we tried a new church this weekend called New Hope Leeward and
hopefully could find some great people there (if that’s the church we pick!).
We ran into my cousin, without coordinating meeting there, we sat together and
really enjoyed it!
This week I have been bouncing between decisions with job
options. My first options is through Crystal, the owner of Hiking Hawaii Café,
connected me with a colleague named Chef Chai. He has multiple high-end Thai
food restaurants in downtown Honolulu along with other business venues and
could use an administrative coordinator. After scrambling to pull together an
updated resume and sharing with a potential employer my vision for an un-said
job, Chef Chai said after 20 years without any assistance he could use the
help. He needs help with scheduling his catering business, could use a monthly
main floral display, responding to guest inquiries/secretarial work,
bookkeeping, and almost anything a business has in the office. The Hawaiian
mentality is very relaxed and Crystal reminded me that vagueness is
normal. The idea of coming up with my
own job description, hours, pay, and tasks in the area I have talked about
wanting to get into sounds amazing. Terrifyingly vague. But exciting. The
second option is through New Hope Leeward Church’s Christian School. After receiving
the “welcome to our church” phone call, I was able to ask the New Hope church
if they had any staff positions available and they mentioned that their preK-6
school is hiring. The sound of becoming a preschool teacher was very intriguing
and I applied! The difficulty was in writing out a several page application, to
include a testimony of how I became a Christian, on the spot while writing on a
clipboard. I like writing but it is always nerve wracking to figure out the
best way to portray oneself. This job appears to be teaching 2-3 year olds
through an established curriculum and classroom. I believe that I might have
healed from my past teaching experience and can move on towards teaching again.
It’s nerve-wracking that I would be trying to teach again. Yet exciting. So,
between both options that both have elements of excitement and risk; I’m
waiting to see which leads to the best answer of doing something fulfilling and
“Audra-like”. Right now I am thinking I will do both because I love the idea,
experience, and opportunities of being an administrative coordinator (I picked
the title!) and preschool teacher! I did pray about the opportunity for getting
involved in event planning-the next week, “poof!” the opportunity with Chef
Chai popped up. I did tell Robbie two weeks ago that “I think I’d be interested
in teaching again, and would love to do preschool teaching, but teaching (not
daycare) positions for preschool never are available.” POOF! I believe I’m
supposed to be learning a lesson here… J
Robbie found out that his command time has been moved up
from May to January! The dive team will be doing a TDY mission to Cambodia for
a few months in February and that will the main mission he is already prepping
for. December is right around the corner and we hope to move into a home by
then, we won't be able to visit family for Christmas (so I guess it's going to be a big day for Skype-if we have internet), by the first week of January I can start both the job with the school and
Chef Chai, Robbie goes to Virginia for dive training in the second week of January,
then he starts command mid-January, and in February is Cambodia! So things will
ramp up quickly!! Not to mention some medical stuff, but I’ll talk about that
later. J
Otherwise, our life is simply waiting to hear about our date
to move. We did buy a house and we are so close to closing! We are just waiting
for the seller to do their termite inspection and we are ready to record. The
place is a townhome in a complex with a pool. There is a detached two car
garage, enclosed lanai (porch), and 3 bed/2 bath one story home. The third
bedroom has an open wall into the living room and is more of an office. I
believe you know how much I love color, but we will probably have to repaint
into a few neutrals because the neon toothpaste mint in the bathrooms and
passionate mandarin pineapple in the living room is a little too much for even
me. Otherwise, our new home is a clean and wonderful home built in 2000 in Ewa
Beach. J
We hopefully will move out of our hotel and into our home mid-December. The
only pressure for timing is that our government TLA allotment for hotel
reimbursement ends Dec. 14 (we have 60 days and will have used them all!). As
long as we are in by Dec. 14, I’m happy. J
Anyways, I hope this gives you a little insight into our
lives. I love hearing from you too! I hope you get to bake Christmas cookies or
at least eat some for me because I really wish I was able to have people over
and do something festive for the holidays. The weather is between 70-80 degrees
during the day and although beautiful, it’s not a true winter that I am used
to. J
Thanks so much for reading!!
Love,
Audra (& Robbie too!)
Audra (& Robbie too!)
