I'm not at the beach...

Friday is my day off, which means I get a whole day to pay bills, do laundry and get the house clean so we can spend our weekend together carefree as happy as clams.

Today I woke up (at 8:21, sigh) and noticed the sun was filtering through the curtains quite nicely. And brightly. Rhyme! So what did I do? Donned my favorite suit as fast as humanly possible, loaded up my chair, my book and my maui babe and ran, not walked, but maybe skipped, to the car.  So far my big decision of the day was if I felt like driving to my favorite beach, which is five minutes from my house.  I hastily concluded that my soul could not be without sunshine, sand and waves for that long, so I whipped into my second favorite beach, a 2 minute drive from my house.

And here I am.  I think everyone should live in Hawaii.  Ahhhhh. No better way to do my chores.

Finally! An update!

So it turns out I'm just like the 98% of people who have a blog and rarely update it.  Darn it.  But I am now pleased to accounce: a blog update!

Ryan has been working as an intern for a company called ADP since October.  Midway through December, he was offered a full time position with them in major account sales, and he accepted.  This is an awesome opportunity for Ryan to build his resume and gain valuable business experience!  I am so proud of him, and all that he has accomplished so far in the short month since he accepted the position.  He is working long, long hours, and it is paying off!  What does this mean for us?  Well, we are now planning to be in Hawaii a bit longer than originally expected.  We signed a lease on an apartment in Kailua that we love!  I am having a lot of fun getting everything organized the way I like it, and decorating it.  We are loving having our very own "space" since we were married, but are still so grateful for the opportunities we were blessed with along the way that led us to this point.  We recently purchased a new car to replace our Subaru (for those of you who are familiar with what we were driving, fist pump now in happiness for us!) and are also loving it! We love settling into a familiar routine together, and some of our favorite things include: frequenting the farmer's market each Thursday for fresh veggies, treats, and sometimes a plate lunch dinner, waking up early on Saturday mornings to go to garage sales and thrift shops for furniture and projects we are working on, and watching TV together on our first TV (which we found at a garage sale, haha)!  We still love spending our Saturdays playing at the beach, and Ry loves his speargun and going fishing with his favorite pal, Scott.  We love Hawaii, and miss all of our family and friends very dearly, and are looking forward to our visit in June for my sister Hailey's wedding!!!

find your beach

This morning, Ry and I set off on high adventure to a secret beach, accessible only by an out-of-control 4WD dirt road.  Right now you're thinking, "don't they drive a beater Subaru?", and trust me, I was thinking the same thing.  Nevertheless, Ryan Indiana Prater took off down the treacherous road while I covered my eyes and peaked only occasionally to count fifteen telephone poles, as our secret beach was across from pole #196, the fifteenth pole after we hit dirt.  

We drove to the end of the Farrington Highway (930), then continued an additional 1.5 miles down the dirt road

The stressful off-roading experience and subsequent anxiety attack became well worth it once we hit the beach with all our gear!  We had the entire beach and cove to ourselves for the entire afternoon-not a soul in sight.  The water was filled with mainly rocks and coral, which was perfect for Ry so he could spear fish all day.  The sand was really course and gritty, and made up mostly of smashed up sea shells and rocks polished by the ocean, so I spent the afternoon as a geologist, picking through all the sand for the prettiest rocks and shells.  I was also able to get a short snooze in!  In between, we snacked on our picnic lunch, made up primarily of ice cold Diet Cokes.  

The areas to both sides of our little cove were full of exploration galore!  We set off to explore the tide pools, and walk on the flat limestone that the waves were crashing on. 

We ended the day with a kiss!

We found our beach.

7 Kailuana Place

This is the story of how and why we came to be at 7 Kailuana Place.

A month before Ryan and I were married, Melissa, Ry's sister, planted the seed of a dreamy and tropical idea into our twitterpated brains.  She moved to Hawaii at the start of 2012 to give live-in care to the mother of one of her professors who lives here.  Melissa was planning to return to Idaho for fall semester, and suggested we take her place here--horrible idea, right?  At first, we joked about how much irresponsible fun we could have on the enchanted isle and what kind of adventures surely awaited us there.  One thing led to another (I went swimsuit shopping and Ry watched youtube movies on spearfishing), and things started to fall into place.  Ry was finishing up a business internship in St. George at the end of summer, which is when Melissa would be returning to school, so the timing was perfect.  Since Ry just graduated, we figured he could look for a job in Salt Lake, Hawaii, London, Paris or NY (this is an exhaustive list of places we were willing to settle down), so we thought, "why not Hawaii?!".  We moved out here with the intent to stay a year and save up some cash money, and then invest in a flat in Kensington.  Or maybe a single family home in South Jordan (Draper if Ry was typing this).  Either way, one major perk to the job was rent & food included!  With that in mind, we packed up our 3 checked bags, each weighing fifty pounds, and fifty pounds exactly, and boarded a one way flight to Honolulu.  We have now been living on the most secluded island of all the islands on planet earth in the town of Kailua for 7 weeks, having every kind of irresponsible fun we could have imagined, and every day having an adventure!