Where in the world...?: May 2006

Happy Birthday Shannon

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHANNON

We had a great weekend in Honlulu, fun to be in a lively city! We went to meet up with Tim, Jane, Marion, and Steven, friends of Shannons from Oregon and celebrate Shannons B-day. YAY...so much fun. A weekend full of laughing, stories, beach, great food, shopping, conversations, and smiles. Oh, and we got to ride in a limo!
It has definatly become summer here, the rain has ceased, and the sun is out. We have a busy schedule. Shannon will soon go to Portland for a few days, then I am heading to Georgia for a few weeks. When I return Shannons mom, sister, and niece will visit for a week. Then SCHOOL TIME! HOpefully we will also have started on our house at that point, it seems that everything takes a little bit longer out here. Especially when the weather is as beautiful as it is now. We are off for a birthday dinner with Bill and Casey.
Aloha, Rowan

Building Permit - not yet

Oh boy! The process of getting a building permit is taking too long. We finally got our floor plans stamped by an Architect and proceeded to the county offices to get approval signatures from the building, financial, and health departments. The first two places took only 15 minutes. The health department, however needs 10 days to review our septic tank design! Once we get that final signature, we submit everything with our application and then we wait - AGAIN. It'll probably take about 4 to 8 weeks for the final permit. We're also working on getting a construction loan as owner builders. This will be tough because we've only been in Hawai'i less than a year and our work is completely different than what we've been doing in the past. Our land is great, we've not done much to it yet but Grandma and I sprinkled Grandpa's ashes around one big Ohia tree. That Ohia tree is probably between 75 to 100 years old.

Here is our floor plan:

First floor (about 4 feet above ground)

Second floor (half loft)

Grandma Betty and Polly visit! - Part 2

Here are more photos of our travels around the island.
Photos 1-3: Mauna Kea at 9,000 feet (largest of 5 volcanoes on Hawai'i), peak is 13,500 - we didn't go up that far.