We are no longer homeless in paradise!!!

So we are closing on our house Friday, Nov 9th!!! What a birthday present, right??? Anyway, after a very long road here in Hawaii and living in a hotel forever, we are finally getting the keys to our new house. The other great birthday present is that we get to bring the dogs home. The kennel called me today to verify that they were going home tomorrow and they even gave us a discount since the girls have been there for 55 days. Now the moving starts. We won't get our stuff for another week because Brad is in class for the next week, which means he can't take a day off to help me receive it. Yes, I have received our stuff before, but I have a bad feeling about this one. I am sure that everything is okay, but I was sick when they packed it up, so I did not make sure everything was done like it should have been. It traveled such a long way that I just want some extra help if something is wrong. Besides, my pregnant head has been so foggy lately, there is no telling what I will have them do or not do.

Here are some pictures of the house with the seller's stuff in it. I will take some new pictures once we scrape the ceiling of the popcorn and we paint.


I will start upstairs since this is how the pictures loaded. This is the upstairs bathroom. I am not sure where the cabinet doors are but they were not sold to us when we bought the house.

This is the upstairs hallway from the master bedroom looking into what will be the nursery.

This is the nursery. The blue in here is really loud; the pictures don't show the electricness of it. I am not sure if we are going to paint it the same color as the rest of the house or if we will do a nursery color. It will all depend on the bedding that we find for the kiddo. I think this is a queen sized bed in here to give you an idea of the size of the room.

This is the closet in the nursery. All of the closets have really nice built ins so they are much more usable than just a single or double bar.


This is the view from the nursery window. If you look past the telephone wires you will see the ocean.

This is the master bedroom. This is a king sized bed, for room size. It has a wall of closets opposite the bed. There is also a crawl space/attic in the corner of the room on the right hand wall.


Here is the living room and dining room. This picture really shows the back porch and back side of the house. It is really open and has windows along the whole back wall. There are no overhead lights but until it gets dark you don't really need any. I will be untying the curtains during the day though. I just have something about people being able to see into my house.
Here is the living room from the dining room. It is pretty big and will house our tv very nicely. I miss our tv very much. I am hoping that it made the trip unscathed.


Here is the living room from the back corner of the room. It looks into the kitchen and the stairs.

Here is the hall leading from the office to the living room. There is a neat shelving unit built in that I will use to display the little knick knacks that we have.


Here is the office. It is painted a bright yellow orange color. It is horrible. It will be the first room to be painted. It is a very large room that looks out on to the lanai. Since I expect to spend most of my time in this room I know that the girls will be outside on the deck in the sun for most of the day.

Here is the entry way. The owners before the people that we are buying from enclosed this area. It is kind of hard to explain how it was before. I really like it because it opened up everything inside. It also gives an inside place to take your shoes off. We learned this custom very early on while looking at houses. In Hawaii, you take your shoes off when you enter a home. I plan to put a bench in here so that if needed you can sit down to take off or put on your shoes when you visit.


Here is the other side of that door and the outside of the house.

Here is the back porch. I will probably spend a lot of time out here with the girls on a long leash in the yard.

So that is the house. We are very excited to get back into our own house. I love being able to have color on the walls and a sense of ownership. If you notice there are no pictures of the kitchen. Oh the lovely green kitchen. If you scroll down to October 13, What Next?? post, you will see pictures of the kitchen. My battery died before I could get the pictures. I saved it for last because the house inspector was in there doing his inspection. Anyway, I will snap some better ones and post them once we get settled.

So since we are moving in tomorrow, we will be out of touch via email and blogging for a little while. I set up internet for the new house to be turned on tomorrow so hopefully it won't be too long, but there is no telling. I will post as soon as I can get back on. I hope everyone has a great Veteran's holiday weekend. I know that we will; Brad has Monday off and we have lots of stuff planned for the weekend (mostly painting and scraping). We will also be attending the New Baby and Kids Expo here. We will be going with a few other families from the wardroom. I am hoping to get some great information about the new addition to our family and the stuff that she will need once she gets here. Time to get some sleep and enjoy our last night in the hotel.

Leave us a message telling us what you think about the house. Check back often so you can see the updating that we are going to do as well. Much love to all-

Brad and Lauren

Pictures of Lauren Preggo!!

Here are some updated pictures of Lauren's belly.













Here is a view of several weeks apart.












Week 22 - Things are going well. I have had some really bad pain in my hands. I am learning how to sleep to minimize the pain, but most nights I am up every few hours. I was hoping to be able to have some good sleep before the baby came, but I guess those nights are over. My hands are also going to sleep while I am awake now, too. I am having trouble doing things with my hands for periods of time. The dr gave me some braces, but they seem to be making things worse because they are restricting and tight. I am hoping that once we get into the house and change our diet to a healthier one that I will not have so much water retention. The dr said it could be a pinched nerve in my back too because of my scoliosis. Who knows why or how but it is really annoying!! I changed my doctor at the hospital. I found a very knowledgeable and personable dr who has been doing ob work for 25 years. My other dr was nice but he was very young and did not have the experience that I wanted. Since this is my first kiddo, I don't know what questions I should be asking. My last visit with him was very rushed and impersonal. We will see how this new dr is.

Sorry for the delay . . .

So I know that I wanted to write every week but this past two weeks have been very crazy. Let me recap for everyone:

Week 20 - We had the big dr's appointment where we found out we are having a little girl. It is very nice to be able to put a pronoun to this growth. She is moving around a lot and everything seems to be going normal with her.

Week 21 - The baby is about the size of a large banana. There are some great fruit references that are made to put into perspective how big the baby is during the pregnancy. She started out as a grain of rice, a pinto bean, a lima bean, a medium olive, a ripe grape, a small plum, a large lime, a peach, a grapefruit, and now a banana. I looked ahead and there are no more fruit references for this little one. It has been really funny looking forward to what fruit is coming this next week. Now all I can think about is a banana with little arms a legs that are flailing about in there. Now for how I have been feeling. This is supposed to be the best time of the pregnancy, well not for me. I have been having some problems with my hands. I am waking up at night due to my hands falling asleep and causing pretty severe pain. So much so that I can't get back to sleep for a few hours. I have been told that there is not much I can do about this; it is pregnancy induced carpal tunnel. Because pregnancy makes you retain so much water, your wrists swell causing a pinching of the nerves. You can wear wrist splints to keep you hands in a neutral position, but mostly you just have to adjust the way you are sleeping. For me that is not too bad, I usually sleep on my left side anyway. Unfrotunately, my left hand is the one that is going to sleep the most. So I am having to learn how to sleep on my right side, or sleep in a recliner to keep my head above my heart and let the blood flow down to my lower body. I am not sure that I can take another 18 weeks of this because it is starting to happen during the day as well. Ughh!!! There is a good note to this, it is supposed to go away by itself after the baby is born. We will see about that. I forgot to take pictures this week so I will post a new picture of me at 22 weeks this weekend.

We had a change of command with Brad's boat. There were several evenings of festivities for both the new CO and the old CO. For those who are not Navy, the CO is the Commanding Officer of the boat. He is basically the boss of the whole boat and is responsible for everything that happens to it. Brad will be a CO, one of these days, but right now he is the low man on the totem pole working his way up to the top. There is a special ceremony that the Navy does where the orders are read for both the incoming and outgoing CO's with a lot of pomp and circumstance. There are guest speakers and even the Navy band plays. The whole boat is there to witness the ceremony and there is a reception afterwards. This ceremony really made me realize that we are a part of a truly awesome organization. Of course, I cried during several parts of the ceremony. I have been to a lot of ceremonies but this one really hit home. It is the start of a new begining with the boat and with us as well.

The last part of the week has been dealing with our home purchase. We have been in escrow on a property since the middle of October. We were scheduled to close October 31st. So, are we in a new home yet????? Nope, we aren't. Why you may ask??? The seller's have asked for 2 extensions on the closing date. So it looks like we are finally going to close on Nov 9th. A great birthday present for me!!! We will let you know as the date gets closer if this date is going to hold or not. We are really tired of being homeless.

So that has been to story for the last few weeks. I have been very frustrated with the house situation. We have been in the hotel for almost 2 months now, but it looks like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully we will make it to the end this time.

I hope everyone is doing well. We miss everyone terribly. Leave us a comment and let us know that you were here. You can do this by clicking on the comment count at the bottom of this post. Much love and baby kicks to everyone!!!