2012 Smit New Years Eve Letter

Dear Family and Friends:

Started knitting!

Happy New Year! This time last year we were finally getting over our jetlag from our flight from Africa. It’s crazy to think about all that has happened this year.  We knew that 2012 was going to be a year of adventure and prayer and it did not fail to amaze us both with twists and turns.

Aunt Sara and I at the beach!

            We had decided that Jeremy was going to enlist in the Air Force, and thought BASIC would be in January.  The decision was hard, as he would be gone about seven months.  

We decided that I would make a terrible moper; I needed to be active and do new things while he trained.  I had made about three different plans for the time he was gone, including going to teach English in Europe, and working at a Camp overseas, but at each turn things kept falling through. This turned into a blessing in disguise, because he ended up not leaving until March instead of January like we had originally thought.  While he was in BASIC I traveled the states seeing family and friends that I do not usually have the blessing of being around, and was able to do many awesome things.  From one last girls night in Cedar Falls with my girlfriends, learning the power of Red Lipstick, going to the Denver Art Museum, being amazed by Universal Studios, beach days, I was quite busy, and had time to learn a new art form; poi. Many thanks goes out to those who took me in: Kelsey, Laura, Aunt Holly, Aunt Sara and Court, Kelsey in Denver, and Robyn and Jay, you helped me grow and learn, and I am forever grateful.

70's dance at camp

            While I was out having adventures, Jeremy, or should I say “Airman Smit” was elected as Dorm Chief for his flight, this meant that he was in charge of getting his flight where they needed to be, and helped to lead the men in becoming Airmen for the Air Force. Pretty darn cool if you ask me.  He graduated in May from Lackland Air Force Base.  Ron, Adri, Tim, and Linda all came to the graduation with me, and we all had a great time catching up and seeing the sites of San Antonio.  It was a beautiful weekend, with lots of fantastic food. 

We then found out that he was going to tech school at Keesler AFB in Mississippi till August to train with computers.   I had always wanted to work at the YMCA camp again, but couldn’t because we had gone to China and Africa, when I found out Jeremy was going to be gone all summer, I found the perfect opportunity to go back once again to the place that got me hooked on nonprofit work and ended up becoming the Arts and Crafts Head to my surprise, and fell in love with camp all over again.

            This summer was also when I found out about mermaiding, I bought my monofin in July and practiced every extra second I had.  We also found out in July that we were going to be placed in England, we were ecstatic about this because we have friends in England.  Two weeks before we were to leave we found out that we were being rerouted to Hawaii. As you can imagine, we didn’t put up much of a fight to that.  We arrived in September and after living in a hotel for a month, found a house on base. 

  It is amazing here, I have made tons of friends through the Spouses’ Club here, and Jeremy is doing wonderful at work. The community and life here in Hawaii is one of a kind and we never expected our first base to be this awesome.  In October I was offered a job as a Lead Day Camp Counselor for the Salvation Army, and also started semi-professionally mermaiding after getting my tail as Mermaid Harmony.  Our family is still a family of two, and so we've been able to explore, become scuba certified, and have hiking adventures here on Hawaii. We tried expanding our family twice to adopt a dog into our family, but it didn't work out either time because of allergies, who knows, maybe in 2013! We bought our first Christmas tree, and spent Christmas at the beach for the first time!

We would like to thank all of you who have kept us in your prayers and thoughts this year, we never expected the adventures we have had, but could not be more grateful. We love you all, even if we can not see you all of the time! Can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 The Smit Family in Hawaii :-)

Mermaid photo shoot!

Hey everyone,
It's been pretty crazy here in the Smit house, Christmas, parties with friends, and mermaiding have taken up quite a chunk of our time. :-D We had a lovely and fabulous Christmas and were able to skype or chat with those we loved, I almost teared up a few times on the phone when talking people but I pulled it together. This week I have day camp, and Jer leaves for Arizona to see his brother graduate from Air Force Pilot training, they'll have a lot of fun chatting it up and comparing AF stories I'm sure. While he's gone, I'll mermaid around, work, and I'm hosting a girl's night on Friday, I'm pretty excited.

We tried adopting again, but it didn't work, again (dog, not child). Sadness. but such is life.

It's still 78 degrees here, we actually went for a run on Christmas in tank tops in shorts, I thought it was craziness, but hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans do! Here are some pics from my photo shoot yesterday, more to come in a few days! Also if you haven't checked out my site yet you should!  http://mermaidharmon2.wix.com/mermaidharmony

Well, that's all for now, just bought us Muppet Treasure Island, we figured if we are eventually going to have kids, we need a better library of movies, not going to raise our kids on some of the stuff on TV, they need the good stuff. Starting with this movie. :-)

 Love,
Am

Christmas Seasn

Hey ya'll!
Things are going just lovely down here in the beautiful state of Hawaii.  I've heard many people say that it's hard to get into the Christmas spirit here, I'm actually feeling the opposite. I've been driving kettles for the Salvation Army, and every day I see people smiling, and saying "Merry Christmas".  The bell ringers are full of joy, and for 30 minutes at the end of each shift I ring the bell at Wal-Mart, and I have a blast just smiling, ringing, and wishing people to have a lovely Christmas and day. So, even though it's 75 degrees out, and the only hints of Christmas is our cute tree adorned with ornaments, the radio gushing "Let it Snow" and the blow up santa in my neighbors green yard, it still feels like the holidays to me.  Even though it's different, it doesn't mean it's wrong for me right now.

Had a mermaid photoshoot the other day which was a ton of fun, only have some of the above water photos right now, hopefully soon I'll have the underwater ones. I've been busy getting parties set up for the new year, and getting online sites set up! My first birthday party went really well, you can check out some photos from it at my Mermaid Harmony Website we had a blast, and I have 6 parties that I know of in the next 4 months! My friend Billy works at the aquarium and is also going to teach me how to make a tail, so that'll be a fun winter project to do.  I've got ideas! It'll be fun and something I can put on my resume, which looks rediculous I know, between Arts and Crafts, mermaiding, poi, line dancing, singing, sign dancing, kettle bell driving, and programming. It's just kind of funny to read, entertaining, slightly funny.

Not much planned for Christmas, we might go camping or explore a new part of the island the week before, we have a couple of Christmas parties to go to this week. Life is good.

Love,
Aj

I SWAM IN MY TAIL!

I also have my first gig tomorrow at the Library doing storytelling, should be a blast! I'm really excited, I have some fun pirate stories and songs about Octopi, because those are obviously the coolest songs. ::grins::
I also got the stuff for creamed corn casserole, I'm excited to try something new, Jeremy says he doesn't like Creamed Corn Casserole, I'm hopefully going to change his mind. But if not, it's okay, because I'm also making apple dumplings, and I know he could eat a hundred of those, so I think we're good. :-D

Me and my tail in the water! It was so cool, and the silicone reflected the water amazingly.

It was so much fun to swim in! 

Love you all,

Aj

MY TAIL CAME!!!! BUBBLES OF EXCITEMENT!

So my mermaid tail came! I can legitimately say, "I am a mermaid" with no hesitation. BEST FEELING EVER. I'm a mermaid. For reals. Awesome. I haven't gone swimming in it yet, last night I had a girl's night so I couldn't go (I did throw on my tail though for twenty minutes before I had to leave however, needed some pictures), and today I'll go to the beach I think, I hope, I really really want to swim. It's made out of silicone, and is silver, green, purple, blue, and pink at the tips. 

There are no side seams which is pretty cool. This was a prototype tail, so there are a few spots that need to be touched up, so she'll do that in the future (that way I can get my tattoos without itching to go into the water with my tail (with new tattoos you can't swim for two weeks). But it's amazing, and beautiful, highly awkward to try to move in, you should see me rolling, it's hilarious. But Jeremy was a saint and helped me get it on and off. My mertop is being sent on Monday, so should be here for my party next weekend, and hopefully I have a photoshoot this week! My merman friend and I are going swimming on Wednesday, so I'm pretty stoked about that, and nervous. He's been swimming longer than I have, so I'll pry be eating his bubbles, but I think he'll be nice and not leave me floundering. 

I've been working my tail off this week to start booking gigs and events, and emailed a lady I've looked up to for a while named Amy, she's a tattoo artist here in Hawaii who does lovely work, and I have a feeling will do many of my future tattoos, and also does photography, so I asked her if she wanted to do a mermaid shoot, and she said yes, so I'm excited to see how that comes together! I also emailed Mermaid Kariel about becoming a merbabe, so we'll see her response on that. Today is pretty busy, Jer is doing his advanced underwater scuba cert. I was going to, but I need more practice before going to the next level, plus there is a silent auction today that I'm working at with the Spouses Club.   That's about it here on the island of loveliness, it's breezy out today, but still nice, I think Jeremy had his first realization of no snow yesterday, poor guy, I think a trip to the beach will make him feel better. :-)

Well, that's all for now, I'll post a video of me swimming soon! I need to go get an underwater camera! It's about to get real!

 Tides of thanks to everyone who has supported me and loved me through my mermaid dream. I can't believe it's actually a reality. Wow, I have the best family and friends ever,

Love,

Mermaid Harmony

Just awesome.

Sneak Peek of my tail!

I love Hawaii. My house is all come together, and I feel like I have a family of friends here that take care of each other. It's really cool. Also, my tail comes in two days! So beyond excited! Also, just found out that Amy Jean here in Hawaii is interested in doing a mermaid photoshoot with me. She's uber talented, and I've always wanted to work with her, so this will be a blast. I also booked a storytelling at the library, and a birthday party in a week!

I love Zumba, I went today and it was great, but whew I'm toast, and then after Dawn, Kekoa, and I went to the beach, a little chilly, but quite nice once the sun came out.

Now that Thanksgiving is coming up, it's interesting to think I won't be back home, but I know that love stretches pretty far, from Hawaii, to Iowa, to Florida, and even to my friends in Europe and China. I love you all, and I hope that you are happy this holiday season.


Exciting news: I made apple dumpling wraps yesterday and they were FANTASTIC!! A definite notch in my 'I'm a wife, and check it out I can cook belt'. I was pretty stoked.

May love and adventures abound in your life!
Aj the mermaid-adventurer-dancer-teacher-wife-lady
Oh the twists and turns one's life can take :-D

Exciting news in the land of Hawaii

1. My tail comes in 5 days. Whose ridiculously stoked? This girl. Best part is, instead of being made out of latex, it's going to be made out of silicone, which is WAY better, and will last much longer in the long run, and be much more durable. I am one happy fish. Oh, I can't wait!

 2. I finished my signs!
A. I first had a huge pallet, then I had to take apart the pallet (really hard) to get the pieces I wanted

B. I had to figure out my design for my arrows and then cut it out with a circular saw (yay college scenery class!)

Camp Half-Blood traced out!

C. Painted all of the different boards

D. Draw the words on, I was going to use paint and use the newspaper transfer method, lies, didn't work, so I free handed the titles of places off of pictures I found on the internet, it actually turned out much better than expected, I expect it's that Arts and Crafts Head job that gave me the mad art skills I needed for this.

E. Figure out the order I wanted and put it up! We ended up screwing the back board into the wall, which was a 3"x1.5'x8 ft that I cut down to be 6.5 ft. Then we nailed the boards into that one. Took a bit, but now it's all done! I'm super excited, it's all different locations from our favorite books!

Before

3.  I wrote my article for Tail Flip magazine! I made a sunken treasure chest and wrote a DIY article about it called, "Just for the Halibut", it turned out pretty cool, I'll post a link once it comes out!  I'm excited to come up with new crafts to do, I don't have work this week or next, so I've been getting random stuff done, and working on mermaiding (I can now hold my breath for two minutes!) Well, that was once, my avg is 1 minute and 30 seconds...still, better than 30 seconds right!? I feel very blessed to be surrounded by people who are excited about my activities, and don't shun me for going after dreams that sound kind of crazy. :-)

After

Also dove in a ship wreck yesterday, saw a 5 ft sea turtle, and I guess some sharks came out under us while we were getting up on the boat and we missed it by 2 minutes. I guess one snuck up behind the girl while she was rising in the water. I would have died, but it would have made for a good story.  Maybe next time...
This weekend we're having a quiet time, my friend has a Twilight marathon, and some friends are coming over for breakfast dinner 'Ferry style', and Quelf. It's gonna be epic. Just saying.
Love you all,
Aj the ever venturing adventurer :-)

Spreading glitter and smiles in happiness :-)

Many of you know me as a usually happy person. It takes a lot to get me down, and sometimes I can get into my odd funk. In the past I have sometimes felt that something has been off, like I'm not where I belong, or am in the wrong place or time. Sometimes making friends is hard for me, I make acquaintances  and have felt that I've had to work so hard to keep friends.
There have been a few friends that have been amazing and that I love dearly and made my college experience absolutely wonderful and full of glitter and dancing and love, Dylan, Laura, and Kelsey, I thank you for that. Ellen is also one who although we are on separate paths is an amazing lady who loves God and rocks at life. :-)

HESC ladies!

Being here in Hawaii, feels like all the puzzle pieces of my life have come together. Making friends here is easier, and feels natural, I don't have to fight to make friends or to feel like I belong, my anxiety is gone. I went to a Hickam Enlisted Spouses Club and met some truly remarkable people.
Virginia and Beth took me right in, and showed me places to work out and go walking in the morning, which has led to some really great conversations, and a fun friendship that I'm excited to continue. I've also become super close with Dawn, who is Jeremy's sponsor's wife. She's phenomenal, and we have a blast just hanging out and chatting, not to mention she has a little one who cracks me up, and loves to sing "too close to love you".

At a halloween function, mermaid princess
and Buddy the Elf

Jeremy and I are doing fantastic, and our marriage is strong and unified and that alone makes me beam with happiness, to know that although we were separated physically while he was training, we both grew in ways that made us stronger, both individually, and together. (Although, to be honest, I may have learned to be a bit too bold sometimes). We took scuba diving lessons (believe it or not, I'm way getting over my fear of the water, I TOUCHED AN OCTOPUS), we are taking our advanced diver course next month, so we can go to wrecks and swim with sharks, impossible to believe, but I'm looking forward to it.

Our birthday cake and my flaming red hair :-)

Since we were separated during out birthdays, we celebrated our birthdays last night, I bought a cookie cake, and wrote on it, in very messy frosting handwriting, Happy Birthday Jeremy and Aj. And we had a little celebration, just the two of us, and blew out our candles. My heart overflowed with joy.

We also have a home. And not like our apartment at college where we couldn't hang anything really on the walls because we couldn't drill in, but as in, I know I'm going to stay here for at least 3 years and I've decorated, and have a DISHWASHER, and a GARBAGE DISPOSAL!!
 I've been able to do my DIY projects, and it feels like home. It feels right. I feel like I belong, and that I'm doing what I'm supposed to, and my life is on track, and it is quite well with my soul.

I feel very blessed, and happy.
I just wanted you all to know that all is well in Hawaii, and I hope that in each of your lives that you are finding and doing what makes you happy, and intrinsically loving those around you, and exploring new opportunities that arise.

Love,
Aj

I bought my tail!

Okay, so as many of you know I have been planning for a while to buy a mermaid tail. Due to resources, knowledge and some other random things I didn't think I would be able to order my tail till December, making it a giant Christmas gift that people could chip in towards. After doing more research I found Fish Butts (http://www.fish-butts.com/).  The maker is Stephanie and she has made many tails and does great work. I saved up my money from this summer and as of today my order was accepted for her to start making my tail. Beyond stoked as this is a dream come true.  The tail takes about 10 weeks to do so it should be here by mid december I think! Also, I decided on my mermaid name. I am Mermaid Harmony. I looked through hundreds of names and ideas, but I heard this and was like yep, that's my name.  I have a page on facebook, so if you would like to add me on facebook go for it! I have the design of my tail up on that page as well.  It's all coming together!

I also was asked to start doing a DIY Mer-craft for the mermaid magazine Tail Flip.  It is a great magazine and opens your eyes to new and different things in the mer-community.  I highly suggest you check it out, quite amazing. I think my first project will be a shipwrecked mirror. Super stoked to start working on it.
http://issuu.com/t_obrecht/docs/tail_flip_issue_1
http://issuu.com/t_obrecht/docs/tail_flip_issue_2

Mermaid Kariel is the model.

Other great news/slightly nerve wracking. Mermaid Kariel has a new opening for a weekly mermaid position.  She would provide the costume and I would be a mermaid. She is one of the top three mermaids in the world. She is amazing and works here in Honolulu, I have to remind myself not to compare and that everyone has their own talents. Sometimes that's hard when I look at all she's done, but she's been doing this for a long time, and I just got started, so I just need to keep doing what I love and believe that I am tidally fintastic. :-)  Hopefully I get the job, because to learn from her, would be a dream come true.

Work is going great, I just love the salvation army, and I work with amazing people. You know how sometimes you have a job and the people you work with drag you down? I don't have that at the Salvation Army, I enjoy working with everyone. Super happy. They also have a pool and talked about once I get my tail doing birthday parties there!!

Jeremy is doing great, he loves his job, and we have made quite a few friends here in Hawaii. He has the day off of work today, so we're going to go to the beach and then tonight we start our Scuba Diving Certification! Yay!

PS. My best friend Dawn and I are dying our hair this week, so stoked. She's going pink and blue streaks, I'm dying mine Red with blue streaks.

More updates about Hawaii soon, we don't have internet at our house, so it's been a little strange, but I have lots of DIY projects to post soon. PS...want a sneak peek at what I'm building this week?....

So excited.

Love and bubbles,
Mermaid Harmony

Broken heart

So I'm fairly sure my heart is breaking. We adopted an amazing dog this past weekend, I fell in love with her the second she came up to me an crawled onto my lap. Mind you she is a heeler lab mix so it is not like she is small. I thought my allergies would be manageable, I thought if we kept her clean and i took allergy meds we would be good.
Unfortunately that has turned out to not be the case, no matter what we've tried my allergies have attacked with a fervor I haven't seen in a while. So It is now official that we are giving he back, as many of you know i am a crier and i have she quite a few tears over this. We love Heidi, so much, but we can't give her what she needs, nor should I have to live the next 15 years of her life feeling like my legs are crawling with bugs because they itch so bad. She is being returned on Friday, and my prayer is that some amazing loving family will take her in their home and dote on her as much as we did this week. She was Jeremy's and mine first try at making a family of 3. Although we didn't succeed this time, we learned alot, and have decided to continue to enjoy being a family of two for a while until we are in a place that we can find a hypoallergenic dog that will belong to us. Hawaii is lovely, and has brought us something special and sometimes i think certain people and even certain animals (read Angel and Sparkplug/sport/snort) come into our lives to spread some love and memories.

So that's all for now, just wanted to share my thoughts. A full update on Hawaii will happen in a few days, a lot has happened and it has been awesome.

Love you all,
Aj a very tear streaked dog owner

Currently

Loving: Hawaii. Everything about it makes me so happy. I also have been working out like a fiend, so my body is tightening up everywhere and I just feel good. I like it.

Reading: A gazillion books. Mainly mermaid books.  I've also been working my way through this Fairy series by Carrie Jones. Love it. Also reading "Secret of the Sirens" by Julia Golding.  I'm also still trying to read through the Bible, I was not great at reading my Bible and my chapters for a while, so I'm going to try to get back on track. My goal by the end of September is to finish Job and Ezra. Accountability. Yay.

Watching: Sooo....fall premieres. Love them. When I have free time/when they come available on Hulu because the time change is so weird here in Hawaii with TV shows I've been watching Castle, Glee, The New Normal, and coming back in a few weeks is Once Upon a Time, Vampire Diaries, and Modern Family. Stoked. Love fall TV season. Always the best shows.

Anticipating: Moving into our new house. It's been gosh, 1 1/2 years since Jeremy and I have lived by ourselves in a house, and the first time that both of us will have day jobs, and will be actually settled in one place for a solid length of time. Super stoked. I feel like everything is falling together in the right place. I'm also looking forward to starting my job next week, I'm a lead day camp counselor at the Salvation army here. Oh, it's gonna be awesome!

Listening to: 80's Cardio. It's the Pandora station I'm currently loving and rocking out to. It's pretty grand, and good get ready in the morning music.

Planning: Activities. With fall coming up, there are lots of fun things to do here in Hawaii and on Hickam. (Also, I can now cross off Cliff Diving off my glitter list...:-) ) I also broke my watch while doing it...I know. Sad. The picture with the lady on the hill is the falls that I jumped at last weekend with Jeremy. Someone told us it was a 2 hour hike total, it was definitely about 4 hours, but it was worth it.  I couldn't see the bottom of the water and it was murky, but I just told myself to buck up and get in, and check it out, I was not eaten by a mutant swamp shark.  Good news everyone, good news.

Working on: Getting stories ready for next week's 1st week of camp. I'm in charge of doing the Bible stories/theme/and verse of the day.  Super stoked, this is what I did for VBS for my mom and Adri, so this is right up my alleyway.  My supervisor told me this was part of my job and this HUGE grin came across my face. I want to make it awesome and help these kids know how cool God is and to learn these stories while taking them to heart.  My work is pictured below, it's like a resort, it is so beautiful.

Wishing: That I win the raffle for the tail. Oh gosh, wishing with all my heart.  And still wishing for the right name to fall into my mind.  Most of the ones I had in the beginning, I have found were taken by other mers, since it is a small community I thought it'd be bad taste to have the same name as someone else.
  Well, whether I win the contest or not my tail will be here by the end of November! So exciting!  These are a few of the tails that the lady has made in the past.  She does beautiful work and does a great job painting them!

Well, I have training today from 10-5 and tomorrow as well, I've already met some of them that I will work with and I have a great feeling about it. 
Also, did I tell you we put in our application to adopt a dog? Dear Lord, I found one that is a Shar Pei Lab mix that is tugging on my heart strings, 


We will see! Somebody the other day asked me why we weren't getting a puppy, I said, well we don't have the time to train a dog (although how cute are they!), and we decided to get our dog like we will some of our children, "ready made and needing love". 
We have a place in our hearts for a dog, and God knows that, so hopefully soon we'll be united with him/her!
Love, 
Aj

Elf Fun, Blue Stop Signs, and Chevelle.

So you ever have those days when you are driving and the perfect song comes on and you realize that everything in that moment is perfect and you wouldn't change a thing?
 ::The song is Ho Hey by The Lumineers it's the video below.

You should definitely listen to it as you read this blog post. It's going to make you smile and raise your spirits, and maybe make you think of me jamming out in my car like a dork to this song and make you grin a little more. 
:-D Sneaky Aj.::
 I had that moment a couple of days ago, and things have just kept getting better.  I am LOVING Hawaii. Believe it or not, there are some people who don't like living here. I'm confused by that, but that's their prerogative I suppose. :-)
So!!! We have a bunch of fintastic things to discuss! (I'm finding more and more Mermaidy sayings every day, especially with living near the ocean, it's been a whale of a good time).
Went to my first concert in quite some time, Dawn had an extra ticket, and it was to Chevelle. Now if any of you know me, you know that this is not usually the type of music I listen to, (although, when I'm not spewing glitter and happiness from every orifice and need to listen to something a little less happy, I have a playlist on my ipod that is labeled "Angey" it was supposed to be "Angry" but I was so upset when I wrote it that I mispelled it and never corrected it out of spite. So now I suppose it's just 'ridiculous' spelled incorrectly. awesome.)  The concert was FANTASTIC. Oh my word I had so much fun, I markered on some tattoos I'm thinking about, put on my cute pants and dancing shoes, and my red lipstick and I was ready to go. We tore it up, but not like the guy did in the almost-mosh-pit fight next to us, that was a little nerve wracking. But the openers were "The White Jackets" who were quite good as well. Someone asked us what we were doing there, and when they found out we were having a girls night out they just laughed.  I guess the average girl's night does not include going to a rock concert. Either way I came home slightly hard of hearing, and totally happy.

Amanda and I with our prizes

My other "I need to make friends here" adventure was to the Hickam Community Enlisted Spouses event on Tuesday night. The theme was Hell's Kitchen.  No lies, I like meeting people, but I was super nervous. Anyways, I walk in,  after getting lost a few times in my car and going to three different wrong places, finding the place on my first try, and everyone was super welcoming. I got put on the Sundae Challenge with Amanda.  We rocked it out and made a "Hawaiian Love Sundae". With pinapple, nuts, and chocolate, and strawberries. We made second which was exciting and I got a free chocolate mint sauce (my two favorite things in food). I was a happy camper, not to mention there was TONS of food. Yum.
I made some solid friends and we ended up working out the next day, 4 mile power walk, and then an 'athletic core conditioning' class. "Hell and Back in an Hour" is what they should really call it. It was NUTS. I hurt so bad afterwards, I was waddling, heck, I'm still half waddling and it's three days later. :-) Then yesterday we went on a hike (Beth, Jen, and me) up to Diamond Head and that was fantastic.  I'm really glad that I made friends here who like to work out, it's gonna keep me on my toes, that's for darn sure. :-)

There is this building called "The Airman's Attic" everything is free. 

Everything. You can't resell it, but it's like a goodwill but it's free and for enlisted family members, which is great, because we need things, like end tables, and random shelves. I also found this beauty there yesterday. Yes, that is a Buddy the Elf costume from Elf in case you were wondering. I now know what I am going to be for Halloween. An epic elf that's what. :-) It's a little big on me, so I'm going to get out my sewing machine once we move in and take it in I don't know, like 10 inches. It's an XL, and I'm a S/M. It's pretty funny, but there are even elf booties, I could NOT pass this up.
 I'm not quite sure how big of a deal Halloween is here, but I know the Enlisted Wives group is doing a halloween event, so I figured I needed something fun. Last year I went as a Blue Crayola Crayon, so I figure I needed up to up my game a bit. 

Check mate Crayola. Check mate.

 Driving here is not near as bad as I thought it would be. Not by a long shot, so long as you are not stupid and talking on your phone (which is illegal here anyways, at least on base) then you are good to go.
I've gotten lost a good deal many times, but now I know where tons of stuff is...including the nearest place I can buy a shake at (need to know the important things in life in case of emergencies). 
 So I was driving the other day, and saw this, what do you do with a blue stop sign?  Stop and take a picture obviously. Do not fret, I was the passenger in this situation.  Pretty awesome though I know. Only in Hawaii.
Also, here is a picture of the newest lady in our family, our Chrysler Siebring. Gosh, I love her. She drives beautifully. Love love love it. Just great, and lots of trunk space! And she's this blue/purple color. There was a dent in the back but this guy in a car the other day asks if we wanted to get it fixed for $250, we say sure and pull over and park in a parking lot, (during the day, lots of people around, so not near as creepy as you think) and I talked him down to $150, due to my mad-bargaining skills I learned in China.

Saphira :-)

We got the dent out, and I was stoked, because we got $500 off of the price because of that dent, so we got a pretty grand deal. I just need to figure out a name for her, I'm thinking Saphira.

 On Sunday we went to a new church, and it was really great, the people were crazy welcoming, and they were all on-fire for God. I think we'll go back sometime, but we will see. We're going to try out a church on base that is closer (the other one is 30 minutes away). Some of the new ladies I met on Tuesday night are Christians, and so that's been cool to talk to them about, and their thoughts about things. 
I'm making friends, and that's really cool. Branching out works. I think people are just surprised I'm on top of things so fast from coming from Iowa and for my first base. I just don't like sitting around doing nothing.
 I also have my first flocking tonight. Where we go and put flamingos in peoples yards for a donation towards the HCES club. I joined the right group.  

Finally, it is official, we have a BEAUTIFUL home. So stoked. Long story short we were going to get a Historic Home (which is fancy words for, was here during the Pearl Harbor Attack), and then I talked to a few wives and they said that we could get a different home due to different things, and so I asked and the leasing lady offered us a new home, it's two level, 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath, and a lovely lawn. We also have a solar panel on the roof (yay renewable energy!)
It's in a great part of base (the whole base is a great part of base because the whole thing looks like a resort, gorgeous), and it's near my first friend's Dawn's house which is great that she is just a walk down the street. I'm so in love with this house, and there is  HUGE tree that is blossoming in my front yard with what looks like stargazer lilies mixed with cherry blossoms, so pretty. We move in October 1st, which is also my first day of work. We'll make it work somehow. So many flowers and pretty things around it, I think I'm allowed to plant some flowers, we'll see. I'm beyond stoked about this house.

I know it may sound lame, but I feel like I'm where I belong. Sometimes in the past, I feel like I've been stuck in a weird time thing, or that I just felt out of place. But God's watching over us, and we are making roots and friends, and it's such a good feeling.  If you ever want to chat, know that I am 5 hours behind Iowa. 

So happy.
Love you all,
The very contented adventurer,
Aj
Also: Important prayer request. I entered a raffle for a tail. (The fact that this is even a raffle is mind-blowingly awesome)  Pray that I would have favor with the online randomizer. ;-D Results are posted Sept. 30th. That's all on the mermaid front, still haven't decided on a name...