Weekend with the Brooks

Last weekend I got to visit a dear friend of mine. We met a couple years back through small group at church. We really hit it off and became close friends, but due to the nature of her husbands work they've moved around a lot. With Matthew and I moving to Hawaii soon, I've been trying to visit friends since I know traveling from Maui will be less appealing. When Marlee and Christopher bought a house and started to settle down a bit, I thought it would be a great time to visit. Marlee wrote a blog post about my visit. You can read the original here, Eventually I might get around to writing my own, but in the mean time...

My friend Katie came to visit for a long weekend. We met her and future husband, Matthew, in Dallas when we joined a small group. They ended up getting engaged and married just like us, plus, we had so much in common. They're wonderful friends and I'm thankful we keep in touch although we live miles away. They are actually moving to Hawaii in January and Katie decided to make a trip to see us before they leave.

An old pic of us a year and a half ago going out for Mexican food and margaritas when we moved back to Dallas for a short time.

 

We figured out that we share a common interest in drinking hot tea. High Tea Friday afternoon it is!

I ordered the Sugar Plum and Katie ordered the Vanilla Rooibos. Narrow down to only one choice? It was hard because we wanted to taste it all, but we LOVED the ones we did end up drinking. We couldn't get over the awesome tea warmers that used only a little tea light (could that be where the name comes from haha). Katie found it on Amazon so we'll both be ordering that handy thing.

Courtesy of Katie's photography skills

Oh, man, the dessert. Scones and clotted cream. MY FAVORITE.

We stocked up on tea to have at home and enjoyed quite a few cups during her visit. Drinking tea and watching Netflix was definitely how we relaxed.

Katie grew up in California and when I tossed the Food Truck Friday idea out there, I was surprised to find out that she use to have food trucks at her high school during lunch. She hasn't had food from one since then and was definitely up for giving it a try.

Looking up what trucks would be there beforehand was definitely a smart idea because we knew it would be so hard for us to pick what we wanted once we walked by them all and smelled the delicious food! We got there right at 5:00 when it opened to beat the crowds and lines. It worked out because we were able to find seating.

We shared the shawarma, parmesan fries, and pork & chorizo tostada. WOW. Would order that again in a heart beat, so good!

  

South End was a trendy place I kept hearing about and we were not disappointed. After hitting the jackpot on the truck we picked to order from (The Herban Legend), we walked around and did a little shopping where we stumbled upon a great handmade store called The Boulevard.

The store owner asked "Would you like some wine while you shop?" Um YES, thanks. We knew we liked this store.

They had a bunch of the bracelets I love making (thanks to Missy for teaching me how). Definitely inspired me to get back into making some.

Saturday afternoon, Christopher, Katie, and I all headed to downtown York to see what it was all about. We found a couple restaurants and shops.

^^^This place was a surprise. It had everything you could imagine for a dog from a Dog Bakery to an upstairs filled with dog ornaments. If you are a dog lover, it would definitely be your spot.

Billy Graham Library on a cool cloudy Monday.

Next stop was downtown Charlotte to first check out The Green, which is a park with some neat statues and signs. I was excited to take Katie since she is a fellow book lover.

 

 

 

L'Oiseau De Feu Sur L'Arche (The Firebird) 1991 by Niki De Saint Phalle and the Andreas H. Bechtler Arts Foundation.

Had to stop in for a hot beverage and sweet snack at the famous Amélie's.

  

Katie and I stopped by the Epicentre to see views of the city from the top and then walked back to the car passing by Romare Bearden Park. A perfect photo op!

When I was driving around our house, I had spotted a street sign with Katie's maiden name. I told her about it and she had to get a picture. We had a blast over the weekend and did quite a few things off my Charlotte Bucket List. It was wonderful to catch up, but also to experience and explore new things with her. We're excited for their new adventure and hope to return the visit when they get settled in Hawaii.

Read More

January 18th, 2015

That is when we'll be arriving in Hawaii. Matthew booked our nonrefundable tickets (including the animals). That's right, in 140 days we will be living on Maui.

We're flying out from San Diego though so we have to figure our how we'll get there first. We're pretty sure we'll be driving with the animals. By flying out of San Diego we got cheaper airfare on Alaskan Airlines (pretty much the only airline that will allow pets in the cabin on flights to Hawaii), and we save money on shipping a car because the port is in San Diego. I'm not really concerned about the drive with the dogs, I'm not sure how Walter will handle it though. So if you have any advice on driving across the country with a cat, I'd appreciate it.

We've already starting packing up stuff we know we won't need. Matthew brought down everything from the attic too so we could go through it decided what we're keeping that needs to be repacked and what we're getting rid of. Needless to say, the house is a bit of a mess. We're planning to ship our stuff sometime in December though, so it has got to get done.

This is what our hallway looks like.

And the view from the other side.

Our guest room has been converted to storage for the boxes that have already been packed. I took this picture before we went through the attic items and now the bed is covered in boxes and what we're calling 'filler' for any empty space in a box.

The office isn't looking much better. That's our giant stack of packing paper in the bottom corner. I ordered it from Amazon and it came in a box that could hold a mini fridge.

And this is some of the bar ware that's been packed up. There's still a lot left.

Read More

Moving Update

Here is where we are at with our move. Everything I've done so far has been to get our animals ready for the move, which, so far, seems to be our biggest concern.
Here is the check list that I made for the animals originally and here is  what we've accomplished so far:

- Each animal has to have had at least two rabies vaccines in its lifetime and the vaccines must be at least 30 days apart. All our pets have been vaccinated against rabies more than twice now (other than our cat, Walter, who is only two years old and thus has only had two vaccines). I even scanned their records and emailed them to some of the clinics that do the direct release inspection on Maui to make sure that the animals records would pass inspection. I really don't want to get there and have to have the animals quarantined because something was wrong with their paperwork.

- Each animal must have a microchip. Matthew and I took them last week to the animal shelter to get them microchipped since it is not only cheaper but our current vet doesn't do microchipping. Now I'm just worried that the microchip won't scan when we get to Hawaii. I'm sure it will be fine, but I tend to worry about things. If an animals microchip doesn't scan they have to go into quarantine on the island.

- Each animal must have had a OIE-FAVN blood test done by Kansas State University. After waiting the appropriate time after their most recent rabies vaccine (21 days in case you were wondering), we loaded the animals into the car yet again yesterday to go back to the vet for this blood test (Walter now runs and hides when we get his cage out now). Each animal had its blood drawn by the vet and then the samples were mailed to KSU so they can perform the test. KSU will send the results of the test to Hawaii and our vet. The vet clinic ended up mailing the samples for us so all those hours I spent searching the internet about the longevity of ice packs and "how many ice packs does one need to keep blood cold when shipping" (something to add to the 'Things you never thought you would have to Google' list) were for naught.

Walter had to have a little haircut before the vet could draw his blood.

- Each animal must complete the 120 day waiting period after a successful OIE-FAVN test result before arriving in Hawaii. This is an easy step, at least the waiting part of it it. The waiting period actually starts when KSU receives the samples for testing. Once we know if they had a passing result or not Matthew and I will be able to pick a date that we want to move. And when we have a moving date then I'll be looking to buying our airline tickets and figuring out the logistics of getting us, the animals, and our stuff to Maui.

- Submit documents and paperwork for each animal to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture with proper fees paid and request for direct release on a neighboring island. This one wasn't on my original list. We'll have to mail all the paperwork needed for the animals at least 30 days before we land in Hawaii to make sure we'll get the neighbor island permit back in time. We have to have this permit to land on Maui with the animals and most airlines won't board the animals without the permit, if they even participate the neighbor island direct release program. When we mail the documents off we'll also need to contact a vet on Maui to make an appointment to meet us at the airport when we land for the direct release inspection.

- Each animal must be treated for fleas and ticks by a veterinarian with a product containing Fipronil within 14 days of arrival to Hawaii.

- Each animal needs a health certificate dated within 14 days of arrival (though some airlines might require a certificate dated within 10 days). We will get the heath certificates and have the animals treated for fleas and ticks the week we leave. We just have to make sure that we don't loose them in the mess of moving since it is another thing needed by not only the airlines but also for their direct release on Maui. I am praying that all of these steps go according to the plan because if one thing doesn't work out it will cause a domino effect. 

Read More

Aloha Y'all

Big news everyone! We are going to be moving to Maui!

Matthew and I have talked and prayed about this for awhile now. Our plan was to move there eventually so that Matthew could join the family company, but plans have a tendency to change and our 3-5 year timeline has morphed into 6 months or so.

We are aiming to move in January or February 2015. Our biggest hurdles that we need to cross before we move is getting my mom's estate settled and getting the paperwork to get the animals to Hawaii.

Hawaii is a rabies free state and they would like to keep it that way. Luckily, Hawaii has a process called the 5-day-or-less program which means that instead of the animal spending 120 day in quarantine on the island we can spend the quarantine time here on the mainland. We just have to jump through a lot of confusing hoops to qualify for the program.

Here is a simplified list of stuff we have do before we can move the animals:
- Each animal has to have had at least two rabies vaccines in its lifetime and the vaccines must be at least 30 days apart.
- Each animal must have a microchip
- Each animal must have had a OIE-FAVN blood test done by Kansas State University
- Each animal must complete the 120 day waiting period after a successful OIE-FAVN test result before arriving in Hawaii
- Each animal must be treated for fleas and ticks by a veterinarian with a product containing Fipronil within 14 days of arrival to Hawaii
- Each animal needs a health certificate dated within 14 days of arrival (though some airlines might require a certificate dated within 10 days)
And since we are movie to Maui, which is considered a neighbor island, we will need to submit our paperwork earlier because we will need a special permit. I'll also need to make reservations for an approved Maui veterinarian to meet us at the airport to do the inspect and release procedure for our animals.

Sounds simple enough, right?

 We also have to decide what we want to keep in order to figure out what size shipping container we will need for our move to Hawaii. Then we also have to consider how we are going to store the stuff we end up keeping until we get a more permanent place to live.

A lot of our sentences seemed to be punctuated with "in 6 months." Just a few examples, while changing a difficult to reach light bulb "Hopefully we won't have to done this again in the 6 months we're here." Shopping at Sam's Club, M: "We need soy sauce" K: "Do you really think we can use a gallon of soy sauce in 6 months?" M: "Probably not, we'll get it at Kroger." and M: "Do you need to go to the library? I have books on hold I need to get." K: "No, I'm trying to read through this book case because I don't want to take them with us in 6 months."

We are excited about moving and the opportunities we will have there, but we also realize that living in Hawaii will make some things a lot more difficult. I've been trying to spend more time with my friends here and planing road trips to see the ones that are further away because I know when we move it will be a lot harder to visit them. The good thing about living in Hawaii is that people will always want to visit.

(note: all these pictures were taken in 2010 when Matthew and I went to Maui for Christmas at his parents house)

Read More