A Few Malihinis: July: CKBEW and Pups Saving Us from Misery

If I ever try to claim that moving to Utah was not that difficult, it is a lie.

It's been the challenge of my life.

There are so many bright spots with Utah--more than spots, even. Bright, all-encompassing, forgiving love surrounding us here with family. Cory, Kristen, Blake, Elise, Walker and their dogs have made every effort to make the transition seamless. As I vomited for 5 straight days, they took the kids on outings and fed us. Then they fed us and invited us over again and again and again. When we were not there, they were involved over messaging, keeping us engaged and showing interest in our ever-deflating housing hunt and our kids' blossoming (or not) friendships.

I audibly burst into tears multiple times in the car. Kate was a comforting presence. She can handle the display of emotions and is one of the few who understands my love of the ocean and Kaua'i. She never tried to tell me it was ok. She just listened to me cry. Brady, too. I cried myself to sleep many nights of the week. I took tubs and cried with the sound of the water covering the sobs.

I have tried so hard not to compare Utah and Kaua'i. Doing so is unfair to both places. But I never said I would not mourn and the pain was (and still is) more acute than I anticipated.

It is challenging to adjust to 100+ degree afternoons. It is challenging to have no friends--no one to stop you at Costco a dozen times while you cruise around the store or meet up with at the beach later that day. It is challenging to have none of our things as they shipped across the ocean, making many trips to Target to get essentials only to arrive home and realize you don't have a spatula to even make a scrambled egg. It is challenging to live in a condo after our beautiful, golf-course home where we could walk outside and hear the ocean rather than traffic speeding by. It is challenging to search Redfin relentlessly, dismayed by the prices of very-okay houses.

But that bright, all-encompassing love? That has been the grounding support keeping us afloat.

Some of our moments and our walks remind us why we are here.

Zachary's one true love:

My favorite of the houses we bid on and ultimately didn't live in. We went through at least 15 different homes with our agent, Angela. It was a gut punch realizing how much money it took to get anything reasonably updated without a neighbor 10 feet into our backyard.

We sold the Tesla, choosing instead for Brady to keep his Lightening and me to drive the company car. 4 white cars down to 3. One night, I came out of Cory and Kristen's house and came in to exclaim: "There are 3 of our cars parked in their driveway!" and then to realize that with the Tesla they were holding for us, there were actually 4!

Zac learned not to put soda in the freezer for a speedy chill:

We made it down for an extended Edwards reunion and listened to tales of the twins. My favorite were Dale's calm explanations of leaving a girl behind after deciding he had no interest in dating her. The ultimate ghosting.

Brady and Aunt Carol:

Snowbird Mid-week July 24th Celebration: The kids report that everything was "so fun except for the hike." We played basketball in a much-too-warm-pool, ordered much-too-expensive food, ate many-too-many M&Ms, played round after round of deer hunting games, and had plenty of rousing sessions of foosball and a pretend pool game. I was so happy how much we crammed into such a short trip.

Our loudest complainer asked for the pictures both our quick evening walk for wildflowers and on the next day's "rigorous" 4 miler.

"Mom, I DON'T want my picture taken..."

Turned quickly to, "Did you get that?"

Zac is an avid hiker and doesn't know it yet.

"Take a picture of my next to the snow measuring stick!"

Bare-chested six pack photos are great, but this is better:

Getting back home and back to work (Brady, Cory and Kristen) made for a few slow afternoons, but we filled them up with pool time and catching this fish multiple times.

Brady's favorite line of summer came from my frantic text, "How do I unhook a fish?"

It looks idyllic but that water is pretty gross.

We had a few evenings with Blake and the dogs, who were abandoned when the rest of the family went to Tahoe to celebrate Grandma Clair's 70th birthday. Blake cracks us up and we are his fans.

That artistry! That smile!

On this little Sunday jaunt, yet another housing lead fell through after talking to the owner of the property about horses for 40 minutes.

Cory and Kristen get a pool and forgot to get a hot tub. That will be our job. Watching it cross over their house looked a bit like a scene from Independence Day.