New Beginnings

Sean and I arrived in Hawaii just in time for the aftermath of the flood. Our family, along with thirteen other families on our street, had to evacuate their home for major restorative repairs. We also found that our Mom's mazda miata was totaled, and our VW passat was sitting in a shop. In short, our poor family was homeless and carless.

Sean and I are a benevolent sort and thought that we should lend a helping hand to our poor family. We immediately began the hunt for a temporary home and transportation.
We would have been happy with anything, but to our pleasant surprise our findings exceeded our expectations. We found some cozy quarters on beachfront property. We also found a large vehicle with great air conditioning and plenty of room for all of us. We have been so blessed this Christmas season.

Mom's Christmas Tree

This is Allison's Vocalmotion choir when they performed at Sunset Beach.

This is a picture from a more sane, normal time. I was in charge of our school's tree for the Turtle Bay resort Festival of Trees (for Elementary Schools). Since our school is really into recycling and the environment, we did a "green" tree, with everything being made from recycled products. It was a new challenge for me, but I think it turned out quite well and those who helped with it had a good time.

The Aftermath

Flood Pics

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Here are some pictures of the flood. But these were taken when there was only about five inches of water in the house; it kept flooding after that.

Wet Winter

Well, it hasn't exactly been a great start to the holidays in Laie. It all started on Thursday morning when I woke up for seminary and looked out the front door. It was pouring and our driveway was totally flooded up to the porch, and our backyard and lanai were completely submerged; it was only about an inch from coming into the house. So I woke mom and dad up, and we started running around, panicking, calling people to get sandbags that didn't exist. Mom and dad finally decided it was best to get some cinder blocks to raise our furniture up, so they got in the kayak and paddled to someones house who had bricks we could borrow. (I think they actually ripped them out of the wall in the backyard) Lots of people came to help, since our house is the lowest spot on the street, and the first to flood. We got most of our furniture up and then the water started coming in through the doors and flooding the house. Pretty soon we had a foot of dirty, brown water in every room and we finally decided to evacuate. We couldn't open the door or else even more water would come in, so we had to climb through the window onto the driveway. The water was about two feet deep outside, so we got in our kayak and paddled to the other end of the street, which is higher, and wasn't flooded. We stayed at the Compton's house for a couple hours, and then the storms drains started working, and the water was gone within an hour! There probably wouldn't have been any problems if the drains had been working in the first place. So we went back to our house, and, with help from people who didn't get flooded, ripped out our carpets, swept out the water, and started cleaning. We're still nowhere near ready to move back into our house though, and neither are quite a few of our neighbors.
Then today, we were still working on the house and guess who showed up? President Eyring and his guides and security guards. I guess he wanted to see the damage, so we got to talk to him, and shake his hand, and show him inside our house, and take a picture with him. It was awesome!
We'll hopefully have some pics up soon, we took a lot, but we can't download them on this computer. (sorry heather, you'll probably be here before we can get pictures on our blog)