USA 50 States Tour

Talk about good timing! Diana and her groovy husband moved to Hawaii in October. Diana is my old roomie from college and we haven't seen each other in YEARS. I've had such a good time catching up with her and spending time with her sweet little family. Her little girl, Marley, is a perfect playmate for Oliver. She's so smart and sassy. Her baby, Cohen, is squishy and edible and makes me want to have a baby. (WHAT?!) Conway (groovy husband as mentioned above) oozes "cool" and called me a lady. Love that. He and Alex kept each other entertained so I could gab with Diana. (Did I just say gab?)

They also have their house all decked out, festive for the holidays. We keep forgetting that it's Christmas time! Without them, I think we'd have let the holiday go by without thinking about it. Seriously, I'm used to smelling cinnamon and shoveling snow during December. Right now I smell the ocean and the only shovel I pick up these days is a tiny blue thing meant for building sand castles. Thanks West Family, for making sure we get a little bit of Christmas! We love you guys!

Diana, BOW CHICKA BOW WOW!

More pictures of these pretty people to come. Super hot photo session on Monday! :)

I have thoughts spinning around in my noggin’. It’s time to blog.

We left for our big adventure almost 3 months ago. We have seen so much. There is still so much to see. (And blog about! I’m a slacker!) We are more than half way through the 50 states. We'd planned to be finished by now, ending our trip in Hawaii, but we changed the course.

After rushing through some beautiful states...I'm talking 8 states in 2 days kind of rushing...we realized that we were missing it. We set out on this adventure to SEE the country, to EXPERIENCE its many wonders. At the rate we were going, we were only catching fleeting blurbs of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine (to name a few.) Truthfully, the time we spent seeing the first half of the country didn't leave enough time to see the other half.

Making the commitment to finish in 2010 and rather than speed through 20 more states, we headed home from PA and made it in 2 days. (That is A LOT of driving right there!) You see, we had flights to catch! After gathering ourselves together, recuperating from RV life, tying up some loose ends at our jobs, we headed to Hawaii.

And here we are.

While the people I love are freezing their patooties off in Utah, I am getting tanner by the minute. We're here till January and I predict I'll be a nice "medium-well" by then. Sizzle.

Hawaii is special to us. Alex proposed on our first trip here together. We were married here and we’ve been back every year since. The north shore feels like home.

Having Ollie with us this time has redefined “our” Hawaii. Now I have TWO boys to keep track of in the waves.

The basic TO DO list looks the same:
1. Wake up early—Hawaii is 3 hours behind Utah time! We don’t miss a minute of daylight.
2. Eat breakfast—Usually something covered in coconut syrup
3. Don our swim suits
4. Head to the beach
5. Get sun and sand all over our 2000 parts
6. Create some sort of sand creation for Oliver to destroy (sand castles, snowmen, forts, turtles and other various sea creatures, towers, mountains…Alex and I build them and Oliver attacks them, full body contact, destruction.)
7. Eat lunch
8. Nap
9. Head back to the beach, or make our way to the pool.
10. Repeat steps 5 and 6.
11. Eat dinner
12. Early to bed.

I’m a list maker. At home and at work, I make lists of my daily intentions, my daily to-do’s. I like to be busy. I like to be productive. I thrive on being creative. If I’m not running in 20 different directions, head spinning, I find it difficult to breathe. Chaos is sanity. Sometimes I can control that chaos, and everything feels balanced. More often than not though, I’m consumed with my projects and plans and something (or someone) suffers.

One of my goals for this trip, found on another long list I’ve made, was to find balance.

“Oh Baaaalance, where arrrrrrre yooooou? Come out, come out wherever you are!”

To find it, I would need to CHOOSE it. I would need to fight the starving monster in me…the monster who tells me it’s a good idea to paint my house at 3 in the morning. I knew I would need to slow down. Hawaii has a way of forcing me.

Slowing down takes some getting used to.

The first few days in Hawaii were difficult for that reason. I wake up and feel like I need to be somewhere. I feel like I’m late for something. I feel panic and worry that I’ve forgotten something. I fight the urge to say, “Come on! Let’s go! We need to get to the beach right now!”

We certainly don’t need to be at the beach RIGHT NOW.

I really WANT to just relax. I want to vacation. I want to soak up the sun and relish in every moment I have with my little family. I want to go slow.

But I like to go fast. (Just like Ricky Bobby)

I was talking with my sister, Trish, a few months ago about this thing in me…this need to hurry. As I talked and she listened (because she’s really good at that) I finally was able to make some sense of it.

I’m scared.

I fear and so I hurry.

What am I afraid of?

Simple.

Death.

Huh?

Since I was itty bitty, I have had a nagging fear of death. Death in all forms. Death of the people I love. Death of my beloved animals and pets. More recently, my own death. Even death of a time in my life, an ending to something fun.

We’ve dealt with a lot of death the past couple years. My sister, my friends. I knew we’d been to too many funerals when I was shopping with Alex and found a dress and said without thinking, “This would be really good for a funeral, it looks comfy and has pockets for Kleenex.”

Enough. Really, enough.

This fear is so real. It doesn’t consume me in a typical way. I can be logical about it. I don’t lie in my bed and wonder if I will die in the night. I don’t stay holed up in my house waiting for the inevitable. Quite the contrary.

I never leave the people I love without saying “I love you.” I’m driven by the thought, “This could be the last time you kiss Oliver goodbye, make sure the last thing you say to him is love.”

Morbid, this fear of mine. Irrational at times, yes. But somehow it serves me. I’m able to live in the moment. And sometimes I don’t, for fear I will miss the next moment, or the next. I rush from one thing to another…I have so much to see and do before my life on earth is over. The reality that life is short lives for me. I see it. I get it.

I keep a bucket list (another list, of course) and in the last 3 months, I’ve been able to check off dozens of items on it. I’m so lucky. No, lucky isn’t the word. Blessed doesn’t feel sufficient either. Maybe I don’t have words to sum up what the past 3 months has been.

I guess what I’m realizing in my “lazy Hawaii-ness” is that I have TIME. For whatever reason, I have been given time to love, learn, live, laugh. And the time I have is enough. Whatever I do and how much I give during that time is also enough.

I trust that my hurried nature won’t settle down too much. It’s so deeply who I am. But I do believe I can choose to push the pause button every now and then.

Like today.

The beach is calling again. The beach and my three year old.