I have come to love that house. It is the embodiment of Hawaiian luxury with the hardwood floors and the walls that are created from almost all glass. You step inside this home and as you look across the living room, your eyes behold the Pacific Ocean. Hues of blue blend together as the waves continue their faithful crash. The large glass sliding door takes you out to the linai where relaxation is the theme: large black wooden rocking chairs invite you to relax with a morning's cup of coffee- sipping it slowly while you rock in time with the waves' symphony.
The beds have down mattresses that invite you to stay all morning while the large ceiling fans whisk the sea air through the room and back out through the plantation shutters. That home is hawaiian hospitality in itself and my heart seems to ache slightly with a longing to be back in it's open arms. We said goodbye to this home yesterday as we also said goodbye to Renee and sent her on her way to Israel (check her blog for all of her summer adventures there and also to see the cutest video of Tirzah!!)
Now we find ourselves in another beautiful Hawaiian home, albeit completely different than the first, still it plays a chord of "home" across my heart. It feels like the home in the Navy yard, the one where I first came to now the Shear Family. I lived with them in that home the summer before Daniel and I were married and I fell in love with it. The sense of history and grandeur; the large rooms separate yet joined; the large wooden stair case that cracked beneath your weight but yet seemed to hold a thousand untold stories of all the families who had stepped before; the pure white of the walls and the proper and historic yet inviting way about the rooms. This house in Hawaii has that exact feel and yet still embraces the Hawaiian beauty. All the windows are open to the fresh breeze and as you push back the huge sliding door you step into a tropical linai with the constant breeze and the tropical flowers in all their finery. It is the perfect place to be: to sit and read with a mug of coffee and bowlful of breakfast, to play Bananagrams with friends, to refresh yourself in the spray of the hose after a morning's walk, to break bread and eat together.
It is here that I sit, now in this private linai, and reflect upon these past few days: the completion of 8 weeks of deployment and yet another Wednesday filled with moments to love. In reflection I see and am overcome with the beauty of relationships in this eighth week of deployment:
our relationship with my brother and my sister in law as we were able to spend lovely moments together over a beautiful breakfast
Our relationship with Greg and Marlene with their constant presence, love, help, and generosity. We have a beautiful relationship and Tirzah and I are so thankful to be in their family
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| Playing "This little Piggy" with Papa's toes! |
My relationship with Renee. I was so thankful for all the moments the two of us were able to spend together out under the sun. We had our lawn chairs side by side and spent the moments of sunshine reading, taking, and just being girls. It was beautifully refreshing
And as I think back over the week and the days and the moments, there are themes to the moments that I have LOVED here in Hawaii
I LOVE sharing meals together as a family. Be it a girl's tea party or shave ice or Renee's delicious Chicken Pad Thai, food is always my favorite was to connect with the people I admire most
I LOVE beholding the vastness of God's creation together with my family
I LOVE seeing Tirzah encounter the ocean for the first time
I LOVE reading, crawling into a cool bed during the day to take a little rest, hearing Daniel's voice at 4 am last weekend, His perfect provision with her sleeping, and her can-do attitude embracing all the change and travel
Always always I LOVE my husband and my best friend who even now is a defender of our freedom
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| Two years ago at the exact place |
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