Kokohead hike!

Me and my friend Christy hiked Koko head last weekend. It was brutal! 1,048 "steps," which were not real steps but railroad ties. It was hot, I was sweaty, and I should've ate breakfast before hiking. I was starving, which didn't help. We made it to the top in an hour and twenty minutes though! Coming down proved to be harder for me and I struggled a bit and rested a few times. After we got back to the bottom we went and ate McDonald's. I had a quarter pounder and fries and it was so good. I guzzled two glasses of coke too.

I was hurting the next day though. I could barely walk. I struggled to go up and down the stairs. I am finding today that I am finally back to almost normal. It hurts still, but barely. It was quite the workout. I am so proud of doing that though. It's one of the toughest hikes on the island and we did it! The rest will seem easy after this I'm sure.

I am enjoying hiking and prefer it over the beach. I mean I think the ocean is beautiful and I enjoy looking at it and watching it from a distance. From the top of a mountain or a lookout point mostly ;)
This weekend I would like to do Monoa Falls, which is a fairly easy hike to a waterfall. If we don't do it this weekend, we will next weekend for sure.

Here are a few pics from Koko head!

GA on my mind still....

So now I am debating on what we should do when we get back to Benning. Live on post until we find a house or live off post until we find a house? It is a bit of a pickle, because I want as much stability for the kids as possible with the school situation. I don't want them switching schools all the time. And twice in one year would be awful to me. Especially because once we leave here Brandon will be starting or in Kindergarten already and I don't want him to experience switching schools like that. I mean I know Kaylie did. She was in Kindergarten when we moved to Virginia, but still. I love stability and want minimal impact on the kids.

That being said, I know where I want to live. Preferably in the North Columbus school district, but I am also okay with the Midland school district. That would mean we live at a greystone property while we house hunt and hope we find a house we love in that school district! It's such a catch 22. I really don't want to live on post at Benning again, because the kids would def switch schools. At least living at Greystone again I know they are within two school districts, hopefully finding a house within the greystone school zone we are living in.

I know we have plenty of time to think about this and do what is best, but I am such a planner and like to think about the future. With Curt being gone I am finding myself extra bored and with a lot of free time on my hands. So when I get bored I start thinking about things like this. Silly, I know, with 2.5 years left here in Hawaii!
But I like to have plans A,B, C, D, and E. :)

Time to Get Serious

Yesterday I became really homesick for Georgia. It made me really take a long, hard look at how we spend our money. We spend way too freely and too loosely. It's time to get serious! I want to be able to afford our dream home when we move back stateside. Right now we get a 2nd income with Curt's SSDI. But that should be stopping later this year since he is technically back to "work.". We do put most of that into savings each month and that is a nice cushy five digit number we have building more and more in savings... and we never let our checking account get below $1500 MINIMUM. But I want more cushion than that. I never want to get back to the way we were. Before he got hurt and we got our TSGLI payout and social security backpay we were struggling bad. Bad choices, and horrible, horrible credit card debt. I never want to fall into that again!
So I think from now on we have to make a budget and stick to it!!! I want to save more than we spend. I have said this numerous times before and have never really got serious about it. Well, now its time. It's time to get serious about the future and what we will need and want in a few years after we leave here. We leased the Explorer and our intentions were to buy it at the end of the lease and sent it back. Now I am thinking to just give it back and still make that car payment into a "car fund" to buy another car when we get back. Because let's face it, I really don't want to shell out 2 grand to ship it back to the mainland! After we paid off my Grand Prix we had we still made the car payment for a year before trading it in. That way we had a nice down payment when we did trade it in. I love that idea and want to continue that tradition. We won't ever be trading in my Nissan since it will go to Kaylie when she gets her license in five more years. I want to be smart and not impulsive like we usually are when we do things!

I also want to really work on saving our COLA we get for living in Hawaii each month. We get roughly about $950 a month for COLA. I want to work on saving that into our house fund. I want to be able to get the house we love and in the neighborhood we like and in the school zone I want when we get back to GA. I know this is all 2.5 years away, but that is plenty of time to work on saving more and spending less!!!

I also want to cut out cable. I know Curt will never go for that since he is the TV watcher in the house, but Kaylie never watches TV, I rarely watch TV, and Brandon could careless. So if we could just cut it down to basic cable that would save money too.

Anyway, I hope we can really stick to saving more. I want a good future when we leave here and not one kicking ourselves in the ass because we spent more than we saved!