Apartments and teaching and potential jobs! yay!

So first and foremost, we have a more permanent place now!  yay!

This afternoon, we signed a 6 month lease in a cute 1 bedroom/1 bathroom apartment in Kihei.  They were just recently remodeled and have all new kitchen appliances plus a new shower and toilet.  (Pictures of actual apartment to come soon!)  We get the keys February 1st, so I'm pretty stoked about that.  Now we just have to start collecting furniture, since we have...none.  I'm thinking a sofa bed is a must for visitors, and comfy bed for me!  :)

Did I mention the location?! :)

Location of our apartment.  Look how close the beach is!!!  :)

Google maps view of the outside.  Inside pictures to come!

We were originally down in Kihei today because Justin needed to take an aptitude-ish test for a potential job at the Post Office!  He took it this morning, and found out shortly after that he passed!  YAY!  Obviously that doesn't automatically mean a job, but its a good sign, right?  Cross your fingers, say a prayer, ect that he'll get a call from them.  They pay excellently, and the post office is right down the street from our new apartment!  :)

Oh, and teaching!  Yesterday, Justin and I went to visit Dana, who we met through our landlady Shaun.  She teaches Kindergarten in Lahiana.  We spent the whole day there, with her, and in two other Kinder classrooms, and I got to play with the kids!  YIPPEEE.  While I was there, Justin and I got to chat with the principal, who was freaking awesome.  He gave me (and Justin) advice on how to get going, and encouraged me to start filling out my application for an actual teaching job now, since they start the hiring in April/May.  And he signed my subbing papers!  Which means he thinks I'm not a psycho...haha.

After we chatted with Mr. Franz (on a bench 5 feet from the beach, might I add!), we headed over to Ms. Coonradt's Kinder room, and she let me lead initial sound bingo with the kids.  IT MADE ME MISS TEACHING SOOO MUCH!  :)  I had a ton of fun, and I'm going to attempt to volunteer there whenever I can.  I figure getting my face in a school as much as possible will help me when I get my sub papers finalized, and I get to hang out with kids.  Dana said I was welcome back whenever I wanted!  :)

Oh, and another thing that I got really excited about was that they have preschool/junior Kinder at the school.  That's pretty much what my degree was in!  Sadly, Dana said they were cutting those classes after next year due to budgeting--booooooo!  Oh, and another crazy thing: the elementary school has 8 junior kinder/kinder rooms.  EIGHT!  :)

So much excitement for one day...I'm tuckered out  (haha, much like Kindergarteners)  :)

Go girl, its your birthday. Open wide, I know you're thirsty. Say Aah!

My foxy birthday dress!  :)

Excited for sushi!  :)

Soooo....today is my 24th birthday!  :)  And I get to celebrate it in beautiful Maui paradise!  :)

The Limestreet Roll.  Shrimp tempura, inside spicy Tuna,
topped off with lime and cilantro.  AMAZING!

For the birthday festivities, I got to dress up and we went to an awesome sushi place in Haiku.  When we got there, we were the only people there.  (Everyone eats tacos on Tuesdays, right?  Haha.)  This restaurant got raving reviews on Yelp, and they completely lived up to them!  Have you ever had a vegetarian sushi roll that had pumpkin, asparagus, and carrots in it and is topped off with apples and mangoes?  Sounds very weird, but it was surprisingly one of the tastiest things I've ever had!  I didn't even have a chance to remember to take a picture of it before Justin and I devoured the roll...lol. 


Besides being my birthday, the day was also pretty eventful and productive!  Justin had to work a 10-1 today, so we drove into town together and I ran errands while he was at work.  I went to the Department of Education first to get all of my paperwork for subbing.  I found out that I don't have to take the subbing class as long as I can show them my teaching certificate!  Awesome!

Next I went across the street to the social security office to apply for a new SS card...at some point between Pullman/Burien/Maui, I lost my card.  I need it for my new coffee job as well as to sub.  There was only 1 other guy in the office, and I was in and out in 10 minutes.

Theennnnn...I needed to find the health center.  I also needed to get a TB test for both subbing and coffee.  Because I have a hard time following directions and because sometimes the TomTom doesn't speak English, that was a mini-adventure.  15 minutes, 3 turn-arounds, and 1.5 miles later, I found the place!  They don't actually do the tests until 2 PM, but at least I found the damn building!  :)

The mall came next!  I grabbed my favorite Starbucks drink (don't tell my new work!  lol) and wandered around.  I found suitable work shoes, and even found an awesome bra for $5!  I'm so proud of my $5 dollar bra...lol.  I considered getting a pedicure, but decided I really didn't want to shell out the $30 for it. 

 At 1, I picked up Justin from work and we went to go get our TB tests together.  (Justin needs one in case he decides to sub!)  We grabbed lunch at Costco, and I bought socks...yay!  :)  We headed home and watched Jeopardy (my favorite!), and then headed out to sushi dinner!  mmmmmm.  :)

I should probably hit the sack--I have job training tomorrow and Thursday!  I'm stoked to get actual espresso trained--when I worked at Flix I had no formal training....haha.  After work I'm going to check out an apartment that is available for rent.  We also put in an application at a 2 bedroom ohana over the weekend--I'll have to follow up with that lady tomorrow too!  Hopefully she liked us, because the place was super cute.  :)  It'll be nice to have a place a bit closer to work...right now my drive is 50ish minutes to the coffee shop.  But the drive doesn't bother me because there's hardly any traffic and I'm in Maui!  yay!

PoliPoli State Park

Did you know that there is a red wood forest in Maui?  No?  Me either!  Justin busted out the guide book the other day, and found PoliPoli State park.  From this park, you can hike a 5 mile loop and see a Red Wood Forest, AMAZING views of over half the island, AND 2 of the volcanoes on the neighboring big island!  Crazy, right?

 

The trip there is pretty interesting…lol.  The drive is nearly all uphill as soon as you turn off of the Hana Highway, and the last 10 mile is on a 20 MPH windy road, with the last 4 miles of the road being UNPAVED!  Haha, I actually did okay and didn’t get carsick (on the other hand, the Scenic Hana Highway kills me!)

There were also various warning signs on this road.  We were told to watch out for pigs, cattle, falling trees, AND flash floods.  Thankfully, we did not come across any of these while driving…haha.

Now, by the time we were on the bumping, unpaved gross road, our elevation was at 6500 feet!  We pulled off at one lookout point before the park, and we could see over half of the island from where we were standing!  Kihei, Kahului, and Wailuku were in full view!  I attempted to play with the panoramic settings on my camera, but I'm not a great photographer, and the whole image together is too big to upload on blogger.  But here's some singles for you!  :)

Kihei is all along the shore

Kahului is along the top right inlet

Upcountry include Haiku, Kula, & Makawao are right above the trees

 64 DEGREES?!  That's the coolest its ever been during the day time since we've been here.  But that's also because we were so high in the air.  It felt like we were home again (but obviously not this time of year!  haha).  The hiking itself also made me feel like we were back in Seattle, considering there were so many trees and ferns and lushness.  I loved it!


We started out the hike on the Redwood trail...or what we thought was the Redwood trail.  We realized about a mile later when we ended up back at the start of the trail that we accidentally veered off the trail and cut off half of the hike.  We also missed the junction that allowed us to switch trails and make the hike a tree 5 mile loop.  So, we ended up walking through a series of half burned, scary looking trees...haha.  The guidebook said a fire started in 2007 in the forest, but thankfully didn't make it to the actual redwoods.  We found the redwoods right after this, and they were amazing!

The Redwoods are also fairly new.  They were believed to have been planted in the late 30's/early 40's

From what I've read online, some of these trees are nearly 100 feet high!

Tree hugger!  :)

This tree had a tumor in its trunk...lol.

After we figured out that we cut across the trail, we turned around and walked back to the junction.  From there we head onto the Plum Trail, which eventually met up with the Halekala Ridge Trail.  The guide book said we could expect some awesome views from this trail, since it ran along the edge of the cliffs, butttt...a crazy fog rolled in and we couldn't see anything!  The clouds were pretty eerie, but also made the hike cooler considering we were seriously working up a sweat.  To go down to the Redwoods,  you descend almost 1000 feet, and you make the descent back up on this trail.  Some of the paths were pretty steep, and we had to hop over/under some trees that had fallen across the path.  The closer you get to the top of the ridge, the windier it gets.  Sometimes it would sound like a creaky door opening when a tall, thin tree would sway in the breeze.

By the time we made it to the top, the foggy clouds had blown away and we were left with an AMAZING view of the 2 of the Big Island's volcanos!

In the distance, you can see 2 Big Island volcanoes!

A zoom-in of the volcanoes

Resting after the crazy hike to the top!  :)

The wind was CRAZY!

More awesome views

jobs jobs jobs

Baby anole in our bed!!  :)  He's sooo cute!

Soooo...last night Shaun took Justin and I to meet her teacher friend Dana.  Dana has been teaching for 30ish years, both as a preschool teacher (yay!) and as a Kindergarten teacher.  She's currently teaching in Lahaina--says its amazing and she loves it.  :) 

We chatted over sushi about teaching and life and everything.  She was very nice, and very helpful in getting me (and potentially Justin as well!) started with subbing.  She invited Justin and I both to go hang out with her next week in her class, and then she would introduce to me to her principal!  Once I have a chat with him, then I can sign up for the subbing class.  The only downer is the the class doesn't start until March, and goes through April--at least the online class does.  I need to chat with the DOE peeps and find out if their in-person class starts sooner. 

Dana really encouraged Justin to try out subbing too!  In Maui, as long as you have a bachelor's degree, you can sub.  Crazy, right?!  He just makes 12 bucks less a day then me, since I have a degree in teaching...haha.  But I think he's considering it, and I think its awesome.  :)  He's really great with kids, and I think it would be an interesting experience for him...give him a taste of what I do.  :)

Once I take the class and get in the system, then its all a matter of getting my name out there.  If Dana likes the way I teach, then she can always request me to sub for her, and then she can tell other people how awesome I am, ect ect.  :) 

Now I just have to balance Old Navy and The Coffee Bean.  They're both part time, which is no problem--except for next week.  My Old navy manager asked me to start on Monday, and I said yes.  Then I got hired at The Coffee Bean, and I believe training starts on Monday.  Whoops!  Overbooked myself there a bit.  I don't know what time training starts, or if Brandon wants me to work at Old Navy more than just Monday so far, so there's still a lot up in the air.  I just hope I can balance it all out so I work both jobs for now--I don't want to piss off either manager!  I'm kind of stoked to have a coffee job--I loved making drinks at Flix back in college.  And of course I've always secretly loved working at Old Navy, despite having a few shitty people "managing" me...haha.  I enjoy working with people, plain and simple.  :)

My new ride

Been awhile since I wrote a post, and the last few days have actually been pretty eventful. First off we both now have jobs! I have a gig waving a sign in front of one of those cash for gold kind of places. Not too bad of a gig considering I get to stand outside in the awesome weather and listen to music all day. It's only a couple days a week so it still lets me look for a more permanent solution, but its nice to have a little money coming in instead of going out.

Kayleen has a job as well, in fact she got two of them. She finally got ahold of the Old Navy manager and got put on the schedule. It just so happened that we were also heading down to a job fair in Kihei for a new coffee shop opening in some hoity toity mall in Wailea (a little south of Kihei). She turned in her resume, had a little interview, and was hired on the spot as a barista. I guess it is a really rich area so allegedly the tips will be pretty good. Tomorrow she is going with Shaun to visit some of her teaching friends so that she can get in subbing. So by the end of the week she might have 3 jobs.

And in even more exciting news we bought a moped today! Well I guess I bought a moped since it might take an act of God to get Kayleen on it. It's a blast to ride. It's only a 50cc so it tops out about 40mph or so depending on wind/hills/etc. It works great for getting around the island as there are only a few stretches where the speed limit hits 55 and they tend to have nice bike lanes/shoulders that I can ride on. I went with the 50cc because I don't need a special license and I don't have to insure it. I'm also excited to check out the gas mileage since they tend to get between 80-100mpg. It only cost $650 for the bike, a helmet, and some clear glasses for night riding (sunglasses work great during the day, not so safe at night).

Here's some pics of me and the moped, sorry I don't know how to do all the fancy formatting that Kayleen does.

General whatevers :)

 These daylillies bloomed outside the front door a couple of days ago, and by that evening, they were gone again.  How strange that something so beautiful is only around for a couple of hours. 

Today we traveled into town to go to Savers (Maui's version of Value Village).  They were having their 50% off MLK sale, so I treated myself to 3 dresses (yay!).  I found one for my birthday next week--Justin said he would take me out, most likely on Sunday since we have to be out of the house all day long anyways--Shaun's realtor is having an open house from 11-5:30, and we can't really hang around the house during the showing.  I can't believe I'm turning 24...haha.  :)


I turned in 2 resumes over the weekend--1 for a consignment store job and 1 for a part-time barista position at a coffee cart.  On Wednesday, I'm going to attend a job fair in Kihei for a new coffee/tea place that is opening at the end of January, as well as turn in my resume at another coffee place that is accepting apps for a barista.

What happened to Old Navy, right?  Well, I'm still waiting for my manager to transfer me to the Kahului store.  When I talked to him the first week we were here, he said he would call my manager and get back to me by Monday the 9th.  Well, that was a week ago, and I've been playing phone tag with him ever since.  Either my phone reception is too crappy to talk to him, or he's not in when I do call.  Oye.  I'm getting a bit frustrated, so I'm applying other places just in case.  AND, it may turn out that he really can't give me more than 10 hours a week, and I can't pay rent with that.  I don't want to give up Old Navy--I've always loved working there, even when I've butted heads with certain managers.  So I'm not writing them off....yet.  If I can get the subbing to work out, I only need to sub 3 days a week to pay rent.  But I wouldn't mind making coffee part time and subbing, or 10 hours at Old Navy and subbing.  Whatever, I just need a job!

We're also going to check out another place in Kihei on Wednesday.  The place is still tenet-occupied, so its a little harder for it to instantly disappear off the market.  Shaun also told her realtor that we were looking for a place in Kihei, so she said she would keep her ears out for us as well.  :)  Shaun is awesome, if I haven't said that before.  :)

Meet her two dogs, Ollie and Leroy.  They're awesome too.  :)

 

Well, that's all I've got for now.  We rented Straw Dogs (mostly because it has Eric from True Blood in it...haha), and I need to start it soon.  I always tend to fall asleep if we start a movie after 9 PM.  Haha, I'm old.

Visit to Lahaina Town

On the way to Lahaina, we stopped off to attempt to see some whales.  But it was exactly the wrong time of day to see them, and the water was super choppy.  Whale season goes through February, and I will see one before then!  :)

No whales, but there were beautiful views of the ocean.

Next stop was to check out the Olowalu Petroglyphs.  There was only one other fellow there with us, and he seemed to be stoned out of his mind...lol.  He walked right past the "do not cross" sign, shimmied up the hill, and then laid his face on the rock for awhile.  Anyways, the petroglyphs were ancient Hawaiians way of telling stories and recording history.  Unfortunately, time has worn away a lot of the drawings, and others have been grafittied over.  :(  But the ones you could see were really cool!

Hawaiian Petroglyphs

Don't mind the blonde guy...lol

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Next, we drove into Lahaina, and found a parking spot almost right away.  (Which, according to our guidebook at least, was a miracle...haha).  We happened to park next to the old prison, so we headed over there first to check out a little history.  My favorite part was the list of reasons people were arrested.  (See pictures below.)

Furious riding of whom?  lol

seaman...haha

The prison yard

The other side of the prison yard.  Seemed like a pretty nice place to hang out!  :)

A 1932 Model T that was donated to the museum in 2002.

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Next stop in Old Lahaina Town is Banyan Tree Park.  This tree is, well, epic.  According to hawaiiweb.com, 

"This Banyan Tree was first planted in April, 1873, and marked the 50th Anniversary of Christian missionary work in Lahaina. The tree was imported from India was only 8 feet tall. It now stands over 60 feet high, has 12 major trunks in addition to a huge core. It stretches over a 200-foot area and shades 2/3 of an acre."

 Sweet, right?  I took a whole bunch of pictures of the difference parts of the tree, but my camera isn't big enough to capture the enormity of this tree. 

Me standing in the middle of the core tree trunk

Justin goofing around in the middle of the tree

Next, is the walk down Front Street.  Lahaina is the only city in Maui to really have a "downtown" area, and its filled with restaurants and shopping (yay!).  Andddd!  its quite literally right on the water.  (Awesome!)

Hello beach!

A glance down the boardwalk

A ship that capsized just off of the boardwalk in 2004.  It was just a bad storm, but I guess if you ask people around town they make up all kinds of crazy and funny stories about how the boat got there.  (An escaped convict from South Africa? What?!)

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Then, because we were feeling quite parched, we stopped at Moose's McGillycuddy's for their happy hour, which came highly recommended by Justin's brother Andrew.  Specialty cocktails for $4?! Thank you Andrew!

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After Happy Hour, we continued on down the boardwalk (quite a ways, might I add--gotta burn off those calorie filled Bahama Mama's!), and went to a restaurant called Aloha Mixed Plate.  (Also highly recommended by Andrew).   And again, we were not disappointed.  The food was great, and the view was A-MAZING.  Justin got the dish the restaurant was named for, which gave him chicken, teriyaki beef, AND ono, as well as rice and mac salad.  And for 10 bucks too!  I got a chicken veggie stir fry, which was also amazing.  Because we weren't ordering any alcohol, we got to sit on the lower deck right next to the water.  (Apparently you can't drink on the beach, and the lower deck of the restaurant is considered "on the beach.")  The sun was just getting ready to set too!  Beautiful!  Definitely worth the walk there, and the walk back was cool, pleasant, and allowed me to walk all off those extra calories from the day.  :)

AND!  When we got back to the car, we didn't have a parking ticket either.  Success!  We were parked in a 3 hour lot, and according to our guide book, the Lahaina parking nazi's are usually on top of things.  Yay!  :)