It's been a month since we left Nica again.  There are days where I wish I would've have stayed and stuck out the hard stuff but mostly, there are these recent days, back in Hawaii, that are comfortable and easy, and filled with love and family, that make me perfectly at ease about welcoming our child into this world.  Ian never made me decide to come home.  He decided for me, on a car ride back from Granada one afternoon.  He made it easy for me, as he always does.  There are days I can't believe how lucky I truly am and there are days that I am unable to surmount the great joy that I feel about the next chapter of this lovely little life we have.  Any day now...

Ian was project master in our time back in Central America.  He made sure that plenty got done in the short eleven weeks we were back.  As I mentioned in the last post, we put a false ceiling in the bedroom and installed a ceiling fan.  Ian put shelves in our bedroom closet.  We also greatly improved the efficiency of space in our kitchen.  (which of course, made Melly a very happy lady!)  We had some nice custom-built cabinetry made for underneath our stairs, put up shelving above the counters, and installed a custom pantry.   We added a handful of new posts under the house for some bonus structural stability - you know, just to be sure!  You can never have too much support on a house as tall as ours.  Ian also got some custom picture frames made, one in particular for the 25th Anniversary Eddie Aikau poster we got a couple years back.  (Haha!  Refer to "The Van's Greatest Day" post from way back in 2010 for a fun reminder of this story!)  So anyways, the house is really coming together and it was tough to leave it in it's new and glorious state.  Did I mention we have hot water now?  Pretty sweet.  A bigger deck is next on the list ...

On the way back to Hawaii, we made a nice five day stop in LA to see Ian's family.  His grandparents live in an excellent house in Hollywood Hills with a perfect view of the Hollywood sign from bed.  During our visit, I joked (but wasn't really joking) about going to Michael Jackson's grave while we were in town.  That afternoon we went to Hills and Highland instead, and low and behold, the streets were shut down for an MJ tribute!  His family was there to dedicate a cement plaque in front of Shriner's Theater.  It was pretty much life-changing for me.  MJ's mom, his brothers, his kids, Quincy Jones, Smokey Robinson, Justin Beiber... they were all there.  Totally awesome.  Anyways, Ian's parents came out to LA too and we all bid Sean and Kellin a farewell as they parted for Italy the following week.  Ian and I managed to make it to his uncle's beach house in Leucadia for a night too.  I got to meet some of Ian's old pals and he and his boys got to catch some fun, afternoon surf.  We all had dinner in town and drove back to LA the next day.  

So, here we are again.  It's always good to be back in Hawaii Nei.  I've been doing some online work thanks to Kellin.  She started with this company last year and has been putting in a good word for me.  Ian is also picking up bar shifts downtown and I've got another idea brewing for my next Etsy venture.  Things are looking good.  I'm down to my last two weeks of this seemingly forever pregnancy.  What a crazy time this is - the anticipation of birth.  I feel acutely aware, of everything.  So, the next time I write, we're going to be parents.  Totally awesome.