Sunday Morning 5/8/2022: Mother’s Day/Last Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there! Wishing you all a day of peace, calm, and getting a bit spoiled.

Today is also Brett’s and my last day on Kaua’i, and our day will be spent finishing up our packing and cleaning out the refrigerator so we’re ready to go tomorrow. Brett already spoils me every day but I know he’ll put in a little extra effort today.

We’ll be up bright and early tomorrow morning to start our journey back to the mainland. Our flight leaves Kaua’i at 1:30 in the afternoon but we want to be at the airport by 11:30 to turn in the rental car and get all our bags checked (two for us and two full of YaYu’s stuff). Traffic heading south can be bottlenecked in Kapaa in the mornings, especially on Mondays, so we want to give ourselves plenty of time to get through that mess as well.

We made a last visit to the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge and Lighthouse on Wednesday. The views never disappoint. Brett got a new lighthouse t-shirt to take back to the mainland (he’s worn out two others).

We’ve enjoyed a quiet week in Princeville. We were thoroughly exhausted when we arrived last Sunday, more than we realized, and then had to turn around on Monday and head back down to Lihue to run a bunch of errands. We felt as if we were bleeding money at every stop: fees to get our wills witnessed and notarized; postage costs to send said wills to our son in Japan and the inflatable mattress back to YaYu; another lock for one of YaYu’s suitcases purchased from Target; gas at $4.99/gallon at Costco (cheapest on the island); food for the week from Walmart; and lunch from Konohiki Seafood. On Wednesday we headed back down the road to Kilauea to pick up my prescription from our doctor and visit the lighthouse once more, and on Thursday we did laundry, but other than going out for a walk most days we rested and read in our little condo. It’s been gloomy and rained a great deal this past week and we never got a chance to go to the pool.

This last Sunday morning on Kaua’i I am thinking about:

• Things we accomplished this past week: All of our last minute moving stuff got done: we used up things, donated things, threw away things, and got all of our last minute business taken care of, including address changes and picking up my prescription from our doctor. We’ve done everything we ever wanted to do on Kaua’i, eaten at every place we ever wanted to dine, and we’re in good shape to go tomorrow. I’m thankful that between downpours Brett and I were able to get some walks in this week.

• Good things that happened: We had a call from YaYu on Tuesday evening that she had been hired for a research position at Drexel University! She had been worried she wouldn’t find a job but then got three good offers this past week and picked the best fit. Along with finding a great place to live with her best friends, and having amassed a tidy amount of savings, she is in a very good place to begin her post-college life. On the not-so-good side of things though she caught COVID this past week from a visitor to her dorm floor who was sick and came up unmasked. YaYu is currently quarantined and missing out on several special activities for seniors, but she should be able to march in her graduation ceremony on the 14th. Brett and I are not sure how much time we’ll be able to spend with her, although we’ll all be masked the entire time.

• How we saved: All of our Monday expenses were necessary and planned for, and other than getting Brett a new Kilauea Lighthouse t-shirt, a reusable lighthouse shopping bag and another one for me from Foodland (they make the best reusable bags) we had a no-spend week. Our food for the week cost $109 (from Walmart and Konohiki Seafood), not bad for a bunch of (mostly) microwavable convenience foods that kept us out of restaurants. Every last bit will be gone by tomorrow morning with nothing wasted.

We didn’t eat the healthiest of foods last week, but we measured everything, kept our portions small, and were able to stay out of restaurants. The dinner plates in the condo are HUGE, so sometimes we put everything on one plate and shared.

• Looking forward to next week: We thought we’d be helping YaYu get settled in her new place in Philadelphia, but it turns out she’ll be staying on campus until June 1 so we’ll be doing some other things for/with her instead. Meiling and WenYu arrive in PA on Friday morning and we’ll all be going out for a celebratory family meal that evening to celebrate YaYu’s graduation and my 70th birthday which both happen on Saturday. Brett and I are looking forward to visiting the Gettysburg battlefield on Thursday and we may try to also visit the Valley Forge historical site. We are not looking forward to our long flights tomorrow and will stay double masked the entire time.

Nene grazing on the golf course and Princeville’s mountain view. The pale white streaks on the face of the mountains are waterfalls, which form whenever it rains.

Princeville is a very lovely, manicured community filled with big, beautiful houses and condominiums situated around two championship golf courses (one of which hasn’t been open since 2015!). We enjoyed walking on paths around the golf course closest to our condo, seeing the all the nene, and waterfalls coming down the mountains, but will remain forever thankful for our funky little apartment with its beautiful yard in such a great neighborhood and location on the other side of the island. Princeville is just not our style.

Here’s to the wonderful additional two years we’ve spent on Kaua’i and to new adventures beginning this coming week! So lucky and thankful we got to live Kaua’i, not once but twice.