I Ride Rainbows

I like you.

I like you a whole whole ton.

I even like you more than Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, and that’s saying a lot.

Krysta ran proclaiming, “TODAY’S BEST DAY EVER!!!!”

And it was.

This island is bursting with beauty and sparks of inspiration in every direction. I’m convinced that when the world was created, God gave Hawaii extra doses of All Things Good.

It ignites my core to watch my babies run fearlessly over white sands into an ocean of turquoise. The scene forces me to pull out nostalgic memories of my brothers and I splashing through the Atlantic Beach waves. My fire has officially been relit, and my creativity cannot be contained. Floods of color fill my veins and it tingles my every cell. I want to paint the world through my eyes in vibrant shades of yellow, lime, and aqua, and every rainbow in between-- which I will paint as soon as I return home. I’m already thinking ahead to the future, finding ways to transplant this blossom of happiness and inspiration in our Midwest home and harvesting the seeds from my new found island love.

Growing up, drip castles were how we constructed our sandcastles. We didn’t have fancy molds or shovels, just a bucket mixed with sand and water. Little by little, drip by drip we let the wet sand run through our finger tips until a castle mound was created.

Today, Krysta created a village.

Today, William destroyed that village.

William was happy; Krysta was not.

When you add a rope swing to a tropical beach, the I like you meter skyrockets to I love you. Does it get any more free than this? I'll tell you, we’re riding weightlessly through rainbows, and they're bright.

"The true harvest of my life is intangible- a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched" ~Henry David Thoreau

Find your rainbow, clutch it, and enjoy the ride.

Happy Rainbow Riding,

Em

Colored in Love

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that I fell in love with this island. Perhaps it began when I first laid eyes on the twinkling Pacific Ocean as we descended from the airplane, or perhaps it was when I was completely absorbed with fragrant tropical flowers, or maybe it was when golden rays of light streamed through the palms, illuminating the bright green foliage. However, I do know this: it came in a gradual shift from being more than just an idea of loving it and the fantasy of experiencing something so magical, to the realization of actually turning a dream into a reality and truly, wholeheartedly, love the ends and outs of the everyday Hawaiian lifestyle.

This is our new normal. Temporarily.

Our days are drawn out on the Honolulu beaches, sandwiched between sand and sun, and layered with salt water.

This has been a soul-searching experience to say the least. I feel like my eyes are back, the same eyes that I had in Alaska. I see in color again --bright vibrant colors, rainbows to be exact. I feel free and light and butterflies constantly flap around in my belly. I’ve crawled out of a Plexiglas box that I somehow put myself in when we received military orders to Oklahoma. I no longer feel confined, and that in itself is an extraordinary feeling.

We’re so incredibly blessed. I’m blessed to be in paradise, blessed to be around family, blessed to curl up with my sunkissed babies at night, and blessed to be able to talk overseas -on a daily basis- with my husband.

This is paradise… well, as close to paradise as one can mentally get during a deployment. And I realize that all of this will end and we will return to the Midwest where there are no palm trees or salt water or lush tropical foliage, but when that day comes, we’ll be one day closer to ending our seventh deployment and one day closer to being reunited as a whole family. See, even in paradise, I can’t go a day or even a moment without having this deployment on my mind and longing for my husband to be here with us. But, we’re staying positive and motivated to keep keeping on, until the end.

Until that day comes, we’ll basque in the moment and enjoy our slice of the island on the sea. 

“It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.” Andre Gide

Kipona Aloha  (Deep love),
Em