Sometimes I like to imagine what my life would be like if it were a movie – or at least a reality show. I never really imagined that moving to Hawaii would ever be a part of the movie/show of my life, but here we are. So what would I call a movie based on our time here? I think the most appropriate title (this week) is There Will Be Bugs.

If you know me, you know I do not like bugs. I’ve run away from wasps and things with stingers pretty much my whole life. I squash flies and spiders the moment I can and let’s not even talk about how much I hate mosquitos and bugs that make you itchy and uncomfortable. Growing up in Colorado there really weren’t that many creepy crawly or flying stinging creatures to deal with. Sure you may run into the occasional black widow spider or once we had one of these terrifying creatures in our house in Boulder, but that’s about the worst of it.

So far in Hawaii, we have run into some interesting critters! Not all terrifying, some quite fun to hang around, but wow, there are a ton of new things for us to learn about. If you are squeamish most of these links are probably not for you, but I’ve had a good time Googling the creatures we have seen so far and learning a bit more about them all in hopes that I won’t run away from things the whole time we are here. Thankfully our house had a thorough bug bombing before we arrived so the most common unwanted guests have been ants (everywhere. all. the. time.), the occasional cockroach and we did see a pretty massive centipede (not like the centipedes in Colorado AT ALL!) in our backyard. So again, this is not a post for the super squeamish, but here are some creatures we see every day!

GIANT cockroaches – I’d never seen these before moving to Hawaii. Well I’d seen them, but only in the movies, and Australia during our trip out there. These suckers are massive. In addition to being massive. . . they fly right at your face! Thankfully the roaches we have seen in our house have been small. However, we saw a massive one at a bar in Kapaa. It just scuttled up the back of our booth like it owned the place and disappeared into the the darkness like some kind of super villain. I’m not looking forward to more close encounters of the roach kind, but at least these things are pretty benign.

Carpenter bees – Apparently these exist all over the world, but the ones here are also humongous. Something about the humidity and tropic thunder in Hawaii must be the Alice drink me bottle to these wonderland type critters and flying stingy things. Again, these are a very non threatening species, males don’t even have stingers, but when they are flying at your face it is hard not to run away like a crazy one.

Geckos, Anoles and Skinks (oh my!) These are the fun ones to hang around. We see at least a

gecko or two in an around the house every day. According to Hawaiian legend geckos are good luck and they are super helpful at helping us keep the ants away. We’ve also seen several anoles in the backyard puffing their big red throats out in the sunshine.

Centipedes – These are not your typical and tiny Colorado centipedes, these bad boys can be a major pain. They sting and it’s not deadly if you are an adult, but we’ve heard it’s damn painful! I hoped we would get through our Hawaiian adventure without catching a glimpse of one of these, but Richard lifted a piece of ply wood in our backyard and one squirmed away and buried itself in the dirt before we could try to get rid of it. I hope we don’t see that one again!

I had researched most of these critters before we decided to go on this journey to the center of the Earth, but one thing we were not prepared for right off the bat was wacky weather. Hawaii is one of the safest states at least in relation to weather related disasters, but three weeks into our stay back to back hurricanes were predicted to hit the islands. The last hurricane to hit Kauai was 22 years ago when Iniki ravaged the place so the fact that back to back storms were predicted to make landfall was an anomaly and caused quite a stir. Grocery stores sold out of supplies like flashlights and water almost immediately. We have dealt with lots of wacky weather over the years – twisters, blizzards, earthquakes and floods but never a hurricane! We stockpiled water, had flashlights and batteries ready to go and a supply of non-perishable goods and thankfully an afternoon of rain from the first storm is all we had to endure! The second storm missed the islands completely and weakened somewhere north west of the chain. Hopefully we won’t be singing in the (torrential) rain again any time soon!

P.S. please don’t let this discourage you from visiting! If I can live here the bugs don’t interfere with paradise THAT much!