Hale = house in Hawaiian and it is about dang time I told you a little bit about where we have landed now that the flip house and project that brought us to Kauai in the first place is under contract.

It is a long, long story full of misfortune, adventure, redemption, surprise, and incredibly good luck and great timing. BUT it is a little too long for one or even two blog posts. The cliffs notes version goes like this. . .

Sometime in November we realized the Ele’ele house was nearing completion and we would have to find a new place to call home on the island. we had no idea where that would be or what kind of budget we would have or if financing would be an option now that we were both gainfully employed in the eyes of the state.

We put together a list of homes to see on the east side of the island (our favorite part of Kauai for the incredible mix of people, places and activities. Also, mountains. We are mountain people and Kauai has incredible mountains that were most definitely calling our name) and hit the road with our realtor to check out something like 10-12 properties in one day.

We walked into the first house that happened to be at the tippy top of our budget (and truly out of it if we were being realistic) and fell in love. Really. Hard. The rest of the day of showings was a total waste of time, we knew nothing would compare to the first house and that sadly, we could probably never call it our own.

Cue the incredible good luck – our business partners on the flip house (also partners with R’s mom on another property on the north shore of the island) decided it was time for them to list their north shore property and move on to focus on their health and other businesses. This meant that R’s mom might be looking for a new property to invest in on island and maybe some new ‘business partners’ a.k.a family members to share a home with. Fortunately for us, that is exactly what she wanted to do and the three of us combined just might have the budget to get our dream home.

There is so much to tell about this house and how we nabbed it – it was slightly more complicated than the the short smash-and-grab job described for you here, but for now I’ll just say it was on the market for about 6 years and the way our offer, closing and the sale of the property went down it is hard not to believe in fate or that this house was just waiting for the three of us to show up.

We closed the last weekend in January and moved out of Ele’ele that weekend with only a few minor things left to take care of before that one would be listed for whoever it had been waiting for.

Living in this house and finding our place in Kapaa has been a dream. We have wonderful neighbors, mountains all around and a yard Ellie gets to explore and I get to mow with a riding lawn mower. It is a little bit country, a little bit mountainy, but one hundred percent our home. Enjoy a few select pictures and come visit!

Next time. . .playing tourist, being too uptight for the tropics and leaving the rock for the first time!