new year, lots of new stuff.

steve and i spent the first week in january on kauai. i was pretty near my breaking point after the holidays, so the timing for this getaway was perfect.
when we were in kauai the weather was much different than during our previous trip (last may). last may we thought the waves were really rough down on the south side by our hotel and so we traveled up to the north side of the island quite a bit. the north side has really amazing snorkeling, so we did quite a lot last time.
this time the north side was rainy, and so we never went north of lihue. we spent most of our time on the far southwest side of the island, which is the driest and sunniest. we were total beach bums, and spent lots of time just reading on the beach and playing in the waves. we were a lot less adventurous than our last trip, and didn't do any hiking, kayaking or snorkeling.
however, we did go to polihale state beach, which is amazing. the reason i mention this after mentioning whether or not we were adventurous is that the road to polihale is really, really scary if you're driving a rental car (and i'm sure it was against our contract). i tried to find a description online, and all i found as "Polihale State Beach Park is found at the end of the road in West Kaua‘i, with access over several miles of potholed canefield roads" from aloha-hawaii.com. the road is about 4.7 miles, and took steve about 30 minutes each way. we were really afraid of damaging the undercarriage, and did hit bottom a couple of times. there are, however, lots and lots of websites that voice the opinion that it's one of the most beautiful beaches, and it was wonderfully deserted when we were there.
our vacation ended on a bit of a rough note, with the connecting flight from honolulu to oakland severely delayed. we had planned it to be a bit of a close call, with scheduled arrival in oakland (about 30 minutes from our apartment) around 11 pm the night before i started my new job. instead, we arrived around 2 am, and by the time we got our baggage, found our car service (steve had brilliantly arranged for a car to pick us up at that hour!) and made it home, it was 3:30 am. argh! i had orientation at 8 am over an hour away the next morning! needless to say, the photo on my work ID (taken shortly after 8 am) is not one of my better looks.

my new job is going well. i like the people and the environment, and the perks are phenomenal (as has been mentioned in many, many articles). it's definitely a start-up sort of role, where i'm developing process and making strategic plans, which is a different from my previous position. i will get to hire and grow the team, which i enjoy, and i like that i'll be less focused on solving escalated problems, and more focused on future thinking. i'm in NY this week for training, and should have more of a feel for things after this week.

since changes seem to snowball, it looks like we'll be moving. rents are going up in our building and we've decided that although we like the open layout of our place, we'd prefer a more traditional setup, so that steve can close the door on his office at the end of the day, and so that overnight guests have an actual door on the room they're staying in. we spent this weekend looking at a few different places, and it looks like our best bet is a really different option for us: living in a 3 floor house on a mountainside in pacifica, sandwiched in-between a state park and the beach. we weren't looking to leave the city, but when we looked in our price range in the city, the options weren't all that exciting, and steve pointed out that "living with a view of the ocean is something that a person should do in their life if at all possible" (not an exact quote). i can't disagree, but i am worried that we'll miss city life a bit, and that our friends won't visit as often as we'd like. luckily we have lots and lots of room for sleepovers... we should know tomorrow if we have the place or not, and if so we'll move sometime in mid-february.

i'm extremely tired tonight, since (in a bit of a repeat) my flight to NY last night was really, really delayed. i didn't arrive at JFK airport until 3 am, and got to sleep around 4:30. i had about 4 hours of shut-eye before heading to the NY office (thank goodness they didn't take my picture again this morning!). i really need to stop doing that on sunday nights!