View from the 18th floor

We are staying at a hotel in Waikiki while we are searching for a home.  We are up on the 18th floor!  The elevator only goes up to the 17th floor, and then we have to use the fire escape stairs to get up to the 18th floor.  The above picture is the view from our lanai (deck, patio...lanai)

We have been to look at about five houses so far...none of which have felt like we were home.  I was looking through my notes (I take very intricate notes so I can remember which home had which features) and had to laugh.  This is from a house we looked at yesterday, "rat poison ?? on the floor."  "Family room used to be a lanai, now it is enclosed and there is an empty fish pond (complete with bridge) behind the couch."  "My feet felt offended walking without shoes on".  "Isaiah just told the realtor that someone REALLY needed to clean the toilet".  From another house we viewed on Thursday, "Washer and dryer are outside on the side of the house...there is no door to them".  "Brooklin just asked me where the master bedroom was...the three bedrooms couldn't have been more than 8x8 each!!"  And from another house, "small. broken down.  darwin kept saying the entry/living room was a bedroom, because it wasn't big enough to be the living room"

So, things are not moving as quickly as I would like them too, but God put us here for something, so he must know what's going to happen and when.

We went to church today at the Honolulu Stake Tabernacle.  It is a beautiful building.  Not like any other church building you could ever imagine.  It is huge and has a huge mosaic of Christ on the front of it and a reflecting pool.  The chapel is very large, the benches are all wooden, the choir loft is gigantic, they have a real pipe organ, and the seating goes in two different directions.  The ward we attended was the Makiki ward.  Their boundaries include mostly condos and apartments, so the primary and ym/yw was very small.  Brooklin said that there were only two young women, and one of them wasn't there this week, so it was just her and one other girl!

We are going to take a drive up to the North Shore this afternoon and visit the temple grounds.  The temple is closed right now for renovations, and from what we've heard, they will be having an open house this fall before they rededicate the building!

Please pray that we will be able to find our home this week!  We are leaving on Friday for Idaho/Wyoming/Utah for three weeks and then three days after we get home, Darwin is leaving for three weeks for a school.  I don't want to live in a hotel for very much longer (the parking garages in the hotels have RIDICULOUSLY small spaces and it takes me 45 minutes to calm my nerves after trying to park in them) and its just no fun unless you are on vacation.