The Great Murdock Trek to Paradise

 

Munro and I have had a goal to move to Hawaii ever since we left there in 2003. It's always been this pie in the sky dream, but behind it was a real desire and intention to make it happen. After prayer, planning, hundreds of hours of hard work and labor and plenty of little miracles, our dream finally came true. This is story of our Trek to Paradise.

On July19^th we said our final goodbyes to our home and Uda family in Pleasant Grove Utah and began our 10 day trek to our new home in Hawaii.  On the first leg of our journey, we drove to Cedar City Utah then up the mountain about 45 minutes to the Duck Creek cabin Munro’s parents have where they hosted our Murdock Family Reunion. The travel time takes about 4 hours but with all the stops we had to make on our way out of town and once we got to Cedar City, it ended up being 8 hours. We all don’t do well in confined spaces together for longer than a few hours, but we survived with most of our family relationships in tact.

The cabin. George & Mimi rented 2 more cabins for the family to use as well

After the insanity of packing up our house for the past month, it was so refreshing to be up in the beautiful mountains and enjoy some peace and solace and know that there was no packing to do. The kids had so much fun with all their Murdock cousins catching horny toads, building forts, shooting arrows, swinging and best of all, 4-wheeler rides!

Face painting

Big Birthday party for EVERYONE!

Hiking in a pitch black lava tube

There were plenty of these horny toads around for the kids to play with

Pretty awesome fort the kids spent hours in

Malia loves her cousin Alana!

I loved the time spent talking with my amazing sisters in law and just chilling out. It was idealic, it was perfect. I’m so grateful for my amazing in-laws for organizing, paying for, and putting it all together.  On Sunday the entire family of 40+ went to church where we all sang a musical number, “Faith in Every Footstep.” I played the piano and it was so neat to hear all our voices together. Since we’ve been in Hawaii, my kids sing that song all the time!

On July 24^th we packed up once again and began the second leg of our journey to Las Vegas where we repacked part of the trailer and loaded it with more of our stuff we’d been carrying around in our van. It was so difficult for me packing our entire home, then packing for a trip that would include three different stops and knowing exactly what I would need and not need. In Las Vegas I concluded that I and brought more stuff then I needed so it went into the trailer.

We spent one whole day at George & Mimi’s house in their pool and had so much fun. The kids discovered the thrill of jumping off the roof into the swimming pool. Munro didn’t think I would do something like that, so of course I had to prove him wrong. I climbed up on the roof, hesitantly checked it out, then jumped. As I entered the water, my feet went up and my bum went straight down and hit the bottom of the pool hard. I felt something crack and pain shot through my lower back.  My tail bone and lower back remained tender for the next two days but once we got to California things got really bad.  

 The first day we spent 14 hours on our feet at Disneyland and I was in tears from the pain shooting down my legs, back and feet. The second day we spent 9 hours and by the end of that day, I could no longer feel my feet.  After we made it to Hawaii, I saw a chiropractor who said I had a compressed disk and was lucky I hadn’t blown it. He asked, “what possessed you to jump off a roof?!” I replied intelligently, “uhhh, everyone else was doing it and it looked fun.” He then went on to lecture me about how lucky we are to survive our youth because of the foolish things we do to which I responded I was past my youth and old enough to know better and that I had learned my lesson. After four visits my back is doing much better and I’m able to walk and stand again without any pain. Blessings!

My amazing father-in-law went with us to California.  He drove the trailer and we drove our van. We made it to the LDS church where we had the shipping container dropped off.  Munro hired 2 guys from Craigslist to help load and the four of them got to work hauling everything from the trailer to the shipping container.  They busted it out in no time.  As soon as it was loaded, George hugged us goodbye, hopped into his truck and left to go back to Vegas.  Tears filled my eyes as he drove away. We are so blessed to have such loving and supportive parents! We waited for a bit till the truck driver showed up to haul off the container.  We cheered as it left knowing we wouldn’t have to deal with it again for 2 more weeks!

After all that work, we felt we had to reward ourselves with more work. So of course we went to Disneyland. Disneyland is interesting. They make it look like a dream come true and the happiest place on earth, but I think it should be re-branded, The Most Exhausting Place on Earth!  The lines are eternally long, its hot and the only time you get to sit down is when you get on a ride, which you waited an hour to get on. My kids got grumpy, hot, tired and irritable. There were times when I wondered, Why the heck did we do this?!  But then there were those fleeting moments of excitement and pure joy that made it all worth it….well, almost.  It didn’t help that I was in so much pain and it was hard to find anywhere to sit down. When I finally just sat on the ground because I couldn’t walk anymore, a “cast member” came up and told me I couldn’t sit there and to keep walking! Slave drivers!  If I ever attempt to go back to Disneyland again, I’ll wait till all my kids are old enough to go on all the rides and go when it isn’t so hot or busy. I also might rent a wheel chair.

Disneyland! The Most Exhausting Place on Earth!

After two days at Disneyland, we spent our last Sunday on the mainland at church, picked up our rental van, and drove around LA checking out Hollywood and Beverly Hills. I’ve never been there before and I was not impressed. It was dirty, crowded and a lot of shady characters. We took the kids to the bathroom at McDonalds and a drug dealer was taking homeless guys in to shoot them up. Alot of scary looking men were way too friendly with Malia. Munro and I didn't stick around long, but held each kid by the hand and walked back to our car as quick as we could.

This lady tricked me into taking a picture of her with my kids and then charged me for it.  

The next day was travel day. We had a full morning before catching our flight to Hawaii. We packed up that morning and left on a few errands, including buying another suitcase to try and keep all our suitcases under 50 lbs, as well as a lock for Munro’s gun case as required by law.  We stopped at the port and dropped off our van to be shipped to Hawaii and got our rental van.  They ran out of minivans like we had reserved and so we ended up with this huge 15 passenger van. It was actually kind of nice because each of our kids got their own row which helped deal with the fighting in the car. With 10 days of traveling and being in close proximity to each other, they’d pretty much had it with one another.

Munro dropped me and the kids off at the airport with all the luggage and he left to return the van. I hauled everyone and everything inside and attempted to check in while Malia ran around the airport screaming and Mason and Maile tried to chase her down. Frazzled, I got our tickets, and started to check our luggage.  I had to declare the gun that was in Munro’s baggage and the airline employee had no idea how that worked. So she called TSA and sent me off to Homeland Security for a separate screening.  We waited a long time for TSA to come, meanwhile Malia was doing her best at being an absolute crazy person. Mason and Maile tried to help but the more they tried to calm her down the louder she screamed and faster she ran. I finally set her car seat on the floor and made her sit in it, but a minute later it tipped over and she hit her head causing her to scream even louder. 

The whole time two airline employees just stood there and stared at me. Finally TSA showed up and asked me for the key to the gun case. I didn’t have it and had specifically asked Munro if I needed it. He had said that TSA would have a key for it. They said they did but it was in another part of the airport. I called Munro who was waiting for a shuttle to bring him back to the airport. Meanwhile TSA went to find a key. We waited, waited, waited…Munro finally showed up, opened up the case, they checked the gun then asked that we lock it back up. Low and behold, the locks would not lock. TSA told us that we could not check our final bag unless the gun was locked, and we couldn’t just leave the gun behind. Our flight was leaving in 30 minutes and we hadn’t even gone through security yet. We all stood there dumbfounded for a moment contemplating the fact that we were going to miss our flight to Hawaii.  Suddenly Munro cried out “Wait!” He dug in his bag and found a different lock and it fit. Everyone sighed with relief. We checked the final bag, grabbed the kids and ran as fast as we could to security. In a panic everything was thrown on the conveyor belt as we ripped all the kids shoes off. As soon as they were off, an employee informed us that they kids could keep their shoes on. 

We got through security thankfully without incident, packed everything up again and went tearing down the terminal. I'm sure we looked like the family on Home Alone. We got to the gate as they were loading the plane. Whew! Then a gate agent started giving us a hard time about the car seat we planned to bring on the plane for Malia to sit in. She also said we had missed our chance to board early with our kids and told us to go to the back of the line. I insisted that we had traveled many times with the car seat and never had an issue and begged to be let on the plane early. She rolled her eyes, insisted our car seat wasn't FAA approved but said the flight attendants could deal with us. There were more issues with our carry on luggage but suffice it to say, we eventually ended up on the plane, in our seats with all the kids strapped in and baggage stowed. 

That had been one of the most stressful hours of my life. As I tried to fight off the tears from an impending nervous breakdown, Munro talked me into taking deep breaths and assured me the worst was behind us. We had made it. Everything we owned was on a ship to Hawaii and we had caught our flight. 

 I’ve concluded that Munro and I are quite an amazing team. We both get stressed out and overwhelmed and sometimes a little bit snappy. But we come together, we work through problems, find solutions and make things happen. In that moment as we started off down the runway, I couldn’t help but feel totally awesome yet humbled at the same time. Is that even possible? Most of all though, I just felt incredibly blessed.

 After all that hard work and stress, we wondered if it would all be worth it. Guess what.....It Was!

To be continued.....