intro

Hey family, friends, (and potential strangers who are just bored and lurking on the internet)…. For those of you falling in the latter group here is a brief intro for your benefit. 

This is me. Malia.

This handsome guy is my husband Jordan.

And this cutie is our son Kawika.

Now you may be asking yourself about the title of my blog. Well for those of you who know me, its quite fitting. But in case you're still confused allow me to explain...I tend to learn things the hard way. By that I mean I typically find the most difficult way to accomplish a task and then that is how I get it done. Now don't get me wrong. I do NOT do this intentionally by any means. It just happens that way and I simply choose to find the humor when I look back at my experiences and realize that I did it the hard way. 

For example, as a newlywed I thought it was smart of me to wait to change my name until we had a bit more money in the bank because I thought it would be an expensive thing to do. Well I was wrong. Turns out it’s insanely easy and completely free...as long as you change it in the first 6 months of your marriage. (I wish someone had given me that bit of wisdom when I got married!) Well I think I waited something like 18 months so I had to go through an appeal process with a JUDGE and then I had to pay about a total of $1000 to get it done. If only I had known. This whole name change business gave me more headaches down the road but that’s another story. Let me just say to the ladies, change your name as soon as you get married and then save your ID until literally EVERYTHING you've ever had is under your new name. Even then, maybe still keep it. Just in case. I know some of you may be tempted to chuck it out because like me, you don't want to be a hoarder but seriously, it’s a small piece of plastic. Keep it.

Now onto the real blog itself. My husband and I have just moved halfway around the world to TURKEY!! I know I (or rather we) will be learning a lot and I'm sure most of it will be the hard way (hence the very reason why we are probably in Turkey). So I thought it might be fun to document it as we go along. And for our family that is oh so far away, it might make it feel like we're a little bit closer if they can read this blog and learn along with us...