It looks like it's part of a duplex or something, but it's not.  It's technically just one house and you see our whole front from the street.  Here you can see the kitchen window on the right and the office window on the left.  There is a garage to the right of the kitchen.  What you don't see is that the house is built up on a hill.  The other part of the house, where our neighbors/landlords/housemates live, is technically under us.  But the house is totally separated and only shares a garage.  It used to be a 7 bedroom, 4 bathroom house!  The landlady separated the top chunk of the house, built a kitchen in the bottom chunk, and there we are.  They use the garage even though we do have a doorway access to it.  We park on the street and have access to the front door and they don't.  

There is a huge, steep stair way on the far right of the house that goes down to R's (our landlady's husband) Man Cave.  It's really a patio down there, but it's gorgeous.  He is growing some Hawaiian greens down there in a garden, he has his grill set up down there, and a little fridge and such.  The coolest part of the Man Cave is that it backs up to the Pali (mountain).  We have our very own waterfall coming down off the mountain!

So we have 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths.  The selling point for us was definitely the kitchen.  There is so much counter and cabinet space, I almost cried.  After our tiny kitchen in Guam, this was definitely enough for us to say we loved the house!

And oh my, the pot hanger!  I've always wanted one of these bad boys, so it was a done deal for me.

We did look at the rest of the house, even though we were so in love with the kitchen that it didn't really matter.  The living room is huge and the bedrooms are good sized.  

There are a few cons, however.  Number one, there is no such thing as a laundry room.  There is a laundry closet to the side of the kitchen.  It's tiny, and I've already knocked my head a few times doing laundry.  I concede laundry for kitchen!  I also have to concede random storage space.  Well, I take that back.  I think we just got spoiled by the ridiculous amount of closet space we had in Guam.  We could have never filled it with just the 3 of us.  The problem is that now we don't know what to do with random things like Jason's drills.  They are in the hall closet for now, which has become our stuff closet.  Both bathrooms have huge linen closets, so everything linen-ish has gone in them, and all junk has gone in the hall closet.

So yes.  We fell in love.  We fell in love with the landlady and her husband, too.  We really just seemed to click with them.  By the time we were ready to go, Katie Beth was happy in the arms of H, the landlady, and she was giving flirty smiles to R.  They told us that they had 2 other families to show the house to, but they had a really good feeling with us, and they would call us soon.  

We went to look at another house, and loved it, too.  It was technically nicer than this house, but it was $300 more a month, plus utilities.  H and R were including electric with their rent!  So, I just couldn't do it.. I asked the second landlord if he had any one else who was interested, and he said that there was a family who wanted to sign a lease the next day.  It totally worked.  We had the house we knew we wanted, and he had renters.  We were about to leave when I realized I had left my purse inside.  Jason went back to get it for me, and the landlord offered to come down on the rent by $200 because he liked us more than the family he was going to sign a contract with the next day.  Man, that felt good!  I'd like to think that we were desirable renters, but now I know for sure!  Jason told him it was still a bit out of our price range, so probably not, but we would call him if we changed our minds.

Shortly after we left the second house, H called.  She said they had showed the house to the second family, and they still had a better feeling about us.  They had called to cancel the next showing, and were offering the house to us.  She said they had prayed about it, and the Lord really put it on their hearts to rent to us.  She felt like they could be there for me while Jason is gone, and while he is gone on duty nights.  R is on the Kailua police force.  He's been a police officer for 28 years, and it really does make me feel better knowing he's just a few floors below me.  H said they preferred to rent to young military couples because they sort of adopt the people they rent to.  She said we can expect to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with them if we don't have other plans.  They are so nice, and Jason and I felt so comfortable with them.

So we're all moved in and very happy.  The move-in went so well!  Our only big problem is that our huge desk is broken.  We've already reported it and someone is supposed to be coming out to see if it can be repaired.  If not, the Navy definitely owes us like, $600 for that sucker.  It's kind of sad, because it was the first piece of furniture Jason and I bought together.  Why couldn't they have broken the bedroom suit????  

Now that this is incredibly long, the pictures of the crazy house we saw will have to wait.. but they're coming, I promise!