Lake Arrowhead & Pinnacle Trailhead

Our one year anniversary kind of snuck up on us. I'm not entirely sure how this year flew by as fast as it did -- it honestly feels like our wedding day was just yesterday.  We haven't been able to have dog free time together since after our honeymoon and we wanted to go on a fun, relaxing trip for the weekend.  After mulling it over for too long (and after all of the Temecula hotels were booked due to a wine festival) Nic found Lake Arrowhead Resort and we embarked on a wonderful little trip!

While Southern California is nice, we truly miss the trees, and grass, and just everything with life.  It's a desert here and it's gotten old. We had a lake facing room at the resort and it was so wonderful to wake up Saturday morning, drink some coffee and read while listening to the birds and smelling the trees.

We decided to venture into the San Bernardino and go for hikes.  Our original plan was to try and find an unmarked hike we read about online -- it led to a spring and sounded awesome -- but even after putting the coordinates into our GPS the landmarks just weren't there.  After our second trip down a terribly windy road that had me strongly considering getting out of the car and walking the rest of the way back, we decided to go on the Pinnacle's Trailhead.

Our first attempt started at 4 pm and all we knew was it was a difficult hike and an experienced hiker had gone missing doing it and never was found (see little paper taped under the sign).  Other than that we just new to put on sunscreen and bring a lot of water. It started out wonderfully.  It was nice to get out into the wild and have a break from everyday. We got to the first peak, and were really confused on why the trail was pointing outward, but we continued on to the next peak.  At this point it was already 5:30 and the sun was setting early and there was no end in sight (we were utterly confused and honestly frustrated).  We trudged back to the car because neither of us wanted to get caught out there after sunset and decided we'd try another hike in the morning.

 

 

My July Directive

I'm late on the bandwagon for posting this months directive, but, I'm a firm believer in better late than never. The beginning of this month has also been a bit stressful so sitting down to actually write down everything I need to accomplish in July just seemed like something that was going to lead to me crying.

This months "goals" are a little less static than all of the others. I literally have no choice but to do these which I think will make for a good way to jump back into blogging, and just accomplishing things.  If you caught our earlier blogpost this week you know that the California Hajners have some huge changes coming our way. When we moved out here we packed everything (including two dogs) up in a u-haul, attached my car to a tow, and drove cross country out to our new home. The first few days were quite eventful and having four living things in the front of a truck got a little stressful.

Anywho, since we can't drive our stuff to Hawaii the Navy is moving us. On one hand I'm super excited that I don't have to pack anything, on the other I'm terrified that all of our china, crystal and other things I love are going to arrive broken. Talk. About. Stressful.  Everyone says to put all your ducks in a row, take pictures of all your items, and make an inventory. Since we've known about this move for oh, 6 months, I totally have all of that done already right? l-o-l.

Things to do: 

- make an inventory of our household goods - 

- take pictures of all of our "of value" items and any damage already done to them -

- book our hotel for when we arrive - 

- continue to work out so I don't explode from keeping my stress bottled up -

Honestly, none of them are impossible, and some should even be fun. It's just actually doing them that seems to have been the problem. But seeing as time has started to run out and we have less than a month before the movers come I truly no longer have a choice but to get to work.

Changes

A few months ago my husband made a decision for himself and our little, but perfect, family.  Since then a lot of changes have been going on in our lives from the small and simple things to the bigger.

Everyone says you find out who your true friends are in tough situations, and that has been nothing but the truth.  We've been truly blessed with the chance to learn who our true friends are verses those who were just there because of situational convenience. I'll be honest and say thats been the hardest thing for me. I never thought we would experience shitty friends in this lifestyle, but they were there all the same.    True friends are friends no matter what you do in life, if not doing something anymore means you're no longer a friend, obviously there was not trueness in the friendship to begin with.  We are grateful for those who have been there for us the last few months; we appreciate you all more than you know.

All of the changes have brought about some much needed time spent together.  We've been able to just sit and re-prioritize our lives and what's important not only to us as a team, but also us individually.  I'm a hopeless romantic and often find my head up in the clouds and it seems I married my perfect counterpart who's the same.

As for the news; Nic's now the gunno on the USS Preble and we're moving to Oahu in August! We honestly cannot be more excited!

Aloha.

While I hate reading little notes pre and post blog posts, I do feel like it's necessary to add one with this.  Every relationship both in and out of the military are different and therefore need different things. This blog has always been a space for me to share our experiences as well as keep family and friends updated on things that are going on.  Please respect his decision, and now our decision, to share this with everyone.