The Worst Place on Earth

We are renting a condo while we're waiting to move into our home. We don't like it here and can't wait to move. If you ever happen to find yourself coming to Kona for a visit, let us recommend that you stay away from renting anywhere from www.ownerdirect.com. Also stay away from units at Kona Sea Ridge and anyplace managed by the local managers at Property Network. To be fair, I must say that Jeremy thinks the folks at Property Network are fine. I disagree and that's way I'm glad they always call/e-mail Jeremy when they need anything. Thankfully, Jeremy has been up for complaining about all the numerous problems that have needed fixing.



As I was uploading these pictures to the blog, I thought this place doesn't look too bad. Don't be fooled. The condo smells musty and moldy. When we moved in the place was dirty and the first thing we did was spend a small fortune at Costco on cleaning supplies. The fridge has broken down twice. When we moved in all 5 smoke alarms were inop and maintenance men have been out several times working on other various little things throughout the unit. The bugs have been unbearable.....thankfully I have only found 2 small cockroaches and both were dead. We've had ants, centipedes and a horrible spider infestation. One evening, we were getting Jillian settled in bed when Jeremy saw something in her closet. It was a spider bigger than any we have ever seen...3-4 inches, as big or bigger than my fist. Jeremy rescued Jillian and I when he killed the monster. Then we noticed the closet ceiling was like a blanket of her babies....there must have been hundreds, but Jeremy will tell you more like several dozen. I could be exaggerating slightly, I just remember it being horrible. I removed all of her items from the room and proceeded to disinfect everything. We shut the door and completely duct taped all 4 edges. Jillian started sleeping with us. After 3 days, the property manager finally sent over a maintenance guy with a can of bug spray. That did nothing but motivate the baby spiders to get out of the room. After another few days, an exterminator was sent to spray the entire unit. Her room remains taped shut and she is still sleeping with us. We are too creeped out to even enter the spider room. I am not into bugs and this is going to be a hard transition for me. We think the spider was a cane spider. If you're interested, check out this site for some fantastic pictures of the beast. http://www.instanthawaii.com/cgi-bin/hawaii?Animals.cane

Kitchen and living area.

Living area.
Jillian eating lunch and watching Dora in our room.

The pool....the pool is great and almost redeems the complex.

Jeremy and Jillian having fun swimming. She LOVES the water! :)

On our way to the car, we like to count the slugs and centipedes. We usually see between 5-10 slugs and 2-5 centipedes. Jillian loves all the insects! In this picture, I thought she was pointing to a squished slug. Alas, no, she is actually touching the icky thing.

The Burson's, Jillian, And The Zoo

Luke and Jillian walking down a path at the Anchorage Zoo.

This afternoon I was looking in my purse and found a camera chip. The day before we left for Hawaii, the Burson's watched Jillian so Jeremy and I could run last minute errands. They took her to the Anchorage Zoo and she had the BEST time! Tim and Joy transferred all the pictures they took that day to a chip and I placed the chip in a very "safe" place. I completely forgot about it until this afternoon. Jillian and I downloaded the pictures today and had a good time thinking about our friends that we miss so very much!



Jillian, Josh and Luke looking at the polar bears. Luke is sharing his iPod headphones with Jillian, she loves to rock! :)


Uncle Tim and Jillian


I really like this guy's hair! I think he is from the petting zoo.

Jillian snacking on some root beer. Hmmmm, who is holding the bottle for her? :)

Josh and Jillian looking at the black bear exhibit....I believe.

Jillian with 2 handsome guys.



Jillian, Josh, Aunt Joy, and Luke

Thanks guys for giving Jillian a fun afternoon to remember! She keeps asking to look at the pictures over and over. We miss you all soooooo much!

We Made It!

We made it to Kona on the Big Island! We left Alaska on August 17th and have been missing home everyday since! It is super HOT here, the temps have been high 80's (almost 90!) most days. We are soooo not used to temps that high....not to mention the humidity! :)

Jeremy and Jillian at Hapuna Beach, the first beach we visited. It was gorgeous and the waves were super strong. They knocked me over twice while I was holding Jillian! This is supposed to be a good place to boogie board....hmm, we might have to try that sometime....if I decide to be brave enough.

Jillian playing with the sand at Hapuna. She ate much sand this day! :)

We took this picture from one of Jeremy's sites. From this site you can see 3 of the other islands....Maui, Molokai and another island starting with L that I can't remember right now. It is very hard to see in this picture...but, in between the clouds and ocean is land. Maui! I could see all 3 islands surprisingly well on this day, very cool!