Last Night & Day 1 Build

Hey all! After a long day of flying, I finally arrived safely in Hawaii last night. Not missing a beat, I took a taxi right from the airport to the groundbreaking ceremony, where we were introduced to all of the families and watched as their soon-to-be homes were blessed. There were two boys who walked around to each house, blew their conch shells, and struck a flame by each house number. We then said a prayer for all of the families who will be receiving a home and all of the volunteers who are helping to build them one. They played local music and sang tropical songs while we all ate dinner together. Mind you, this was my fifth meal of the day (early breakfast at 3:30am when I left my house, normal breakfast time before my first flight to Chicago, lunch before my flight to Honolulu, and dinner on the nine hour flight there). By the time we all ate dinner it was 7:00pm, which was midnight at home. Needless to say, I was stuffed by that time and also longing for my bed. Eventually, we made it back to the hotel. I took a shower and was fast asleep by 9:00pm. That bed engulfed me and I never thought I would be able to get out of it in the morning... But I did.

Day 1 was phenomenal! We started it off with a huge breakfast at the build site, which is always the perfect start to the day for me (for those of you who know me really well, I can't function when I'm hangry and I need a hearty meal to get me going in the morning). Thankfully we were blessed with mounds of food that I gladly pounded down before we started working. We were then broken up into groups of ten for each of the ten houses we're building in ten days. There are about 150 volunteers, so we had roughly 15 at each lot. The lot I'm working on is house #45, which will belong to the Kekauoha Chartrand family in TEN DAYS! I didn't think it was actually possible to build ten homes in ten days until I saw the progress we made by the end of the day. We hammered in all of the exterior and interior wall panels, took a break for another delicious meal, installed all beams and plumb line, and laid out the trusses to get them ready for tomorrow. That's an incredible amount of work done in just eight short hours! With this being my fifth build, and having others who have participated in several builds, we made a highly functional and knowledgeable team. If we work this swiftly the other nine days, I have no doubts that we can manage to build ten homes in ten days. We'll see what's to come tomorrow morning. But now, I'm hangry again and dinner is in a half hour. Check back tomorrow to see our progress!