Fine & Well, Feeling the Blogosphere Love

Peeps, I want to thank you all for checking on me. A few of you asked how we were during this week's earthquake & tsunami after effects and I want to tell you how much it meant that you all had my back in the blogosphere.

First, we are all fine. Oahu was spared with some minor damage and everyone has the feeling that we dodged a huge bullet. Parts of Kauai, Maui and the Big Island weren't as lucky and sustained some real damage to roads, harbors, boats, and some near-shore spots. No one suffered a loss of power, though cell phone reception was basically nil for 24 hours.

Most of you know the Hubs and I just bought and finished building a new house. Well, the house is also about 5 blocks from the ocean and we're at sea level, so when the emergency response system alarms went off at 10pm, we packed our things and evacuated our area and spent the night with the in-laws who live about 30 minutes away up hill.

It was definitely sleepless worrying about family elsewhere on the island, friends in Japan who also had to evacuate, and this house we just invested in. Spent the night between watching the tsunami effects in Japan and our local news coverage. At around 3:30am, I caught footage of the ocean near Waikiki pull back and saw the exposed reef. The generated wave and water level was minimal, but you can't imagine how freaked out we were watching that usual placid and beautiful beach scene get sucked back like that.

We got the All Clear at about 8am the next morning and can I tell you how beautiful that Friday morning was? Clear skies and shining sun. Our family was fine, friends in Japan were spared and safe, and there was zero damage to the house. You would have never thought the night before was such a freak fest.

My heart goes out to the people of Japan in Sendai. I can't imagine what they're going through right now.