It’s 5:30AM on a Wednesday morning in your Pahuhu Place home in Ewa Beach and you’re up. You hear your other half downstairs already eating breakfast. They get on the road by 6AM to head into work in downtown Honolulu so you quietly join them for some time of your own before they head out and you wake up your son and daughter.
Out on the lanai, you enjoy the early morning calm of an Ewa morning and talk about plans for the next few days. Too soon it’s departure time, you spending a few more minutes afterward, then walking up the stairs to pry your keiki from their beds.
Fortunately, your consulting business lets you work from home and you’ve just finished a big project, with a couple of less hectic days before the next one begins.
SCHOOL DAY STARTS
7:15 and it’s time to get the kids off to school! Your address puts you in the Keoneula Elementary School area, but you’ve gotten a Geographic Exception so your daughter goes to Holomua Elementary instead. With the only growing need for technology skills, Holomua’s focus on that area stood out to you as where to send her.
You hug your son, who’s at an age where it embarrasses him a little, as he heads out the door. He walks every morning to Ewa Makai Middle School, which is only a little over ½ a mile away. Convenient, plus there’s nothing wrong with him getting some added exercise.
‘Where’s my backpack?!?!’ you hear from upstairs, followed by a grunt that tells you she found it. You and your daughter walk out to the car for the drive to Holomua, which takes just 5 minutes since it’s a one mile trip eastward.
The learned reflex of checking the backseat pays off again as the little one leaps out of the car after the always quick ‘love yous’ are exchanged. ‘Hey! Your backpack!’. She stops quickly, walks slowly back and grabs it, before taking off again. It’s your time now. Finally.
EVERYTHING IN EASY REACH
The great thing about living in Ewa Beach is everything is so close by. You’re old enough to remember having to drive to Pearlridge to do any real shopping. Now, everything you need is a few minutes from home or even in walking distance.
Kapolei’s close proximity only multiplies what’s available and you’re always reading about new projects in the pipeline – housing, shopping & dining, more recreational possibilities for the whole family. This isn’t the Ewa you knew when you were little.
Those thoughts are brought home even more when you pull into Ewa Town Center. Its Foodland, you remember, created a lot of local excitement when the complex opened in the 90’s. At last, a new grocery store in Ewa! Can’t imagine that anticipation happening today.
You’ve got some time so you park near the Long’s and stroll to a favorite stop here, the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Their Lychee Iced Tea is a favorite, plus you’ll get some work emails and calls done. You can walk to Ewa Town Center from your house, so you come here sometimes to break up the workday and recharge a little.
An hour flies by, the 9:05AM time staring back at you from your phone causing you to jump a little. You finish that last text message, then jump into the car, headed to the Kroc Center 10 minutes away.
There’s a few minutes still left before your 9:30AM yoga class when you pull into the familiar parking lot. The Kroc Center is a regular destination for the whole tribe. Buying that family membership at Kroc Center was one of the best decisions you made as a parent.
The kids play in volleyball and basketball leagues in the gym, you and your spouse have taken painting & pottery classes and, best of all, there’s the water playground! Along with the lazy river and water slides, it’s given your kids hours of fun while you’ve worked out, relaxed poolside with a poke bowl from the cafe and even dived in with the keiki yourself for some matchless family time.
You’re currently thinking of enrolling your younger one in the violin or voice lessons and the financial planning seminar coming up is on your calendar already. There’s so much to choose from, you sometimes can’t believe this one place can offer it all.
An hour later you’re refreshed and centered from the yoga. It’s time to head back home and get some more work done. You’ve got a nice block of uninterrupted time before Holomua gets out at 1:15PM, since it’s Wednesday.
FAMILY OUTINGS IN EWA
1:35PM. You and your elementary schooler are home now and in about 15 minutes your son will be walking through the door, too. Ewa Makai has a 1:24PM stop time on Wednesdays so, assuming he doesn’t get wrapped up talking to friends, he should be back at his usual time.
Nobody feels like cooking, so after homework has been done and your favorite commuter gets back at 4PM, everyone piles into the car for a sure bet to satisfy everyone’s tastes. Ewa Beach has a lot of great local restaurants, but Daiichi Ramen is extra special for your family.
That means going to Laulani Village Shopping Center, where you’re well known at the City Mill and the Petco, making several trips to both each month. Fortunately Laulani Village is close to home, in fact just down Fort Weaver Rd from Ewa Town Center, giving you 2 substantial shopping choices within little more than ½ mile from your door.
All 4 of you know what you want, so ordering once you sit down inside Daiichi Ramen is easy. Gyoza, gomoku & tan tan ramens and a shrimp tempura plate. Like most Oahu families, you have to watch your money, so Daiichi’s prices are very attractive – and the food is even better! Nothing beats filling up on some ono local food.
Some small groans come up, though, when you realize you need to stop by the Safeway here. You’re out of cereal, coffee and snacks for the kids lunches, so into the store you all go. Ewa Town Center has a Foodland, so you have another option for groceries a few blocks mauka, which you shop at as well sometimes.
The kids have completed their school work, so why not do something a little different to cap the outing? “Let’s go watch the sunset from White Plains Beach”. It’s a hit with everyone. Though on the western end of Ewa Beach’s coastline, the sand is wonderfully soft to walk on and your kids, like so many in this part of Oahu, learned to surf on the friendlier waves off its shoreline.
The slippers are kicked off and you and the family walk down to a nice spot to sit on just as the sun starts its descent. The deep shades that could only happen in Hawaii slowly emerge, then suddenly reach bloom fully across the sky to the delight of everyone on the beach. Then the colors gradually fade away, the curtain coming down to begin the cooler Ewa evening.
The drive home takes you on Essex Road, beside Hoakalei Golf Course and the residential/resort complex it’s part of. They’ve announced a massive shopping and dining complex at Hoakalei that will be right beside the lagoon. It won’t be open until 2020 or so, but you’re already curious to check it out.
The house, as always, seems to warmly welcome you warmly in the headlights. The kids run up to their rooms the moment you unlock the door, probably to check what’s going on online with their friends. You and your better half sit down together on the living room couch and finally let go of the day. You’ll both be getting up early so you enjoy the time you have together.
As you drift off to sleep that night you realize how fortunate you all are, living in a real house with a yard and space on Oahu and in an exciting time as the 2nd City adds more and more to your life and lifestyle. Buying here was the right choice, without a doubt. A sleepy smile begins to widen as you drift off blissfully.