Letter from the Director: 👫 Life at the Center: All the Little Things That Led Us Here! 👫 Vol. 157 August 2026

Love,
Renée 

All the Little Things That Led Us Here!

August 2026

By Kai Samiere

How do you put a love story into words? How do you take years of memories, adventures, challenges, unexpected turns, and all the little moments that meant more than you realized at the time, and fit them onto a few pages? I’m not sure you can. A love story is something you live more than you tell. But if I had to tell ours, I’d start with all the little things that somehow brought us to each other.

When people ask how we met, I usually keep it short. I talk about the first night, the restaurant your future staff member Sharonne Gracia was working at and the friend visiting town that, in a way, made it all happen. But every time I sit with it myself, I can’t help going back further, trying to trace the decisions that put me in Chinatown that Friday night, and put Sharonne in that restaurant to begin with.

I’d just moved back to the island after college, living at home, grinding through an online Master’s degree and internship to become a dietitian. I was pretty locked in to my study and work, with just enough time for surfing on the weekends.

Meanwhile, Sharonne had spent the last six years in Seattle and finally had enough of the rain. She needed an escape from her current life there. So she booked a one-way flight to Oahu, with nothing but some cash, a few bags, and an apartment waiting for her. 

One day, my college buddy Anton called me and told me he was visiting the island for a work trip.

Little did I know, the night he got into town, I would meet the woman I now call my wife.

I picked Anton up from the airport, and on a whim, we decided to check out an art gallery in Chinatown. That decision eventually led us to the restaurant where Sharonne and I met. Funny enough, one split-second decision could have sent Sharonne and me down completely different paths.

When my buddy and I got to the restaurant, they were only a few minutes from closing. There were people inside still enjoying their meals, so grabbing a drink didn’t seem like a problem to us. But the hostess turned us away. She didn’t seem too keen on letting two guys in their twenties crash their closing time.

Anton and I turned around and walked aimlessly in the other direction with no plan in mind. We made it nearly a block away before the hostess waved us down and called out, “Hey guys! Come back! But just one drink, alright?”

The hostess who changed her mind was Sharonne.

We exchanged numbers that night and made plans to meet at the farmers market the following Saturday. Between Sharonne’s work schedule and my internship at the time, Saturday was the first chance we had to see each other again. 

When Saturday finally came, Sharonne and I went on our first date at the Kaka’ako Farmers Market. We spent the whole date chatting, sharing a green juice and enjoying each other’s company. I remember a lot of laughs and good stories. We were really hitting it off!

Sharonne had to leave for work, and I had some time to surf, so we walked over to Kewalos beach. I gave her a hug, grabbed my board, and paddled out to catch a few waves.

It wasn’t until a few months into our relationship that I learned Sharonne had called two people while she sat there watching me surf. She called her mom and her best friend, Laura, and told them both that she was in love, that I was the one. A little soon, don’t you think?

But if you know Sharonne, you know she’s determined and isn’t afraid to tell you what she likes and doesn’t like. I’m glad I made her good list.

A few weeks into dating, we went to Maui together for our birthdays, which are just two days apart. I taught her how to surf and introduced her to golf. She introduced me to Ashtanga yoga and gave me a new appreciation for life. The following months we jam-packed one fun adventure after another. Things were all on the up and up. 

Summer rolled around, and I graduated with my Master’s degree and became a Registered Dietitian, finally bringing years of school and unpaid internship hours to an end. However, finishing school brought a new responsibility: starting my career.

Prior to coming back home to Hawai’i, I had interned at a fitness studio in San Francisco that really valued the work I was doing. After my Master’s, when it came time for me to decide what was next, the fitness studio offered me a secure job with a ton of upside, pulling me back to San Francisco.

Sharonne had only just made the move to Hawai’i a few months before that. She had begun working with all of you at Still & Moving Center, found work she genuinely loved, and started creating a home for herself on the island. So she wasn’t too stoked when I asked her to trade sunshine and slippers for fog and down jackets. But she trusted that we’d eventually find our way back to the islands. So she took a leap of faith in our relationship, and moved with me to California.

We packed our bags (and surfboards!) and hopped on a plane to SFO. So Sharonne has spent the last three years popping back and forth between San Francisco and Hawai’i, cause she loves you guys so much, too

Sharonne and I made our love official a couple months ago in June. We tied the knot in San Francisco at its Louvre-like City Hall, then returned to Hawaii for a more spiritual and traditional Hawaiian ceremony on the Kaneohe Bay sandbar, where Kumu Mālia officiated our marriage, a morning I will never forget. 

Surrounded by the ocean as the sun came up, we made a full stop to take it all in. We had packed a lot into those three years together, new places, plenty of adventures, big decisions, and a lot of figuring things out as we went. And somehow, after all of it, we found ourselves right back in Hawaiʻi, in the middle of Kāneʻohe Bay, celebrating how far we had come together. It felt pretty fitting that the place where so much of our story began would also become the place where we started this next part of it.

As I look back on this journey that is truly just getting started, I cherish every moment and every decision that brought us together and led us here. Loving each other has meant choosing each other, giving each other a chance, learning to love through our shortcomings, and continuing to grow together.

A little note from Sharonne:

Since Kai mentioned that I called my mom after our first date and told her I was in love, I feel like I need to give myself a little context here. 

When I was about eight years old, growing up in Cuba, my mom and I used to watch Japanese shows and K-dramas together. Apparently, eight-year-old me already had very specific plans for my future because I remember telling her, “One day, my husband is going to be like one of the guys from these shows.”

Fast forward years later, and there I was, sitting on the beach after our first date, watching Kai surf. So naturally, I called my mom and said, “Remember when I told you what my husband was going to be like? I think I found him.”

Mind you, I had known this man for a very short period of time. Like 3 weeks.

My mom definitely thought I was just being my overly enthusiastic Sharonne self.

Nope… three years later, I married this guy.

So I’m just saying, maybe calling my mom after the first date wasn’t that crazy.

Eight year old me had a vision. And it was Kai Samiere.