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MAUI, Hawaii — It is as if Christmas came early this year for the Ah Hee family as they move into their home on Komo Mai Street in Lahaina, the first one to be rebuilt after it burnt down in last year's wildfire.
"Unreal, no words can justify how I feel about being here right now. Just happy," Ariel Ah Hee said.
Ah Hee said she and her husband Mau moved with their 3 and 6-year-old sons about six or seven times before deciding to live with Ariel's parents in Pa'ia.
"We moved into my old high school bedroom, 10 by 10, for all four of us," Ariel Ah Hee added with a laugh.
Mau Ah Hee is an ocean safety officer stationed at Hanakao'o Beach Park in Lahaina, so he is relieved he no longer has to commute to and from Pa'ia.
"I would drive pretty much every day to Pa'ia just to be a family," Mau Ah Hee shared.
Now, the couple and their children get to celebrate their homecoming a week before the holiday season begins.
"This was our first home. This is where we raised them, and this was the best place on Earth for them. This is where their friends are. This is where our other family is," Ariel Ah Hee said.
"I think last holiday season, we were so flustered that I think we can't even remember what we did. It was just like a blur, like we really look back at that time and I don't even remember what we did," she said.
But this year's holidays will likely be memorable — marking a return to where the Ah Hees started their family.
The couple helped build the original home back in 2019 and did the same this time around.
Mau and Ariel Ah Hee are encouraging other homeowners in the rebuilding process to ask for help and seek resources, establish a good relationship with their contractor, and lend the builders a helping hand.
"We're not professionals at any of this stuff, but the contractors, they need help with whatever, you know, moving some rocks, digging some holes. Minor stuff," Mau Ah Hee mentioned.
"Anything helps. Don't sit around, wait. I know it's hard, everyone has their own situations and everything but as long as we all work together as a community we'll get these homes built and we'll all move home," he said.
As of Monday, nearly 300 building permits were submitted for properties in Lahaina, and 134 have been issued so far.
