Christmas Wrap Up

Elissa got a friendship bracelet maker for Christmas.

She has been asking me to help her make one since she opened it up.

I got it for her, but I have been putting off figuring out how to do it.

Today we took on the challenge.

I was reading the directions trying to figure it out and Darin decides to step in. :-)

(I guess my brow was furrowed too much. LOL!)

Darin showed us both how to do it and then Elissa took over. She was working on it for about 10 minutes and she was ready to be done. She asked if we could stop and finish tomorrow. :-) I told her that we needed to finish this one so we really learned how to do it. She wanted to make the fancy ones with a heart pattern, but I told her she needed to learn the basics before we could do one of those. Needless to say, I ended up finishing it for her.

Then that evening the Jones' came over and the kids exchanged Christmas presents.

Zach and Payton are SO cute! They get along really well.

It is interesting how the dynamics are changing a bit.....Payton (6.5yrs) & Zach (3.75yrs) pretty much play together, Charis (8.5yrs) & Elissa (6.5yrs) play together, and Jaice (10yrs) usually plays his DS or hangs out with the adults. They are growing up!

Charis came in and Elissa & Charis immediately went up to Elissa's room. Though they both had been starving, they didn't want to eat anymore. They just wanted to play together. We only saw them when we opened presents and when they wanted to put on a show.

Elissa made some ornaments with Grandma in early December and so she decided to give one to Auntie Kirstin. As she told Kirstin, "I made these and I didn't have anyone to give this to, so I gave it to you." LOL!

It was a fun time.

The kids definitely don't see enough of each other.

We'll have to try and do better in 2011.

And how is it that I always forget to get all the kids together to get a picture??

A Little More Snow

We woke up to about 2 inches this morning.

The kids were immediately in their snow suits and out the door. :-)

Elissa made this sculpture and told me that it was a scene from Ice Age and that the round balls where the characters. *smile*

Zach just wanted to throw snowballs.

Merry Christmas!

I'm barely awake as I'm trying to get this last "December Daily" blog post done.

Darin and I went to bed at 11:30pm last night and then Zach was up at 4am this morning. I could have went to bed at 5pm tonight. I think we are still recovering from our vacation. It has been a whirlwind.

We had a wonderful Christmas day.

Zach totally got Christmas this year....well he got the "present" part of it a little too much.

We definitely need to emphasize Jesus more.

He woke up the last two days and would yell downstairs, "Is it Christmas morning?" He knew it was this morning and was up, like I said, at 4am. I went back and forth with him and he squirmed in our bed until almost 6am when Elissa woke up.

He was very thrilled when he saw that Santa had ate the cookies they had decorated.

Elissa was giddy and keeping track of who's turn it was to open the next gift.

We have somewhat of an obsession with coffee mugs (specifically Starbucks cups). I got the new purple stainless steel.  :-)

Zach has been saying since the beginning of school that he wants to be a Knight when he grows up. I have no idea where this came from, but he is consistent in saying that is what he is going to be - as well as a dad. So I got him a Knight costume.

Elissa asked for an iPod for Christmas. We weren't going to buy her one, but Darin had a Shuffle that he didn't use anymore.......so we cleared it and put her music on it and gave it to her for Christmas. :-)

She was completely thrilled!

I'm not sure if it was a good thing though.....it seems to have increased her attitude of being 6 going on 16.

Darin was very excited to get slot cars. He has been talking about getting them to play with the kids, but I have told him that Zach was too young for them. Then it came up on an Amazon lightning deal and I decided to surprise him and get it. He was surprised!

And here is me getting my awesome camera!

Nana decided not to stay Christmas Eve night with us this year so she could spend some more time with Latte (her cat) that was unhappy that she had left her for 2wks. So she came up bright an early to join us. She enjoyed opening a little bit of jewelry from us. :-)

Grandma and Papa came over in the afternoon. The kids were super excited to see them!

Lastly we Skypped with Grandpa Frink and Grandma Myrna.

Unfortunately the video connection wasn't very good, but they could see all that the kids were showing them (in slow-mo). The kids had to show them all the gifts that they got. :-)

We had the rest of the evening to ourselves.

Darin got the track up and running!

It was a great family day!

I Have Joined

The world of the DSLR!

Darin got me a Canon Rebel T2i for Christmas.

He has been wanting to get me a dslr for awhile, but I have been resisting because I didn't think I would have time to figure out how to use it. He told me it was time to step up! :-)

He knows I take a ton of pictures and that won't be stopping anytime. I love doing this blog and scrapbooking (the little I do these days) and he appreciates the results. :-)

I think I will go back to a picture a day in 2011.
Now to decide whether I do Project Life digital or paper.....

I know that I won't read the manuel, so I need to look into the classes at KITS.

Thank you Honey!

1 Day til Christmas

I ♥ these girls!



It has been a couple of years since we have been able to have our annual breakfast together before the New Year and this year we got to have it on Christmas Eve.....what a blessing!

I have been having Christmas breakfast with them for 13 years. I think they have done it a year or two longer. These days we look forward to it even more because we don't get to see each other as much.

It is hard to find friends who love you through the good and the bad (bad attitudes and all) and I'm fortunate enough to have found 3.

So blessed!

********

Christmas Eve with the Grandma, Grandpa & the Boyd's

Zach loved his "night fury" dragon with a 2ft wing span, noise and fire!

As you can see, Elissa was estatic to get "go go my walking pup". I'm not sure if anything else could top this present from Grandma & Papa.

The kids had so much fun playing together. They were all pretty good about letting each other play with their new gifts. They would play with something and then move on to the next new toy. It was pretty fun.

Holl ~ I love, love, love my necklace. Thank you!

Then we went home to decorate cookies for Santa and to check on where he is in the world. :-)

Go to bed kids so Santa can come and fill your stockings!

2 Days til Christmas

I'm so thankful for these ladies!

(photo taken by Tommy age 8)

You are a blessing!

I so enjoyed and was challenged by both of you in 2010.

I'm excited to see what adventures await us in 2011!

3 Days til Christmas......Day 14 Leaving Hawaii

It was a long, long day traveling back home.

We woke up to our last morning in Hawaii.

Sad to be leaving the sun,

but ready to get home with our family for Christmas,

our "normal" life and especially our own beds! :-)

Our plane wasn't leaving until 1:50pm, so we were able to longe around alittle. But really we just got to finishing our packing and cleaning up the rental. We were ready early, so we waved "aloha" to our house and went to breakfast. Then we did a little last minute trinket shopping until it was time to head to the airport.

Getting through the airport was a nightmare!

We didn't check-in online because we didn't have a printer, so we had to use their computers. It seems that they don't have people checking you in anymore and then I, of course, got a computer that was broken. Then they didn't even take your suitcases at that time. Before we checked-in they went through screening, then after check-in they had to be dragged over to TSA (with kids in-tow) and gave to them. Then we had to get in the security line. Elissa's medicine had to be checked and finally we were through, but oh not yet. Then we had to get in another line for an agricultural check before we got to our gate. It sounds easy typing it all out, but keeping 3 adults and 2 children all in the right place with our stuff was "challenging" to say the least.

Time to board the plane!

It was fitting that it was raining as we left. :-)

We are excited to be on our way!

Zach was out soon after taking off. He slept for half the flight next to Darin. Elissa watched a movie, wrote in her journal and colored......and climbed back and forth from me to Nana.

We got into San Francisco 20 minutes early, 8:40pm. We got a little dinner and waited to get on our next plane.  This flight I had Zach and, of course, he was up the entire flight because he has slept on the last flight. Elissa was out before take-off and her and Darin had a nice little snooze. I kept Zach busy trying to watch a movie, but really I just had to answer his questions for 2 hours. :-}

We landed around 1:30am.

We got our luggage and there was a taxi driver right there that was ready to take us, but he only had a town car. I asked if it had enough seatbelts and he said yes. He got all our luggage in and then - Nope! - not enough seatbelts. He wanted just to ride anyways. I don't think so!

We unloaded and found a van taxi. The guy was a CR-AAA-ZY driver. I was scared for our lives. And, oh yeah, my seatblet clip was completely mangled but I somehow got it clipped.

BUT we came home to a wonderful pine smell and this beautiful tree!

That can change anyone's mood!

Thank you so much Grandma and Papa for getting and decorating us a wonderful Christmas tree!

The kids were SO excited when they came in. Zach was for sure that it was Christmas right then. He wouldn't go to bed because he wanted to look at all the ornaments and find his.

We finally went to bed at 2:30am with sugar plums dancing in our heads.

4 Days til Christmas.......Day 13 in Hawaii

Our LAST full day in Hawaii.....

We, of course, spent it at the beach.

It didn't turn out to be the best weather.

It was never sunny. It was always cloudy.

And yes, it did rain on us at times.
BUT we had a great day anyways!

I don't usually let Elissa have bikini swimwear, but I did for Hawaii as a treat.
She was excited.
Our beautiful girl inside and out.

Darin spotted a whale just off in the distance. We saw that the catamaran that we went on yesterday was tracking it. Darin got this awesome picture of the whale breaching.

Cropped in pic of the whale.

There was a huge black cloud that kept on coming toward us. We felt the air get cold and eventually the rain followed. It was cold. I would have gone home, but I wanted the kids to have a full day at the beach so we just stuck it out.

Hang loose!

I love the feel of the sand at Hapuna. It is very fine and soft.

(I love that my pedicure lasted the whole trip!)

We got to Hapuna around 10:30am and left at 2:30pm.

It was a good day, even if the weather wasn't "perfect".

We went home and hung out for awhile and packed a bit until dinner.

We decided to go to The Beach House for our last night (which we did back in 2005 also). It has good food and a beautiful view on the water where we could watch the sun go down.

Our family shot at our Hawaii house.

Our family shot at sunset.

The sun had gone down and the kids were exploring after they were done with dinner.

Then when we got back to the house there was a group of people caroling down the road of Puako on the back of a truck. Fun!

I'm ready to go home and celebrate Christmas with our families.

Zach says he wants to go home everytime he is tired. He is definitely ready too. We are all looking forward to being in our own beds. :-)

It is so nice to be on vacation and it is nice to get back home.