We had such a wonderful Christmas with our family!
It's not white, it's not traditional, but it's our tradition and we love it!

Reading Christmas books on Christmas Eve.

Crew's stocking - I did not do a good job getting pictures of everything, oh well.

He LOVES his new big wheel bike from Santa!

Caden got a sweet new skimboard, skateboard, DS and a bunch of fun toys and candy.

Chase got all his own scuba diving stuff. He was so pumped. He has already been a couple times with Geoff.

All the cousins

Christmas Breakfast - notice Chase was already pumped to go diving!

Caden is super good on a skimboard!

Diving at Makena Landing - a perfect beginners beach dive.

Waiting for daddy and Chase to get done with their dive. I just love Maui - so many gorgeous spots.

What a beautiful day for them! Well worth the quick trip home.

We love you both and are so excited to have a new sister/aunt!



I had so many cute pictures but had trouble posting them. So these few will just have to do for now!

Pipeline

We took a ferry over to Oahu for a few days to see the Pipeline Masters. The first day it stormed so hard the whole island was flooded! We tried to come back to Maui early but all feeries were cancelled! We were so bummed because the Pipeline was cancelled for the day and the Polynesian Cultural Center was closed due to heavy rain. We couldn't even go shopping downtown! But the next day made it all worth it. We got up early to blue skies and the competition was back on! We picked the absolute perfect spot on the beach, right in front of where the surfers entered the water and right in front of the actual surf break. Everyone was sprawled out on about a quarter mile stretch of beach so our choice of seats was really lucky!
Kelly Slater was SO awesome! I can't believe that he still totally dominates after so many years! We LOVED watching him!

This is Chris Ward. He ended up 2nd in the competition and was awesome.

Two guys catching the same wave. All the surfers were amazing!

Kelly Slater getting ready for another heat.

Kelly catching another tube. He scored a perfect 10!

Kelly Slater and my boys! I was amazed that we could just walk up to him and ask for a picture. He was SO cool!
We had to leave during the semis to catch our ferry back to Maui. Kelly ended up winning the competition and ending the year ranked #1! We are SO going back next year!

Thanksgiving

We had an absolutely fabulous Thanksgiving. We started the day with a gorgeous paddleboard/snorkeling adventure. We paddled down the coast to Makena Landing (a famous snorkel spot). Crew was on my board, Caden was on Geoffs, and Chase paddled his own board. The round trip excursion was about 5 miles and took over 3 hours. I was so proud of Chase. I was absolutely exhausted at the end but CHase kept up the entire ride!

We stopped a couple times along the way for the boys to snorkel. It was so cool! We saw SO many sea turtles.
Everyone was excited when we finally reached land. We played for a little while on the beach and had a picnic.
That night we went out to dinner with my mom. I love having her here. She is such a help with the boys.

Aloha Again!

We will miss you all! Have a wonderful holiday season. See you in a couple months!

Twilight

Last year, when we went to Cabo with Shannon and Cory I finally had the time to read again. Shannon had been bugging me for a year to start the Twilight series so I finally did. I was skeptical about reading a book about vampires but I love it! I read the first 3 books in just 3 days. I couldn't put them down. I eagerly awaited the release of book 4 and read it in less than a week. I have been SO excited for the movie to come out. So I dragged myself out of the house late last night to catch the midnight showing of the movie. I had been throwing up since 3 the night before but I just couldn't miss the movie! 
Some of us bought T shirts before the movie. I am SO team Edward! In the movie, Edward is just ok, but Bella is great! I thought the movie was pretty good. The scenery and locations were exactly as I had pictured but most of the vampires failed to live up to the images I had created in my mind. The movies are never quite as good as the books, right? I hope the cast's chemistry grows as they make more movies together. I still can't wait to buy this on DVD and I will be first in line when the next one comes out!

Early Christmas

Yes, I know we are crazy. Yes, I know it is not even Thanksgiving yet. But, nonetheless, we had an early Christmas this morning. Reason being, we leave for Hawaii in a week and we'll be there for almost 2 months! We gave the kids all their presents from us today and they were so excited.

We started the morning with Christmas Dutch Babies

Then upstairs for the presents!

Crew was SO excited for his Elmo Live!

But the best presents were outside. They all got some sort of motorized vehicle with personalized decals.

Merry Early Christmas!

Gingerbread Festival

This year, the gingerbread festival wasn't as cool as years past, but it was still fun! There weren't nearly as many large creations - here are the best:

Grand Victorian

World Monuments

Under the Sea

Hawaiian Christmas (we had to get a photo of this one!)

Some of the kids with Mrs. Candy Cane

The favorite part: making gingerbread houses

Chase

Caden and Dub (Dub's first gingerbread house ever - he was very excited)Caden's

Hayes, Olivia, and CrewHayes, Olivia's, and Crew's after about 3 minutes!

The best part about making gingerbread houses - Eating them!

(for those of us NOT on a low-carb diet!)They also had a Jr High playing big band music, which was fun for the kids to boogie to after they were sufficiently high from sugar! The festival is at Thanksgiving Point and all proceeds go to the Boy Scouts and Utah PTA - for anyone who is interested!