December 2010

My, what a fun and busy month December has been for us!  Reality is a bummer to come back to – way too much responsibility and WAY too cold!  Here’s a little glimpse into our month.

We had a fun celebration at the beginning of December where we let the kids take sharpie markers and decorate the tiles in our kitchen counters before they were ripped out.  What fun!!  We were very excited to get rid of our ugly tile countertops and have beautiful granite counters installed along with a new beautiful tile backsplash.  What a difference!  The only bad part was having the installers find black mold behind the kitchen sink area when they ripped out the old counters, but Bryce came home from work and spent 12+ hours ripping out drywall, insulation and even some of the subfloor under the kitchen sink and getting it all put back together in time for the installers to come back the next day and get the granite in – whew!  We LOVE our new kitchen!

Megan and Devin had choir concerts (great as usual) and Megan also performed in her choir’s annual Madrigal feast.  It’s a week long fundraising event where each night the choir students dress as characters from medieval times, decorate the school cafeteria like an old castle, and perform while they serve a 5 course dinner.  We attended one night and had a blast!  Megan was our paige and we all enjoyed the dinner, singing, dancing, and play acting very much.  Autumn particularly enjoyed giving the Master of Salt a kiss on the cheek for a scoop of salt for her food.  Let’s just say that she ended up with quite a pile of salt on her plate! :)

Autumn’s highlight of the month (and the year, if you ask her) was performing as a mademoiselle in “The Nutcracker”.  We had such a great time watching her – she is definitely a natural on stage and is a beautiful dancer.  She didn’t even mind having to wear her hair in curlers 2 days in order to have the hairstyle required for her part.  She already wants to try out again next year and is keeping busy with her regular dance classes in the meantime.

On Dec 21st, we took off for Hawaii and spent the next 10 days in paradise!  I think we would all say that it was our favorite family vacation ever!  We stayed in a rental house on the North Shore of Oahu in the tiny (very non-touristed) town of Wa’ailua.  We spent at least part of every day but one (when we went to the Laie Temple, BYU-Hawaii campus and the Polynesian Cultural Center) at the beach and we never got bored of playing in the waves and enjoying the warm sunshine.  Some of our favorite things:

• Visiting the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor
• Snorkeling at Hanauma Bay – Devin especially enjoyed this!
• Getting tossed in the waves at Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay (Megan has quite the bruise on her hip from hitting the sand when one wave hit her)
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• Visting the Laie temple visitors center and Megan and Devin going with Bryce to do baptism for the dead

• Playing in the sand!

• Learning about different cultures at PCC (plus the luau was awesome!)
• Eating hawaiian shave ice – we tried to fit it in every day, but missed a few
• Playing at our local beach – we were often the only people there and saw several sea turtles.  The waves were great, too!
• Eating Christmas dinner OUTSIDE on our own lanai – beautiful!
• Swimming in a rather cold pool at the base of Waimea Falls
• Outrigger canoeing (my favorite) and for Megan, Devin and Bryce surfing at Waikiki Beach

• Waterbending.  For those of you familiar with Nickeloeon’s series “Avatar” – let’s just say Seth spent most of the vacation perfecting his technique!

Oh, and just for Tami – we thought we would include a family picture of what we think the beach should really look like. :)

And as Seth predicted, the only bad part of going to Hawaii is having to come home.

Of course, this is just a small sampling of our pictures and our adventures.  Maybe I will include more of them for our January blog – otherwise it will most likely say “We did nothing – and it’s cold!”  Hope you all had a great Christmas!