Christmas Festivities

Christmas Eve was spent with at the annual family party at the Master's home. Nate and Josh's families spent their evenings with their spouses families.

Christmas morning we were blessed to have everyone here (except to Josh and Hayley who were in Utah with her family). This is the traditional "family on the stairs" photo. If the family continues to grow at this rate, we are going to need to move to a house with a bigger staircase or enlarge this one.

The hat was alittle too small!They had fun opening the gifts. Grandma loves Christmas and went crazy with the grandchildren.

Jarrod admiring his Hawaiian knife.

Bella enjoyed Christmas is seems.
Such a beautiful grandma.
Four lovely ladies.
The family. We've grown in the last 12 months. (click here to see last year)

It was a great holiday as a family!

The Grandchildren

One of the many blessing the holiday season brings is Grandchildren. It has been such a joy (even with the crying) to have the grandchildren here. Oh yes, it's a joy to have the children here too. Josh and Hayley will be here from her parents the day after Christmas.

Bella just chilling on the couch.
Kate playing in the sandbox set.

The dad's holding their kids.
Grandma has had a great time holding and bonding with them.
Even Bella and Tyler bonded as they held hands on a blanket.
It's been a family tradition to give homemade strawberry jam with rolls as gifts. This year everyone helped. Many hands made it happen much faster and was fun to be together.
Even Kate helped - though we're not sure what she was doing except holding and moving jars in and out of thebox. But we all helped and had fun.

It's been a wonderful time. Hard to image how this could be as we aren't old enough to have grandchildre - or at least don't feel that old. But wouldn't want it any other way. The kids are doing a great job raising fantastic kids! We are proud of them.

Ginger Bread Tradition

We have an annual tradition of building a ginger bread house. This year we were blessed to have Nathan and his family with us. It was easier this year to buy the house premade at Costco. We just decorate - which is the main fun, being creative and eating candy!

These are the creative masters at work.

Kate didn't do much decorating but she sure enoyed the candy!

Jarrod did some decorating, but you can see he also enjoyed the candy (or at least the frosting).

This the true meaning of the ginger bread house - bonding love of family. The house is cute but they are beautiful.

Jarrod had a Grinder Bread House party with Kristy and his school friends. They also had a good time.

This was the the "Dump" house. The literally dumped or poured the frosting and candy on the house.

The "Dump" house workers sabotaged this house. You can see a few pictures earlier it has a nice sidewalk in the front.

Josh/Hayley Graduation

Josh and Hayley had their graduation ceremony for BYU Hawaii on Saturday the 13th. Sue and Rick flew out on Thursday. We knew it was going to be an interesting event from the beginning. We were barely on the shuttle bus from the airport parking to the terminal when Sue remembered she left her phone in the car. Fortunately, we arrived early enough to check our bags in and then catch the bus back to the car for the phone. The flight was uneventful though slightly bumpy from the stormy weather. When we landed in Honolulu, it was pouring rain. It rained most the day. Josh and Kayley were planning to meet us at the airport. Unfortunately, the heavy rains all night caused a flood in the apartments. They were up early in the rain filling sandbags to help their neighbors. Their apartment was on the 2nd floor so they were ok. The first floor got several inches of water. (Pictures later in blog).

This photo was at our condo rental at Turtle Bay.

We got up Friday morning the took a walk on the beach. We walked to east from Turtle Bay to the north most point of Oahu. We enjoyed the sunshine (though hazy) while it lasted.

While Josh and Hayley did their commencement rehearsal and finished some paperwork, we went the temple grounds and visitor center.

On Friday afternoon, all of went to Waikiki. We ate lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise. Interesting lunch. The food was good but service lacking. It's an open air restaurant. Maybe the locals don't mind the birds wandering freely in the restaurant. We didn't mind when they were on the floor. I was disturbing to see them on the tables once people left the table. It brought new meaning to the etiquette of keeping your elbows off the table. From lunch we shopped at the International Market. Sue enjoyed it. Rick would rather have had bamboo under the finger nails.

The return trip from Waikiki was an event. Honolulu is on the south of the island. Laie (BYU) is on the north side. There are only 2 roads between them. One on the east and one on the west of a mountain range. We were returning in the heavy rain on the east (Windward side) at about 8pm when traffic stopped about 4-5 miles from their apartment. We didn't move much except when cars would leave the line and turn around. It was at least 2 hours to go around the mountain. A power pole had broken and was in the road. After 2 hours, Josh and Rick hiked around the incident and were able to catch a ride with some other students back to the apartment. They brought their 5 passenger little Chevy back to the north side of the power poles. Sue, Hayley and her parents parked the rental cars in a grocery parking. We carried the suitcases around the poles to where Josh was waiting with the car. Five adults in the little car was like the 1950's where they had contests to see how many people could fit in a VW bug. We went back for the cars after the graduation ceremony. Definitely, an night to remember. (cilck on image to enlarge)

The graduation ceremony featured Elder Henry Eyring as the keynote speaker. He delivered an excellent talk on the continually learning.

Just as Josh was shaking hands with Elder Eyring, a row of graduates stood up to move to the line and blocked the shot.

I was more successful with Hayley's photo with Elder Eyring, though from a distance.

It was overcast but no significant rain. It began to sprinkle a bit but barely enough to need an umbrella. Very proud parents. Both were Cum Laude.

We went to a Thai restaurant called Haleiwa Eats in Haleiwa. The Basil chicken and coconut rice was great. The Tofu salad had a great dressing. It rained in buckets while we were eating.

After dinner we go some shaved ice with Josh and Hayley's favorite design. Shaved ice (we choose Pineapple, Guava and Coconut flavors) with ice cream on the bottom and condensed milk on top. They were right, it was very good.

This was taken Sunday morning. These are the sandbags in front of the downstairs apartments. In the top photo, the window is still in place. Most units removed the windows so the could get in and out of their apartments since the doors were blocked. The local churches were opened for those who didn't want to sleep in their apartments. Such a mess.

As we left for the airport, the Windward side was beautiful with deep blue skys. Had we gone their for a vacation, it might have been disappointing with the all the rain. But we were there to be with Josh and Hayley during a special time. It was special for us to be there. We arrived home on Sunday night at 10:30 to find Jarrod alive and were at work Monday morning. We had a great time.