Flora O'Hawaii

Christmas in Hawaii was beautiful.  I had forgotten how lovely it is there and how very Scotland/Northern England Waimea looks with it's emerald green pastures and rolling hills.  It had been six years since our last visit.  We had such a good time.  We did so much, ate so much, visited, played games, and had a great time.  We took about a million pictures and I really need to blog before I get too far behind, but I am drowning in things I need to do (like finding a home for all the new toys, 20 loads of laundry, catching up on my church calling, etc.) so blogging about all of it feels a little overwhelming right now.  I will try to post some of our goings on tomorrow or later this week.  But for now just enjoy some of the Hawaiia vegetation that I clearly enjoyed, as evidenced by the large number of plant pictures I took.  

Checking In

We are having a great time. We got off to a rocky start and all arrived infected with strep. Fortunately, after spending $400 at the Waimea urgent care, Dr. Ahloy hooked us up with free strep tests and prescriptions. He used to always make us speak in church when we came to visit, which we didn't love, but now he is forgiven. I would even give a talk if he were to ask. We had a beach day Monday (Waialea), zoo and Akaka Falls yesterday, and beach (Mauna Kea) today. Today the kids refused to leave the beach. We were there for over five hours. They got very comfortable with the water, boogie boarding, swimming, body surfing, diving/jumping waves, and had a fantastic time. After four hours I asked Anders if he was ready to go home and he replied, "No way, not even close." Clara fell asleep when I was holding her in the water and had a long nap on the beach. Good times!

Packing it In

We are leaving soon, and it seems like we have had things going on EVERY night.  My house is a mess, and everything feels pretty chaotic.  I very well may be on the verge of a nervous break down.  In fact on Wednesday, eyewitnesses from age one to nine will attest that there was a lot of stressed out yelling going on.  But we have been able to pack in some fun stuff too.

On Monday we went with my parents and KatyKathryn up to Old Deseret for the Christmas Candlelight tour.  It was very fun and the newly fallen snow was beautiful.  There were crafts and puppet shows and dancing and Father Christmas.  I highly recommend it to you to help get you in the Christmas mood:

warming up by one of the many fires:

enjoying the cute puppet show:

A Virginia reel in the old schoolhouse.  

waiting for the train:

on the train in front of Brigham Young's farmhouse 

where they had free wasail and Father Christmas.

Lucy has been in an after-school theatre class for a few months and on Tuesday we enjoyed the performance.  She did a very good job and it was a cute fun play about folk tales from around the world. (Just a note for anyone who read Jennette's post about mommy guilt and talents:  I love school extra curricular activites.  Free, well done, and lots of people to carpool with.)We had a good time:

Lucy and her best friend:

Now...on to the feat of strength.  Getting ready to take 4 kids on a long flight by myself....

I Want Candy

A couple days ago I made some homemade candy to take to a dinner, but the kids were too helpful, and the peppermint bark was ick. I wanted to try again, so on Saturday, Court and Todd came over and we made all sorts of goodies:  Fudge, Toffee, Peppermint Bark, and Truffles.  Yum.  But I think we needed some non-chocolate goodies. Gingerbread cookies would have been the thing, I think.  It wouldn't be Christmas without too much good tasting bad for you goodies, would it?

For the truffles and bark recipe go here (I changed the bark by adding a layer of dark chocolate).

For the toffee go here.

In Search of Snow

Last Saturday we set out for a winter adventure.  There was no snow in the valley but we assumed the canyon would be plenty snowy.  In fact we had to drive clear up the tippy top of Big Cottonwood to find any snow, and the snow was crusted over from rain.  But it was fun and in the end we found enough to take advantage of.

The adventure begins (I love how I told Clara to lean in and so she leaned out):

We strapped on our snowshoes:

Our Fam in the Snowy Woods:

Then we headed up a hill:

It was quite a climb:

 But Tucker made it:

Followed by Rob and Lu (Rob's fancy snowshoes give you a feeling for 

pitch of the slope.  It was a good workout):

Coming down was much easier and funner:

Clara wanted in on the action:

Todd, Court, and Lu admired the frozen over lake:

Todd admired it so much he decided to climb on:

It was so fun and it was BEAUTIFUL.  I love the mountains in every season: