Merry Christmas!

We are truly grateful this Christmas season for our families, good friends, health, employment and the gospel of Jesus Christ. We hope your Christmas if full of peace, love, family, and thoughts of our precious Savior.

Hawaii!

We were in Hawaii for two glorious weeks. Mike's job has an office in Honolulu so he worked the first week and played the second week. Nico and I played the whole two weeks :). The trip to Hawaii was okay. Nico slept for exactly 60 minutes and then was awake the rest of the time squirming around and just begin restless in general. We were all thrilled to finally land and get out of the plane.

Our good Friends Sheila and Keoni let us crash in their brand new home for the first week. Our first night in their house was their first night too! Talk about generous hosts! While we were there we went to the Honolulu zoo, walked down the street to the beach, lounged at Turtle Bay, went to the petting zoo, ate at Haleiwa Joe's where Keoni had the BIGGEST piece of prime rib I had ever seen, it looked like caveman meat it was so huge! We saw Christmas lights in town, ate malasadas, mochi, coco puffs, giant burgers, and lots more. Nico loved running around on the grass, playing with Kailani, stealing toys from and climbing on Makana. And she Loved Shelia, she instantly took to her, no crying or fussing when she held her, which for those of you know Nico know that is pretty special. It was so good to see our friends!

Our second week in Hawaii we stayed with our friends Stephanie and Thomas, and this time we displaced their two darling boys by taking over their room. Thanks Asher and Ambrose! While at the Robertson's we went to the Bishop museum and commanded the elements, wrestled with a giant squid, ate kalua pork, more malasadas, surf tacos, lots of candy, all of the Robertson's Christmas treats brought over by their neighbors. We played on playgrounds, wen to the temple visitor's center, stayed up late into the night talking and laughing, hiked to the Makapuu lighthouse, swam, played in the sand, ate the sand (Nico), got Ted's bakery, went to the Billabong triple crown surf competition, gathered our courage to see Miss JGR herself (thanks Steph for helping me not be scared), and graduated from college (me!). Nico also really liked Stephanie, she must have a thing for brunettes.

We had an excellent time and when we it was time to go we felt very home sick for Hawaii and our dear friends who live there. Apparently we were okay house guests because we've been extended open invitations to come back and visit whenever, to which we are very grateful and will definitely do in the future. I wish we could figure out some way of getting those islands closer to California.

And now for the barrage of pictures and maybe a video or two.

Laie Temple

Abby road

Sister wives

I stole those last pictures off Stephanie's blog, thanks Thomas for taking them.

Makapuu lighthouse hike/lookout.

Now for the phone pictures.

On our way to the Oakland airport. It was something like 35 degrees in San Francisco when we left.

Sleeping babies, just the way we like them.

I had two of these hamburgers while we were there. Those sweet potato fries were wonderful.

This is a coco puff, a cream puff with chocolate pudding inside and Chantilly cream on top. They sell between 4 and 7 THOUSAND of these a day at this small bakery. Thanks for introducing us Sheila.

Nico juicing a star fruit.

MALADADAS!!!

Attack if the giant squid at the Bishop museum.

This gal's suit was killing me. At the triple crown.

The sad remains of Keoni's prime rib. It was as tender as butter.