Christmas in Paradise

CHRISTMAS DAY IN HAWAII!

Nala was less than excited about the big day... too much excitement through the night.

Dave was almost as excited as Nala!

I guess I overcompensated for everyone's lack of excitement. I also straightened my hair! ...which will be the last time I do that in Hawaii, lol. It didn't last long. :(

The view from our apartment Christmas morning

The view as we drove to the Reukert's house. Yup -- that's a rainbow.

We ended up having an awesome time with our friends. We made, for the first time, my favorite dessert -- pavlova! It didn't turn out asthetically, but that didn't effect the taste. It was delicious! We're definitely making it again. Dave made yams for the first time, lol... which were more "candied" than yams. :) We also marinated our ham in root beer for a couple days before(thanks for the inspiration, Grandpa!) , and that turned out excellent as well. After eating, we tried a couple new games we got for Christmas: Pictionary Man, and a new Wii game for our friends (Outdoor Adventure, I think?). Despite my humiliating failure to depict "Super Freak," I thought Pictionary Man was fun. The Wii game was cool, too, and Dave and Rusty got a wonderful workout at the same time!

All in all, it turned out to be a really good day!

Last Laie Temple Trip

Our Temple has closed down for about a year and a half for updates. This was our last visit. I LOVED these pictures!

These flowers were gorgeous -- and gigantic! They're bigger than my hand!

This is a nativity scene they had on the temple grounds.


I loved this shot. It made me think how it all started with a family.

Someone was ENTHRALLED to have his picture taken.

In the Visitors' Center

I had to change the camera settings so the flash wouldn't interfere, but it took longer to take the picture, so it looks like I was shaking out of control, but I wasn't. It didn't turn out perfect, but you get the idea of what I was trying to get a shot of.

Such a realistic perspective.

So, funny story: I was driving to the temple, and we were rushing to make the 6:00 session. I had started to drive through this parking lot, when Dave told me to just throw it in Reverse, and park in a spot behind me. I did, and we ran to the temple. (We didn't make the session, so we walked around and took pictures while we waited for the next one.) Anyway, when we walked back to the car, we saw just how good my parking job was. Whoops! Fortunately, I didn't get a ticket... probably because it was at the temple, lol. Thank you, Heavenly Father!

Pre-Christmas

Sorry! I know it's been forever since we've updated this thing. A lot seems to have unfolded, so I'll do my best to bring you up to speed.

When our friends (the Garcias) went to the mainland for Christmas, we took care of their cat, kind of as a test drive. One day -- when a mouse ran across my foot -- I decided that I might want a cat. After the first day with Nala, we changed our minds. :) We actually moved close to the Garcias, and Nala comes and hangs out in our house sometimes. Now that I don't feel responsible for her life, and that she can roam around outside again, she's actually a lot of fun. We're still dog people, though, through and through.

She loved sleeping on our washer and dryer.

This was our ward Christmas party! I took several fun videos, but I'm having trouble uploading them to the blog. Suffice it to say, it was quite the party, with the grown-up's causing most of the trouble, and doing all the rug-cutting. The man in front here is our bishop, coincidentally a celebrity extra from "Footloose."