My little Christmas

To make things feel a little more christmasey in my small abode I made a tree on my wall.

Its small, but its a tree. hehe I think it looks cute, almost kinda innocent. if that makes sense. And after a conversation with Rochelle I decided I also needed to make a countdown to Christmas.

Currently we are using this for two things, for a countdown for Christmas and our countdown to go to Utah! only a week to go! YAY!

For you Utahans see you soon!!

Santa Clause can fly

Tonight Harold and I went to the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Kapalua to go see the first of many tree lighting ceremonies. This one boasted 250,000 lights to be turned on by a special keiki (child). They had free hot chocolate (it was burnin hot, they weren't kidding!), coffee...which I almost drank cause I couldnt see, but my sniffer warned be before it got any further, and delicious fruit punch. and all the free sugar cookies your stomach could handle. When we arrived some children were putting on a hawaiian music show, it was cute. Then there was a guy who performed some songs for us, and he was really really good.

While sitting in the grass drinking my hot cocoa in the 70 degree weather while Christmas music played, it just didnt feel like Christmas...wheres the cold??? my brain thought... Christmas just doesn't feel like Christmas without the snow to me. So, Utah better be getting some snow for my return!!!

After the entertainment, they brought the special chosen child to come pull the switch and turn the lights on. Excitement was building as the countdown neared the magical 1-0 stage, and then the lights were turned on. Now...when I heard 250,000 lights...my brain imagined alot of lights lit up everywhere...but I was kinda dissapointed tonight. I mean, all the palm trees covered in lights up to the top of the trunk were cool...but just not as cool and as many as I thought... so that was kinda sad. However, that was the only let down of the night, Santa came and made it better.

After the lights were turned on, Harold and I started walking up the courtyard cause Santa was coming, and we wanted to leave before everyone else. But, they kept showing the spotlights in the sky to show Santa coming, so I wanted to stick around and see how santa arrived. All of a sudden you see these falling lights from the sky, SANTA JUMPED OUT OF A PLANE AND PARACHUTED DOWN TO THE BEACH, might I add that it is at night! It was pret-ty impressive, he had 3 reindeer elves go first and then he came down. We had heard a helecopter or plane above us but didn't think much of it, but...after it made sense. Everyone there was impressed with Santas arrival to the party. Who knew santa could fly without a sled? hahaha

Thanksgiving and Technology

Thanksgiving this year was very new, exciting, and different. Since we are all by ourselves out here and had nowhere to go for some good 'ol turkey dinner, and eating at a place was no option, I braved it and made the turkey dinner myself. Turkey and all! I was nervous as thanksgiving grew closer, but I was also very excited.

Thanksgiving started with Harold playing in the ward turkey bowl (football) game, while I made the pumpkin and banana cream pie. After the game I started on my turkey. While the turkey was cooking we had to scrabble around a little bit to try to find a way to watch some live football to watch while the turkey was cookin, I mean what is thanksgiving without a football game? Even if its in the background while cookin? Something is missing without it, However we were lucky enough to find this site that shows like all these sports online live. So we got the football and then the turkey was done. :) I was very happy with how it turned out! However, I was not happy that our camera decided to break at the very moment I really wanted to use it! grrr. So alas, i have no pictures of my very first delicious turkey dinner. I managed to cook the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, veggies, and 2 pies. The missionaries came over and joined us for dinner. It was nice to have some people over..and that way we didn't have soooo many leftovers, but i kinda felt bad for them. They had already eatin 2 thanksgiving dinners! a Tongan one and a Samoan. haha so I guess they musta wanted an American one I suppose. They are both from Utah, so it was kinda funny, we talked about things and places back home. kinda random how they are both from Utah and so are we.

Anywho, all and all i.t turned out very good and we were happy. We still missed being with our families, but it was really nice to have a warm thanksgiving, I wanted to go to the beach after dinner and soak up some sun, but it went down to fast, So instead we settled for a movie and let our stomachs slowly digest all the yummy food. hehe.

btw, anyone seen wall-e? I started watching it, and only made it through half of it cause the disc was too scratched and we couldn't watch the end.. but, I like it. it made me happy, but I found it interesting that there is hardly any clear words, but you can understand what they are saying because of the actions of the robots...very tricky. If you put captions on its like...what...they are saying all that?!? haha funny, but you should watch it! :D