Christmas time

 
Well, we made it. Another Christmas has come and gone, and we not only survived, we had a great time. We have celebrated the last 2 Christmases on a sunny beach in Hawaii, but fearing a Grandma mutiny, we decided to stay in snowy AK this year. It was nice to have a white Christmas with all the family, even though the kids admitted they would rather be laying on a beach after opening their presents. Here is how it all went down. We decided to head to Anchorage this year instead of having everyone and their dogs come down (our family just keeps getting bigger), so we celebrated Christmas Eve at home with just our family by eating a wonderful steak and King Crab dinner! It was awesome. Aaron cooked while I worked on making some Christmas treasure boxes (I got the idea from Oprah). The kids have expensive taste like their mother and loved the crab. After dinner we had yummy banana splits complete with caramel, Nutella chocolate, whipped cream, nuts and a cherry on top.

  

 

Here is Brady enjoying his delicious crab and Jolee devouring her corn on the cob. Don't you wish you had some of our banana splits?

Now on to the important stuff...the presents. The kids obeyed their mother and did not come out of their rooms until 8:00 a.m. Jolee was still asleep so the kids practiced their patience and waited until she woke up at 9:00 a.m. to tear into their stockings.  Am I a mean mom or what?

 

Check out Chloee and her stocking loot. The highlight was definitely the Cold Stone gift card.

 

Jaron loved the Wall-E blanket I made him.

 

Brady's big gift was a guitar. He has been wanting to take lessons for about 6 months now and he is really talented musically, so we thought he could give it a shot. Rock on little buddy!! Maybe he will be rich and famous someday.

 Jolee loved her Curious George Jack-in the-box. I think the other kids loved it just as much. The sat forever just winding and popping George up for Jolee to squeal at.

 We got Jaron this wrestling mask in Mexico. We walked past a vendor and saw this and said "That's Jaron!" He loved it!! He immediately ran into his room and grabbed his hulk gloves he got for his birthday and started the gun show! He is too funny.

 Do you see the look of shock and awe on her face? Isn't that what every parent wants for Christmas? Yes, we are cool parents and broke down and got Haylee a new Ipod. Now don't go think she is spoiled (well, she is) but we made her make do with my old Ipod with only 4 gig memory for the past year. She used it every day, all day long (except when in school of course). She LOVES her Ipod. She loves to put audio books on it and eventually the 4 gigs just wasn't cutting it. We upgraded her to a new, blue 16 gig nano. If it sounds like I am speaking a foreign language, I don't understand it either, but she was really happy with what we got her. The plus side is that Brady inherited her old Ipod which he is thrilled with. I don't know what we did to ourselves because we now have 2 kids with headphones stuck in their ears.

 

We headed up to my parents house Christmas day for dinner and presents. The boys loved their laser tag guns my parents got them. And the Wii Rockband II will be a huge hit from Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Ron.

 Chloee's favorite gift is her new digital camera. She is always trying to take our camera and sneak pictures on it, so this is a perfect gift for her. She has already taken over 150 pictures!

 

Haylee has her hands full of baby girls. She told me she loves them until they turn 2. Jolee and Abbi, you have 4 months left! Baby Kennedy will still be on the favorite list for a while longer. Grandma Lynn is showing off her blanket made with love by me.

 

Here are some cute pics of our little girls sharing some Christmas joy. We hope you all enjoyed time with your families celebrating our most priceless gift of all, the birth of our Savior. May His love be felt in your life all year long. Melekalikimaka everyone!! (That's Hawaiian for Merry Christmas in case you didn't know)

The Reason for the Season

Merry Christmas everyone. I wanted to share with you all a beautiful slideshow that captures our Savior and his love for us so beautifully. This time of year can get crazy and very stressful, but I pray that you and yours will feel the love of Christ not only during the Christmas season, but everyday of the coming year. I love you all, and Merry Christmas!

Reflections of Christ

Mexican get-away

    
Now that we have been home for about 3 weeks, I am finally getting around to posting about our Mexican vacation. It has been years since Aaron and I took a vacation without the kids, so we decided it was time. Our good friends, the Hansens, were able to go with us and we had a blast. These pics are hard for me to download and narrate around them, so instead of chronological order, you get a disjointed view of our trip. Oh well. 

We arrived in Puerto Vallarta on a Sunday morning, and we were pooped after traveling all night. But after seeing our amazing condo and feeling the glorious 80 degree weather, we were ready to go. One of our methods of travel other than taxis, was the fine public transportation system. Talk about culture shock!! I think I did pretty well for a girl who gets car sick when I bend down to get something from the floor in the car. With no AC, incredibly crowded conditions, and bus drivers who lit up cigarettes whenever they felt like it, I was ready to admit that I was a spoiled American and go back to taxis. Here I am on the way to the big city. This was after about half of the bus had been unloaded. At one point, there were people literally hanging out the door. I was glad to get off that bus!

These are some pics of us at the flea market in Puerto Vallarta. I never did get the hang of haggling with the vendors. I know, I am a sucker. But after seeing that all the vendors had the same "hand crafted" crap, it became a little easier to walk away.

    

The sunset on the boardwalk was gorgeous. We were able to get some great pics. Don't you love our cool hats we just had to have. I think Becky got them down to around ten bucks each.

  
 

The boys decided to show their monkey skills when we came across this amazing tree in the middle of the market. 
 

 

Here we are enjoying yet more virgin drinks at a favorite locals place we heard about called "Pipi's". There slogan was "don't drink the water, drink the margaritas." They were so good!
 

Here is Aaron showing off his surfing skills at a great beach we went to. Instead of surfing, I worked on my suntan and watched Aaron, Becky, and Miles get their fair share of water up the nose.

  

Aaron took a few surfing breaks long enough to relax on the beach with me.

    

We decided to take a day and go on an hour long boat ride across the bay to a small seaside village called Gullapa. The bumpy boat ride was worth it, and actually very similar to riding the waves in Seward in our boat, except for the 80 degree difference, the tropical warm water, and the fact that I was wearing a swimsuit instead of a weatherproof parka. We enjoyed some snorkeling, a hike to a beautiful waterfall, and Aaron even got a little fishing in. He managed to catch a bait fish called a Chora. We were all entertained as he hauled that whopper in.

  

Here we are at the top of the waterfall. Of course no Mexican adventure would be complete without haggling with vendors. Even in this remote village, we had plenty of options to spend our pesos on. One vendor that was actually really amazing was a hilarious guy that made beautiful rosewood, hand carved necklaces. Not only were they gorgeous, he offered a shot of tequila with every purchase! Here I am holding a "Mexican mirror" up for Becky to check out her new purchase. I was glad I didn't cut myself on it.

 

 

We spent Saturday in a town named Salulitas. It was a very cute and artsy town with a beautiful beach. There was also a secluded little flower garden that I enjoyed walking through. We ate lunch at a highly recommended place called "Chilly Willies". It was literally a tarp covered hole in the wall, but Willie's wife was the cook and we were happy to support a local family business. We ate lunch with the roosters as they pecked up our scraps. After some beach combing, we ate dinner at a nice restaurant were we ordered 4 drinks, 4 appetizers, 4 entrees, and one dessert. That was pretty much par for the course on our trip, but hey, that's what vacations are for.

 

In Mexico, instead of having Hostess snacks, they have the "Bimbo" snacks. Of course, Bimbo in Mexico does not mean the same thing as it does in the USA, but Becky and I wanted to get our bimbo shots alongside one of the trucks. Aren't we sexy??

Here we are with a kind of creepy, but very talented street performer in Puerto Vallarta. He would come alive when you put money in his jar. We think he was covered in mud, but we are not sure. He was great.
  
  
  
These are some scenic views of our trip. We woke up to a group of pelicans every morning, just hanging out on the rocks outside our condo. The night pics were taken from our condo balcony, we had an amazing view. I hope you made it through this incredibly long post, but it was hard to squeeze a week's worth of adventure into one post.  Thanks to Grandmas and Grandpas for holding down the fort while we enjoyed much needed time away! I just want to know when the next trip is?? (It's like 5 degrees out right now).

Baby Kennedy's blessing day

 
 

 
 

 
 
Here are some pics from Kennedy's blessing day. After we got back to Bobbi's, Aaron and I did an impromptu photo shoot with little time and backgrounds, but it was fun. So excited to have another kid in the mix!