The Beach

Oh! How I LOVE the beach!

Yesterday we went to the Lagoons early and stayed unitl lunch time. I thought the water would be cold. At least cool. But it wasn't. It was GLORIOUS!

The whole day was glorious! I'm really going to miss it here!!

Christmas At the Cloves

Merry Christmas!! And much love and aloha from us!! We hope you had a wonderful and very special day!!








Our Christmas Eve began with crazy kids asking if they could open a present. Over and over and over! : ) Even though I said, "Yes, but later," they still begged!! : )

In the evening we read the Nativity Story in Luke

and did a puppet show to go along with the story.... kind of. : )

And afterward we opened packages!

THANK YOU to all who sent us packages, cards, yummy treats and holiday wishes!!! You all are AWESOME!!! Thank you so much!!

Ashley especially loved these hair ties. : ) She made me do her hair like so. And Ava had me do her hair so many times I lost count. At one point she just laid her head in my lap while I did pony tails. She'd promptly pull them out and have me redo them over and over! : )

Christmas morning came quickly! And Santa had come!! James got up early and ended up putting Legos together while he waited for everyone else to get up!! He had memorized who all the presents were for but didn't touch any!! I was so proud!!

Opening presents was interesting.

James tore through all his, and then started on everyone else's!
Ashley opened and played, opened and played.
Ava didn't open anything even though we really tried to get her to. James and Ashley 'helped' her and she was content to play with her new things AND everyone else's too. : )

Yup that's us girls in our jammie splendor. Do we look intent and a little confused? We're trying to figure out how to put together Ava's ride. Toys can get tricky!

Mmmmmmmmmmmm... turkey! Brad and I cooked this bird together. : ) I totally missed the boat on how big I should've gotten it and I'm so glad he was there to put it in the bag, and in and out of the oven!! That puppy was heavy!!

We got this new game, Bananagrams and EVERYONE wanted to play too. Especially Ava. : )



All in all we had a wonderful holiday!! We hope you did too!!

What-Shall-We-Give?

When I was 11 I learned how to play the flute then I discovered the piccolo. I loved playing!! My teacher was an old family friend of both Brad and my parents'. His name was Mr. Holt and he made music one of the awesomest subjects. He was a member of the Church and also a great example day in and day out of all around goodness and fun --with a little stress mixed in. : )

This year our Stake (our church congregation and surrounding congregations) put on a Christmas devotional. We had a mini Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra-At-Temple-Square. --One of the conductors was also mentored by Mr. Holt!

So, each Saturday since before Thanksgiving I've been going to orchestra practice for 4 hours in the mornings. Even though I pretty much play at my 11 year old status, I've loved it!! Our concert was this past Sunday. It was great to be apart of a group creating music to lift the soul and celebrate the season!!

Here's a little clip of what we were supposed to sound like... kind of.... and it's one of my very FAVORITE Christmas songs we played. It's actually a "Mormon Message" and I love all of it!! Check it out!! --And listen for the flute/piccolo parts!! : )




Oh, and p.s. the man speaking is the Prophet and President of The Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints. You know how back in the day there were prophets like Moses, Isaiah, Abraham, Noah, Daniel, etc. Well, God still wants his children to have a prophet and this is him for our days. His name is Thomas S. Monson. : )


--Merry Christmas Eve to everyone!!!!! Much love from us!!!!

Walking Girls

While I was getting the gingerbread house picture off the camera I saw this one too from last Thursday (the last day of school until the end of January) and thought I'd post it. --Usually I try not to post pics of others but it's kind of hard cause almost everything we do we do with other people.

OK. So these are the girls!! I LOVE these girls!!! They are some of my dearest friends. Since getting back from Europe I decided I would be more european and start walking. So, every school morning and afternoon I would walk the kids to school and home. After I dropped them off in the morning I would go walk around our local park a few times. Each of the girls started walking too and we have such great times talking. It's awesome to see them everyday school day!! And I so LOVE them!!!

Gingerbread Houses

So since I'm trying to be on the ball with blogging. I thought I'd up load tonght's pic. The kids worked on Gingerbread houses. Because I'm a bad mom I told them I'd only squeeze frosting where they directed me to squeeze it and they were incharge of engineering their buildings. Check out Ashley's she has old-style buttresses although I'm sure she has no idea what buttress means!! : ) Even though it was hard and we ended up getting some cups to hold up the girls' houses, they were REALLY proud of their accomplishments. And so was I!!

Batch of Bakers

Baking at it's best at our house!! : ) Brad and the kids are making cinnamon buns. I love, love, love Brad's ...cinnamon buns. --He just read the post and is all for taking this picture off. Lately he's been creating all sorts of holiday treats!! I really love it when Brad bakes!! : )

So, back blogging and the blog book is still the goal ... but for now it's still a work in progress. : )

Neuschwanstein

P.S. This picture is a picture of a postcard by "KulturGut AG, Bayerishe Scholsserverwaltung"

Neuschwanstein is an incredible castle built by King Ludwig II in Southern Germany. It's perched on the side of a mountain with goregeous views of nearby lakes and towns. -The Disneyland castle and castle from Sleeping Beauty are patterned after Neuschwanstein. It's quite the place!

Our journey started on a mini "Deception Pass" bridge - pictured in the back of our family shot. The castle and the lake below it are iconic in our history.


From the bridge you can see the side of the castle (well kindof; it was having some work done) and miles of beautiful country in the distance!


Bless the random willing picture takers of the world!! Without them we wouldn't have any family pics!!

From the bridge we took a downhill hike down toward the castle.

On the way we stopped to go... star gazing. : ) And stuff. From the path you can see King Ludwig's dad's place "across the street on the other hill." Later we would go hang out on the lake by Ashley's head.

The king's pop's place: Hohenschwangau (pic taken from down below).

The path from the bridge was so green, cool and crisp!

The corner of the castle looks like the biggest chess piece on the planet!!

The furnishings, tapestries, paintings and woodwork inside Neuschwanstein were so old and delicate that we couldn't take any pictures of the inside. We could take pictures of stuff out the windows, though.

It was a very educational tour! The rooms inside have themes around classic stories. King Ludwig's room was painted with incredible works from "Tristan and Isolde". He loved the composer Wagner and had a huge... recital hall. Ashley wanted to know if it was for dancing. It was so wide and the wooden floor was so beautiful and perfect for dancing, she started doing twirls at the back of the tour group. : ) (The acoustics in the room were made to carry sound and Ava capitalized on it by yelling and shouting! We were totally happy to stay as far back in the tour group as possible!!)


After the tour we headed down the mountain on a horse drawn carriage. The kids, especially Ava, thought the horses and ride were great!