MY ANNIVERSARY GIFT TO DAN

Our February Getaway

Hey! I'm posting from almost sunny-but-a-little-overcast (but who cares, it's--) Hawaii! Dan and I have been here for 9 days now and can't wait to get back and see our kids, but oh we had a great time!!

So, here's what we left from, deicing the plane in Idaho Falls

And, landing in the tropics--the Honolulu airport (where else would you find a restroom sign like that?)

Highlights were the whale watch, snorkeling with turtles and lot of cool fish, swimming in a nice condo in Kona, visiting beautiful beaches:

morning walks in Mom and Dad's green neighborhood:

then eating a delicious breakfast on their very impressive and beautiful deck :

and of course playing cards, eating good stuff (a little too much crab, huh Dad?), watching movies, walking down to where the volcano is going into the ocean, and taking it EASY! Mom and Dad are such good hosts. She even made Dan homemade chicken noodle soup when he started getting a cold. We're glad to hear that Darin's family will be able to come enjoy it here. It's been wonderful. THANKS MOM and DAD!! WE LOVE YOU!

YOU are the Investigator!

YAY! PICTURES OF OUR ELDER FINALLY!

Austin and the infamous monkey. The kids loved this one!

Mom was so impressed--Christmas morning cinnamon rolls by Austin!

He says they were great! (sausages is our other tradition)

"chapel" in Pojuca

"Twas the morning before Christmas, and all through the house...

Not a faucet was dripping, not enough to douse."

And so we bought bottled water and had to take a shower.

Has anyone seen The Three Caballeros?

This is the one baptism they had in Pojuca. Antonio, who will be baptizing his little daughter (pictured) next month.


SO sad!! This is Aust waiting for 2 hours for our call to go through....

My Favorite Christmas Gift

Hope you all had a fabulous holiday! I got an extra sweet gift this year from Natalee and had to share so you could see. She spent hours in her room making this and I have been curious for a few weeks. Isn't it just so adorable? I've been wanting to collect nativity sets for a few years now and this is of course my favorite out of all of them, and probably will always be. I told her someday when I'm a great grandma I'll be getting this out to show her grandkids. :)

As an afterthought, she made this little matching ornament. It's like 2 inches high. So cute!

Here are some more closeups so you can see the details.
Anyway, I think she's a pretty darn good artist!

Another Merry Christmas, Bethlehem Style

This was at our really fun ward Christmas party. Redge was at the Christmas dance, darnit. The picture would have made a good one to send with cards. Although I already have most of them out.

Nice shorts Dan.

Even nicer knee Dan.

Thanks again for that authentic outfit Jer!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hey everyone! We hope you are all having a fabulous holiday season. I have been very slow on keeping up on this, mostly because my darn camera stopped uploading to this computer.... errgh! I will hopefully be able to figure it out soon, maybe after all the Christmas activities


Here's some silliness from last year's Christmas Eve festivities, our last year with all the kids here for who-knows-how-long! This is them singing the Grinch song (Fah who foraze... you know the one). They just started singing that out of the blue and I think it may be a new tradition...we'll see!


Merry Christmas to all!