Our Christmas Surprise

So our Odyssey dealt us a little surprise in December. While spending time with family in PA between Christmas and New Years...it died. Merry Christmas. Luckily with some help from my uncle we got a good deal on a new set of wheels:

Behold...our 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan. (okay so this isn't exactly a picture of OUR vehicle but it looks the same.)

Happy New Year!

Although we spend the evening at home to ring in 2010, there was lots of fun to be had. We spent hours playing games and eating fondue. The kids also made some nifty glasses to wear as they watched the ball drop. Anna collapsed around 10pm followed closely by Lexi. Kassie made it until 11:59 but we didn't realize she was sleeping until Mitchell went screamed "Happy New Year...I'm going to bed." Luckily we have DVR so we took it back a few minutes so that she could see the ball drop and follow him up the stairs.

Family Photos

So I managed to get a lot of Christmas cards out this year but just in case I missed you...I'm sorry. Here is our Christmas 2009 family photo.


Amazingly, the kids all cooperated and I got a pretty nice shot of them together.

Christmas 2009

Christmas isn't a day. It's the whole season. Maybe in the future I'll be better about posting in smaller segments but this year. It's one monstrous post with all the fun rolled into one. Starting with the ward Christmas party. Santa was wonderful! I think it was his first go at it on the ward level and he was clearly enjoying it as much as the kids were.


As usual, we decorated our family gingerbread house. This year I put a new spin on things. Instead of struggling with the dough trying to get it cut into shapes and transferred to the pan for baking, I rolled it out onto a huge baking sheet and cut out the pieces after they were baked but while still hot. SO MUCH EASIER! (I know most of you already knew that but it was a great realization for me.) I found a new, much tastier recipe too so the gingerbread actually got eaten in addition to all of the candy. Fun to make, fun to eat!



I made some yummy cookies and candy this year too. Fun and really yummy. We got to eat more of it than intended since I made treats for all of the teachers and bus drivers but decided that they might not be as delectable when the kids went back to school on January 4th. The large box is part of the gift I gave to Dr. Jim. (I do book keeping for his office.) In all, we got to eat (and share) Oatmeal Fancies, PB cookies, Oreo Truffles, M&M candies, PB balls, & cinnamon rolls.

Christmas finally rolled around. We spent a great Christmas Eve afternoon with Nana and Pappy and Uncle Jason, Aunt Bridgette, Spencer and Meghan. After eating a quick bite we opened presents and played with our new things. The cousins had to leave early but Nana and Pappy hung around until around 7:00pm which turned out great because Matt and Pappy spent some time playing games with the kids while Nana and I escaped to the upstairs and did some last minute wrapping. (I thought I had a better handle on it than I did. Glad she was here or I never would have been in bed by 10:00 that night!)
I'm never very good at remembering to take pictures on Christmas day. Too much going on to pull the camera out but here are some random shots of Christmas morning and the weekend after. It seemed that Christmas just kept coming for the kids when various relatives would show up with gifts.

2009 Snow Storm

One week before Christmas, it started to snow...and snow...and snow. Our total accumulation was around 19 inches. Church was canceled and the kids missed the last three days of school making for a total Christmas vacation of more than two weeks. Here is a glimpse into our snow fortress (house) and our fun that weekend.

Top two photos: our house buried deep in snow; bottom left: view up the street--notice the sidewalks are clear and that wonderful little front loader thing is clearing the street more by dumping the snow from the street back onto the sidewalks; bottom right: Honda Odysseys are not meant to be used as snowplows...Chris.

The kids had a great time shoveling (when they wanted to) and playing with their sleds. When Matt and I finally got the driveway dug out, we opened the garage door to find that the van had tried to eat a nail with the front tire resulting in a pancake-flat tire. Nice. Thanks for fixing that honey!

Issues...

So our hard drive was reformatted and we lost every photo that we had taken since we bought our laptop 3 1/2 years ago. Luckily with some research and assistance from friends, Matt was able to recover thousands of pictures. Now I blog...

Hawaii--the history

We took the Navy run shuttle out to the Arizona Memorial which was built over the sunken ship. Aboard the memorial, it still smelled of oil and slicks of leaking oil could still be seen floating in the water. The rear wall of the memorial lists the names of soldiers who lost their lives aboard the ship that fateful day. Among those listed is F.W. Hindman. I'm curious if there is a relation.




One day while Matt was at work, I visited the Punchbowl. The dedication ceremony for the Punchbowl National Cemetery commenced in September of 1949, a tribute to the almost 8,000 men who perished in the attacks on the opposite end of Oahu. Punchbowl Honolulu also honors and pays tribute to casualties from Korea, Vietnam and World War II as well as their families. The number of Punchbowl Memorial grave sites now totals more than 33,000. Each site is marked by a flat stone set into the ground.

Halloween 2009

Everyone got into the spirit of gutting their pumpkins this year. Since it was cold and dark outside but I didn't feel like trashing my kitchen, we spread a tarp on the floor in the garage and went at it.




Completed Jack-o-lanterns only lit the porch on Monday night since it poured all week, but the kids were happy with their results none the less.l



Finally the Trick-or-Treating began! Kassie as Hermoine Granger, Lexi and Anna as hula dancers and Mitchell as The King hit the streets in the rain to gather loot from the neighbors. We had well over 200 kids at the door throughout the night! Yikes. Lots of fun for all.



I did make the Elvis costume. (I only sew curtains and costumes.) I glued the last rhinestone on at 5:50 to start out the door at 6:00...cutting it close mommy?

Randomness ROCKS!

So Mom blames Facebook for my lack of blogging but let's face it...I've never been all that consistent in my blogging. Needless to say, there are a lot of noteworthy items that I'd like to share so in random order, here they come!