Hana's Baptism and confirmation!

This weekend was a very special one for our family.  Hana chose to be baptized and confirmed for the gift of the Holy Ghost into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by her father.(http://mormon.org/faq/baptism-beliefs)  She has been looking forward to this for a long time and it was a wonderful event.  Thank you so much to the family and friends who were able to come and support her in this.  We know a lot of you would have loved to be there but live to far away or had other conflicts.  The spirit was so strong and I knew that Heavenly Father was happy about Hana's choice to be baptized.

Right before the baptism, in the foyer of our church

All the people who came to support Hana!  Thank you, everyone!  We sure love being close to our families again.

Hana's best friend and "twin" cousin was born a week earlier than her and also baptized the week before her.  Here they are in their beautiful baptism dresses.

Another one of Hana's best friend cousins was baptized last September so we had to get a picture of the three of them in their white dresses.  Also, notice the candy lei Aunt Lisa made since Hana was sad she wouldn't get leis like in Hawaii.  So sweet of Lisa!

The grandparents!  My parents on the left, Great Grandma Pugmire in the middle (Geoff's mom's mom) and Geoff's mom and step-dad on the left.  I love and admire all of these people so much!

Hana's favorite breakfast and dinner is waffles so we had a waffle bar with all sorts of yummy toppings and bacon, sausage, breakfast casserole and fruit!  Yumm-y!  Thanks so  much for bring something to contribute everyone! p.s. Isn't my baby sister gorgeous?!

Can't believe Hana is so grown up!

It was a wonderful day!

Whirlwind of craziness!

It's been a crazy whirlwind of selling all of our possessions (again!) in Hawaii, saying goodbye to all of our ohana there (so hard!) and taking the flight back over the ocean with 13 pieces of luggage and 2 exhausted girls, then being welcomed back to Utah by awesome family and friends, having a huge climate shock to the wintery cold which included the worst cold/cough/sore throat I've ever had last for 4 weeks, celebrating a wonderful Christmas with family (SO loving living close to family!), finding and moving into a lovely yellow town house back in Daybreak right across from the lake, (2 blocks from our red Victorian house that we sold last year), being welcomed back by our neighbors and friends in Daybreak, buying winter wardrobes for all 4 of us, and then buying all of the essentials for a new house (again!)getting Hana enrolled in an awesome 2nd grade class at the school a few blocks away, finding a preschool for Aya and  looking for and finding a job for Geoff!...Phew!  Can I just say that it's been a crazy roller coaster!  So many highs and lows and stresses and gratefulness and learning and growing.  We miss Hawaii terribly!  We miss the sunshine, we miss the clean air, we miss the ocean and we especially miss our wonderful friends there.  But we also love being close to family and Utah friends and are thrilled to move back into our old neighborhood in Daybreak with all of the wonderful people here.   (Hawaii friends, Daybreak is pretty much the Ko Olina of Utah.  Check it out:  http://www.daybreakutah.com/community-story/)  It was great to have a white Christmas too and I still go into a happy shock about how cheap everything is when I go to the grocery store or buy gas or look at house prices. 

Anyway, if you're still with me you must really love us so thank you, thank you so much for all of the love, support, aloha, prayers, hugs and helping hands during our whirlwind of craziness!  I have so many fun pictures and stories to share so I think I'll back up a bit and start with our last few weeks in Hawaii celebrating the Christmas season island style...

We celebrate St. Nicholas Day every Dec. 6th to celebrate our German heritage and this was the first time St. Nicholas left surprises in "slippahs" instead of shoes!

We had a yummy German breakfast too with our friends who lived in Germany for several years.

We took the kids from our church to sing Christmas songs and bring some cheer to a local retirement home and they were so cute!  I love these kids!

Greeting the tutus around the room

All decked out!

The cutest reindeer in Hawaii

We were accompanied by our favorite ukulele and guitar players

Christmas lights on palm trees!  This is at Paradise Cove in Ko Olina on the way to our house.

We had a really fun church Christmas party and the kids performed again

After a yummy traditional Hawaiian dinner (best Kalua pig I've ever had!) a special visitor arrived!

Notice the jingle bells on Santa's slippahs!

Enjoying the Christmas decorations in the neighborhood

 Well I better wrap up as this post is getting long but I can't resist adding two more pictures

I passed this every morning on my walk to the gym!

I love Hana's pose in this one ;)

More pictures and blog posts to follow soon!

One excellent day in paradise

Geoff has been working extra hard to get his school work done a little early so we could "play tourist" the last week we are here in Hawaii.  He finished almost everything last Wednesday night so Thursday we had a free day (minus all the crazing selling everything you own, clean the entire house, say all the goodbyes etc!) so we went up to Laie to the temple there and it was just lovely.

Such a beautiful, peaceful place!  I love the interior design inside and the grounds are breathtaking.  From the  front doors of the temple you can look all the way down the palm lined street to the ocean.  

Kind of a funny quick selfie we took but I liked it anyway.

After the session at the temple we at ate Seven Brothers (same menu and run by the same people as Kahuku Grill) which is one of the best places on the whole island and the family who owns it its awesome!  We always have to eat there when we go up to the temple.

And if the day weren't great enough, that evening I had a girls night out with all my lovely Hawaii ladies!  We went to Cosmic Beauty and were pampered with pedicures!  I love pedicures and haven't had one in forever so I was happen to have this excellent excuse.  At Cosmic Beauty the have a big back room where they set up a table for us to put all of the yummy chocolate treats everyone brought to share and we all got to hang out and chat while we got pampered with out kids!  It was awesome!  It was a last minute thing so not all of my friends could come but I was so happy for the ones that were able to make it.  Love all my ladies here so much!

So much fun!  I hope this will become a tradition that happens often for all of these hard working mommas!  Love you ladies!

Hawaiian Thanksgiving

 We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, here in Hawaii, thanks to some of our awesome Ohana here.  Last month I was thinking about how sad Thanksgiving would be for us with out our families since I LOVE Thanksgiving, love feeding people and love hosting Thanksgiving for our families in our home so I knew I had to plan something so my dear friend, who also happens to be named Rachel, and I planned a big gathering that she hosted at her lovely, spacious home.  We had 23 people there and it was just awesome!  We had it out on the lanai, over looking the golf course, palm trees and setting sun.  The weather was perfect with a light breeze.

Making pies the day before Thanksgiving.  I love making pie!

            
           

And very happy to eat pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning!  We all love pumpkin pie in our family!

On our way to our friends home with the potatoes, stuffing, ginger cookies, 3 pies and a cheesecake!  Good thing we had the wagon!

The table all decorated!  I tried to find Thanksgiving decor/Fall leaves etc in stores but Thanksgiving isn't really big here so I couldn't find any so I sent Geoff and the girls out to find Hawaiian plants, seeds, leaves etc that looked "fallish" and that's what we used!  I think it turned out pretty cool.

Hawaii has cool plants!

The kids doing a little craft while they waited for the feast.

My friends and I made the place cards a few weeks earlier at a Stampin' Up party.  I think they turned out really cute.

And the food was amazing!...

Coconut glazed sweet potatoes, green bean casserole from scratch, sour cream mashed potatoes, tons of veggies!...I was in heaven.

Munro and Rachel cooked an amazing turkey!

The glorious dessert table!

Pumpkin pie, Dutch apple pie, cream pies, cheesecake, shortbread, truffles, ginger cookies....sigh, it was lovely

and the baked jalepeno and Brie pastry was so amazing and I loved the goat cheese too!

Time to eat!

It was delicious! 

The Murdock's set up a cute Turkey shoot with paper turkeys and Nerf guns.  The kids mostly shot at each other of course and they loved it!

Fun to have the missionaries, some friends from UH and the 4 families that live here in Ko Olina all there!

Kids enjoying the craziness after dinner.

                         

Then we decided to feed the black swans their own Thanksgiving feast of bread.

                                 

And then it was time for the floor show entertainment ;)

                                                               

 

Such a fun Thanksgiving!  We missed out families but sure enjoyed spending time with our good friends here!