Hawaii 2

In January I had an ophthalmology conference on Maui.  It seemed like the perfect chance for Kristel and I to get away for a trip we have been wanting to take for several years.  On Friday, January 14, Grandma Mindy flew in to San Antonio to spend a week taking care of the kids, and early Sunday morning Kristel and I boarded our flight to Maui.   

On the small island Maui lodging is limited, and with my late registration there was no housing near the conference for the first part of the stay.  However, with a commute of about an hour we were able to stay at Kapalua Bay where we had spent our honeymoon 12 years earlier.  Unfortunately the actual hotel from our honeymoon was torn down to make room for multi-million dollar Ritz-Carlton condominiums (where we did not stay), but the Kapalua Villas was very nice.  This is the view from where we stayed.

The Kapalua Villas were condos and ours had 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms with a kitchen and living room.  It had been recently updated and was beautiful. It was on a different part of the island from my conference so it took an hour to drive each way.   

We explored the local restaurants and ate some great food.

I went to the meeting in the morning so Kristel ended up with a lot of relaxing time to catch up with reading.   She read books 2 and 3 of the tiger series and got into them enough that she brought her book along on a walk despite my teasing.  

We only stayed at Kapalua for 2 nights and then moved closer to the conference at Wailea where we stayed the other 2 nights.  We stayed at the Hotel Wailea which included a traditional Japanese bathhouse which I don't think we completely figured out.  The actual room was a little older and different from a typical American style hotel, but the gardens were beautiful.

We enjoyed Maui Tacos multiple times. 

Wailea Beach

The view of Molokini from Wailea beach.

The kids had a great time with Grandma Mindy and probably would have been content if we had stayed another week.  We were very happy to see them.  There is no doubt they are extra cute after having been away.

This is the schedule we printed out and left with Grandma Mindy.

Bunnless Burger Birthday

It has been fun having Uncle Carlos live here in San Antonio.  Trying to be better about not eating too many carbs, Matt made him a bunless burger cake to celebrate his 26th birthday.  I don't think anyone spared very many carbs that night though.

Randy x2

Matt had a "honey do" list to work on around the house while I was in Hawaii with my sisters and parents and he stayed home with the kids.  On his list was redoing the shelving in the closet of our guest room/office.  After I got back I was organizing the closet and sorting through things when I noticed the green backpack. I thought it was empty, but when I looked inside I found the original Randy that had gone missing 10 months before.  We had given up hope and thought he would never return from his vacation so we had already replaced him.

I called Julia and had her come look in the backpack.

Julia was so excited.  She immediately understood that it was her long lost Randy and that the one she had recently been loving was "New Randy", but she wasn't upset at all about being deceived.  She was happy to the point of giddiness to have TWO Randys and she spent the rest of the day having them talk to each other, play, and just get to know each other.  Fortunately, Julia has enough love for both of them.

Ringing in the new year

We had been working on reading the Book of Mormon as a family for three years.  We started out with just a few verses a day when the kids were little.  At the beginning of this year we figured out that if we read one page a day we could finish by October.  We fell behind and reevaluated several times.  In December we realized that we would have to read two pages each day to finish by the end of the year.  Near the end of the month we left town for the holidays and didn't read for the whole week.  We came home on the 30th of December and Matt was determined to accomplish our goal, so new years eve was spent reading the Book of Mormon for a couple of hours straight.  The kids were good sports and helped draw pictures about what was being read to help keep their attention.  The next time through we are trying to make it in a year.

Brayden's drawings

Kylee's drawings

Julia's drawings

Almost White Christmas in El Paso

It felt like the Christmas season when we woke up Saturday to snow in El Paso.  We went to Katrina and Joey's house that morning for breakfast.  They hosted a big crew including the Gaspar de Albas, Whettens, and Matt's mom and brother Ryan.  While finishing the preparations for breakfast the kids had a snowball fight in the backyard.

After a yummy breakfast of crepes and huevos rancheros, the kids kept entertained making graham cracker gingerbread houses.  They enjoyed sampling all the candies as they worked.

 

Christmas eve the kids opened pajama's and books at GrandMindy's house.  Christmas day landed on Sunday.  GraMindy had church a little bit later, so the kids opened presents first.

We took some pictures after church.  Then it was off to go eat lunch and exchange gifts at my parent's house and up to Las Cruces to visit with Grandpa Caldwell and Janet in the afternoon.

On December 27h these three cousins all lost a tooth on the same day.  It was Natalia's first tooth lost.

They discovered that they could get a better deal selling their teeth to Grandpa than from the Tooth Fairy.  Kylee and Natalia both collected $5 from Grandpa.

We decided to entertain the kids by taking them ice skating with Cynthia and Katrina's families on December 28.

Ben and Erin were able to stop in for a short visit.

We ended our week by visiting Kristina at work at Menchie's yogurt shop.

December Piano, Leaves, and Candy

December 10, 2011 - Kylee and Brayden played Christmas songs at the Rolling Oaks Mall with 10 other piano students.  I was in Hawaii, so Matt took the kids to go watch.  He said that they did a great job.

December 19, 2011 - The kids worked hard to collect all the leaves from our lawn and put them in the trampoline enclosure to play with.  This was nothing in comparison to the leaves that we would collect in North Carolina (that would have filled the trampoline enclosure to overflowing), but they still had lots of fun.

That same night we put a pre-made gingerbread house together to celebrate the holidays.  The highlight for the kids was sampling all the candies.

They weren't very patient to let the roof harden before putting on the candies, so it caved in.

Matt rescued it after they went to bed.  I forgot to take a picture before they started taking off the candies.