Aloha Tower ferry ride

This afternoon we rode on the catamaran ferry to the Aloha Tower Marketplace. It was the bumpiest, waviest wild ride we've had in a while. What fun! The weather was perfect and the views always gorgeous. Once at the marketplace, we checked out some sites and went to the Maritime museum for a little bit. We had pizza, wings and calamari at Don Ho's Island Grill and watched the most beautiful sunset. It was a very enjoyable afternoon, but sure did make us miss Jason a ton! This is one of our favorite family treats and the round-trip ferry ride is only $8 total; you can't beat those prices anywhere in Hawaii!

kbay day-message to dad

Some friends of ours invited us on their boat outing in Kaneohe bay today. The weather was typical Hawaii in the winter, chilly when you're wet, rainy/sunny, windy; but we still had a great time laughing and hanging out. The moms stayed in the boat and the kids did some swimming and snorkeling. I was able to get them to hold still for just a minute to send a short little hello to their dads in Iraq. We're heading out on the ferry tomorrow afternoon, hopefully to see a few whales and grab a hot cocoa at the Aloha Marketplace. Trying to stay busy on Christmas break and finally have some fun after dealing with sickness and crazy events!

Christmas morning

Our morning started out with a little comedy and a big mess. We were out of toilet paper in the bathroom downstairs, so I asked Hunter to bring a roll down from upstairs. In his excitement to have Christmas morning, he left the toilet paper on the floor in the bathroom instead of putting it on the holder. It took Mack all of 10 seconds to find it and destroy it. There was TP everywhere! Needless to say, this was our last roll of TP in the house, so hopefully paper towels won't run out before the store opens tomorrow!

This was our first, and hopefully last, Christmas without Jason at home and we are without family nearby. We went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at church and played board games at home last night. We tried to link up with Jason to do the webcam and a speaker phone call this morning, but there were technical difficulties and he didn't get to join us. It was really frustrating and nobody felt like it was Christmas without Dad at home.

We surprised the kids with a Wii this year. They have been saving their money and even trying to sell their PS2 and all the games to get a new system. I caught their surprised reaction this morning and it will be one that makes us laugh for years. They were truly shocked and pleasantly surprised.

We were able to speak to Jason by IM later in the morning, midnight for him. It's funny the things we take for granted and find that the smallest gifts of communication with him mean more than anything that we could fit under a tree.

May God bless you and yours abundantly in the coming year! Live every day to its fullest and appreciate every moment you have with loved ones. We love you all. Merry Christmas!