The Day-After Christmas

Did you know that in New Zealand (which is where half my family live), they actually have a holiday called the Day-After Christmas. Well, our Day-After Christmas was a memorable one. It had been raining all day, so we decided to go to Windward Mall and try the indoor miniature glow putt. We got there safely despite the wet roads. We paid our money, grabbed our clubs and began putting. The kids really had fun. It was something I don't think we've ever done with the kids. We just disregarded the rules and scores and let them play however they wanted. We were done quicker than I thought we would be.





We did a little window shopping on the way to eat. What was for dinner ---- breakfast! Yup, they have IHOP in Hawaii now. I think it's been here a while now, but it wasn't here before we moved. It was a familiar sight and the kids were excited to eat. We ordered our food and just talked while we waited. Our food came and the kids chowed down.



As we were about to finish, the lights went out. Not just in the restaurant, but in the whole mall! One of the waiters ran outside to ask an officer what had happened, and he said that the WHOLE ISLAND was experiencing this blackout. It was a sight to see all the shops in the mall trying to close all their stores up quickly and get the people out. We had to walk around the mall to get to our car. There were people everywhere! The parking lot was pretty chaotic, everyone trying to leave at once. We turned on the radio and were listening to the reports. The outage was basically due to an electrical storm we were having. We got home to blackness. We grabbed our flashlights, helped the kids get in bed. The radio was saying the blackout would last at least 12 hours. I was just grateful that most of those hours will be while we were sleeping. The lights came on at around 4am this morning. It's those kind of wake-up calls that motivate you to make sure your 72hr kits are ready to go.

Christmas at Home

We returned home very late from our Christmas Eve get-to-together with family. No problems getting the kids to sleep. Our problem was trying to transport them from the van to their beds. LOL. After getting them tucked in, I finished the last of the presents and went to bed. Randy and I didn't go to bed until about 1:30am, so we were not ready at 5:30am when our kids came bursting in our room asking us to come open presents. We made them wait till the sun came up at least. We joined the kids, had prayer and then began opening up gifts. It was fun. The kids were happy and so were we. Micah probably had the most unique gift this year. We had asked him a couple of weeks ago what he wanted Santa to bring him. He non-chalantly said, "Surprise me." Really, surprise you. I said, "No, really, what do you want Santa to bring you." "Just surprise me." OK.

This is what we got him.



His name is "Fish Sticks". He was surprised, and so were his siblings. He seems to love his fish. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

It's been six years since we had the whole family together for Christmas. Yes it was our fault, we've just been away, and who can afford tickets during the holidays. Anyhow, it was soooooo much fun! Just like we remember it.

Grandpa catching the game while some of the kids join him for some snacks.

Jan just moved into this beautiful home. The ceilings in this room are quite high! So their tree looked so little. It was funny, because everyone said the same thing when they walked through the door.


Yum!!! This is why I had to go running this morning. LOL. No seriously I did.

This year, we had the kids do gingerbread trains. They had fun and so did some of the adults. If you click on the pictures, they will get bigger.

Trevor is about 2 months now.

We always do a family talent show. This is Jett playing "Jingle Bells" on his ukulele. He takes lessons and he did a great job! Our family sang our own version of Carol of the Bells. I'll get the video up of it. I promise this time.

All the adults choose names and then we find out who got who's name. This year it was:
Grandpa --> Jan---> Grandma ----> Malie ---> Jill ---> Julie ---> Randy ----> Ryan ---> Grandpa, Earl <---> Corey, Aaron <---> Terri. We'll see who get's who next year. The best was Ryan's present to Grandpa. We draw names in October and Ryan forgot who he had. He thought he had grandma. So he bought a crockpot. It was funny when Grandpa opened up his gift and Ryan explained the reason behind it. We also took family pictures. That was a hilarious event itself. I'll have to get a copy of that.


See that thing on the floor. Micah got that and that thing is cool.


All the Christmas chaos of opening presents!

Grandma and grandpa enjoying watching the whole family having fun.

The adults playing "Cash Cab" (Randy's present for Ryan).

Polynesia Christmas

Like the Haunted Lagoon at Halloween, PCC had a canoe ride for Christmas. Leigh had won 2 tickets at an assembly at school. We went tonight (our late FHE for the week). It was very nice. As you rode in the canoe, they had different scenes from the Nativity Story acted out along the way, with beautiful music sung through out the ride. We were a little amazed to actually see real animals being used as well.

Waiting in line.

Micah has a thing where he just makes these weird faces when someone's taking a picture.

Tyler was bored, so we let him play with the camera for this one.

It looked lighter on the camera. The pictures keep showing up darker when we upload them. (Hmmm, is that because this computer is a PC?)

Loading onto the canoe. Kara just purchased this beanie today. She's my trendy one.

Getting ready to start the ride.


Some scenes from the boat. We need a better camera, I know. More light as well.



It was a fun ride.


After riding that, we hit our favorite ice-cream shop "Angels" for some treats. Everyone was in the mood for some shave-ice. I've decided that my kids are no longer allowed to have shave-ice any more. Let's just say, I should have left a big tip for the big mess that was left by my children. Some of the mess couldn't be helped, and some of it, was unnecessary. Oh well, I guess that's life with kids. It was fun to see my family all crammed in one booth, shivering while eating dripping shaved-ice, and laughing with each other. It was a great FHE!

In the Classroom

This morning I had a fun time. My sister-in-law invited me to come to her classroom of 7th graders and share with them things about Tonga. She's been teaching the kids about the South Pacific and wanted someone to come and share first-hand about some of those places. I called up a childhood friend to come and share about Fiji. She said sure and volunteered her mom. So this morning, I picked up her mom (who was my Beehive advisor growing up in Tonga). She is Vika Racule's mother. On the way over to the school, she and I talked about the good old days and caught up on who's doing what. We finally got to the classroom and shared with the kids all about life growing up in the islands. I went first. Thelma went second and she did an excellent job with explaining things about Fiji. She is a teacher in High School, so she handled that class great. The kids were great anyway. She had them write down a question to ask her. It was fun to listen to what she had to say. I made panipopo for the kids to eat and they enjoyed that too. I drove Thelma back to Laie (she's here for her daughter's wedding). I took her out to lunch before taking her home. It was fun and interesting. I think interesting because I've known Thelma (my high school best friend's mom), since I was 12 years old. She's the one who gave us the YW lesson's on marriage and families and talk with us what it would be like when we are married. And now, I'm in that stage of my life. I don't know, just interesting. Thank you Julie, I enjoyed myself, and thank you to Thelma for sharing as well.

A New Christmas Tradition

I came home from my RS Christmas Gathering to find out that Micah has started a Christmas tradition. It is his own tradition. I was looking at his newly cut hair and thinking there was something different about it. I took a closer look and figured it out. He decided to take a little more off the front of his hair! After making this discovery, I realized that the last time he had done this was last Christmas, right before taking our picture for our Christmas card. I exclaimed to him, "Are you making this a tradition!" He just smiled. Then Randy said he was going to fix it as he grabbed scissors. As he said this, I shouted, "Wait! I have to take a picture for the blog!" Micah hid under the blanket yelling, "NO! Not the blog!!!" LOL! I had the camera ready and as soon as he put the blanket down to peek to see if I had left, I snapped one. Next year, I will be hiding all the scissors in the house.

Nativity Scene

In Arizona, at the visitors' center at the temple, there is a display of nativity scenes from around the world every year. I love looking at all the different interpretations of that scene from the different countries. The Desert Bookstore sells nativity sets from different countries. I decided last year that this would be something that I would collect. Last year I bought my first nativity set, a Japanese one. Tonight I was at sister's house in our ward and she had one from Israel. It was very nice. I need to be on the lookout for my next set. Here's a picture of it. It is the first Christmas that I get to use it. I almost forgot to set it up. In fact, when I did take it out, I wasn't sure who was who. So I just set it up the way I thought. Hopefully, it's right.

Rain, rain go away!

The rain is still here. I'm surprised we don't have more flooding. Anyhow, we haven't been able to get any Christmas shopping done because of the torrential downpours. We decided to brave the wetness and get some stuff done. We took the kids everywhere, from Walmart, to Mililani towncenter, then drove on over to Ward Center and eventually Ala Moana. Those of you in AZ, Ala Moana is a HUGE mall. Most of it is outside too.




We trekked all over the place looking for Christmas presents for our pixie person in the family. And in Sasaki-family style, came home empty handed. We spent more money feeding our family while we were out, than on the actual gifts we were in search of. Oh well. It did make for some good family time. We did enjoy each other and had a lot of fun looking around. We came home with decorations (we couldn't find any in our unpacked boxes), and decorated the tree. The kids exclaimed several times during the tree decorating that they were having so much fun. Those are things that make the crazy day worth it right.

When is it going to stop?!

So this rain is starting to get on my nerves. I don't know if I have ever mentioned that I don't really like the rain. I know, funny from a girl who grew up in islands. I like a little rain, but now it is just getting ridiculous! Well, tonight was my work Christmas Party. However, because there was a lot of this



it caused slick roads which, caused an accident. The road was blocked and so Randy and I weren't able to go here

This is where my work part was at, The Crouching Lion Inn. I was so looking forward to going. Randy and I turned around, wondering what we could do for 2 hours (since we had a sitter for that long), in Laie. Not much to choose from. At the spur of the moment, we pulled into PCC and decided to go see this

We hadn't gone since we've moved back. It wasn't the night I had planned on, but it made for a fun, spontaneous evening.

I had to add this at the end for my update. I went to work and found out that they still held the party. People were shuttled to and from the road block to the restaurant. Apparently, I was unaware of this. Then I was told there was dancing and door prizes. Some of the door prizes that were won, a flat screen TV, $200 cash, hotel accommodations, and other stuff. So yeah, this was my face after being told that. Oh well, there's always next year.

Flash Flooding!

When we woke up on Thursday, there was RAIN! LOTS OF RAIN!! And just like the song, "the rains came down, and the floods came up!" Thankfully, we live on higher ground and were not touched by the flood waters. My kids walk to and from school almost every morning, and I always hear complaining about "why do we have to live on the highest hill in town?!" You can bet that they are not complaining now (hehe). School was cancelled for the kids. We called BYUH and they said that the school was still open. Randy got ready for work and I drove him down to BYUH. At least I tried. Every entrance way to BYUH was flooded out. We turned around and headed home. We could see the flood waters though throughout Laie. (I stole these pictures off my cousin Alvina's blog. Thanks Vina).





It reminded me of the floods we had when I lived in Laie back in 1981. One of few vivid memories I have from my childhood. We went home and just spent a rainy day indoors. By the afternoon, the rain stopped, and the waters began to recede. I'm so thankful that we were not affected by the flood. That night on the news however, there were not so lucky people. Many homes in other parts of the island were hit hard by the floods losing everything.

Ward Christmas Party

Isn't it cool how like the gospel, ward Christmas parties are celebrated wherever you go. Tonight, Kahuku 1st Ward had theirs. The decorations were great. There was so much food! Entertainment was kind of impromptu, but hey, that's polynesian style I guess. All in all, it was a fun evening. A little chaotic, but fun. Santa made his appearance at the end and only Micah wanted to sit on Santa's lap (that does make me a little sad). When Micah was up there, someone called the others to come take a picture as well. I think my camera battery is dying because, again, another dark picture. Sorry.

When "checking it twice" is not enough

After picking up Micah from school today, he was singing the "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" song. He sang the line ". . . he's making a list, he's checking it twice . . ." He stopped abruptly and exclaimed, "What! He only checks it two times!" Micah is apparently disappointed with Santa's standards. Haha!

Blindsided!

Okay, so those of you who have read my post of Micah's first day at school have probably gathered that he is a special child (LOL). As a side story, the older children have been fearful of Micah starting school, stating they were worried that he was going to get into trouble all the time. I would nonchalantly repy that he would be just fine. Other than his first week at school, Micah has been well-behaved in school. With that in mind, I was quite surprised when Leigh came home from school telling me that Micah's teacher said that Micah had to stay after school for 3 minutes with his head down because he had not been behaving in class. 5 minutes later, Micah and Kara came home. Kara was the one to give the full report. After hearing the story, all I could think was "poor guy" and that this was a story I needed to blog. So here goes. Micah's teacher was reading a story, (Micah said that it was boring to me). He saw some of his friends kind of not paying attention and playing a little bit during the story-telling. He joined in with them. Well, the teacher stopped in the middle of reading and said, "Who doesn't want to listen to the story, stand up?" (She totally set those boys up. Shame on her). Well, Micah, thinking that he was being given the choice to exercise his free agency without punishment, stood up with the rest of the boys. The teacher then told those who were standing to go to their desks and put their heads down. They were to remain there until 3 minutes after the bell. Poor guy. Kara said that he was crying when she went to get him. The teacher felt sorry for him and let him go. I did talk to him about his behavior, and doled out a punishment to fit the crime, but come on. You've got to admit, he was totally blindsided. LOL.

Christmas Trees and our attempt at our Christmas Card Picture

We'd been cooped up in the house all day today, so we went to the temple's visitor. They have a display of Christmas trees decorated by the different stakes on Oahu. It was fun to see the different themes that the stakes used. The student stake made this one, very appropriate I think.
Look, the Tongan Flag. We found the Japanese one later.




We went outside and tried to take some pictures for our annual Christmas card. We took great pictures, it was just too bad we didn't have enough light. We'll see if we get any cards out this year.

We went to the BYUH Campus to look at the lights and decorations sans the crowds. This picture above would have been perfect if we could see Leigh's face (LOL). Oh well, the kids had fun posing.