Easter, better late than never!

I know I'm really late with Easter pictures, but I've been busy.  We had a wonderful Easter with some beautiful weather to enjoy.  The kids were up bright and early looking for their Easter baskets.  

 They both got some fun toys, including kites to fly later on in the day. 

Dan and I got to hide the Easter eggs out in the yard for the young and old.  Jake and Janelle got to come spend the Easter weekend with us and didn't want to miss out on the Easter egg hunt since it is tradition to have money in those eggs.

Grant checking out how much money he found.

We got to have a Easter picnic outside and some of us even ate some roaster Peeps afterwards. 

Ali and Grant dressed up in their Easter clothes ready for church.

Grant's song

Grant LOVES to sing, but I very rarely get him to sing for other people. A couple of months ago I heard him singing his primary songs and he was singing this song word for word. I hadn't taught it to him or sang it with him at all. All the credit has to go to our primary music leader, who is amazing! Anyway, this is now one of his favorite songs and I think he is pretty cute singing it.

Updated dinning room

Daniel and I have been working on another wood project.  This past week we finished our three 6 foot floating shelves.  We decided to put 2 of them in our dining room and here are what they look like.

We got curtains for our dinning room also and it is starting to look a little more homey.

Console table

Daniel and I did a couple woodworking projects a week or so ago.  He decided I finally had a cool hobby that maybe he would take up too.  It is kinda fun to go out in the garage after the kids go to bed and we just get to work together.  Better than sitting in front of the tv all night.  So we made this console table one night to go against this wall.  Then on Monday on his day off we made us a very heavy, sturdy work bench.  I call it a work island because it turned out way bigger than I expected, but it is really nice to have to work on so we aren't doing everything on the floor bent over.  I also got a couple new tools for Valentine's Day.  I got a Kreg Jig that we built the whole work bench with, a stand to put my miter saw on (you can kinda see it on the side in the picture), and a new router.  I guess it pays to have my husband pick up the same hobby cuz then we can spend twice as much on tools :)

This is the Evans shrine in our front entry :)

I heart Hawaii!!

So Daniel and I went to Hawaii again this year.  We went to Maui last year and LOVED it.  So this year we visited the island of Kauai.  And yes we LOVED it too.  Everything is so beautiful and with highs around 80 degrees and lows around 70 you just can't beat that in January.  We had a couple storms, but had beautiful weather for the most part.

We flew all day Friday and got in later that night.  So Saturday we hit the southern part of the island.  We got us a convertible to drive around all week.  It is always fun to see the island with the top down.   

This was a fun snorkling beach called Longhouse beach.

We also went to Po'ipu beach and saw a monk seal sun bathing and did some snorkeling there too.  Someone gave Dan a handful of peas to feed the fish while we were snorkeling and we were surrounded with sooo many fish.  We also went to Salt Pond Beach park that day too.  

 This is after a day of beaches and we headed back to the hotel in Lihu'e.  We were checking out the beach infront of the hotel, Kalapaki Beach, and then headed back to the hotel to soak in the hot tub.

Sunday we drove 20 minutes to go to church only to get there and find out there was a chapel in the same town as our hotel, oh well.  We had a nice time @ church and then we went to check out Waimea Canyon often called Hawaii's Grand Canyon.  We decided to hike all over it and enjoyed each others company.  Here are some beautiful pictures of what we saw and some of us goofing off.

Monday was a little stormy, but we headed to the east and north of the island to check it out.  

This is Donkey beach.  Beautiful, but we didn't get in the water cuz it was kinda storming.

Then we found Moloa'a Bay and it was beautiful.  It had just finished sprinkling and we took advantage of the sun here.  

Then we headed to Queen's bath where we had to hike down a little bit.  

Queen's bath is a giant tide-pool where you are suppose to get to swim.

When we got down to it the tide was way too high and we couldn't swim (unless we wanted to add another tally mark to the list)

The next day, Tuesday, was suppose to be gorgeous so we headed up more north.  First we hit Secret Beach and discovered there was a high surf warning and we wouldn't be getting in the water here.

 Then we found Daniel's favorite beach of all time, Tunnels beach.  It is suppose to have the most amazing snorkeling because of it's wide-fringing reef, but we wouldn't know.  The minute we got on the beach the lifeguard told us there was a dangerous lateral rip current that day and wouldn't let us in the water past our knees.  But it was beautiful and we still enjoyed it and can't wait to go back again and try out the snorkeling.

On our way back to the hotel we came upon Kapa'a beach where there were some boogie boarders.  So we pulled over so Daniel could catch some "killer" waves.

Our last day, Wednesday, started out really windy and rainy.  So we decided to hang out at the resort and enjoy it.  Near the afternoon we got a little sun and even got to lay out by the pool for awhile.

  

We had to get a hula pie before we left too.

Christmas 2010

A few days before Christmas we got some snow at our house.  We don't get much snow in the winter so the kids were soooo excited to go out and play in the snow and build a snowman.

 That night for family home evening we went to the train park and enjoyed all the christmas lights.  Ali looks forward to this every year and asked me for weeks when we were going to go.  We waited for Grandpa Brent and Grandma Kristi to come so we could take them too.  The lights seemed extra pretty with the added touch of snow.

Then Christmas eve rolled around.  We had a great day and evening.  Here are pictures of the kids sporting their new pj's.  

 Ali was extremelly excited this year for Christmas and all of the traditions and just everything about Christmas.  If we would have let her she probably would have gone to bed at 4 so that Santa could come and Christmas would be here sooner.

 We made some good fondue for our Christmas eve dinner and I think it was a mighty fun tradition we might have to continue.

Ali kept track of Santa so that we would know when to go to bed.  She watched that computer ALL day!

Obviously some of us ate more than others.

And then Christmas morning.  Santa left something for Grant...

and Ali must have been good too.

This picture captured Grant's pure excitement.  He loved all of his new toys, but didn't like getting clothes one bit.

And Ali's excitement.

It was so nice to just hang out at our own house all day and just enjoy all of our new stuff.  This is the first year we have gotten to do that and I don't think we will ever do it differently again.  A little wii fun and then a prime rib dinner.

We were very fortunate this Christmas and we feel very loved and spoiled.  Thank you to everyone for making it such a wonderful and memorable Christmas!  Thank you especially Grandpa and Grandma for coming and enjoying it with us.