christmas, new years, and beyond

This year, with more than half my family out of town for the Holidays, we had a quiet (VERY quiet) Christmas Season.

And as much as I LOVE my family and getting together with all 18 of them (that are here in Hawaii, that is), this year's smaller fare proved just as festive and Christmas-y!

(Which, here in sunny Hawaii...isn't all that Jingle Bells-esque...but you get the idea)

So, as always, there's TONS of photos (since I've put off blogging for so long yet again. Sorry for that). And if I had taken the time to digiscrap the photos, there wouldn't be SO much to scroll through. Sorry for that as well.

ANYHOO-here goes!

Our sad, sad, sad little tree that the girls decorated themselves (can you tell?) and that Jolee proceeded to de-trim on a daily basis.

So, this is what remained on Christmas day.
Christmas morn...

Christmas evening.
We drove up to Hau'ula to have dinner with my sister Elika and her family.
With such a small crowd, we decided to splurge!
Sushi, lettuce wraps, fried won tons, and egg flower soup.
Sort of a quasi-Japanese/Chinese menu.
We didn't care. It was delish!


Then, New Year's was at our friend, the Panis's (I can't remember if I'm supposed to add that final "s" after the apostrophe...?)
Anyway, after some YUMMY (and I mean REALLY GOOD) barbecue kalbi and chicken, we had some fun with sparklers.
Here's Kela...



And here's Anna...

And Jolee & me...
Can you see how tired JoJo looks?

On a side note, we headed home at around 10 ish and by 11 o'clock, EVERYONE was asleep except for me.

So, I rang in 2010 all by myself.

In a quiet house.

With the LOUD Chinese firecrackers popping outside for like 45 minutes.

And no one woke up!

It was a good New Years!

Then, three days after ringing in 2010, we flew out to Arizona to re-live Christmas with the Seavey's.

Here's Jolee with the digiplayer that the Hawaiian flight attendants graciously let us use for free. Yay!

And with Jolee on the brink of a little cold, we were nervous about the flight over...and rightfully so!

She cried and cried for the first 45 minutes or so of the flight. Silly me, apparently, all she wanted was Mitch since as soon as I handed her off to him, she quieted down! Grrr...
(I should have known, since ALL of my girls become "anti-mommy/pro-daddy" girls as soon as I wean them. Seriously.)

So, here's the REAL Christmas set-up in Arizona at Grandma and Grandpa's house. (and I say "real" figuratively, since it IS a fake tree and all...)

And you can't really see it, but there's TONS of presents all around the tree.

As in, "puts our tiny tree at home to shame," amount of presents.

Jolee with her new penguin/blanket that I think all the girls got.

Grandma and Grandpa with ALL the Seavey grand kids.

All together for the first time in 6 1/2 years!

(well, okay that's sort of not true...since 6 1/2 years ago, NONE of these kids were born yet, but I'm talking about Mitch and his siblings all being together, and...you get the idea.)

And just like with Kela...Jolee seemed to take a liking to Uncle Brian from the get-go! She wouldn't let anyone else touch her, but I suppose seeing the similarity with her daddy was the ticket to success!

She let Uncle Brian hold her quite a lot!

Hooray!

(now only if we could get that kind of result at nursery...)

Anna enjoying her ice cream dessert at the Chinese buffet restaurant that we HAVE to go to every time we visit Arizona.

Seriously. It's a Seavey tradition.

Kela with her cousin Kai at the park.

Another Seavey tradition when we visit.

Daily visits to the park. No matter how cold!

And believe me, when the sun went down, it was COLD!

(okay, at least it was for us...)

Kela with her cousin Brighton.

This was one of, like, 30 photos of the two of them.

Seriously, Brighton LOVES posing for pictures.

And then checking himself out on the LCD screen.

Repeated over and over and over again...

And since Kela's the "ham" in our family...I think they got along fabulously!

Brighton and Jolee.

She wasn't as thrilled to share the cruiser car with him as Kela was.

This scene only lasted through 3 pictures...

And of course, no trip to Arizona is complete without a trip to Trader Joe's.

This day, they handed out balloons and cookies to all the kids!

Yay!

Add to that the cute little kid's shopping carts, and who needs Disneyland, eh?

And it's just as crowded as Disneyland, too!

Seriously! Have you ever noticed how crowded Trader Joe's is?

What's up with that, anyway?
Oh, that's right. The store is AWESOME, that's why!

And finally...the last of the Seavey traditions...

a trip out to Saguaro Lake.
Which is beautiful, but sort of freaks me out at the same time since the docks have NO railings.

I swear, one of these days, someone is going to fall into the lake while we're there...mark my words!

Feeding the ducks.

See plenty of potential for kids going overboard?

I do.

Jolee eating the bread that's supposed to go to the ducks.

The kids and Grandma and Grandpa.

Doesn't this picture make you nervous, too?

I mean, what's stopping them from falling in, I ask you?!

Us.

Notice the "sumo-grip" Mitch has on the girls?

It was a fun, but short 4 days...filled with family, friends, and yummy food!

(I'm thinking of starting a petition to bring In-N-Out burger and Trader Joe's to Hawaii. Who's with me?)