thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving this year was a little different than usual.
My sister Airi rented a great house right on the beach in Laie for Thanksgiving weekend...and so we all drove out to the North (East) shore to enjoy some relaxing time together with family and friends.

And really...what can I say?
It was BEAUTIFUL!
Nothing inspires a feeling of Thankfulness like sitting right next to the beach with great company?!

But before all that, it was my job to cook the turkey this year.
I soaked it in a brine overnight....then baked it in the oven...and although it wasn't the best looking turkey I've ever seen...it was pretty darn close to the best tasting!
Having had bad luck with turkeys in the past, I was a bit nervous but it turned out better than I had hoped!
(I'd show a picture of the bird...but although it was one of the yummiest turkeys, it wasn't necessarily one of the prettiest turkeys. So, no pic. At least not here. You can see it here if you're interested.

See? Not very pretty, huh? But it was ONO!

So, upon first arriving at the beach house, this is what we saw.
Hmm...while Atau serenaded us to some ukulele music a couple of the boys decided to climb up the tree.
Can you spot them?!

Ah, here they are.
Luckily, no one fell out.

The spread.
There was just TOO much food!
All of it yummy!!

So, here's the adult shot.

Caleb and Kaden.
Hanging out in the play pen while the rest of us ate our Thanksgiving feast!

Jojo and Luke.
I don't think I can get enough of these two!
So stinkin' cute together.

Speaking of hanging out together...here's Rumi, Kela and Anna.
Enjoying their turkey dinner.

After dinner...we hit the beach.
Even though it was windy and pretty chilly.

Mitch and Anna walked up along the shoreline and stumbled upon this poor puffer fish who washed ashore.

While Seina and Ezra spent the whole time perfecting their sand sculptures of a killer whale and her baby! That's some fancy sand sculpting!

And while the little ones played...some the other kids threw sand at each other...
and thankfully, managed to hit only each other and NOT any of the rest of us.

AND then, the next day (the day AFTER Thanksgiving) we headed out to the beach again and what did we see?!
A family of turtles swimming mere feet from the shore!
Can you see its head?! There must have been 2 or 3 of them...and so close, it almost seemed like they were close enough to touch!
Which we didn't.
Even though we wanted to.

And then, to top off the weekend festivities, we took a handful of the little ones out to the beach at night to hunt for little ghost crabs.

And we found a LOT!
Jojo was fearless! And must have grabbed at least a half dozen all by herself!
While her sisters were too scared to touch them for most of the evening.

Our crab-hunting party.
COLD and windy...but good fun!

Here's the bounty!
Of course, we released them back onto the beach right after.

All in all, it was a BLAST hanging out on the beach and eating some yummy food with family and friends.
We have SO much to be thankful for!

To check out more photos from our Thanksgiving weekend up in Laie, click HERE!!