Christmas Packages

The ladies at the post office literally shouted in excitement when I walked in to pick up my packages yesterday. They needed the room.

1000

Rusty and I set a goal a couple of months ago to do be able to do 1000 squats and 1000 lunges (on different days) without stopping. We got the lunges last week and the squats this week. It took 35 minutes of nonstop lunges to get to 1000, and 40 minutes to do the squats. Congratulations to us!

We did our Christmas decorating just before Thanksgiving. I know, it's early. However, last year our tree was up before Halloween (we were leaving for Christmas, O.K.!). Katelyn did the honors of topping the tree this year. Kyleigh was as excited and helpful as usual. Ridge was HILARIOUS. I showed him how to hand an ornament. He looked somewhat interested. Then he walked over to Rusty and grabbed another ornament. He aimed high and threw the ornament as hard as he could at the tree. It fell to the ground, he picked it up and threw again. After a few tries it stayed on the tree. He proudly walked over to Russ and grabbed another ornament. We laughed so hard and Rusty said he remembers doing the same thing. So, by hanging and throwing our tree was decorated this year. The ornaments were fairly evenly spread out on day 1. By day 2 Ridge had pulled everything that was within his reach off the tree and it was thrown or hung up higher. On day 3 Ridge pulled out a baseball bat to see if he could knock anything off that was just out of his reach. By day 4 the tree was less exciting and he seems to be leaving it alone for the most part. He has now moved on to the candy filled advent calender.

Thanksgiving 2011

We were lucky enough to have Thanksgiving with Mike and Holly and the Keeps and Petersons again this year. We changed it up a bit and had dinner at Mike and Holly's. We were planning on going to a movie in the afternoon, but the day and evening were so incredibly beautiful that we wouldn't have wanted to be inside a theatre at all. We ended up hanging out in the back yard. The boys rode bikes and played on Mike's bike stunt equipment. Katelyn joined in the bike riding. The other kids played on the swingset. Holly and Dawn spent hours pouring over the ads for Black Friday. They left that night for Oahu and had a crazy black friday shopping weekend. I was smart enough to bring my computer so I worked on my blog book all afternoon. Everyone ate lots and lots of food and pie. I must say that an outdoor Thanksgiving, although not traditional, is fabulous.

Playing Indian

The girls play indian in the front yard almost every day. They collect the little green nuts from the palm trees and "hunt" and make food, etc. On Saturday they talked Russ into playing with them. They even gave him a chief's headress. It was a sparkly white headband wrapped around his forehead with two feather shaped pipe cleaners sticking out the back. Russ helped them collect nuts off the tree by lifting them up on his hand. Ridge joined in also. You can see they are in swimsuits. No surprise there, they are always running around in swimsuits. Russ later went and attached the machete to a broom stick and cut down a whole branch of nuts. The girls were so excited. Maybe Santa will bring them some supplies to play enhance the indian game.

Katelyn's Family Birthday

The birthday traditions continue. Katelyn had a great family birthday day. We started with her choice of breakfast, which was pancake men. No surprise there. They love pancake men, especially since we are reading the little house series again. After breakfast Daddy headed off to work and we headed off for a morning of fun. According to Katelyn's choice we...went to the lagoon and fed the fish, went to Claires at the mall, visited the new fun factory at the mall, and went to the humane society to play with the puppies and kitties. We finished just in time to get Katelyn to Daddy's work for an afternoon there. They went to lunch at Keoki's. Then Russ had to go to the store in Koloa for something so Katelyn went with him. When they were done with the errand they went into the soap store, just for fun. Once they got back to the jobsite they went on a ride in the rhino. Then Katelyn ate candy while she drew pictures and played on Rusty's computer while he worked, or tried to work. When she got home we had her party all ready. She wanted pizza for dinner. We had made her a doghouse cake with a little Katelyn dog sitting by the door. I had made big bone shaped sugar cookies that went around the cake. We had dinner with cake and ice cream and opened her gifts. Kyleigh had bought her a bubble gum machine, which she has wanted forever, so that was fun. All her other gifts were so nice. We had a great party and our little Katelyn is officially five and very proud of it.

Murder Mystery Party

Disclaimer: this is a very old post that I never posted. We wanted to put it in our blog book, so here it is.

Fall, 2010, we had our first murder mystery party. In 2008 I ordered a murder mystery kit. It was 6 months after we had moved to Hawaii. We were just back from Christmas at home and I got home sick/island fever. It was the only time that I've really felt island fever. I decided I needed something to look forward to so I found what I wanted on Amazon. Timing never worked out and the kit sat in my closet for 2 1/2 years. Finally I bit the bullet and called up the Giles and the Petersons. We set up a date a month out and made it official in pen on the calendar. Everyone had a character and suggestions for dress. We went all out on a four course meal. One course after each scene. First we had chips and dip, second a taco salad with lime cilantro ranch dressing, then baked chicken taquitos. After we finished the murder mystery we had a chocolate fountain fondue. Wendi, the unassuming secretary, was the murderer. We discovered where the Peterson boys get their acting talent. John went all out and wore a tux. Come to think of it I think John secretly likes wearing tuxes. Holly got to play the part of promiscuous. Rusty was Big Bill Bradford, an oil tycoon and I was his eccentric wife. I even got to meditate. We had so much fun. I would love to do it again, especially with the same group. Sigh..