Christmas Eve on the Beach

 Mom and I were in charge of Christmas Eve dinner.  It was so much fun to be joined up with her on this because she has great ideas and gets really excited about it!  We talked about the dinner and what we should have I don't know how many times before and during the vacation.  It ended up turning out wonderfully!  On the menu: Creamy dutch oven potatoes (nice job Gpa Ed!), grilled teriyaki chicken and shrimp (nice job Handsome Mark!), garlic bread, cooked veggie mix, and "spiked" with Sprite POG to drink.  I hope I'm not forgetting something.

The best part of the meal was something Mom talked about for MONTHS before the vacation.  I had to tease her about it because she brought it up so many times to me on the phone before the trip.  However, I had to eat my words after eating this dessert.  It was better than she even talked it up to be!  Always remember "MOTHER knows BEST."  :)  Get a load of this--Ooey gooey double chocolate brownie topped with peppermint ice cream, homemade chocolate sauce, real whip cream, and shaved candy canes.  Boom Baby! 

 Feel free to contact me if you'd like to get this same towel on the head look.  I will help you out. ;)

I had everyone in the family do an open mouth full of whip cream.  Every body did it!  Us Coles...we're such party animals. ha ha ;)

 I already wrote about one of my top moments being boogie boarding with the sibs all at the same time.  I just thought I'd give it Honorable Mention one more time.

It was just THE BEST spending Christmas Eve at the beach.  Ugh!  Everything about it was just perfect and so different from any Christmas Eve we've had.  My one complaint would be that it seemed like the day slipped by a little bit too fast.  :)  

My Favorite Hawaii Moments

Some of my personal favorite moments from our trip to Hawaii:

1.  Boogie-boarding with all of my sibs at the same time.  We have such a great time together!  Greg was awarding score points for both ride quality and "style" as he put it.  :)  We were making up names for our 'style' points like they did at the surfing competition (which was also off the hook!).  Boogie-boarding is always one of my favorite Hawaii activities but it was particularly fun this time to be with my siblings.  Shout out to Kimi for boogie-ing with the prego-belly.  So hard core.   

2.  Singing "Oh, the Zebra and the Burro Can Be Friends" with Benji on the ride from Kona to Hilo.  So we randomly saw a zebra and a donkey together in a pen and Benj randomly breaks out this new song to the tune of Farmer and the Cowman from Oklahoma.  Ok, let's face it, everyone likes to pretend like they're 11 years old again sometimes (right?).  I was on a roll.  It was driving Mark and everyone else in our car a little crazy...ha ha.  Both of us sang and talked so annoyingly.  Benji and I thought we were so funny but no one else in the van seemed to think we were that funny...hmm...  I guess there's where the 11 years old thing comes in to play again.  The song also reminded us of our Children's sociable days.  I sang "The Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends" with Heath and Scott one year.  Good, good, times.  And let's not forget Benji's munchkin hairdo when we did The Wizard of Oz...classic!  I wish I had a picture of that to put it into the blog!  Our van was definitely the party van but we did have a few issues with it.  The men had to stop a few times and take a look at it. 

3.  Going Parasailing with the Love of My Life!  (sigh)  It was really cool to be floating up there overlooking the ocean, mountains, seeing the temple from up there, etc.  Geo even saw a whale breach when he was up there.  It was my first time Parasailing and I would highly recommend it.  You'd think it would be jerky and windy up there but it's not. 

 

I like this pic because you can see Mark in my glasses. Artsy, eh?

 
4.  When the guy who was a little too serious about his job hooked up Kimi's life saving fanny pack before we went on our helicopter volcano tour.  There were even children in the group and she was the only one who got "help" from the dude.  ha ha.  We were laughing pretty hard about it.  The helicopter tour itself was AWESOME.  I'm so glad I did it!  I was stoked to find out that my assigned seat was in the front center right by the pilot!!!  It made my day. I took about a billion pics of when we were up in the air but the pictures just don't do it justice.  It was 500 times better in real life.  Moral of the story: There's only so much you can capture on camera and life is always better when you're living it in the moment, up close, and personal. 

5. Playing "Name the Moment on the Trip" charades and Christmas Song Pictionary at Kimi's house.  There  were many funny moments acted out by some stellar actors. :)  Our favorite was mom acting out the hippopotamus for Christmas. We all laughed and laughed.

6.  Watching this little cutie have the time of his life playing in the sand!  Jax seriously could have spent all day every day at the beach, just like his daddy!  I threw in a few bonus pics of him with uncle Benj and cousin Austin.  It was great for the fam to get to know Jax a little bit better.  He loved all of the attention.  :)

7.  When we walked into our cabin at Kona and Benji and Chris were going all out doing the hula shirtless to extremely loud Hawaiian music on the radio welcoming us into our shared house. I couldn't stop laughing!  If you ask me, my brothers are the funniest guys on the face of the planet.  There were so many times when we all were just laughing so hard!

8.  Hearing "O Holy Night" sung live at the PCC on the canoe ride and listening to the choir sing in the Christmas program at church.  The spirit really touched me both of those times.  I love how Polys can sing like it ain't no thang.  The music in church was amazing!  Do you think if I adopted a Poly kid that he/she would be able to sing awesomely or is it more in the culture?  Nurture vs Nature.....it's been a debate forever, eh?  


I have so much more Hawaii stuff to post about!  I'll have to stop here for now.  There were many, many great times!  Stay tuned...

He's ONE!!!

Our little sweetheart is ONE!  I can't believe how the time has flown!  It is absolutely crazy!  We have thoroughly enjoyed this past year as we've watched Jax change from a tiny little newborn to a spunky, happy, on-the-go kiddo.

Mark thinks I went a little overboard, but we celebrated not just once but three (four if you count just our little family) times!  I really enjoyed preparing things for his Airplane-themed celebrations and if you ask me, the more parties the better. ;)

The first celebration was in AZ with Mark's family.  We had some banana cupcakes and sang to the little cutie.  Since Jax loves bananas, I was surprised that he didn't dig in to the banana cake--maybe babies don't like cream cheese frosting as much as I do...?  Anyway, we definitely HADN'T eaten enough over Thanksgiving so we needed to have another reason to have treats. ha ha!

On Sugar's actual birthday, I wanted it to be a laid-back day at home with no parties so that I wasn't focused on the party instead of him.  This was a suggestion from my sister and I think it's a great one.  I really enjoyed the day with him.  He had bananas for breakfast--his favorite.  We went to Target to purchase a church outfit for the little man and then the mall after for a photo with Santa.  We had lunch at the mall with our friends and then headed home for the afternoon nap.  In the evening after dad got home from work, we just played and hung out.  It was pretty good weather so we let Jax play outside for a bit, something he thoroughly enjoys.  He opened up a couple of gifts from us outside then we sang to him and let him eat a yummy mini-lemon cake.  (He liked this one much better, I think).  It was a great day!!!

 

 The second formal celebration was at our house with Jax's little buddies and their families.  We had brunch-esque type items--parfait bar, muffins (my homemade poppy seed didn't quite go how I wanted..shame...but the store-bought blueberry were a hit), powdered donut-kabobs, Costco's lemon bites (YUM), and some baby snacks.  It was so much fun to have all of the babies playing and interacting.  We are so thankful for our friends!  Jax received lots of darling and fun gifts.  Thank you!

 

It was pretty funny trying to get all of these munchkins to stay put for a photo.  :)  If you're wondering, the "duh" look on their faces is due to all of the parents making weird faces and silly noises trying to get them to smile.  ha ha! :)

(P.S.  I'm sorta ticked...I can't find all of the pictures I took of the food, adults, or of Jax indulging in his #2 b-day cake!!!!....grr...for no real good reason, I'm blaming this on Mark....yeah...new year's resolution...be a nicer wife.  As soon as I find the pictures, I will add them to the post).

 

Party numero tres was in Hawaii at the Tripp's house (Post coming soon: Christmas in Paradise).  This party was celebrated with my side of the family.  We went with banana splits for this one.

  It was WONDERFUL to celebrate our little miracle and his one year of life with most of our family members and friends!!!    

12 months

Counting Blessings...

We were thrilled to spend Thanksgiving this year in Arizona with Mark's family.  Scott and Kels were the gracious hosts.  Thank you!  We had a blast! 

 We played the Kinect for the first time and had a great time with it.  I think every night we laid in bed realizing our muscles were getting more sore as the time wore on.  :)  We played an array of games from river rafting to tennis.  We even threw a little kung-fu in there.  I thought that was the hardest one and best workout.  And....I ended up being the boxing Champ (out of me and Mark only).  I had to add that little tid bit in there. 

 Another highlight was going shooting.  Here I am instructing the gents how to shoot properly.  Just kidding, they are giving me some instruction.  :)  Since doing some T-Giving shooting, Mark now consistently talks about purchasing another gun.  Kidding hun, I know you wanted one before we even went to AZ. 

 Scott was pulling the "I'll show you how to shoot" so that he could flirt with his wife....oldest trick in the book.  ;)

 Messing around in the garage....

We also went to play pickleball, a Tew family favorite, as well as tennis, an anyone that's cool's favorite. :)  Thank you, Nana for tending so that we could play!

As for the feast itself, once again, it was fantastic!  S and K did a good job of delegating, I thought.  Everyone made something to contribute and it all tasted great.   

The day after Thanksgiving, we went out to eat at a cheap and yummy Mexican place that I have kept thinking about since we dined there.  It was ghetto but so good at the same time! Now I keep thinking that there must be some hole-in-the-wall, top secret, delicious and cheap Mexican food place like that here in San Antone.  I just need to search it out now. 

We opened some early Christmas gifts after our feast.  One of Jax's favorite was the big wooden truck made by papa.  It used to be Mark's, which is neat.  Thank you very much Papa and Nana for ALL of the wonderful gifts! 

I love Thanksgiving time!  It really is good to have a Holiday to focus on all of our many blessings.  We feel particularly blessed this year for our dear ones--family and friends, a living prophet, and our Savior Jesus Christ. 

Once again, THANK YOU to Scott and Kelsey!!!  Fabulous!!!

Until the next big party, Tews! 

LiFe iS gOoD!

We went to Red Robin for a little family outing.  Life is good!