Christmas Morning

Hawaii Day 7 (Dec 23)

Last day in Hawaii! I had a nice pedicure and we checked out of the hotel. We had some time to kill before our flight, so we found a restaurant for dinner. We are all picky, I guess, because it is pretty hard to find a place we all can eat! We went to Hard Rock Cafe, and the food would have been fine, but the live music started to play, and it was so loud, I knew Tanner wouldn't be able to take it. So we went back to the pizza place.

Kiersten and Jared each got a ukelele! They were so excited about these!

Hawaii Day 6 (Dec 22)

Here is a little video of our crab-watching. We went snorkeling just south of Lahaina. Mark and I snorkeled and Kiersten even tried a bit! Mostly the kids just stayed on the beach and played in the sand and watched these crabs throw sand.

Hawaii Day 4 & 5

Monday and Tuesday we pretty much just hung out at the pool. It was just so nice! We ordered food from the servers who were walking around. Beautiful weather and so nice to just relax!

Hawaii Day 3 (Dec 19) Evening

Jared and Brittany and I went to the hotel restaurant that evening; the rest of the family was fine with the food we had in the hotel room.  Going out with teenagers is so fun!

Hawaii Day 3 (Dec 19) Haleakala

We got up early and went to church in Lahaina. It was really interesting to see how things run there. There was no special Christmas musical program or anything, but the speaker was great. There were birds flying around in the cultural hall! They came in from the windows up by the ceiling. It turned into a pretty rainy day, but we decided to go to the volcano anyway (not our best idea ever). The kids (mostly Kiersten) hated the drive up. We knew they would; it is so windy and we had to go slow because of the incredible amount of fog! It was COLD!

 

Hawaii Day 2 (Dec 18)

 We had a yummy breakfast outside on the patio at the hotel. We are all smiling because we are warm and happy!

 We hung out on the beach that day with my brother, Mark, and his family.

 The waves were big! But the water was warm and Kiersten and I had fun out on the air mattresses!

 The Mark Hammer Family: Mark, Kim (wife), Luke (son), Ryan (son), Ashley (d-i-l), Brad (son)

 Mark and Kim asked Jared to take their family photo on the beach in Hawaii so they could put in on their Christmas card! They had a lot of fun taking these, and Jared was flattered.

 Brad and Ashley

 Mark and Kim

You always have to have a jumping picture!

Hawaii Day 1 (Dec 17)

View from the airplane. "We should take a picture of that!" said Kiersten.

We took off for a week in Hawaii with all the kids. It was Brittany's birthday, so we had to pack some presents with us on the plane! We barely made our flight in Los Angeles because our flight from SLC was late, and we about died running through the airport looking for our gate because of bad directions from a really loud guy (apparently an employee of the airline) who talked the entire flight from SLC to LAX (which began at 6:50 AM!!). But we got there and it was wonderful to be in the warm air! The humidity as you step out of the plane into the airport is amazing!

Here we are waiting for Kiersten's luggage, which didn't show up. We had to do a little shopping for her before we went to the hotel! They got her suitcase to us at the hotel the next day.

View of the back of the hotel.

View from our room!

Kiersten in her new t-shirt

We spent the first day at the hotel, playing on the beach. My brother, Mark, and his family were here at the same time; we overlapped our trips by a couple days. So we got to spend some time with them, too!