November and December

A few days after we got back from Hawaii I had a hysterectomy. That day was crazy hair day and I was so glad I was home in the morning to do Ava's cute crazy hair because I ended up staying overnight in the hospital even though I wasn't planning on it. We went Hawaiian style to celebrate our trip, ha ha. 

Cute Jackson is growing up fast! Doing chores!

Mckinley loves to read and is so grown up and mature.

My favorite school project! Disguise a turkey.

Ava spoke in Stake Conference! She was adorable and got so many comments about it.

Mckinley's art skills are becoming more and more impressive all the time.

Tyler played volleyball through Vineyard Rec with Brandon as his coach and absolutely loved it! He's ready to switch from soccer to volleyball.

At our ward Christmas party, they put on the most incredible nativity shadow play that had me so emotional! 

Had to get out early to see Santa at Riverwoods.

Tyler and Kallie's ancient civilization fair. China and Greece.

We bought a pass to the Hive to use over Christmas break and ended up going 7 times! It is such a fun place!

Nativity at Grandpa and Marmee's. Jackson was Joseph and Ava was the angel.

A quick visit from Santa for a picture after. Pretty random, but whatevs.

Mckinley painted this ceiling tile that will go up on the ceiling at Lakeridge somewhere. She painted a picture of herself from behind running, with this cute quote! I couldn't love it more.

We went to quite a few movies over the break. Red, Mufasa, Moana 2, and Sonic 3.

Hawaii: Day 7

Our last day in Hawaii was one of the best of the entire week! Brandon was so sweet to let me go on the hike I had been taking about all week, Manoa Falls.

We got there and I was in awe right away at the beauty of the jungle and pretty much couldn't stop talking about it the entire hike.

The pictures don't even do it justice. It was so pretty and such a fun hike! Super easy, a little muddy, and so gorgeous and worth every minute!

These were some stairs that led to another hike after the waterfall. We didn't venture here, but it looked so pretty! Of course. Along with everything else.

Super fun natural archway to take a picture by!

These trees were huge!!

These felt like a scene right out of Jurassic Park.

We went to McDonald's for lunch after the hike and then real quickly we stopped by Pearl Harbor. Next time we will take more time and go on the Ferry and explore a little more here.

Back to the quiet pool for one last swim before we had to go catch our flight.

And then down to put our feet in the ocean one last time.

Sad faces as we were walking away from the best trip ever!

I forgot to mention that on the way to Hawaii we barely made it before they stopped boarding our flight, so on the way home when we had a little extra time at the airport (thanks to a super weird Costco that wasn't actually Costco) I wasn't sad about it. It felt nice to sit and relax and have time to change into our warm clothes.

Got seated together again and had a great flight home, except for the major lack of sleep, ha ha. Our flight home was a red eye and I literally didn't get a wink of sleep. We came home Sunday morning and immediately all 7 of us went to bed, ha ha! Nice to have a Sunday to relax and do laundry and recover from the trip before work/school started the next day.

Hawaii, we'll be back!