The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love Christmas!  But I hate to decorate before Thanksgiving.  I always feel that Thanksgiving gets forgotten (at least on the shelves of stores) between Halloween and Christmas, so I never put up the tree until (the day) after Thanksgiving.  However, this year my desire to decorate has been stronger than usual so I bent my rule, but just a little.  I decorated a tree in my guest room.  Since it's my beach room, I had to have a beach tree.  I love it!

I don't have a topper yet.  I'm looking for a huge star fish to finish off the "look."  So keep your eyes peeled and if you see one, let me know! (thanks)

Happy Birthday Kelly!

So, once again I'm a little behind in my blog postings.  So this one goes back to last weekend.  Friday night all of our friends got together at Bucca di Beppo (awesome Italian food) to celebrate Kelly's big 3-0!  That's the birthday boy on the left.

Here's a better shot of the Attwoods

The Hughes'

Cronkrights

I think Kristina took a picture of us with her camera, but I don't have it.  We had a lovely dinner with TONS of food.  The kids were great and had fun coloring.

Ethan

Calvin

Wyatt with our other kid Zaro

As usual we had a great night out with friends.  Unfortunately my camera died before the birthday festivities could begin, so no pictures of "happy birthday."  

A Hui Ho Julie!

Today another one of my friends has left me!  She and her husband, Mike, are on their way to Pax River, MD.  Mike and Drew got to Hawaii on the same day.  So they've been around the whole time and we're going to miss them dearly!

On Thursday, some of the wives decided to have a surprise lunch for Julie.  Kristina told her it would just be her and Julie, but 3 others showed up to surprise her with a "shower" of sorts.  She was totally surprised!  

Julie doesn't have children of her own, so she's never had a baby shower, yet she faithfully attended ALL of ours!  She once jokingly said "Man, I need a Julie shower."  So we gave her one!  We got her a Victoria's Secret gift card and a PetCo gift card for her cat, Odie!

Here are the girls responsible for the big surprise!

The other side of the table looked like this:

We enjoyed a nice lunch at the O'Club on base and for dessert we had cake!  Now you know our friend Kim is the baker, and with her not being here we had to settle for grocery store cake! (GASP)  And well, even though I WROTE THE MESSAGE OUT ON A PIECE OF PAPER so there would be no confusion...somehow my "Yay Julie" message turned into this:

Jay Julie?!?!  Kim...we miss you on SO many levels!

Anyway, we had a lot of fun and it was a great send off for Julie.  So Julie, I hope you guys had a great flight today and I hope you enjoy your time with family before heading to MD.  We sure are going to miss you around here!

Aloha and a hui ho!

Veteran's Day at the Water Park

Drew's squadron had Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off in observance of Veteran's Day!  We heard that the water park had free admission for active duty military and $20 entry for spouses.  Even though we have season passes, we decided to go.  Also going with us were some friends of ours from the squadron. We had no idea there would be such a celebration.  We were welcomed by some horses and their riders, all decked out in their American attire.

  It was pretty neat.  The local only country radio station was there, with giveaways and contests.  But enough of that...let's get to the water slides!

It was Calvin's first time at the water park and at first he wasn't quite sure if he liked it or not.

But soon he was going down the slide on his own and loving it!

Andrew loves the water park.  He's getting very brave and will go down all by himself (even on the bigger slides..which I don't have a picture of)

Soon we decided it was time for lunch.  Drew met us at the food counter with our towels.  It was very windy so I covered Andrew up because we were all a bit chilly.  Within 30 seconds of me covering him up, he fell asleep in my arms.    I carried him back to our chairs and he stayed just like this for 2 hours!....

He must be catching up on all that sleep he lost while playing hard with Granna and Paw-Paw!  


After he woke up, we decided to head home, but not before we made one stop on the way...MENCHIES FROZEN YOGURT! (Our favorite place EVER)  Our first few visits we'd just let Andrew share from our cup, but he likes to get his own now.  He loves picking out the toppings.  

Calvin looks a little unsure about his topping choices.  hehe

And this is what the marines look like when they have duty! (He had the duty phone all day)

It was a really fun day with friends and what better way to celebrate our husbands for their awesome service to this country than a day of play at the water park!

Fun With Granna and Paw-Paw

Granna and Paw-Paw have been in town for the past 3 weeks, but they left tonight. Andrew was sad to see them go. He had so much fun (so did Granna and Paw-Paw). Here are some pictures from Granna's camera of all their fun throughout the vacation.

Granna and Andrew at the Dole Plantation

You can't go to the Dole Plantation without pineapple ice cream!

Granna loved taking Andrew to the pool. One day we were there and we got a little wet! It started raining. Mommy and Paw-Paw ran for cover, while Granna and Andrew stayed in the pool and sang a fun rain song: (turn up your volume)

Paw-Paw and Andrew walking on the beach. (They had to go on walks every day)

An afternoon at the lagoons:

They loved to go watch the sunset together.

Andrew found a tiny crab at the beach one day.

Paw-Paw found a 1948 Woody...all original; never even a paint job.

Andrew=ROTTEN after 3 weeks of being spoiled!

Although his routine was completely thrown out the window slightly altered while Granna and Paw-Paw were visiting, he has adjusted well. He went right back into his normal routine with no fuss! (Thank you Lord and AMEN)  Thanks again Mom and Dad for all the help, letting us take a much needed couples vacation, and all the fun we had.  We love you and miss you already!

Andrew will soon enjoy another round of spoiling because Grammy and Granddad (Drew's parents) are coming next Thursday!

HBDA Masquerade Ball

Some of you may not know this, but Drew and I have been taking ballroom lessons with Hawaii Ballroom Dancers Association.  Our classes started on Oct. 5 and tonight we had a masquerade ball.  Each class did a "skit." We did a tango to Phantom of the Opera.  Hopefully the video will be added to the end of this post! *fingers crossed*  Last week Drew and I along with 3 other couples were featured on a blog called Dance West Oahu.  You can go there to see the photo.

Our Fearless Leaders!

Me with one of our instructors, Rosalily

Bea and Bob

Nora and Willy

Roger and Sara

Zaza and (I can't remember her hubby's name right now)

Us

Our class photo

And here's the video of us showing off our mad tango skills: (we're the first couple walking into view)

We had so much fun!  Our next function is the Turkey Dance on Nov. 20!

Marine Corps Ball

Tonight we celebrated the 234th birthday (The actual birthday is the 10th) of the United States Marine Corps by attending the annual Marine Corps Ball.  I look forward to this night all year long.  It's like prom all over again...except way cooler!  I love getting all dressed up and what better time to do so than a time to pay tribute to our men and women in the corps.  The ball always makes me so proud of Drew and doubly proud to be a Marine wife.  Here are a few pictures from our night:

Bridesmaids:  Who says you'll never wear those dresses again?  This is actually one of the dresses that my bridesmaids wore in our wedding.  (I stole borrowed this one from Annah)

Our table consisted of us:

The Dilports

Cronkrights

Attwoods

And Zaro and Ellis

After the ceremony and dinner there was time for mingling (and more pictures)

I don't know what it is with these crazy guys!

After dinner, the dancing portion of the ball began.  Drew and I were hoping to show off our ballroom skills, but the DJ didn't allow.  I did however bust a move with the electric slide and the cupid shuffle!  Then we decided to move on to our next destination...the shorebird.  I had asked Drew several days before if we could do karaoke at the shorebird after the ball.  We told a couple of our friends and they said they'd go to.  Well at the ball,  word got out and we had over 35 marines and spouses join us, including our guest of honor, Lt Col L'Heureux and his wife Diana.  It was a BLAST!  Here's one table of our gang:

And another:

As you can see, the guys stayed in uniform.  People kept coming up to them all night long thanking them for their service.  In times when you only hear the media's negativity towards our military, it sure is nice to see how REAL AMERICANS react when they see a man or woman in uniform!  Among those showing gratitude to our guys was a VP of a very prominent company.  He was kind enough to buy drinks for the guys for over 2 hours! (That's when I upgraded my water to a diet Coke!)  He sang a song with a little help from 2 of our guys.

Then of course I had to sing!

Kelly and Kristina danced.

Drew was working the crowd while he sang.

Garreth played a little air guitar.

And tried not to embarrass Emily.

Gadd-zilla revved up the crowd with "Should I Stay Or Should I Go"

And the vocal styling of Kelly Attwood gave us some Garth Brooks

The final act of the night was all the guys singing "American Pie"

All the wives were gathered 'round dancing in front of the stage.

That is the LONGEST song in the world!

When the song ended they sang the Marine Hymn. It always gives me chills.

The girls posed for one last picture before heading home.

And I couldn't resist posting this one..."Hey! Come back with my camera!"

We had such a good time.  Thanks to everyone who came out to Karaoke with us.  We'll have to do it again soon.  Kim, Julie, and Lesley...we missed you!  And last, but not least HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARINES!