Good December Memories

Julian had fun joining Chess club after school.

We braved the cold and rain to go into Portland for the annual "Tuba Christmas."  I think we stayed for about 15 minutes and then the boys were done!

The tubas!

Hyrum and I attended a wonderful "Gospel Christmas" concert in Portland.  It was spirited and lively and had people on their feet!

A week later we attended a much more traditional Christmas concert.  This one played all the wonderful classical Christmas tunes and also had an audience sing a long at the end, which was lots of fun.

Some of my nativities set up for Christmas.  I love getting them out each year and seeing them all.  It makes my heart happy.

We waited too long this year to get a tree so all the u-cut places were closed the weekend before Christmas.  We still found a pretty nice tree at a local farm that had already been cut for us.  

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We spent Christmas Eve on the slopes of Mt. Hood

Julian tried snow boarding for the first time!

Santa stopped by and got everything ready for Christmas morning!

Our traditional Christmas breakfast before opening gifts.

The boys showing off their gift from Grandma and Grandpa Johnson.  The twins were most excited about their new chrome book laptops they can use for homework.  Julian really liked the new controller we got for the Nintendo switch.  I think they all had a fun Christmas.

The boys having fun with friends during Christmas break from school.

New Year's Eve festivities!  This piñata was bigger than the Holwege boys:)

Lots of game playing and food while we waited for midnight!

Steve Doxey was the puzzle master

Emerson getting ready to smash open the piñata!  

Happy New Year!  We ended the evening with sparklers and some small fireworks in the street.  

December was a great month with lots of fun memories.  I had a wonderful 2018!  Here's to a wonderful 2019!

Girls trip to Chicago!

Last summer I was standing around with some friends talking about how I really wanted to see the show "Hamilton."  I had tried to buy tickets when the show came through Portland but they sold out within minutes!  Someone suggested I look at tickets in cities where the show is not just traveling through but performed for months at a time.  I looked around and found that Chicago had a permanent show.  Then I looked at airplane tickets and round trip tickets from Portland to Chicago were only $150!  So of course I booked those tickets immediately and then I convinced some friends to join me on my adventure.  Chicago in December isn't the most fun, it was pretty cold and rainy BUT the Hamilton show was amazing and I loved every second of that.  Also, there was the annual German Christmas market in downtown Chicago so I had fun spending all of Hyrum's money there:)

Our cute little brown stone apartment building.  We were on the top floor.

There just happened to be a wonderful French bakery just around the corner from our apartment that we had breakfast at every day.

We walked along  the "Magnificent Mile" for a bit...until the rain got too cold and we were all freezing.

So we stopped in at Lou Malnati's for some Chicago deep dish pizza

So delicious!

We went to the Fourth Presbyterian Church for a Christmas concert.  I love attending concerts inside chapels.  The organ music was beautiful and the singers voices echoed just perfectly around the interior of the chapel.

HAMILTON!!  I was the only person in our group that had even listened to the soundtrack and I was so excited but a little nervous that no one else would enjoy the play.  I was wrong...of course everyone loved it!  I sang along the entire time, I love the music!

This is my "I'm so happy I could burst" smile!  Waiting for Hamilton to start.

More exploring around Chicago, we had to stop by the famous "Cloud Gate" sculpture

We went to the German Christmas market and I added 3 new nativities to my collection:)

It was so fun hanging with these ladies for the quick weekend trip!

We explored around the Zoo light display because it was free and we had nothing else to do.  It was a pretty cute display.

We had to thaw out with some cupcakes after walking around outside looking at the lights.  These were amazing!  If you're ever in Chicago check out "Molly's cupcakes"

The morning we left for the airport it started to snow.  It was so pretty falling down as we walked to catch our train.

This marked my friend Jessie Holwege's first time East of the Rocky Mountains!  I think she had a fun time...I know I did.  Until next time Chicago!

November happenings

November was a wonderful month!  I went on many different trips (which is my all time favorite thing to do).  I got to spend time with family and friends and remind myself what I have that makes me truly Grateful at this time of year.

Our cat Peter fits in any size box she can find:)

Our annual family trip to Great Wolf Lodge.  Julian brought his friend, Jacob Greathouse, along and they had lots of fun playing together.  The twins were also there this year and had fun with Hayden and Grady Holwege.

A couple of the kids wanted to play on the ropes course at Great Wolf Lodge.  Unfortunately no one had packed sneakers and they wouldn't let you on the course with just flip flops.  I had to run into the store and grab some water shoes so they could participate!

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Happy Birthday Hyrum!  His office staff made him wear this birthday sash all day:)

More remodeling.  This time we replaced the carpet in our upstairs hallway with hard wood...

...The finished hallway.  I think it looks fantastic!

Our yearly trip to Mt. Hood for Thanksgiving.  Once again Hyrum provided us with a fantastic feast of "Turk and Mash"

It's always super fun if it snows while we are on Mt. Hood.  It makes our little visit so much more magical.

The hot tub feels so nice with snow falling all around.

Took a little family walk in the snow up at Timberline Lodge.

Hyrum's brother Jason joined us up on Mt. Hood for a few hours.

Jason and Townsend playing shuffle board in Timberline Lodge.

Emerson and Dad playing ping pong in the Lodge.  

Another month for the memory book...Goodby November!

Maui, Hawaii

This was our third trip to Maui.  This time we really just took it easy.  There were no big "must see" sites that we had to check off our list.  Hyrum spent the mornings in his Medical seminars and then we spent every afternoon at the beach or taking small hikes.  This was such a wonderful, relaxing trip!

November 12:

A lovely walk along the path at Kapalua during sunset

"Dragons Teeth" Kapalua

You really can't beat a sunset in Hawaii!

November 13:

We went up to Haleakala Volcano to hike a little on the Halemau'u trail.

We walked a few miles out to a great view of the Haleakala Crater.

It was so amazing to be above the clouds and see gorgeous blue skies above us and clouds obscuring everything below us.  As we were getting back in the car to head home off the volcano we picked up a hitchhiker that needed a ride back up to his car after hiking all day on the Halemau'u trail.  He said it was an amazing 12 mile hike and totally worth doing if we could fit it into our schedule.  Hyrum and I decided that we should take advantage of the wonderful weather and hike the trial the next day!

November 14:

You have to start your hike with a hitch from a stranger to the Visitor Center at the top of the mountain.  

The famous "silverswords" that grow only in the Haleakala crater.

Hiking, down, down, down into the crater.

It was like walking on the moon.  Such a desolate landscape.  The hike was mostly downhill into the crater but it was pretty steep in some parts.

Gorgeous different colors of sand inside the crater. 

We stopped at the Holua cabin for our lunch break.  We had some Nene birds visit us and beg for some food.  These birds are only found on the island of Maui.  They were very persistent but there were signs all over telling visitors not to feed the birds so we kept our lunch to ourselves:)

After lunch it was up, up, up back to where we parked our car.  This was a grueling uphill climb.  After hiking all day it was a very steep climb at the end.  I have never been so happy to get to the car. I was a bit nauseous at the car but I think it was exhaustion and altitude sickness. Once we drove down off the volcano I was fine.  This was an awesome hike and I hope I can take my kids on it some day.  It's such a unique experience to hike through a volcano!

November 15:

Went for a fun day of driving, site seeing and shopping in Wailea (old church above)...

and Kihei (delicious fish tacos and fun shopping)

November 16:

We drove the road to Hana and stopped at some new places that we hadn't seen the last 2 times we were in Maui.  This was a fun little water fall hike, Pua'a Ka'a.  We ditched the lower falls where all the tourists stopped and hiked up to a very secluded water fall.  We had the place to ourselves:)

Hiking down from the waterfall.  It was super muddy, my shoes got so full of mud I decided to leave them in Maui:)

A very old church along the Hana Highway in Ke'anae.

We tried to capture a selfie with a wave crashing on the rocks...this was the best we got:)

Pretty waterfall on our walk down to the view point at the bottom of Nahiku road.

The view from the point.  Super lush green mountains and beautiful ocean below.

VERY sketchy bridge...no wonder they closed the point to vehicles.  You have to park and walk out to the end of the road.

Fun botanical garden (Kahanu Garden) with old Hawaiian ruins.

At the botanical garden

The view from our cabin in Hana, it was so beautiful!  This was such a cute, cozy little cabin that we stayed in for a night.  We woke up to rain pounding down on our tin roof.  So happy for a cozy place to be warm and safe.

Isn't this place so cute? It was a perfect way to spend our last night on Maui.

November 17:

We drove the back road from Hana.  We stopped at the Palapala Ho'omau church to see the grave of Charles Lindbergh.  I liked this stained glass window of "Hawaiian Jesus"

Best way to finish off a trip...gelato in Paia!

Another trip to Maui in the books.  I really enjoyed how relaxing our days were.  I got to sleep in most days as Hyrum went to his classes.  We did a bit of snorkeling but didn't stress about finding the perfect spot.  If it looked good we snorkeled:)  I loved that we got to stay a night in Hana so we didn't have to do that long drive all in one day!  I love Hawaii!