Adventure Beach

Eden

I Wish I Had . . .

The Holidays 2007

This one is for the kids--the tradition is: buy the biggest turkey we can find. This isn't the biggest we ever had, but it's definitely the biggest we've found since living on Saipan. Also, everybody, including all the guests, gets their favorite pie--or two.... (unless their favorite is lemon meringue--try making that in 75% humidity!) We don't worry much about leftovers because on Thanksgiving night we invite even more people over for Pie Night (i.e., bring your leftover pies and come share our leftover pies).

Since we live in the tropics, a trip to the beach can always be on the schedule. Of course, the kids would love to be in the snow--the youngest ones don't remember ever having seen snow in real life. They used to bring in a shipment from Japan every year and have a snow festival at La Fiesta Mall, but not anymore.

A cookie exchange for Ladies Only. We placate our families with the promise of bringing home treats. Everyone brings a big batch of a holiday cookies and goes home with a big container of a whole variety of beautiful Christmas cookies. I did my one and only cookie exchange (prior to this) about 3 or 4 years ago and this one came about by special request. This may be an every 3 or 4 year tradition--we'll see.

Our family participated in the holiday musical Scrooge this year with our community theater.

It was a lot of work and there was a little complaining about having to go to rehearsals, but it was worth it in the end. We put on 5 performances over a 6 day period. Phew!

The fabled "School Christmas Program." Yes, that's Jake in a skirt.

You'll have to be an AC/DC fan to really understand this...

The Seminary Christmas Auction ...

The Branch Christmas Party...

Christmas Eve Dessert...Pavlova--Yum!!

Christmas morning Santa...& helper..

If our walls look a little bare it's because I had the brilliant idea that since the furniture was all moved out of the livingroom to accommodate our Thanksgiving day guests it would be a great time to paint the main rooms of the house. And the ceilings. And the ceiling fans. (It's an open floor plan, so the kitchen, diningroom, and livingroom all had to be done at once.) So we began painting during Scrooge production week...the first week of December...between Pie Night and Cookie Party...I must be nuts.

During school break we attended

the first-ever-on-Saipan Cubmobile Races.

Team T-Bone wins!

No New Year's Eve pictures this year, but we did have the party. Every year I vow that we are NOT going to have a New Year's Eve Party because of all the kids (it's always a family party), and fireworks (you can buy BIG ones here), but somehow it keeps happening. This year we didn't buy any fireworks--not even sparklers--but I knew that people would bring them because they always do. NOBODY brought ANY! That was fine with me. I, however, was the Scrooge of New Year's Eve according to the home team. Forget the fact that we can see all the fireworks for miles around from our deck and (at least I) enjoyed a beautiful show this year. Oh well. Happy New Year kids!