December 25-31

Christmas Day

Christmas I was sick. I had wanted to have Christmas dinner with the Clark’s and maybe drive around the Island, but Sister Clark was still sick too. I had even premade the Christmas dinner. Oh well.

Siara and Nate and Family

We did call family. Thankfully, Grandma Florer took pictures of the Martin family Christmas. She had stayed the night with them.

Nate making his traditional Christmas breakfast pizza.

Before opening gifts they played with all their stocking stuff. Looks like link got a lego airplane. He loves building stuff.

After breakfast they opened gifts. Here they are putting together the gifts and playing.

Remi got a new purple purse full of stuff. Doesn’t she look cool!

She also got a unicorn with babies in its belly

Remi also got a doctor kit.

Link got car stuff, of course. I think he probably has the whole Hot Wheels village set now.

Hawke got books and toys.

Nate got socks and a giant palidarium an amphibious terrarium

Siara got books

We gave them all gift cards to Target.

After we talked to each of the kids, Nate got us playing with a program on his phone with the kids where you can make your face change or play games using body motion. We played with each child.

Remi’s angel costume

John and Ali and Family

I got everyone gift cards to Target and a dinner for a date night out for John and Ali. Here they went on a date to Target to use their gift cards. Apparently the kids went with them, and drove them. Kelsey got pajamas with her gift card.

When I asked what their favorite gifts were that they got for Christmas, Ali said, “J probably liked the pellet gun, Rae loves the vanity we got them and Kelsey seems to really like her fancy coffee machine. We only got them a few things each. Kels got a full sized mirror, her coffee maker, and some books, Rae got a drawing pad (2 actually. John got her a digital one and a pretty leather one), a vanity and some books. J got an air soft gun (not pellet), books, and a DJ electronic thing”

Look at the mustache!

I got John a pickleball set. Everyone plays it here and he’s been wanting to try it out.

John got me a new Macbook Pro. My other one had run out of memory and was going really slow. The new one is smaller and more portable and works great! I love it!

Sierra Knight, who we had taught temple prep to, got her endowment on the day after Christmas. But I missed it because I was sick. Elder Whitman went, and Max, the other one who we taught, was there too.

I started feeling better on Wednesday, but I still rested so I didn’t relapse. So we missed Pantry and thrift shop.

Ala Moana Mall

On Thursday I started getting out again a little. Mostly, I spent time at home catching up on everything.But we did go to the mall to purchase my Macbook Pro. We went to the famous Ala Moana Mall, which was very crowded.

At the mall I also got some bath and body stuff for 75% off, and we exchanged the sweatshirts Humberto gave us. John needed a bigger size and I needed a smaller size. Fortunately, he put a gift receipt in the bag. I ended up getting a beautiful purple sweater instead that fit me better. Sweaters that fit are usually hard for me to find and they had a couple there, but I couldn’t pay 50 dollars for a sweater, so I only got the one,

(Picture of the sweatshirt and sweater)

On the main floor at the Alo Moana mall I got to see really expensive shops that I have never seen anywhere else: Chanel, Gucci, Lois Vuitton, Rolex. Prada, etc. Some of these stores had very few items. There was rarely anyone in them. Men in fancy suits were standing by the door waiting for one rich customer to come in.

The floor above it had mid-priced shops like American Eagle, and the floor below had lower priced shops. It felt like a dark basement where the underground parking was as well.

The below picture is a different day. I had transferred all the files to the new computer and we were in town doing pantry, so we went to the mall to trade in the old computer to get money back. So we weren’t in official missionary clothes.

Likelike Waterfall Hike

By Saturday I felt strong enough to go for a walk. So we went on the Likelike Waterfall hike. It cost ten dollars to park at the golf club by the trail. It was a busy day with lots of people on the trail. Elder Whitman had fun talking to everyone.

Old water tank?

Love these vines that are thick a dense in the jungle. The hiking path was muddy.

These unusual tropical flowers were everywhere on the trail as well.

Lots of roots covering the trail.

Made it to the waterfall stream

The very crowded waterfall.

On Saturday I also made some soup, salad and rolls to take to the Clarks because she had been sick for a couple of weeks with Legionella Pneumonia. I also made some food to take to Mary because she was sick as well. She didn’t have a roommate she could send out for food. I sent her some medicine as well. Charlie delivered the food because I didn’t think we were allowed at the barracks. We went and saw the Clarks on Sunday to take them the food.

New Year’s Eve

Because Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve was on Sunday we only had sacrament meeting in all our wards for the two Sundays.

Sunday night was New Years. There were a lot of illegal fireworks going off all over the place. You have to have a license to do fireworks and no aireals are allowed but they were everywhere. The Wykles watched the mainland explode from the base. They also said it looked like a professional fireworks display, but over the whole island. The first one I heard sounded like a shotgun going off in the parking garage. It was super loud. The illegal firecrackers are like little bombs. John had told me that New Year’s was a big thing in Hawaii with piles of fireworks everywhere. We were both tired so I put in ear plugs and went to bed. Our apartment is super insulated so I wasn’t woken up at midnight. I slept through the whole thing. Next year maybe we’ll check it out more.