Happy Holidays! (with lights on)

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas this year! Although we missed all of our NY friends and family terribly (as well as others in other parts of the country), we had a great day here in Honolulu. The kids woke us up around 7:15 - not too bad. In homage to New York, we made latkes for breakfast before letting the kids rip into their presents, something they did with the enthusiasm of Godzilla demolishing Tokyo.

Daniel, before gift opening, in Spiderman shirt and pose

Sophie and Mom

Daniel's favorite presents are a Cars game for the Wii, from his Uncle Gene and Aunt Julie, and a kids' laptop. Sophie's says she likes all her Christmas presents, including a wide-eyed Japanese-looking doll with the unfortunate name of "Poupette." (Cue nonstop laughter by Ryan, who notes that it's not just any ol' doll, it's a doll that has fragrance!  Poupette the Smelly Doll!!)  Both kids have also spent an awful lot of time playing Whack a Mole, a truly inspired game of banging large, noisy rodents into submission. Too bad it doesn't work for New York subway rats.

Daniel with his dog bank from Aunty Kitty, our next-door neighbor


Daniel playing tee ball (a gift from Dad) in our garage

Kellen and Rocky competing at Whack a Mole

After gift-opening, we spent the morning at Kahala Nui, a retirement home not too far from us, where both DeShannon and Rocky work in the activities department. DeShannon led the sixth floor residents in a game of Christmas bingo, and Sophie and Daniel joined in, with Sophie helping our tablemates hunt for their squares of reindeer, Christmas lights, and snowmen. Daniel won one round, but everyone got prizes eventually. Both Sophie and Daniel picked cheetos for their prizes. And really, how much more Christmas-y can you get than that?

We spent the rest of the day cleaning, napping, and playing with our new toys. For Christmas dinner, Ryan and DeShannon deep-fried yet another turkey, and learned this startling fact: deep-frying turkey in pieces is not any faster than cooking a whole bird. Most of our on-island cousins, plus our neighbor Kitty, joined us for dinner, and later Rocky treated us to a mini-concert of Les Mis classics.  Sophie sang "Silent Night."

The night after Christmas, we survived our first Hawaii blackout. The lights went out about 6:45. We coped by getting out our candles and flashlights and putting the kids to bed. The entire island, except for one neighborhood on the Windward side, was without power for most of the night. It was an eerie experience that really made us aware of the isolation of living on an island. I bet the astronomers on Mauna Kea loved it, though - usually the light pollution of Honolulu blocks their view of the stars.

Blackouts are a common experience in Hawaii, because of the limited number of power plants on each island -- it's not like on the mainland, where you can divert power from numerous other sources. Our power finally came on at about 9:30 the next morning, and the only causualties were a pizza we couldn't put in the fridge, and Sophie's outrage at having to go to bed earlier than usual.

So that was our Christmas. We hope yours was as fun, and as filled with family and friends (and perhaps somewhat more filled with electricity). We are eagerly looking forward to our first New Year's Eve here. Fireworks are a huge tradition, and everyone basically tries to blow up the island. For under $15, you can buy a 22 foot-long string of 30,000 firecrackers. And that's just for the amateurs.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year! We love and miss you all, especially around the holidays!