Mele Kalikimaka!

Matt and I had a different but wonderful first married Christmas Eve. It even included a visit from the police!! Yes, at 4:45 in the afternoon a friendly police officer stopped by our door to let us know that a neighbor had called in a complaint about us playing our Christmas music too loud!! Are you kidding me?!! Where's the aloha and/or Christmas spirit?!! Needless to say, we were pretty peeved! But we continued to get ready(no scrooge was gonna crush our spirits) and headed into downtown Honolulu. We toured the "Honolulu City Lights", which was actually really cool...the main attraction is of course the famous "Shaka Santa" with Tutu Mele (Grandmother Merry) pictured above. We then ate a good Italian Christmas Eve meal at Buca De Bepo...and were able to bring home our commemorative wicker basket bottle of Chianti! We headed home at about 9:30 and our friends Charlie and Roisin dropped by on their way home from mass(they're so good!) and we sat around and told funny Christmas stories while drinking a few Christmas Eve toddies.

It was a good time, but missing the people we love the most (ALL of y'all!) and so that was hard. I was saying last night that in about 10 years when we have kids and are running around playing Santa and driving from party to family and back we will look back fondly on this Hawaiian Christmas when we had absolutely nothing to do and no where to go...and when the cops came!!

Oh Christmas Tree...Truck!!

Yea! We got a real Christmas tree! I had been a little worried because one of our tree shipments was infested with wasps and had to be returned to the mainland. Yes, surprisingly (haha), there are no tree farms here and all Christmas trees are shipped from Oregon and Washington. There are only 2 shipments of Christmas trees made each year to Hawaii and when the 2nd shipment arrived in harbor it was found to be "swarming" with wasps and was immediantly returned. Hawaii went into a small panic because most of the 1st shipment trees had already been sold and many of us were waiting on that 2nd batch.

Well, long story short...a new batch eventually reached us over here and now we have a perfect Oregon Christmas tree...and actually it was pretty cheap...alot less than the one we bought in Atlanta last year!

From the port they load all the trees into Matson Moving trucks and set them up in random parking lots. So about a week ago we headed to our local shopping center parking lot to try our luck in the Christmas tree truck. Please notice that I am not in your usual Christmas tree hunting attire...with the temp. still in the 80's, it's really hard to believe that it's almost Christmas!

The tree is now set up and decorated and the postman is working over time to get all our gifts out and delivering us up to 5 packages each day!!

Today was the last day of school so I'll have more time to catch up on some blogging. Some of you know that Matt and I took a much needed vacation (heehee) to the Big Island in early December. The beaches were awesome and the active volcano...one of the coolest things I've ever seen! I've got tons of pictures so I've got to figure out how to do a slideshow on the blog so I can post them. Please standby!

love, E

SO much to say...

VS.

Are you kidding me?!?! I feel like we willed this to happen...I think God got his lines crossed...I was praying that Georgia would come here and play in the Aloha Bowl...oh well!!! Sooooo crazy! People had been throwing around the idea for a few weeks now, but I didn't really think it would happen! The front page of the paper here today says...BRING ON GEORGIA!! I seriously think this is the first time the word Georgia has ever been in the Hawaii paper. It will be fun to follow the hype around this game...makes me feel closer to home. Although I think it will be surreal to watch the game, and downright depressing to not be there!

I will admit that Matt and I have become big warrior fans, but those who know me well know who I'll be cheering for. It will be tough though...I still might have to cheer for Colt Brennan...he's so hot! And I'll probably have to watch the game at our house with all the windows and doors closed as to not be attacked by the Hawaii nation! Starting today, i'll also have to rethink my gym attire...my Georgia t-shirts and sweatshirts might not be the best choices anymore. I want to be a proud Georgia fan, but this football team is pretty much the only thing sports related that they have going for them over here, and they take it very seriously. Click the link below and see what the Sugar Bowl attendees have to look forward to...these Tongans and Samoans don't play!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pCZ5RkhJkY