Christmas in California!

So it's recently come to our attention that we haven't kept up our blog, not that it really matters since no one really reads our blog, but for the 2 or 3 people that read it, here you go!

REWIND! yes it's March, but so much has happened since we last posted that we have to go back in time.

December 2009:
For Christmas and New Year we took off 10 days and went to California to spend the holidays with Mark's family. Tiffany's brother Solomon got to come down with us and spend Christmas with us. It was great! It was Tiffany's first Christmas away from home (!) something we didn't realize until we were there. Mark's family was so cute they got a lighted palm tree as their Christmas tree and decorating it fully with Hawaiian decorations--fish, Hawaiian words (Aloha, Mahalo), and even finished it off with a sand pail full of sand straight from Pipeline! Erin goes to school at BYU-Hawaii and brought it back with her. It was a great surprise! Tiffany and Solomon both rolled their eyes slightly at the fake "Hawaiian" style, but loved and appreciated it.

Cute fish ornaments!

Lighted palm tree

Sand from Pipeline

Christmas Eve we had the Cannon family over and their parents, and Mark's parents got together and hid rolled up $10 bills in one of their Christmas trees. All the kids lined up and had 10 seconds to find one of the $10 bills. I find mine easily, but Mark couldn't. Of all people Mark couldn't find the money!! Surprise surprise to everyone in the room!

The best part of Christmas morning was Mark's dad coming out into the living room dressed up in a full on red outfit from top to bottom. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen and took tons of pictures. Apparently he does this every Christmas morning. Maybe I'll get used to this in the future, but until then I'm going to take pictures every time!


Mark got a bunch of Japanese handkerchiefs in his stocking and his dad decided that it was a bandana and put it on his head. I started laughing so hard because he looked like a Japanese house wife or Aunt Jemima's Japanese sister. Loved it!


For Mark's mom's Christmas present we all chipped in for family pictures. My next blog will show off those pictures. The last thing that we got to do before we left warm, sunny California was go to Mark's cousin Blaire's basketball game. We only got to stay til half time (sad!) because we had a flight to catch, but it was fun!

Erin and I made signs!

Oh California how we love to visit.