Aloha and Happy New Year!

Aloha Family and Friends!
We hope and pray that you all had a wonderful
Christmas and New Year.
Time is flying on our Hawaiian adventure and we are enjoying the blessing of this time so greatly.


We are settled in our wonderful rental home. It is great and a testimony once again to God's faithfulness to us! The girls are doing great and making lots of friends. The 3 younger girls are now being home schooled.


We have been homeschooling for about 3 weeks now and we are doing quite well. I have to rely on God (and my friend who is an experienced home schooler) every day for direction, wisdom and patience! He always delivers!


We have found a wonderful church in Kaneohe (the next town over). It is right next to the Marine Corps base so there are many military families there. There are so many precious people there who have welcomed us with open arms. I have been going to a bible study at a woman's house who is from the church and am really enjoying it:)

Paul wants me to say that he is becoming a star surfer (see the pic below that might refute that statement!). He also wants me to include that he feels confident that he will be ready for the PGA tour soon. He realized a dream the other day when he got to go to the PGA Sony Open in Honolulu. It is a golf tournament that he has been watching on TV for years!

These pics are of Molly and Isa the night of their Christmas concert.










Molly took Hula lessons and so here she is in her traditional hula outfit getting ready to perform her hula at the Christmas concert. Great job, Molly! Isabel is reading scripture- way to go Isa!

Isa's Trinity Christian class

 This is Christmas day at the beach! This is what most people do in Hawaii on the afternoon of Christmas day- we were more than happy to join in the tradition:)

    It was a nearly perfect Christmas Day (having our family here would have made it perfect!) with a beautiful service at our church in the morning, the afternoon at the beach and ....




fun and festivities in downtown Honolulu (below)!

Yes- Santa even comes to Hawaii! Mele Kalikimaka!

Another Hawaiian tradition we are happy to partake in- lots of fireworks on New Years Eve:)

Below is a picture of the canal right down the street from us. If you look toward the far end of the canal, you can see two "gunnar" boats that are there protecting the Obama's as they were staying here in Kailua for Christmas.

For a few days before Christmas we went to Maui. It is a beautiful place and we had a wonderful time. We went snorkeling and saw lots of different fish and sea turtles. From our raft we saw many dolphins who swam right up by the boat and got a short glimpse of a huge whale. Unfortunately, Paul was so excited when the whale finally surfaced that he forgot to snap the picture!  
God's creatures are so amazing!

Can you tell I'm having so much fun? Haha Not really... I'm actually so seasick I'm about to throw up:(

Molly and Noni (our guide)

We stayed at the historic Pioneer Inn in the town of Lahina. It is a fascinating place with lots of history. The whales come every year  from Alaska to have their babies. As a result, this town has a rich history of whaling and hosting ships for hundreds of years from around the world.

 Here is another pic of the Pioneer Inn
from the water.

Some tough whalers!

 













                                                                                                       





We hiked some beautiful country in Maui, including waterfalls on the mountain and....

    bamboo forests!!!

A zip line a little bigger than the one we are used to at the magic tree house!

Our first visitor was Josie our niece- what a treat to have her.

We showed her all around Oahu and slept for a week after she left!

This is Manoa
Falls in Honolulu. These trees are Banyan trees and are some of our favorites. The girls call them the "Lord of the Rings" trees.

There is a place on the North Shore of our island called the Polynesian Cultural Center. It is sort of like Disney-island style!
It is way better than Disney though because we learned so much about the islands of the Pacific and the fascinating people groups that inhabit them. We loved meeting the people that are actually from places like Tonga, Tahiti, Samoa and many more.

Another thing Paul as learned to do is climb trees to get us some coconuts. Hopefully he won't fall and break his coconut!

 Livi, her cousin Josie and Paul went to the North Shore and watched the Triple Crown of Surfing at Banzai Pipeline beach. The waves were about 15-20' high that day.

We took surf lessons from a legendary Hawaiian surfer down by Waikiki-no injuries-thank you Lord!

Nice form Isa!

It looks like everyone was listening to their teacher!

...except Paulie! Ha

We missed Livi that day as she had to go to school. Not a bad day for everyones first real try at surfing!



After Josie left and the holidays were over we went back to regular life! Olivia is having a great season playing point-guard for LeJardin Academy. They are 7 and 4 so far. GO BULLDOGS!

As I mentioned earlier, Maddie, Isa and Molly are now homeschoolers! The teachers and kids at Trinity made them feel very special on their last day. They still spend lots of time with their friends on the weekends:)

 

We want to thank you all so much for your Christmas cards and well wishes. We miss everyone so much! We feel thankful to be here, but have gained a new appreciation of all of our beloved family and friends back in Minnesota.

Aloha to all and Mahalo for all your prayers!

Blessings to you in 2012

Paul and Cindy, Olivia, Maddie, Isa and Molly