We arrived safely back in Laie on Dec 30th. The flight was relatively good -- considering it was a red-eye. We must have been so tired that we were actually able to sleep most of the flight.
We had asked a husband & wife in our ward to give our Marriage & Family class for the two Sundays we would be gone. On Saturday, we went to their apartment to retrieve our books and took them some candy as a token of our appreciation. They had turned their small kitchen & small living room into a MAJOR bakery. They were making pineapple pies and turnovers for the “older people.” They gave us one of each (I guess since we are “older people“). Remember us telling you about the LARGE containers people bring to FHE & Ward dinners? Well, that’s what these pies were. They were made in the LARGE RECTANGULAR TIN BAKING PANS and were 2 inches deep. The turnovers were actually the size of ½ of a regular pie. It made up four servings. We took the large pie to our New Years Eve party and it served 12 with about 1/3 of it left over. Think BIG!
2010 New Years Eve in Laie was amazing. We had heard that people celebrate with fireworks on New Years Eve. We had also heard that this is the last year that people will be able to buy & use fireworks. This is why === People are able to buy the same kind of fireworks that cities on the mainland use for their large July 4th celebrations. There were more HUGE private fireworks than you see in many small towns back home.
The fireworks started ALL OVER TOWN about 6:30 p.m. The air was smoke filled at 7:30 when we went to the Missionaries party and they were still lighting them at 12:30 when we drove home. They were everywhere, strings of large firecrackers tied to the street light pole that had to be 25 feet long and lasted for several minutes, hundreds of the bright cascading fountain type that only go about 15 feet high. They are kind of done as a neighborhood effort, where several families gathered around together with the road blocked off with cones and everything. The Costco in Mililani, had a sale on fireworks, their packages went from $49 to $199 and there were people buying several of every size.
During our party, there was a 2 hour downpour from about 9 to 11pm. We commented on the fact the noise had stopped, then we had to sandbag the door to the TVA multipurpose building so the water didn’t come under the door. The 2 weeks that we were in Utah, they had enough rain that they had placed sandbags at all of the doors to the buildings that are in a low spot. Eileen wondered why that building always smelled like a swimming pool locker room when we go to Family Home Evenings, I don’t know if the carpet ever quite dries out.
Our party included The Draper’s, Wilson’s, Olson’s, Thompson’s, and the Brinley’s. Everyone just brought something to eat or snack on or drink. It was a really fun evening. We played several “minute to win it” and other “thinking” games. These are mostly Religion Professor types and it was good for us to see them frustrated and still laughing. I hope those memories last for a long time. Two of the men are really good piano players and as it got to be midnight, they played and we sang several songs. One that I had never even heard of before, #215 in the Hymn book. If you can play that and sing, do that, but at least read the words to the song, it is a good new years song.
We tried to initiate a polar plunge today -- no takers. If we’re ever going to do a Polar plunge, it will be in Hawaii where the water never gets too cold to swim.
2010 brought a few major challenges to our family. We are hoping for a healthy and happy 2011.
