Starting 2015

January 5, 2015

  My goal is to spend a few hours a week documenting the things that we have been able to do in our family throughout the entire year of 2015.  I am sure that there will be time that I just do not get to it, and I hope that I will stick to it.  There are many things that we do together, or that the kids accomplish, that I just do not seem to record.  Plus I enjoy writing but often do not know what to write about, so this will help.

  Rather than start out right away with the things that we have done in the past week.  I want to do a quick summery of 2014 since Facebook is really the only record we have of any of that stuff.  If I separated the year into three main highlights they would be:  Anna and Nikki getting to visit some great friends in Costa Rica, Our family trip to Hawaii, and the Anguiano/McCue Christmas extravaganza.

    Nikki has been best friends with the Wilkinson twins living next door for about 10 years.  Joseph and Eliza were regular visitors at our house, to the point where it was almost strange for them not to be around.  A few years ago the family was called to serve in the Costa Rica Mission.  Chad, the Dad, is currently the mission president, and as those of us that served a mission know, the whole family really gets the calling as they all go and they all serve. 

  Needless to say this was not easy on Nikki.  Really it was not easy on Mason either as Joseph treated Mason more like a little brother of his own, and less like the little kid next door.  We miss them very much and we are very excited to see them when they return in 6 months.

  One of the perks of Anna working for an airline is that we get to go cool places.  We will be taking more advantage of this over the next few years, and have enjoyed it this year as well.  Anna and Nikki were able to fly down and spend a week with the Wilkinson family. They only spent a day in the city, and then they headed off to a beach house to relax.  With the Internet and Face time I was able to talk with Anna every night, which was great.

    It was clear that they had a great time, and Nikki was very sad to say goodbye to them.  While Mason, Milo and I did not go, it really was still on of the highlights of the year for the family as a whole

  The next big deal for the year was a fantastic vacation to Kauai Hawaii with my brother Gus and his family.  It really is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in the world.  Our family flew down a few days before and stayed in just a little hotel close to the airport.  Then we met up with Gus’s family at the condo he had rented for a week.

Below is a picture of what we saw when we looked out our back door that week:

We did a lot of things that week.  We spent a lot of time at the beach, when for drives in the mountains, walked through caves, saw waterfalls, Snorkeled with huge turtles, went to a fantastic Laue, and ate fresh fish.  The best part of the trip was just not being on any kind schedule and having time to just relax and enjoy the time together.  The kids had a great time with their cousins and Anna and I cannot wait to go back again on our own.

The last big even of the year was a visit from Anna’s parents, her sister Teresa with her two kids at home, Eliana and Jeffery.  While they were here we also had Teresa’s older kids Brett and Tyler over a lot, as well as her brother Tony with his Family.  We spend a lot of time with Tony and Rina, it is very easy to have them over.

  They were mostly here for the Christmas Holiday, but we did a lot of other things with them as well.  Below are some pictures from some of the site seeing that we did.