Best Thanksgiving Ever

This year brought our entire family (minus Cole, who had to work) to Colorado for Thanksgiving.  We had the absolute best time, and I don’t even know where to begin describing all the fun. 

Everyone arrived on Wed evening and we had pizza, had fun running around with cousins and participating in our annual Banks family tradition of breaking bread for the stuffing.

Bright and early the next morning brought one of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions—the Turkey Day 5k. Or 10k, if you are Kami.  It was a beautiful, warm, sunny morning.  I was determined to win back the Champion Title that Michael took last year.  And he didn’t make it easy on me.  He was right on my shoulder the entire race. Every time I thought I lost him I’d catch a glimpse of him from the corner of my eye.  But I edged him out in the last few tenths and beat him by 3 seconds. I’m going to have to train all year long if I want to defend my title again next year ;)  Kami ran the 10k and took 2nd overall.  Cory and Rusty had a great run together.  Halle, Bridger, Brynn and Aubrey ran on their own this year and had a great race.  Aubrey killed it and was the Banks/Cornell family kid winner.  Josh walked/ran his first 5k with Alan and Lindsey ran with Bode and Brayden.   Jack and Kali did the 1/2 mile kids race.  Blake was supposed to run with them, but he was being ornery and refused to run when the time came.  Such a fun morning!

Now on to the main event—Dinner!  Everything came together really quickly and easily this year and in no time we were feasting away.
 

We ended the day with another favorite tradition—Thanksgiving evening movie.  This year we saw Big Hero 6.  We all loved it.  Leo was especially enthralled.  It was so cute to watch him. 

The next day we decided to be ambitious and head down to the North Pole in Colorado Springs.  Turns out that it was the busiest day of the year.  The line to get in was terrifyingly long and I wondered if we were in for an insane day.  But once we got inside the park things weren’t too bad.  I thought the North Pole was adorable.  The rides were darling and the perfect mix of bigger, more thrilling rides, and cute little rides for the little ones.  The older kids thought it was so cool that they got to go explore the park on their own.  We’d run into them every now and again and catch up on all the fun they’d been having.  Getting out of the park was kind of a pain—they have a totally archaic system of paying for things.  Then we hit major traffic on the way home.  Sigh. Poor Alan and Sharon got stuck with the 3 kindergarteners in the worst of the traffic.  But, we rolled into Denver just in time to see the lights turn on on the City and County Building.  It was really beautiful!

It was certainly a jam-packed, fun-filled day!

Josh’s Baptism

The party never stops around here!  Two days after Thanksgiving Josh was baptized.  It was such a special day, filled with the love of our family and friends.  Everything went really smoothly at the baptism and Josh loved being the center of attention on his special day.  I made him a little lap quilt out of his baby clothes just like I did for Halle and he just loved it.  His favorite part was a glow in the dark skull from a Halloween shirt.  I love looking at the quilt and remembering him as a sweet, snuggly, alert, and happy baby.  And I love looking at the 8 year old under the quilt and I am so proud of the boy he is.  He is smart, thoughtful, thankful, deliberate, and cute as a button.
His baptism program was just perfect.  The missionaries had arrived early and set up all the chairs and filled the font. As all our friends and family arrived, I caught this precious moment. This is absolutely my favorite picture of the day.  Josh hugging his best friend, Ezra. It is priceless!
Grandma Cornell gave the baptism talk.  She held up a picture of a kit kat bar and said that it may look like an ordinary candy bar, but it was actually a "Kit" to help him remember his baptismal covenants.  K-Keep his commandments A-Always remember him T-Take his name upon you.  She had a little basket of kit kat bars and a handout for all the kids to take at the end of the service.  All the kids thought that was pretty neat. 
Then Josh was baptized by Rusty.  He was so smiley and excited.  Everything went perfectly and when he came out of the water he was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

All the cousins sang "When I am baptized" and it couldn't have been any more sweet.  I love the sweet faith and innocence of children.

Grandma Banks gave her now infamous talk on the Holy Ghost.  Josh had been looking forward to this being a part of his baptism for quite some time.  This time all the baptized grandkids helped her with a part of the talk.  They told how the Holy Ghost is like a flashlight, compass, danger sign and Josh's favorite, a comforter.  He got to keep all the props in a special box that included a warm flannel basketball blanket.

Then Rusty confirmed Josh.  He didn't get all the words just right, and so after everyone had left he did a quick little "redo" with all the correct wording.  I said that means Josh will just have double influence from the Holy Ghost.

After about a million pictures everyone loaded up and headed back to our house for soup and hot chocolate.  The hot chocolate bar was a hit! I loved seeing all the creative, and sometimes gross hot chocolate concoctions that the kids came up with. I had so much fun planning this party for Josh and might have gone a bit overboard—per usual.  I practically forced Rusty to go to the Panera in Boulder and beg for some of their cute kraft brown bowls that went perfectly with my theme :) We had for different soups: Chicken noodle, chicken and veggie, beef stew and cheese and broccoli. We had delicious Lion House rolls with raspberry butter. For dessert we had Josh’s favorite peanut butter chocolate bars and my favorite toffee. I’m sure Josh didn’t even notice all the small details, but I wanted him to feel so special and so loved.  And I think he did.  


Josh, we are so proud of the decision you made today to follow Jesus Christ, take his name upon you, always remember him and keep his commandments.  I know that doing so will bring peace to your life, and also make you an influence for good in the lives of others.  I love you so very much!
When I asked Josh if he wanted to say anything about his baptism for the blog he said, “It was amazing!”  My favorite part was the luncheon.  All the food was so good and playing with my friends was so fun.”

Josh’s baptism photo shoot

Here's our handsome little Josh at his baptism photo shoot. I took him up to the same park in Longmont where we took Halle and snapped away. I didn't realize my camera battery was low until we got to the park, so I was turning it off and on between shots, praying it would last. It died right on our very last pose. I was so relieved! Taking pictures is not Josh’s favorite activity, so I knew if that camera died there was no way I was getting any more.

   

Happy 8th Birthday Josh!

Dear Josh,

Happy 8th Birthday!  Now stop growing ;) You are such a sweet, funny kid.  You are always saying hilarious things, and things that are wise beyond your years.  You are a person who values your alone time.  You like to have time after school or at the end of the day just to unwind and play with your favorite toy, the keys.  No one is quite sure why you love them so much, but not a day passes that you don’t play with them.  You also love to play your iPod.  Your favorite games right now are Civilization and Minecraft. 

School has been good for you this year. Mrs. Brown is your teacher and she is fantastic.  You are at the top of your class in reading and math.  But you hate when all the other kids cause disruptions.  It stresses you to no end.  At recess you favorite activity is still swinging, but you’ve also started the “angry pidgin club”  where you chase girls around the playground flapping your shirtsleeves at them.  I’ve seen this in action and it makes me laugh.

Sometimes it’s hard to motivate you to do things, but if you set small, reasonable goals nothing can stop you.  Recently you had a goal to get 25 miles at the school running club.  If you reached this goal I said I would bring you Chic-fli-a to school.  You worked so hard every time you were at club to get as many miles as you could.  We also just had kid dates, and you had a chance to earn “date dollars” for good behavior and happy attitudes.  You were quick to jump on every job and turn your frown around whenever date dollars were mentioned.  Then you and Dad spent your dollars swimming at the Erie Rec Center and buying treats from the vending machine.  You also were determined to conquer your fear of the big green slide and you did it!  Dad said you went down the slide 10 times. 

You also love to listen to audiobooks.  Your favorite series right now is “Land of Stories” by Chris Colfer.  I bet you have listened to each book 5 or more times. 

Josh you are such a sweet boy and never hesitate to tell me thank you for a special outing or snuggle up on my lap when I’m feeling low.  I think you and I are a lot alike in the way we think about things and so it’s always so fun to hang out with you and talk to you.  I love to see you play stuffies with Halle and Josh and marvel at the creative things you three come up with.  Our family is such the better place with you in it.  Keep on setting goals, working hard, and just being your fantastic self!

Love you so much,

Mom

Happy Halloween!

The kids went easy on me this year.  Halle was a baby, Blake was a Ninja Turtle (costume from the bin downstairs) and Josh was a tree. (where did he come up with that?)  Josh’s costume required a little bit of creativity, but we had fun with it!  We were at the mall  and Blake spotted a squirrel Christmas Ornament and he said, “Mom!!  We have to buy this for Josh’s costume!”  And so that’s exactly what we did. 

I also got to plan Blake and Halle’s School Halloween Parties.  it was lots of fun.  In Blakes class we made a cute ghost craft, read Halloween stories, and played a fun phonics i-spy game.  In Halle’s class they made their own Halloween Taboo game and we made Slime. 

  

Pumpkin Pizza Palace and Kids against Hunger

Our business is back!  The kids ran the Pumpkin Pizza Palace for the second year.  Every year around Halle and Josh’s birthday we try to think of a way in which we can give to those around us. This year they decided to donated 25% of their pizza earnings to Kids Against Hunger.  We took pizza and sugar cookie orders before we left for Hawaii and spent the days right after we got home shopping, prepping,baking, and delivering.  We figured out a good system last year, and we were MUCH more efficient this year. We banged out 25 pizza and 5 dozen cookies in no time :)

   Then about a week later we were joined by many of our friends as we packaged meals for kids in need.  My kids were so proud to present their donation to the team leader at Kids Against Hunger.  Thanks to the hard work and generosity of our friends, we were able to package 1944 meals. We had a contest near the end to see which side of the room could package 10 meals the fastest.  Dom brought the winners donuts the next morning.  The kids thought that was so fun. They also loved rotating through the stations so they all had a chance to package, seal, and box up the food.  I feel so lucky to be surrounded by kind, generous, big hearted people!  It was a night we won’t soon forget. 

One Last Day

This trip went by so quickly!  We feel like we were just getting started and it was time to go.  We woke up and headed to 9am church at the Kalaheo ward.  Rusty really wanted to give the kids a chance to see how unique it was to go to church in flip flops and shorts and say, “Alooooha!” at the beginning of every talk. We were running a bit late and my parents left before we did.  As they were leaving, my Dad said, “It might be pretty crowded so we might not be able to save you a seat.”  We said we’d look for them when we got there, but not to worry about us.  We arrived just a couple min late, couldn’t see my parents, so we just took a seat in the front row.  After a little bit Rusty saw them sitting in the back.  About 1/2 way through sacrament meeting he sent Blake back to sit with them but they were nowhere to be seen!  Turns out they sat in the back so they could save seats and they didn’t see us come in.  They thought we had changed our minds and didn’t come, so they left early!  I felt so bad. 

But I sure do love our little Mormon Community.  Guess who we saw at church?  The cinnamon roll lady from Costco!  What a small world.  We also chatted with the missionaries for a bit, and found out they knew Landon Hathaway, a missionary from our Colorado ward. Landon was on the Big Island at the time, but one of the Elders had served with him previously. 

After church we went to the Poipu shopping are and did a little souvenir shopping.  Josh got a shark and another lobster.  Blake got a gecko named Holo. (pronounced Hollow).  And Halle got a dolphin named selikie. Yipee.  More stuffed animals to add to our crew.

The kids also had a special surprise for Grandpa and Grandma.  They performed the “Hukilau” and their skills would give the best Hawaiian dancers a run for their money.

From there it was all about the beach.  We ate a quick lunch and then headed to the “Sheraton Beach” which was by Poipu beach.  It was pretty good but the surf was so strong (and it was high tide) that it was knocking everyone around pretty good.  Rusty rented a surf board for $10.  He couldn’t catch any waves but I took it after and caught a couple. I ordered us some food from the bar at and then we went swimming in the hotel pool.

Then, the highlight of the day. FUNKY MONKEY SHAVE ICE. Banana and coconut shave ice over a bed on chocolate macadamia nut ice cream. Topped with a drizzle of fudge.  I declare this to be the best shave ice on the face of the earth. 

 
We were trying catch the sunset at Brennecke on Poipu beach.  It was hard to get everyone showered and ready to go. We made it with about 3 minutes to spare. The drive to Brennecke was along the beach and it was gorgeous with the sun setting creating amazing beautiful colors. This was easily the prettiest sunset of the whole trip.

We sat upstairs and all the windows were open to the palm trees and the ocean.  It was amazing.   From there it was sadly time to load up the car and go.  

First was Kauai airport to Honolulu. Then Honolulu to Phoenix.  Trying to figure out all the seat assignments was a challenge in itself because for some reason we never had the 5 of us together the way we wanted.  The redeye was a pain.  Nobody would try to lay on the floor.  Josh laying on Rusty and Halle was being so sad because she couldn’t lay on anybody. It was rough. Blake and I fared a little better.  He curled up on on lap and then I could stretch my legs across his seat.  

We had to RUN from our plane in Phoenix to catch the Denver flight.  And then we proceeded to sit at the gate for 20 minutes :)  From there it was a relatively short flight home. We were wasted from the redeye and spent the rest of the day unpacking and just laying around.  We were so sad to see this trip end, but so glad for the amazing memories we made along the way.

Even with Hurricane Ana, one ear infection, one awful cough, a lost driver license and subsequent full body pat down at the airport, drown iPhone, and leaving my Kindle on the airplane in Phoenix, I’d say we had a pretty magical trip!

Until next time Hawaii, Mahalo!