Vegas Holiday Activities 2013

We've been able to do a lot of fun holiday activities while Ti's been here. I'm grateful for that! On our annual Family Day we went to Town Square to watch Frozen with the kids. Afterwards, we gathered around the giant Christmas tree in the Square for their evening snowfall. We drove home to Christmas music and made hot cocoa at home to end the night. I'm so glad the kids started this family tradition. Didn't do any Black Friday shopping, but had a special day with my family instead.

This weekend we went to Ethel M Chocolate Factory for the first time. It was awesome!!! They have a cactus garden out back that was completely decorated in Christmas lights. I have been complaining about Vegas not having a worthy display of Christmas lights since we've moved here and I finally found a spot that's amazing!!! And it's free! Before leaving we went to look around inside the factory and were pleasantly surprised to find a walk through of the factory. We got to see how the chocolate was made and received free samples as well. The kids loved it. I loved it!

Yesterday we spent the day at home. We had pizza for lunch and listened to Christmas music while we hung up the stockings and decorated the tree.

Although we have to say goodbye to Ti Tonga today I am grateful for the holiday memories we were able to build with him. This is so much more time than we had with him last year. For that I am grateful.

-kiki

Thanksgiving 2012

I feel like it's been so long since we've been out to Salt Lake. Me and Ti were planning on spending Thanksgiving here in Vegas, but got to talking about how much we missed our family back home. After only a couple minutes we changed our plans and decided that we would be driving out to Utah to spend the holiday with our families. We got a hotel room this time because Ti thought it would be fun to be downtown near the lights.
Wednesday night the boys wanted to spend the night at Grandma's house with all the cousins (of course).

Look who we saw as soon as we got there!! Little Miss Ella

When me and Ti were back at the hotel we were notified that Ti's grandma had a stroke and was in the emergency room :( So Thursday morning was spent at the hospital with Ma. I am so grateful that Ti was able to be by her side holding her hand.
Afterwards we went over to my moms house and I cannot even begin to explain how delicious the food was. If you have been lucky enough to taste my moms cooking, then you know I am not exaggerating when I say this lady is the best cook!!!! We've come up with a weekend strategy when it comes to the holidays. Often times we have so much food leftover it's ridiculous... so she cooks traditional Tongan food on Thursday, Friday we eat those leftovers, Saturday we cook our traditional American food (turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc.) then Sunday we eat those leftovers... Voila - a weekend of amazing food to celebrate our culture and livelihood here in the U. S. of A. :)

Mafileo & Ruby Mei

Diaper pals: Lucky & Ella

Later that night we went to Ova & Monica's and me and Monica attempted to do some "Black Friday" shopping at Walmart... and we came out of the store traumatized lol.

Friday after breakfast we went to Gateway and watched Life of Pi in 3D.

Salt Lake does it fancy with their 3D glasses

When we walked out of the theater we were greeted by Sau & Suliana. We had lunch with them at Tucano's ... yummmmm!!

Friday night we planned on going to Temple Square with my family so each of my siblings got hotel rooms as well so we could spend the entire day downtown. As soon as we got back to the hotel the kids invaded the pool. They swam til the sun went down.

After getting dressed and filling up with cocoa in the lounge we headed to Temple Square where we walked the grounds admiring the beautiful Christmas lights.

Saturday we took family pictures which is always a struggle when you have 3 rambunctious boys. We had dinner that night at my Moms and Sunday we checked out and headed back to Vegas. It seriously was such a great trip, that as it came to a close, we decided that we would head back for Christmas :)

Time Flies...

When you're having fun... Wow, I am so unbelievably behind with blogging that it's not even funny. The thought of playing catch-up with my posts makes my stomach turn. I've been doing pretty good on my personal blog, but with this one?... not so great. Our family has definitely been busy <~ to say the least. And things don't look like they'll be slowing down any time soon. Not sure when I'll be able to officially catch up with all our updates. I've got so many pictures on my memory card that are dying to be shared. So... although this isn't quite in the order it should be, here's a picture of one of our trips (back) to California. We've done quite a bit of traveling since my last post... nowhere very far, but definitely memorable and full of fun. Here's to trying to get more organized!

Seal Beach, CA

Christmas 2011

Me and Ti talked about spending Christmas in Vegas this year. We wanted to go to Salt Lake, but because Fatu's wedding was the next weekend, we decided that it would be best to stay home for the Holidays. As Christmas grew nearer we each felt like we wanted to be around our families on Christmas day. So we changed our plans and agreed that we would be going up to Utah. The kids had some Christmas gifts that were already under the tree so I let them open them the night before we left.

They wrote Santa a letter telling him that they would be in Utah and left him their Grandma's address so that he could find them.

And he did!

The stocking were filled with lots of treats

Stocking Sweets

We had Christmas breakfast with the Fangupo's (yes we open presents before we eat haha). The boys were so excited to see more cousins.

Of course we went and visited Ren as well...

She had her own tree that was decorated in her favorite color {purple} It was even lit up with lights.

We went up with my Dad, Beans, and Misi

Everything lit up at night! She had candy cane lanterns that made cool star patterns on the grass, there were Christmas trees that lined her picture and a snowman that would glow and play Christmas music. And her little candle holders too.

Jonathan & Sia stopped by with their kids while we were there.

The kids were out of school for winter break so we let them spend that week in Salt Lake and me and Ti drove back to Vegas. Even though we didn't have the kids for a week, there wasn't any relaxing. I was running around trying to get everything we needed for the wedding. Time flew by and before we knew it, we were driving back up to Utah for Fatu & Brittainy's wedding.