It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  Even the weather is a bit wintery.  The temperature is 68 F which is chilly.  Mom had to leave her raincoat on in Church because it is held in a building with only three walls with the fourth being a glass panel that they slide open.It poured rain all during Church and the electricity went out.  Dark and rainy...not very Hawaiian. 

House Christmas lights are not big in Laie.  The PCC has a Christmas Lagoon canoe ride which takes the visitors along a decorated waterway.  We will work there on Tuesday so we'll tell you more about it next week.  The McKay main building is decorated.  Poor pictures

Part of the PCC Christmas Lagoon

below  I don't now how to take photos of Christmas lights.  I guess my I phone is not really designed for that. 

We have been receiving Christmas packages which is nice.  We are late getting out our Christmas cards, but I think all the packages are on their way. 

It is very hard to think of it being Christmas.  It seems odd to see frosty the snowman among the palm trees.  I guess it is just what one gets used to associating with Christmas

Campus Entry Christmas lights

We have been to Christmas concerts, parties and other activities.  All nice, but still it is not really like Christmas.  Maybe just one day of really cold and snow and then it can go back to 80 F and sunny.  But that is not really winter on the North Shore, more like 72 and sometimes sunny.

We did decorate the apartment with an old tree and some used ornaments.  Here are a couple of photos of what we were able to scrounge together to make it seem more like Christmas

Mom and her Christmas tree  Not bad?

Mom decorated our pressed wood entertainment center I think it helps with the Christmas decor.  We also have a door wreath from Walmart. 

I am finished with classes for the fall semester.  Whew, what a learning curve I have been through, glad is is over and I can look forward as a wiser teacher to the next semester.  I will be ready this time.  Mom is almost done with her library and education projects.  She will start new ones after Christmas: teaching storytelling and upgrading the curriculum section of the library.  But for now, we have some time off for Christmas.  One of the advantages of being an education missionary, it is not 24X7. 

Last in this edition is a photo of our YSA Branch (Sunset Beach) This photo is historic because it represents the first time that the Church has had a presence (i.e. a unit of the Church) on the North Shore.  Hopefully we will be able to look back at our life's end and see that it has become a ward or a stake.  

Taken at the close of the first meeting of the Sunset Beach Branch held on the North Shore and we were there!

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