A Christmas Day

Just as hard as it is for the Farmers to be away from family, it is hard for the grandparents, too. They don't often get to do all of the grandparenty kind of things they always imagined they would. So I planned a Christmas grandparenty kind of day. Saturday morning started out with a Christmas parade in our town. My mom is wearing a shirt that says...There's Snowone Like my Grandkids.


A nice church along the parade route served a continental breakfast, provided parking, and provided chairs. They even took a family picture for us.

Our high school band with decorated instruments.

There is actually a man in that lion suit. The kids went nuts over him.

Ridin' local style.

Yeah the man in the red suit is driving.

Look, it's Flo from the movie, Cars.

Adults and children were Chinese dragons. The smaller dragons with the kids were too cute! Obviously there is a large Chinese population here.

These folks from a local church gave out Christmas leis and played the hand bells in the "Hawaiian station wagon." Gotta have a truck.

My favorite float, and NO that is not a guitar; it's an ukulele.

Engine 50 is a refurbished 1929 fire engine. We will be riding in it later in the month.

We were total amateurs. This is the first time we have gone to the parade. Every participant in the parade handed out candy to the kids. The kids next to us brought shopping bags to save their candy. They knew what was up. Uh huh...T.I.H. This is Hawaii. We threw our candy in the bottom of the stroller.

I rushed the family home after the parade. Son2 needed a nap, and Son1 reached a milestone: gymnastics in the 3-5 year old class, sans Mommy or Daddy. Nice. We picked up Grandma B. and we were on our way to "town." That is slang for east on the H1.
We stopped by the Winter Wonderland at the Hale Koa. Son1 pet the animated reindeer.

By this point we were starving. So we headed toward the mall 1.5 hours before the Christmas performance. Grandma B. treated us to Islands, and Son1 chomped down his meal with the promise he could ride the Candy Cane Express....the candy choo choo train that travels through the mall. The train is based on the book, The Gift of Aloha. Here is the final scene from the performance, and Son1 went nuts over snow in Hawaii. Well, Son2, did, too. I was a little concerned about him licking the wet soap bubbles...you know what ingested soap does, right?

We tried to purchase Candy Cane train tickets after the show, but they were sold out until 8:40. :( I had to tell Son1 that even though he had been the sweetest little boy, and had eaten all of his Islands dinner, we just couldn't wait that long. That would put us home and getting the 2 boys to bed at about 10pm. Not good for getting everyone out the door for church the next morning. Besides, I knew we could always come back. He cried and was heartbroken, yet again. Ugh. Here I was heart broken, too. But a few minutes later, he knocked out in the car on the way home. It was a full, full day.