We started the day early taking photos with all Debbi’s girl friends… Stanna, Judy, Calvena, Elissa, Mae, Sydney and all the families. …while we were taking the group photo Maya Threw us a curve ball… She didn’t want to look at the camera at all costs while crying… Needless to say, it was not pretty!

We ended up taking the group shot with the back of Maya’s head 😉 …I love when plans go wrong… No I really do. It helps us live more in the moment. We improvised and at least we were able to get Maya to look for a split second with enough time to take our family shot.

After the photo shoot we headed to the beach for a BBQ at the Hilton village in Waikiki. Same place pop and Rosie stayed when they were in Hawaii for Maya’s Koboji blessing. Maya was so excited to play in the ocean. She loved it. She was jumping up and down in the shallow waves saying cold! cold! with a big smile on her face laughing. I could barely get her to leave the water. We went from the ocean to the pool with the slides and the hot tub, then back on the pool and then later we went paddle boarding across the lagoon.

See the picture of Uncle Ray and Calvena below helping Debbi hold sawyer while she was eating (thank you!), maya downed an avocado as you can probably tell and then at the end of the day Sawyer and daddy played a game of horse-shoes with the guys.

They were both out cold before we were half way home. EA

EA

For those of you whole couldn’t jump in a plant and make it to the blessing, here are some highlights. It was very small and intimate… Typical neglected second child experience 😉 but never-the-less still a very nice ceremony. Connie recorded it, so if I can post the video online I’ll send an update reply email. I also posted these “Instructions for Life” poster that was up in the temple, worth sharing. I read through some of them and thought they were nice to have here.

EA

Here are some pictures from hawaii with aloha. Hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas! See photo of maya with cousins Sydney, Taylor and Alex Goto. Maya’s really growing attached to them. She always yells “Sydney” when we are on walks. But she says it more like “Shidny”. I’ll try to post a snippet of it online if I can capture it. Check back on http://family.anastas.org for updates. EA

Maya finally figured out how to hack into our computers. We caught her transferring our bank savings into her Acorn Store account. The real challenge for her was waiting for the right size boxes to stack up so she could get access to the computer. That explains why she’s been peeking over our shoulders as we put in our iPhone passwords! No wonder we never have enough money in our bank accounts! 😉 FYI. This was right before we left for hawaii. EA

It’s the apple butter from Trader Joe’s that we eat on our Almond-nut butter and banana sandwiches.. She cleaned out what was left of the jar… EA

Random shots of Maya heading to the car with mommy. She’s definitely zoning out here. This was taken a month ago. Just trying to catch up on my emails. EA

This is already a month old but maya was exploring her potential reach with the help of a wood block to stand on!! Nothing is out of reach now! Wuahhhhahahaaa 🙂 EA