Cards and Cookies, Trees and Tinsel

Oh how fantastic this time of year is! It's like every day is filled with so much joy it's unbelievable. I know that so many of you have been wanting to see pictures from Hawaii and hear all about it. I swear, I will get some pictures posted (we have wedding pictures to post too!).

But with Christmas only 11 days away and the rush to wrap presents, ship things, and get our cards out the door, the only think that I could think about was decorating my tree and making my wreath for the year. So as I sit here and decide which cookies I'm going to bake this year, I wanted to share with each of you our little bit of Christmas here in Montana.

 



We've added a few more presents since the picture was taken. Tana seems to be leaving it alone which makes me very happy. She is very much into tennis balls right now so I was a little nervous about her confusing the ornaments on the tree with her toys. Thankfully she has heard "no" once and that's all that it took.

Of course I had to add in an "H"..I'm very proud to have my little family this year and to know call ourselves "The Hofmans" so I couldn't resist. Of course my wreath is completely made up from items found at Dollar Tree and attached with a few twist ties. Nothing special but it sure is special to me!

Oh and there's a little sneak peek of our new leather couches. A little wedding present to ourselves and worth every penny : )

Now it's time for some cookies...pizzelle anyone?

The Newlywed Game

As the Christmas season begins, so do the parties, the get-togethers, and the festivities. Last night was the first of many parties that Griff and I will attend and this year it seems a little different being newlyweds.

As the games commenced at Griff's squadron Christmas party last night, we enjoyed watching party-goers scramble for items on a scavenger hunt list and watched the real Christmas spirit come out in everyone as the fights ensued for the last remaining seat in the lineup. And then they announced that we were going to play the Newlywed Game.

It was like slow motion watching the heads turn to the table in the back where Griff and I were seated. Of course everyone knew that we we had just gotten married. Some people in the room were invited to nuptials, while others were quietly envying our tans fresh from Hawaii (sorry, I had to put it out there). But needless to say no matter how many shades of red our faces turned, Griff and I weren't getting out of the game.

Now I didn't mind playing the game so much. I only know a handful of people in the room and how embarrassing can the questions, thought up by the squadron commander, be anyway. We'll come back to that statement.

So as we went down the line of couples, the introductions began. "Hi, what's your name?...And your husband is?" Followed by the obvious question, "And how long have you been married for?"

10 years was the first answer...I thought that this was the newlywed game? But as we continued down the line the marriage times weren't getting any smaller. When the Colonel finally got to me and Griff my sheepish answer was 1 month..."1 month? Is this part of the honeymoon?" I thought to myself do we have any shot at winning this thing without embarrassing ourselves? Of course we did. It's me and Griff.

And let me tell you, we held our own. Now back to embarrassing questions. After being asked "What part on your body would your husband say has aged the most?" and dragging out the skeletons in the closet with "How many girlfriends did your husband have before marrying you?" (which we both answered correctly) I thought that Griff and I could handle anything. And we were in the lead too. And then the dreaded bonus question - "When and where would your husband say was your first date?"

Stumped. And we thought we had this one in the bag.

With the way that our long distance relationship worked out, every time we saw each other, there were always other people around. Friends or family, we tried to combined visits with as much as possible. So what were our answers? Mine was Christmas Eve dinner, 2008. His was Applebees the day after we first officially met, in August 2008. And we were the only ones to get that question wrong. Now that's embarrassing.

Needless to say, we lost. Although we came away from it with a nice bottle of wine. And when we got home that night, we discussed where and when our first official date was in case that were to ever happen again. After all, you can't get stuck in that predicament twice. And you never know...we could still be playing the newlywed game after 10 years of marriage. 

A day which will live in infamy

I couldn't think of a better way to kick off my recap of our time in Hawaii then with a small tribute on such a large day. Of course this is a little out of order but with today being December 7th, I'm not sure it's so wrong to go out of order. I'll jump back to the rest of the trip a little later.

December 7th, 1941 in the small harbor off the south shore of the island of Oahu, was a quiet morning and that's just how it was for us when we arrived at Pearl Harbor that morning. There is nothing more sobering than to enter what is now a national monument that is visited by over 2.5 million people.

Most of those people aren't there to see the things that are happening in the Welcome Center of the complex. Sure there are facts that line the shoreline and small monuments to some of the fighting forces but everyone wants to head out into the harbor and see the ship that is eternally on patrol of the waters below.

From the shoreline, the USS Arizona Memorial looks a little like this:

So as we boarded our navy taxi boat, the memorial began to come a little bit more in view.

The memorial is made up of three sections, the first holds the flags of the branches of the armed services, the US flag, and the Hawaiian flag. And then you enter the viewing room. Laying perpendicular across the hull of the USS Arizona, the memorial is open on all sides and even on top.

Looking over the sides, you can see parts of the ship, mostly covered in coral and home to some fish that find their food source there everyday.

The most amazing part though is the oil that still lingers on the surface of the water. Just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona was refueled to it's maximum. When the attack happened, 1/3 of the oil in the ship blew up, 1/3 of it burned for 2 days straight, and 1/3 still remains on the ship. 69 years later, 2 gallons of oil still escape from the ship each day and probably will for the next 50 years. The smell of oil is prominent from the deck of the memorial, a constant reminder of the tragic events of that day.

Lining the walls of the last room of the memorial are the names of all of the men that lost their lives on the ship. As I stood to say a small pray of thanks, I thought about the men who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. There were even a few survivors of the Arizona. So far 33 of them have opted to be cremated and have been returned to the Arizona to forever lie with their shipmates - their urns taken by divers and entombed in one of the cannons of the ship.

It's hard to do this place justice by showing some photos because of the gratitude and humbleness you feel when you step onto the memorial. As we left that day, I felt saddened by the events of that day but happy that it is something that this world will never forget as we always remember the day which will live in infamy.



There's all this white stuff on the ground

Well it's official. Montana has received it first snow storm (and it's really not even that big). The snow has been falling since yesterday afternoon and the temperatures have dropped far below 32 degrees. And with the first snow fall comes the careful driving and the snow shovels.

Most interested in the snow is Tana. Of course this is her first time seeing snow and she seems to think that the white stuff on the ground is fun to play with and jump in. I even caught her sitting in the middle of the year catching the snowflakes as they were falling.

So while everyone is carefully listening to the weather report to see how many more days they will be waking up to this sight in the morning:

I'll be feeling sorry for everyone as I'm waking up to this sight every morning:

Perfect timing? I think so. As we journey off to the islands of Hawaii, I just can't wait to spend time with my husband, being newlyweds, enjoying our time in the sun.

For the next 2 weeks, the only white stuff on the ground that we'll be worried about is the sand between our toes. : )

I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs.

Well it has been a whirlwind kind of November so far...and it's not over yet. But I have missed my blogging while all of the excitement was going on.

I have officially been married for 10 days and I have gone through the ups and downs of this wedding being over. "What am I going to do now that I don't have anymore wedding planning to do?" or "Wow. I'm so glad that stress is over." But when it all comes down it, Griff and I are now husband and wife and it's time for us to enjoy the time together.

Our wedding was honestly beautiful. Whether someone disagrees with that statement or not, we loved every minute of it. And it gave me so much joy to know that it was personalized with every little bit of "us". If I had to do it again (which I won't) I wouldn't have it any other way.

As we embark on our lifetime of happily ever after, I know that I will always look back on that moment that I walked down the aisle with my dad, that Griff and I danced our first dance, or that we cut our cake. I will never forget the people that we with us on that day or the way that the weather cleared up for us as the ceremony got closer. But most of all, I will never forget that moment that Grandpa Hofman pronounced us husband and wife.

I promise more details when we get back from our honeymoon : ) Hawaii here we come!