Merry Christmas from the Hofmans!

In my effort to do less this year, I opted to not send out Christmas cards to everyone. Plus I'm trying to work on all of the thank you's we need to write and send!

But of course, we didn't want you to think that we weren't wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas...

It was a little struggle to get Tana to sit for the picture but with a little help from Jameson and his funny faces, Lindsay's quick fingers and Peyton's skill with dog treats, we were able to get a nice family photo.

And once again, from the Hofman family to yours, have a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Doing less gives you time to be more

As I have been scouring my ever growing list of blogs, I have noticed that so many people have been talking about keeping it simple this year. Of course, I kept it simple due to the sheer fact that I didn't have a lot of time to plan the Christmas holiday or to even do a lot of shopping for that matter. But now I'm seeing that as a blessing.

September, October, and November were crazy months for us. A new house, a new dog, a wedding and a honeymoon; all took up my time and seriously strapped us for cash. So I decided that presents would be smaller for this year and that I wasn't going to go all out in my decorating. I decided to keep it simple.

A few days ago, I got an email from my mother-in-law letting me know that it was going to be a simple Christmas at their house this year, something that my mom had also mentioned on the phone a few times. And I was relieved.

This year, it is my hope that the Christmas weekend in our household will be less, allowing us to be more. What does that mean you ask? Well it's quite simple actually. I pray that doing less of the glitz and glamour will help us to recognize the reason for the season and to celebrate the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. After all He is the star of the show this weekend.

So in that spirit, my house currently features a tree in my living room, a wreath on the front door, and a few small Christmas lights on the outside railings. And that's it. I'm not baking cookies and I'm not making pretty packages.

As Griff and I celebrate our first Christmas as husband and wife, and actually our first Christmas together, I pray that this might become a tradition for us, putting more effort into celebrating the joy and love of the season rather than putting the emphasis in other places. Of course as our family grows, my decorating and my baking and my present wrapping might grow but for now, I'm very content with doing less to allow us to be more this Christmas season.

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.