2019 Christmas Card

2019 Family Adventures - Hipwell family reunion in Bear Lake - Alaska cruise - Labor Day weekend on Orcas Island - Excitedly anticipating jungle/volcano/beach adventures in Costa Rica this December

Justin & Holly - 20 years of marriage - Anniversary trip to Bali, Indonesia highlighted by sunrise volcano hike, touring rice fields and Hindu temples, jungle rafting, parasailing and relaxing beach time  

Abigail (17) - Senior and 2nd year of running start at Bellevue College - Physical therapy receptionist (2 yrs) - #1 Varsity tennis doubles - Free food extraordinaire especially Chick-fil-A - Travel addict - 

HEFY summer humanitarian trip to Africa

Carly (15) - Sophomore - Driver's permit - Varsity tennis and JV basketball - First time cross country runner - National Honor Society - Neighborhood babysitter and trash container cleaner - 

Adventured in Moab, UT in July (AFY) 

Jason (12) - 7th grade - Cross country, soccer and Basketball - Avid reader of fantasy genre books - Favorite class is jazz choir - Wears his age in shoes just like his dad did - Quit piano

Katie (9) - 4th grade - Soccer - First (and last?) season of basketball - Reading Harry Potter - Loves snuggles - Piano 

Drew (6) - 1st grade - Loves soccer - Missing his two front teeth - Great little reader and mathematician - Started piano lessons and loves it

Our family wishes each of you a very merry Christmas and a joyous new year!

Christmas Day

The party didn’t get started until close to 8:30am on Christmas morning.  I always go downstairs before the kids to make sure that everything is ready and see for myself if Santa has visited us.

Katie and Drew left a note for Santa, I’m guessing their tricky idea was heavily influenced by Jason. Thankfully Santa didn’t fall for it…

Keeping with tradition the kids waited at the top of the stairs for permission to go downstairs – youngest to oldest.  We can’t fit all five of them on one step anymore 

We always start with stockings – Santa keeps it simple, but the kids love candy and treats so they love it.

Drew was very excited about the certificate Abigail gave him to go out for frozen yogurt together.

The kids seemed happy with what they got thanks to some last minute encouragement from my friends to get them each something a little bigger that I had, and perhaps something not as practical as my usual jam.

Abigail generously gave Jason some wireless headphones she’d received from work.  Jason loves to listen to audio books so this was perfect for him.

We watched a lot of cheesy hallmark movies over Christmas break.  So many that we desensitized Jason enough that he stopped covered his eyes when someone kissed.

Christmas Eve

I guess I was feeling particularly connected to my Holi Daze sweatshirt today. Christmas can be a crazy time of the year.

We made plans to go to the movies together as a family this morning thanks to the discounts from the T-Mobile Tuesday app.  We saw “Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” – the Mr. Rogers movie starring Tom Hanks.  It wasn’t necessarily super entertaining for young kids, but I thought the storyline was fantastic and the movie was really well done.  

We’re trying to get Carly more experience behind the wheel so just as we were getting ready to leave the theatre we decided to let her drive which required a little seat swapping.  Shouldn’t be a big deal, but the sliding van doors have been really finicky lately (like not closing) so Justin and Carly swapped places within the confines of the van interior.

We invited Justin’s parents to join us for the movie, but they decided to pass so we picked up some pizza to take over to their house for lunch.  We also wanted to drop off their Christmas gift. A new family photo!  I had it professionally framed and love how it turned out.  I didn’t want to risk picking a frame that Linda didn’t like so we got her input on style and it seemed like she really liked it. I had sized it perfectly to fit in their dining room nook to replace the picture we last had taken 10 years ago, but it also looks great in the family room above the fireplace so not sure where it will end up when it finally gets hung.

We didn’t get home until 5 or 6pm so we didn’t have much time for our Christmas Eve family traditions.  Top of the kids priority was making sugar cookies!  Thankfully I already had the dough ready so it was just a matter of baking and frosting (and eating) them.

Next up was acting out the nativity – Justin narrated.  Abigail took on multiple roles as the donkey, angel and sheep.  Carly was Mary.  Jason was the shepherd.  Katie was the Wise Man.  And Drew was baby Jesus.

Carly making her entrance atop the donkey (Abigail) being VERY great with child (Drew)

The angel telling the wise man that baby Jesus had been born

No new pj’s for the kids this year since the kids don’t really wear pajamas much anymore.  I knew they would still want to open up a gift on Christmas Eve so I let them open up the personalized mugs I got each of them.  Fun and practical.  I love that they each now have their own mug like our everyday cups so that when they use them I’ll always know exactly who’s cup is who’s.  Of course we had to put them to use and drink a little hot cocoa before heading to bed.

Costa Rica Video

Abigail just finished putting together a video of our Costa Rica trip.  Grateful to have this to look back on - I LOVE it!

Costa Rica {Day 9} – Homebound

We had to be out of the hotel by 3:45am in the morning in order to make the hour drive to the airport in time for our flight. It was a VERY early morning but everybody did incredible and had fantastic attitudes. The Liberia airport is very small so it didn’t take long at all to get through security, however I did have to work my magic at the ticketing counter to get our carry-on bags checked for free again. It was a much quicker process than in the Seattle airport. I will be sure to keep this in mind when/if we ever fly United again. Aside from the issues with the baggage, United was actually quite friendly and the flight attendants were quite generous with their snacks. 

It’s a major bummer that they don’t provide the ability to charge devices on the flights when you have to use your own devices to access their entertainment options through their app. The flights home were uneventful. 

Amazing that he could sleep like this!

We had several hours in Houston and again Justin and I took advantage of my lounge perk and ate lunch at one of the airport restaurants. This time we went to the seafood place and it was yummy, of course I didn’t have seafood, but Justin had a huge platter of various seafood. The kids enjoyed eating at Chick-fil-A and then we met up at our gate to make our final flight home.

Mt. Rainier

We got home just before 8pm and the kids were supposed to be heading straight to bed.  I noticed Drew wasn’t in his room and looked all of the house for him.  Apparently he was so tired he’d curled up on the chair in my room and fallen sound asleep.  

Costa Rica {Day 8} – Playa Conchal

There wasn’t a church nearby so we didn’t make it to a church service today. We enjoyed a slow start to our morning and let the kids relax in bed and have some technology time before getting ready to be outside in the sun. Sommer had recommended that we check out a beach called Playa Conchal which is a beach entirely covered in crushed seashells. It was pretty amazing to see. We had to walk quite a bit to get there and Drew who doesn’t like sand took several minutes to get moving along. It’s so hot here that it’s hard to be patient waiting in the sun. We weren’t expecting Playa Conchal to be a beach in which we could get in the water, as Sommer had said it was pretty rough, but it was actually quite popular and the water was clearer than any other beach we had visited. Justin and the three younger kids got in the water and everybody enjoyed collecting some shells along the beach to take home with us.

We walked into a few little souvenir shops on our way back to our car, but didn’t end up buying anything, like usual.  Bit of regret though because it would’ve been fun to bring a little Costa Rica back home. Pura Vida is common phrase in Costa Rica which means “pure life” – the Costa Rica way of life.

View on the drive back to the hotel

Everyone was excited to get back to the hotel and play in the pool. We ate some lunch in our room and then hung out at the pool for the remainder of the afternoon. There was a cornhole game poolside that Justin, me, and Jason played and we had our floaties that made the pool enjoyable and relaxing. 

Katie took this picture of a lizard while sitting poolside

We cycled everyone through showers and then got everything packed into our suitcases to head home in the morning.  Justin and I decided to order pizza for the kids and sneak out for dinner at a nearby restaurant along the beach. In hindsight we should have taken the kids with us as it was more affordable outside of the hotel and the atmosphere at the restaurant was pretty memorable and would’ve made for a fun last night in Costa Rica together as a family.