“And above all things have fervent Charity among yourselves”…

What a treat for us that Jonah’s youngest sister Charity came to visit us for a whole week! And I love the quote from the scripture above, because she is fervent! I can’t think of a better word to describe magnificent Charity. We all simply and seriously adore her.

She wanted to come for Christmas, but the flights were prohibitively expensive, so she came a few weeks early. We were sad we didn’t have a Christmas tree yet because she did a fabulous job decorating ours last year when she came for Thanksgiving last year. But, we did do some crazy Christmas stuff, like make sand snow men and sing loudly for all to hear.

The day she came in, we drove straight to the nearest beach.

The next morning, we loaded up the surf boards and hit a few spots for some beginner’s surfing and some nice snorkeling.

We also had some Hawaiian Shave Ice… It didn’t last long.

Unfortunately for Charity, but lucky for us because we needed some moisture, it rained heavy and hard for the next two days. We hit some of the towns’ Christmas festivities and when we were home, Charity got the kids hooked on some new card games. We also went to a church Christmas party and stuffed ourselves silly with all the delicious food.

It rained all weekend, and then Monday was Poem’s birthday, so Charity and the older kids went snorkeling and chased the sun as I mentioned in the previous post. On Tuesday the rain finally subsided enough that we all went out to the Lahaina side. The first beach we went to had water the color of chocolate milk because of all the rain runoff, but Po still practiced some stand up boogie boarding.

And although the beach was a dud, Elsie’s loudness finally scored us big time. While I was changing into my swimsuit in the bathroom, Elsie said in her extra high volume, “OH… MY….GOODNESS! I cannot wait to go on that giant bounce house!!” The lady in the stall next to us started laughing and ended up inviting us to come join her company’s Christmas party and enjoy their bounce house, water slide, and free ice cream in the field behind the beach. Despite the look on Elsie’s face above, they all had a great time.

The next beach we went to was much better for swimming.

Charity and Ana even showed off some mad cliff jumping skills!

Look at that Maui sunset!

After that, we thoroughly enjoyed our last evening with Charity in downtown Lahaina, where she fell under the trance of the magical banyan tree and all its Christmas lights. It was a wonderful evening and of course the week with Charity went by much too fast.

(Elsie was getting a little tired walking around… and Ana is always in her swimsuit.)

And to end this talk of Charity, I just want to put it out there that she is currently single and eligible. She is in the Bay Area but will be in Ogden for Christmas. She loves to be set up on dates. She is 25.5 years old. And when you see her, just remember 1 Peter 5:14, “Greet ye one another with a kiss of Charity”.  Her blog is at drippingwithpassion.blogspot.comdrippingwithpassion.blogspot.com and like us, she appreciates when you visit her sponsors because she now has a mean guava jelly addiction like I do and will do anything to satisfy it.