A Humble Ramzi-Ramsay Christmas: Mele Kalikimaka!

This Christmas we didn't have the 'stuff' that generally comes with the season, but we did get  all the 'good stuff' that comes from realizing what Christmas is really all about. Having just had the privilege to have our families with us for one of the most sacred and beautiful moments of our lives, we really couldn't ask for more than getting to celebrate another sacred event with our new little family. We wouldn't be nearly as happy without our Savior and the blessings of eternity his sacrifice brings into our lives. Here are some pictures of our first and very humble Christmas.

Well, as of Christmas Eve and after pulling out money for rent....we had 8.75 to our name. But luckily we had already decided to not worry about Christmas presents since we already had each other. 

But what was awesome was the Christmas Eve Rainbow we saw! Nothing can beat Christmas in Hawaii.

We could almost see the whole thing!!

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Christmas morning I decided to get up early and make cinnamon rolls. 

I was excited to us my mom's recipe that has been in her family for a few generations. They're not quite as good as hers are, but luckily I have many Christmases ahead to improve!

And now here are all the things we did for our Christmas room:

I asked Ramzi to paint me a first place so we had a place to hang our stockings. He did a beautiful job. Thank you Sarah and Sterling for leaving us so many priority mail boxes to use!

We had wanted to get a real tree, but it just didn't make sense financially. So we decided to work with what we had. We had been keeping this broken surfboard on the porch for a few months. I kept trying to throw it away, but Ramzi was sure we could find something to do with it. Well he ended up being right! We felt like this was perfect for our first Christmas in Hawaii. We will never forget our surfboard tree. 

One of the traditions we want to start is picking out a new ornament for every year. We found this one on our honeymoon. It was perfect because it's Santa holding a sea turtle. You really can't get any better than that. 

This was our only other real ornament. This is a very sweet gift from Ramzi's sister Papi. I love that it has our picture on it and that it says "The Dosch's". I still get all giddy every time I realize I'm a Dosch now!

This was our little corner of Georgia from Pam and Ed. We can't wait to actually get to use all of our socks once we're in the mainland.

Here is another sweet gift from the McKellars. I can't wait to hang it up in all our homes to come! But it just looked so good under the tree. You can also see the dagger my dad made me from scratch out of apricot wood. Even though we didn't have any presents for each other, we got some pretty awesome gifts from our family :)

This is another present showing off our how awesome our family is. My dad made this for Ramzi. It's a wand inspired by Harry Potter. Ramzi is officially part of the family! Even if he would be in Slytherin house.

This was the other half of the surfboard. I decided to cover it with pictures of us and the McKellar Christmas card. And of course we needed to put twinkle lights on it too. You can never have too many twinkle lights.

I found this picture going through Ramzi's mission photos. I thought it was fitting to go up in our Christmas room since that's what Christmas is all about. 

And though our names are more glittery than Ramzi would ever want, I thought it added a nice amount of bling to our surfboard bulletin board. 

I think Ramzi regretted letting me go through his old pictures because I found this gem. I told him it wasn't even an option not to put it up. 

And here's what it looks like all together!

Again, twinkle lights make everything better. 

These were our first Christmas pajamas (my family gets new pajamas every Christmas). I picked batman so there was at least a chance Ramzi would wear them.

And here's what our Christmas morning looked like. We wanted to fill up our stockings with something, so we each got our favorite candies to snack on Christmas day. Simple but yummy.

Now, I'm ending with this fortune cookie because I feel like its advice is fitting. We opened this fortune cookie on Christmas Eve, after a long day of trying to decide what to do for Christmas. If you can't see it, it says: "Approach all areas of life with a bold enthusiasm". I feel like it's fitting for us because we're at the perfect point to approach life with enthusiasm. We have no idea what the future holds, but we know whatever happens we can make it great! We can take a broken surfboard and make it into one of the best Christmases we've ever had. So here's to simplicity, and love, and being a new family. Mele Kalikimaka and Merry Christmas!

La Luna de Miel....The Honeymoon!!

Alright, one more catch-up post before getting to Christmas! Honeymoon time :)

Well, after getting married in Paradise, it's hard to know where to go on your honeymoon! So we decided to trade one paradise for another and visit the Big Island (or the island Hawai'i). Here are some pictures to showcase even more of the beauty the islands have to offer.

This first picture is still on Oahu. This is the complementary chocolate covered strawberries and sparkling cider we got at Turtle Bay on our wedding night! We had the coolest room Ramzi's parents were generous enough to get for us and it was a very magical and sweet way to start our honeymoon and our new life!

It's faint in the picture, but there was  rainbow when our plane took off!

First glimpse of the Big Island!

Cuddling and happy on our short inter-island flight.

Passion-orange-guava Hawaiian Airlines juice. So yummy.

View of the dry-lava part of the island. So different from Oahu, but still awesome.

Our first rental car together. It was nice to have a car with working AC and no over-heating problems!

I loved this turtle mural right down the street from our hotel.

And Ramzi couldn't wait to nap like them on the beach!

Getting ready for the long road trip around the island. 

Two great views: the landscape and my very handsome husband. 

Funny story: With all of our vacation eating, Ramzi didn't feel like he was getting enough fiber. So every morning right when Costco opened at 10am, we would go get Ramzi a salad and I would just get a fruit smoothie.

This is on the way to the green sand beach/south point. The lowest point in the United States. 

You can't really tell, but this is the gold/green sand of south point.

Ramzi pretending to pose like me to showcase the green sand. 

This view and the awesome sand was totally worth the two hour hike. 

I was so grateful Ramzi did all the driving so I could just take in the beauty of the big island. The ocean just felt bigger looking at it from the rolling green hills.

Lava at night time.

It was so awesome to see it glowing. We want to come back when it's flowing into the ocean. But it was still cool to see it glow at night. 

But of course we had to go back and see it during the day too. Still awesome. Lava can't help but be awesome. 

This is the sunrise with the moon from our hotel room. It was great to wake up to this every morning. We were so lucky the hotel upgraded us to such a good view when they heard we were on our honeymoon.

And this is when I discovered the panoramic feature on Ramzi's phone. So cool! And you can see how high and crazy the surf was. All we could hear were waves all night long. 

First picture at the black sand beach.

And then we made some awesome friends! Ramzi practically had to drag me away to go explore more of the beach.

Just awesome looking.

I like this picture because of the hair on Ramzi's feet.

Toes in the black sand. 

This was the lava tree park. We made it right before they closed the gates for dark.

I can now say I've touched a 2000 year old tree. It doesn't really matter it's only that old because it was covered in lava. 

Our last breakfast on the big island!

He only looks bummed because he's missing his costco salad. 

Awesome breakfast view. 

And one of my favorite pictures of my husband. Lookin' good!!

We had a sweet and wonderful honeymoon. It was a great time to de-stress after all the wedding craziness and to just appreciate having each other. Needless to say, my first week as a Dosch was absolutely perfect and I can't wait to see what else life has in store for us. Hopefully it includes going to the beach as often as we can before we leave Oahu in January.