Sunday, June 29, 2008

MiMi & Pop Pop come back to Hawaii

Mom & Dad came back for a visit to Hawaii this month. We were able to see Lanikai beach (sooooo pretty) and we hiked Diamond Head (without the kids, thank goodness!). Eric took them to see the Polynesian Cultural Center and to the Iolani palace. They had a really great time and got to spend a lot of time with the girls. After their loooong trip home, which included an unexpected stop at the ER in Salt Lake City, it may be a while before they get back on a plane to come see us again! Enjoy the pictures!


Tuesday, June 3, 2008

BIG BREAKING NEWS!!!!!

We have some news to report here in the Baroni household.......

Many of you may have known that Eric applied for a position at the White House to be a PA there.

WELL......he got asked to come for an interview in a couple of weeks!! We are very very excited, and hope that he gets it! He will be flying out on the 22nd and will be interviewing on the 24th and 25th at the White House. This would be a great opportunity for Eric as well as us as a family. We definitely appreciate your prayers on these days regarding this matter, both if Eric gets the job, and if he doesn't, b/c then we would be facing another 2 years here and that could be very difficult.......

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know!!! How many of ya'll thought our big news was we were expecting? Are you crazy?????? Not yet!!HA HA HA

Memorial Day fun

We FINALLY got to go on a short trip over Memorial Day Weekend. We went with our friends Beth and James and really had a good time! I think we squeezed as much into the short time we were there! We left Oahu around 9:30 on Saturday morning and got to Hilo around 10:15. Once we picked up our rental cars, we were off on our road trip! Our first stop was the volcano!



James is checking out the steam vents where steam from the volcano seeps out of cracks in the Earth's surface. These obviously are man-made, but you can find them all around the park!


Family pic in front of the volcano. This eruption started about 2 or 3 months ago and caused a pretty big hole in the side of the crater. Pretty cool to get to see it!


Emerson and Macie posing in front of the crater at the observatory.


This is the Thurston Lava tube, where lava flowed during an eruption many many years ago. You can walk all the way through it.

This is inside the lava tube. No clue who the random stranger is in our picture or why he is looking back at us and "posing"!!


Because of the eruption currently happening, we weren't able to travel all around the national park. (too much dangerous air and sulfur dioxide to be safe). So, we ventured down route 130 where there is a lookout where you can see the lava hitting the ocean, and you can see where the lava damaged and took out an entire neighborhood back in 1983 or 1984. Pretty neat stuff!
Even though she doesn't look it, Emerson is thrilled to be standing on lava!


Here we all are (minus Eric, he's taking the picture) walking to the viewing area where you can see the lava.



And here is where the lava meets the ocean. Every once in a while you could see flashes of red as it hit the water, but mostly you just saw steam. Pretty darn cool, though!

If you look closely, you can see the steam coming up out of the earth as the lava flows from the site of the eruption, down the mountain and into the water. The lava is flowing underground and you can only see the steam escaping through the vents.

On our last day, we went to Akaka falls. Fans of Fantasy Island may remember these falls, as this is the one used in the opening scene (I believe). Pretty cool to see such a huge waterfall!
And Emerson and I stood next to a GIANT fern in the rainforest to have our picture taken! Can you believe how big this thing is?!?!?
We definitely enjoyed our trip to the big island. We hope to get back there sometime soon to do some more exploring!!

Monday, May 5, 2008

My sincere apologies!!!!

Okay, I'm sure a lot of ya'll are wondering if we fell off the face of the Earth....well, no, we didn't, we (I) have just become very lazy and didn't post a whole lot in the month of April. Okay, well, not at all. SORRY!! One reason, excuse, whatever you wish to call it, is that we purchased a new camera, and Eric didn't have a chance to download the software until a few days ago. Soooooo, what follows are some of the most recent things we have done around here. I have been trying to get a video clip of Emerson singing in church, but I think it's too big....the computer just kind of freezes after a while and doesn't do anything. We were so proud of her...she sang and did the motions and everything....too cute!

And, I took Macie in for her 18 month well-baby check up today. How in the world is that possible? I have no idea. For all you LOST fans out there, I am really starting to believe that there is some sort of space-time continuum, or whatever the guy on LOST keeps talking about when the people seem to lose time.....it must be an island thing. As far as I can tell, Island time flies by, isn't slow like I thought it would be! Where has the time gone?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy seeing pics of the girls. You can kind-of see Em's new haircut in some of them. I can't find the pics from the day she got it cut, and Eric is asleep right now, so I don't dare wake him up!. We were inspired by Aubree's haircut! She gets soooo many comments on it--even when it doesn't look so cute! Thanks for being such a trend-setter Aubree!


ENJOY!!!

Emerson's first hula performance

Here is a little clip of Emerson's first hula "performance." The preschool she goes to offers a hula class once a week, where the kids learn all about the history of hula and it's importance to the culture of Hawaii, not just a dance routine. The kids showed us some of their other moves, but this was the one clip that most resembled "hula" that most people would recognize. (And, the class only started in January, and didn't meet for several weeks, so they are all very much beginners!)

Enjoy!

Hawaii Children's Discovery Museum

Eric was able to be a chaperone for one of Emerson's field trips recently. They went to the Hawaii Children's Discovery Museum, which apparently is a great place to take the kids. I haven't been yet, but Eric said the kids had a blast. Maybe we can all go one day!


Here is some of Emerson's classmates and one of her teachers before they all went inside the museum.


Eric had charge of Emerson and another little girl named Mandy. Here they are sailing away! And being very safety conscious, wearing their life jackets!


I think this is the grocery part of the museum. The kids can take turns shopping, and running the register and checking out the groceries....lots of hands on experience!


One area of interest for my two family members was the theater area.......I don't think I have to say anything else!


Hawaiian Waters Adventure park

We tested out the water park here on Oahu a couple of weekends ago and had a BLAST!! It was so much fun watching the girls have so much fun! We went with our new friends James and Beth and just wore ourselves out! The fun wasn't all for the kids, though, the adults were able to sneak away and get a few rides on the big slides.

Here's Macie going down one of the little slides. She wasn't scared of the slides at all....when she'd get to the bottom, she'd turn around and say "gin...gin" and try to climb up the slide!


When we finally took a break to eat lunch, Macie discovered how much fun it is to dip your fries in ranch dressing and ketchup! Here is a shot of her with her ketchup mouth!


Remember I said the kids didn't have all the fun? The big splash on the left is Eric, and coming in second place is James, on the right. Why they think riding down the Wedgie slide is so much fun I'll NEVER know!


And finally, here is Emerson coming to a stop at the bottom of the slide after going down all by herself! At first she wouldn't go down unless she was sitting in one of our laps, but after a couple of times, she was going up and down, up and down....we couldn't hardly keep up with her! She had a blast!