Winter

While Bryan was in Green River for work, I decided to spend some time in Salt Lake. I was able to have dinner with Sandy, Jamie and Emily. It was good catching up with them, since I only see them once every couple of years. I also got to spend some time with Ellie- Carol and Mike's new baby. I somehow have the cutest nieces and nephews in the world.
Besides spending time with the family, I knit and knit and knit. I worked on a new hat for my new niece, because she didn't have one that was big enough anymore. Carol thought it would be good to have one that would fit her for a while, but because I can never get my sizing just right on hats, I think this one will fit her until she's at least 8 years old.

I also took notes on bathing babies:

It was nice just relaxing in Salt Lake. When we're usually up, we spend most of our time running errands. When I finally started home, I knew I was headed back to snow, but I never imagined how much.
It's finally a real winter here!!

Hawai'i 2009!!

Our trip to Hawaii was kind of a consolation trip after we cancelled our month-long adventure in Vietnam when we found out I was pregnant. But it was worth it. We spent just over two weeks on the Big Island exploring, snorkeling and eating lots of Spam. Or it felt like a lot of Spam after not touching the stuff for the last 15 years. We had a pretty relaxing time. We weren't in a rush to do anything, but felt like we saw most of the island.

Our first couple of days were spent looking for good beaches for relaxing and snorkeling. We quickly found out that the surf was unusually high and that most of the common snorkeling spots were too rough for swimming or visibility. In the picture above, Bryan is standing out in a protected tidal pool watching the waves crash.

A large Banyan tree on the tourist drive in Kona. It would fill up with what sounded like thousands of birds every evening.

On this day, we drove from sea level to over 13,600 feet at the top of Mauna Kea to see the telescopes. Even though we couldn't really tour them, it was pretty amazing to see.

Bryan is really excited to go body surfing.

An overlook in Volcanoes National Park.

Hiking on the Kiluaea Iki trail. There is a molten lava lake a couple hundred feet under us and there were steam vents everywhere.

After several attempts to see the lava flowing into the ocean, this is the closest we got. They had to keep closing the viewing area due to the wind pushing sulfur dioxide over it. Bryan was pretty disappointed, but it gives a good reason to go back someday.

Waipi'o Valley

We had a really good trip, and after seeing all the young children around having fun, we realized we will probably have to bring Kid A back so it can actually see Hawai'i!