Sin and Sorrow in the Air- People Dying . .

Miri celebrated her 9th birthday in Maui. We went to the acquarium in the afternoon. It is a big beautiful acquarium with many colorful fish. The three highlights for me were 1) talking whale (as does Dory in Finding Nemo) into a recording machine which played it back to me afterwards --and I must say, I gave a very fine imitation of a whale, only I don't know what I said, and 2) seeing all the jellyfish which reminded me of "Squishy" in Finding Nemo -- there were great big foot-in -diameter jellyfish down to very teeny weeny jellyfish about a fourth of an inch small that were so cute, and 3) walking/sitting in the all-around-you acquarium which made us feel like we were in the middle of the ocean -- Kamri kept jumping because a big shark seemed to be following her around. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera. Bummer. Baby Lana loved the fish.

We had a party later in the evening. Here are a few pictures.


This is Miri as we sang to her twice: first everyone sang at their own speed and in their own key as we have heard the Priddis clan sing to us on the phone in the past. Second, we sang the traditional dirge taught to us by Grandpa Bob many years ago. It goes like this:

Haaaappyyyy Birrrrrthdaaaaaay.

Haaaaapppy Birrrrthdaaaaay.

Sin and sorrow in the air.....

People dying everywhere....

Haaaapppyyyy Biirrrthdaaaaay.

Now, why Miri is still smiling after those two lovely renditions of "Happy Birthday," I do not know.

Don't let Jairin fool you...... he may look like a little angel, but...........

This is the REAL Jairin.................and his sidekick, Adam.......

Miri and Kamri both love to "do" hair. A couple years ago, Kamri received a mannequin head for her birthday which Rob named "Headna." Now Miri has her own head so she won't have to plead with Kamri to borrow hers any longer.

Welcome to the family "Harriet" (get it.... "Hairy" "it" -- I know... ha ha!) -- (Rob wants you to know that he gets credit for that name too.)

Spooky!!

Wait... what did Miri pick for her treat instead of a birthday cake?

Ahhhh yes....... a candied pineapple upside-down lava cake smoothered in butterscotch caramel and raspberry sauces. Decadent!!

One more of Miri with more of her loot.....

Happy Birthday, Miri!!!

Paradise!!

I started a blog in January, wrote one entry and then had no more time to figure it out how to blog. Now, ten months later, we are here in Paradise, aka Maui. Rob and I have dreamed of some day moving to Maui, ever since we first discovered its beauties 14 years ago on our honeymoon. We planned to move here some day, maybe after all the children were raised and on their own. But Rob received a job offer, and we could not turn it down (nor did we want to :-) ). Who knows if we'll even be alive in twenty years. We are trying to live our dreams now. This is us at the Honolulu airport waiting for our last flight. We've been traveling for about 24 hrs. and look it!

Aria (5) and Joelle (3) who can't decide if she is excited or not.

Is Miri (8) happy to be in Hawaii or happy because Daddy bought her a beautiful lei?

Adam (13) is wearing his half smile-smirk. You'll have to guess if that means he likes Hawaii or not.

Caroline (7) is just plain tired!

Mardi and Rob are happy to be here, but even more happy that the long long trip is almost over since they haven't slept at all for over 48 hours.

Will Joelle's smiles rub off on Kamri (11)?

Jairin (10) spent three weeks with Rob in Maui already, so he's cool!! Whazup brudda?

Ellanne(1) is a little confused about everything-- where am I ? Where am I going? and why do I have flowers around my neck?

Here are some of Maui-- not just the airport.

Here is Jairin up in the avocado tree in ou backyard. Climbing this tree is one of his favorite pastimes.

We had a picnic here on Wed. Oct. 15th. The children had a blast climbing the banyan tree.

This is similar to the view from our deck. You can see the ocean on both the right and left sides.

We drove around the north shore on Tues., Oct. 14th. Beautiful coastal scenes!

Here we are in front of the banana bush in our yard. There is a cubby inside which the children like to play in --except when the girls see spiders. Luckily, there are no poisonous spiders in Hawaii.

This is a sunset such as we see every night from our deck :-)

and another........

This is just a picture of baby Lana since she's cute. This is right before we left for Hawaii.