Hula Chicks

Aloha, the two Withrow hula dancers.

Jillian appears to be so done with the photo taking!

2009 School Pictures

Jillian's school picture from this year. This is her fake, forced smile, too funny. :)

Jillian's friends from room 1. She is in the front row, 3rd from right.

U of N Keiki Triathlon

Jillian's preschool had their annual keiki triathlon the day before the Ironman again this year. And again, it was a truly awesome event! The school invited an Ironman athlete and his coach (also an Ironman athlete!) to come and help the children stretch and get ready for their race. The athletes are wearing blue shirts, white hats and leis.

Jillian and Miss April are stretching. Jill is #41 and wearing the green polka dot swimsuit.

Here is her class sitting in the shade along the course, cheering on the younger kids from Room 3!

At the start line. First the children ride their bikes along the parking lot. Then they run around and through the school to the play yard. This is where they stop (quickly) to remove shoes and run (swim) through 3 baby pools. So much fun! And hard too, I ran the course with Jillian was was out of breath by the end! (And more sweaty than I care to admit.)

The finish line! WooHoo! Mrs. Andrea - Jillian's teacher this year - is at the finish line cheering on her kids. See the big basket of TP rolls on the table under the tree? That is because every single child (60 some racers!) got to run through the finish line and break a toilet paper ribbon.

Mrs. Andrea is asking the kids their favorite part of the race.

Room 1! Hollah!

Miss Anna is giving Jillian a medal with her time - 2 min and 52 sec. She beat last year's time by a whole minute! Go Jill! Each child received a medal. Isn't that great?! We love University of the Nations! Thank God for this fantastic school Jillian is blessed to attend.

House Projects

This is the month for house projects....Jeremy has been a busy little bee. Here is a picture of Jeremy looking down from the roof through the crawlspace above the garage. He is getting ready to install a solar attic fan. Hopefully it will help cool off the 2 bedrooms on the hot side of the house. That may not make sense - but the 2 smaller bedrooms face southwest and really do stay hotter than the rest of the house.

On the same day, Jeremy put up insulation in that same crawlspace above the garage. We're hoping it will help insulate the house from the warmer temperatures - and maybe help keep it a little cooler.

Please Nana...

Nana, please send us some curel lotion in bulk. Daddy refuses to use anything else!

Half Birthday

Jillian turned 4 and a HALF this September. Yummo, 1/2 a cake!

Movie Time

Jillian is watching a movie in bed - what a ham!

Keiki Luau

At the end of the summer Hawaiiana program, University of the Nations Preschool organized a keiki luau. I wasn't able to go - but Jeremy went and took tons pictures for me. :) Here is Jillian dancing the hula her class learned.

What a great smile Miss Jill!

I thought this picture was too cute not to post - I can just hear her saying, "I'm so bored!"

Jillian is sitting with her buddies, Minami and Zion.

Grandma's Painting

During our trip home, Grandma gave us one of her paintings. We are so honored and grateful to have one. Jeremy hung it up one day while I was working and sent me this cute picture! It is my desktop picture at work. :)

Thanks Nana!

Thanks Nana for the awesome twizzlers!

The Emperor

The Emperor of Japan came to visit Kona and he brought his beautiful wife. Jeremy snapped a few pictures of their planes from the tower. It was really neat. We didn't get to meet them, but we read in the paper that many members of our local community were able to greet them at various places around town. The paper said that our Japanese locals felt especially honored to meet them because they were able to look at him and his wife. The article said that in Japan, the people must bow their heads and not look at them.

By some miracle, Jeremy and I had the Friday before July 4th off from work and Jillian's summer school stayed in session! That never happens! If we're off from work, school is definitely closed. We took advantage of this day and went down to Kealakekua Bay. We rented a kayak and kayaked out to the Captain Cook Monument for some awesome snorkeling. Here is a picture of the beautiful bay.

Here is Jeremy about to get in the water. I have to be honest and admit that at the last minute I decided not to go snorkeling with Jeremy. I stayed on shore and took a nap. It was lovely. And he had a great time in that crazy water!

A picture of the monument.

Another picture of the Captain Cook Monument.

Here we are with the cute kayak on top of the car. This day was so much fun!

More Cute Ohio Cousins

Brian's sister, Tiffany, has two little girls - Ciara and Abbey. I think Jillian and Ciara are around the same age. One evening, Dale and Carol invited everyone over to play. In this picture I am holding sweet Dylan and chatting with Tiffany and Rochelle. I sure do wish we lived closer! It would be so fun to visit like this more often! Our children would be great buddies.

Ciara, Jillian and Abbey are enjoying popsicles and playing with a BBQ bubble machine. Logan was playing with them too - he is sitting on the opposite side of the table and you can't see him in this shot.

Jillian got jealous when I held Baby Dylan! I have never seen her act like that and I thought it was silly. I probably did not react well - because it made me laugh.

Jillian and Abbey swinging on their very fun playground! We can't find anything like this in Hawaii and it is such a bummer. The only thing available in town are the old-school style swing sets that have the metal frame and need to be cemented into the ground. Remember those? K-Mart carries them in the summer.

The Akron Zoo

There is this cool thing among the zoos across our country - the reciprocal zoo list. You may already know this, but it was new to us. On this list are more than 150 zoos across the United States, members of one zoo on the list are afforded membership privileges to all of the zoos. Pretty cool, right? Our membership to the St. Louis Zoo allowed us to get in free to the Akron Zoo.

Jillian's favorite animal on this day were the Flamingos. They are so pretty!

Jillian took a break from the very hot Ohio day to eat some strawberry ice cream - Yum!

There is a climbing wall inside the neat jellyfish exhibit - (with a little help) Jillian made it to the top.

Watching the tortoise walk by - they are quicker than you might imagine!

On a caterpillar in the beautiful gardens.

The petting zoos are always fun, especially when you can buy a $2 cracker to feed to the sheep.

Jeremy - not quite the wing span of an eagle.

Brothers

Jeremy and his little brothers. :) Justin, Jake and Jeremy at Nanny's.

Uncle Brian and Auntie Rochelle

Auntie Rochelle is helping Jillian sit with Baby Dylan.

Uncle Brian is helping Jillian hold Baby Dylan.

Jillian LOVED the baby! And Dylan is such a sweet little guy.

Auntie Rochelle is playing ball with Jillian and Logan (Dylan's big brother).

Jillian and Logan are eating their picnic lunch.

On To Ohio

Nanny and Jillian are hanging out on the couch - and they match! How cute are they?

Jillian is playing football with her two uncles - Jeremy's brothers - Justin and Jake. She had so much fun playing with them.

Blowing bubbles on the front porch with Nana, Nanny and Uncle Jake.

Sitting in the car with Auntie Eileen and Nanny. We are on our way to do one of our favorite things - eat out! Canton, OH has the best mom-and-pop restaurants - So Yummy!

Playing with Papa Dan, Jill's fav jungle gym. Her favorite thing to do was to climb up him and flip over -our little gymnast! And Papa Dan never said no - he is nicer than Daddy and Mama. :)