We walked around and saw several really neat hotels/casinos. This one is New York New York. If you look closely, you can see the roller coaster track winding through the "city."

Here are Emma and Brittany (Sampson's fiancee) in an "alpaca items" store.

Emma is hugging a display of alpaca fur (do they have fur?!?) teddy bears.

This is Emma on a Sunday morning in a dress that her BB got for her. She loves having her picture taken in her Sunday dresses!

Here is another picture of Emma in her polka dot dress.

Well, for those of you who look at my blog and have been waiting for me to post new pictures, I am over whelming you with them now! We decided to stay in Utah for the 4th of July this year. We knew that it would most likely be our last one for a little while, so we wanted to make the most of it. Provo always has a very large parade in the morning of the 4th, so we went to that. Russell, Sampson and Brittany joined us there. Then, we went back home and had a cookout with them as well. Provo also has a Freedom Festival with the downtown area full of different vendors with food, crafts and other fun stuff, and we went to that. At the end of the day, we went to the Stadium of Fire which is a Freedom celebration at the BYU football stadium. It is a really neat celebration with a military tribute, a concert, and a great fireworks display. If you are ever in Provo around the 4th, you should try to go to that. It is a very memorable show. Here is a picture of Emma that just melts my heart! She had such a big day. It was so hot, and we were sitting in the stadium with the sun in our faces for almost an hour. She was such a little trooper!

I have never been able to picture Emma as a five or six year old-I just couldn't imagine what she would look like at that age, but I think that this picture has done it for me. She looks like a big kid here, and I can just see her Kindergarten picture looking something like this!

This is a picture of Emma and I at the BYU Stadium of Fire Fourth of July celebration. There was a great tribute to the people serving in all of the different branches of military, a concert and a huge fireworks show. They gave everyone flags (Emma is holding ours) to wave at certain parts of the celebration. It was very moving and I got quite emotional a few times!

We decided that Emma would love to go to the Provo 4th of July parade. Russell, Sampson and Brittany came and shared a blanket with us for the two and a half hour ordeal! It was so hot, but we were able to snag a spot in the shade.

We got lucky and found a spot near the end of the parade route in the shade. People reserve their spots days in advance for this parade. Two or three days before the parade even started, there were chairs and blankets lining the streets of Provo. We were really lucky (and excited) to get this spot!

Here is a picture of Emma chowing down on a piece of dried mango during the parade.

Here is Governor Huntsman and his wife. They walked in the parade.

The main performers at Stadium of Fire were Brooks and Dunn. If you don't know, they are country music singers. They put on a great show! Here I am in front of one of their many tractor trailers!

Emma was so tired by the time the fireworks started, that she fell asleep half way through the firework show! It was kind of sad that she didn't get to see it all because all day long she kept saying "fireworks?"

I got a new camera for my birthday that has a really neat firework setting to take pictures of fireworks. So, here is a picture of some from the Stadium of Fire.

We spent last weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Hale's house. They have a beautiful garden in their backyard that is full of raspberry bushes. Emma loved to pick the raspberries, but she wouldn't eat them!

Here is Emma having a rest on Grandpa Hale's hammock. Her eyes are so blue here!

I know, I know. I haven't posted anything in quite some time now. Almost 2 months, I guess. We have been so busy though. In June, my mom and sister came out to visit, and then Emma and I went to Tennessee for a week, and then Aaron came out as well, and we stayed another week and a half. We were very busy there, taking pictures for my dad's new nursery catalog and entertaining Emma. Keep watching for the pictures of Emma in Tennessee. I promise that I will post them soon!

Lately Emma has a thing for cooking. When I cook supper, she always wants me to pick her up and show her what I am making. One day, after her nap (hence the crazy hair) I found her in the kitchen making this creation. When I asked her what she was doing, she said that she was cooking. Notice the contents of the bowl: popcorn, animal crackers, my Sam's Club card and lots of salt and pepper!

Sometimes Emma will just walk up to me and say "pitcher?" and then go strike a pose somewhere. I guess she is modeling her new pajamas in this picture!

This is Hanauma Bay, the place we went snorkeling. You can see the reef (all the grey spots) in this picture. I went out with my friend Erin, since I had never been snorkeling before. We swam all the way out over the reef and saw so many neat fish. I wanted to bad to see a turtle that day, but never did see one. Snorkeling was kind of hard for me, because I got so excited when we saw the fish swimming around the reef that I would start breathing really fast. That is kind of a snorkeling "no-no" because I sucked water down my snorkel and had to stop and come up and get it all out so I could swim again! It was so cool, though! Oh yeah, while we were there at the beach, there was a group of about 15 Japanese girls there. They took one look at Emma (with her blonde hair) and went nuts! They all crowded around her and took tons of pictures with her. She, on the other hand, had no idea what was going on, and couldn't figure out why I was making her stand with all those strangers and why I wasn't rescuing her! She was such a little movie star everywhere we went!

This is a really cool metal sculpture of the state fish of Hawaii. You will have to look at the picture in the next post to get the name!

This is a plaque with the name of the state fish. I knew that I couldn't remember the name, so I took a picture so that I would have it. Try pronouncing it!

We couldn't go to Hawaii without visiting Pearl Harbor.

This probably seems like a strange picture, but I really like it. It is the roof to the open air part of the memorial. It was a very somber, reverent place. Everyone was very quiet as they looked at the ship and read the names on the wall inside the memorial of those who lost their lives here. It is really hard to describe how one feels there. There are parts of the ship that are just a foot or two under the water and then there are even parts of the ship that are still out of the water. It seemed somewhat ironic to me that such a beautiful paradise could be the scene of such a tragic event.

At the USS Arizona Memorial

This is part of the ship as well. (I don't remember exactly what it was.) You can see a white buoy off in the distance, which marks one end of the Arizona. There are buoys in the water that mark each end of the ship, so you can see how large it really is.

There are parts of the USS Arizona that are barely under the water. While we were there, small circles of oil would form in the water, and them break up and float away after several minutes. We learned that there is still oil that floats up from the ship quite regularly.

Again, I am trying to remember all of this as well as I can. Inside the memorial there are some groupings of flags. (I think there were four groupings with four flags in each group.) This one group particularly stood out to me, because the third flag from the left is the Tennessee state flag.

The USS Arizona Memorial. If I remember correctly, the flagpole is actually attached to the original flagpole of the ship.

Hawaii is filled with all kinds of interesting animals. There are little sand crabs that dig holes all over the beach. The first morning we were there, Aaron, Emma and I woke up early and went out to the beach outside Mark and Erin's. We saw mounds of sand everywhere along the beach and holes about 4 inches away from the mounds of sand. After standing still for a few minutes, sand crabs started coming out of the holes, bringing loads of sand with them, and adding the sand to their piles. The sand crabs are really fast, but Aaron finally caught one and the kids put it in this little inflatable boat. Emma was so excited to see it (and throw sand on it)!

Here is a close up picture of the crab!

We found out that Emma is quite the little beach baby! She loved playing in the sand and in the ocean. When we first took her to the beach, she was a little scared. I stood in the water beside her and as the waves came in and then went back out, she got quite nervous, I assume because she felt the sand washing out from under her feet. It didn't take her long to decide that she really liked it, though. Everyday she would ask to go out and play in the water!

She also loved playing in the sand!

Here is another picture of Emma playing in the water.

This is a crazy little creature...it is a Portuguese Man of War (according to Erin). They look like a little clear bubble with a blue string attached to it (you can click on the picture and enlarge it...). They would ride up in the waves and get deposited on the beach with the white bubbles. If you step on it, it wraps the blue tentacle around you and stings. While we were there, a little boy got stung by one in the water. It left what looked like bee stings in a line around his ankle. The bubble part is actually very small, but the tentacle can get to be about 3 feet long. Erin says that if you get stung, you are supposed to pee on the sting spot and it makes the pain go away. I was tempted to touch one, but I really didn't want to get peed on.

We took a Sunday afternoon walk along the beach and I just happened to snap this picture of Aaron and Emma. I thought that it was such a sweet picture of them together.

This is a hibiscus flower on the grounds of the Laie temple.

This is the beautiful Laie, Hawaii Temple. Here are some facts about it (I did my research on lds.org). The temple was first dedicated in November 1919. It was the fifth temple built, and the first one to be built outside of the state of Utah (if you aren't counting the original Nauvoo temple and the Kirtland temple.) It was rededicated in June if 1978. If you were to stand at the temple (with the temple behind you), the street leads straight out to the ocean. It is a beautiful view, as the street is lined with coconut trees that constantly blow in the breeze that comes from the ocean.

Here is your miniature tour guide, Emma. She is showing you the pink hibiscus flowers in front of the temple. She is saying "petty fyoyers," which means "pretty flowers" in 21-month old talk.

We went on a couple of walks to the Laie Temple grounds while we were in Hawaii. There on the grounds were some plumeria trees. A lot of the flowers had fallen on the ground around this particular tree, and Emma decided that she needed all of them. So, she began collecting them and filling the stroller with them!

Ah, my new favorite temple. It is located about 2 blocks from our friend's house. It is such a beautiful temple and has very pretty grounds.

According to my Google search, the Hawaiian meaning of "Hale" (pronounced a little differently than my last name) means house or building. I thought that it was funny because there are streets that are called Hale (with another name that I am not going to attempt to remember because my Hawaiin friend will probably read this at some point) and then there was this sign at the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was fun to see our name everywhere!

I really thought that this was cool, because as we all know from Lilo and Stitch, Ohana means "family!"

It's me! This was right before our traditional Hawaiian dinner at the PCC. We had kahlua pork, chicken long rice, purple poi rolls, and guava cake (among other things) and delicious POG juice (Passion-Orange juice). Emma wouldn't wear any of the leis that she got that day, which is why I am doubled up on them here.

Emma and Aaron pose for a picture before our dinner at the PCC. Notice Emma's moko (Maori tattoo) on her arm!

Emma is drinking a frozen pina colada (non-alcoholic, of course) from a pineapple. She thought it was so cool to drink out of it!

While we were in Hawaii, we went to the Hukilau cafe. We had a yummy breakfast of portugese sausage, fried eggs and fried rice. In the movie "50 First Dates," there is a Hukilau cafe which was based on the cafe where we ate. SO YUMMY!

On the last day of our trip, Erin took us to this place called Turtle Beach. We got there right as some turtles were playing near the shore. After we had been there for about 15 minutes, this turtle just started coming out onto the shore! It was so neat! I couldn't believe how big it was. It came right up to the place we were standing and we were able to get some great pictures.

Here is the turtle a little closer. It was so beautiful!

I realize that putting a picture of myself in a swimsuit up for the world to see isn't the greatest idea ever, but I wanted anyone who reads this to get a sense of the hugeness of this sea turtle! I still can't believe I was so close to it!