2008; Another year goes by....

It has been two and a half years since we moved to Hilo and two years since we moved to our current house. Many things have happened since, some good, some sad but all in all we're very happy here.

As I was getting ready to begin this post, we got a call from our friend Jeri telling us to go and look at the mountain (Mauna Kea), that it had more snow that she had seen in a long time. So, since we can't see it from our house, Hana and I went out on a Mauna Kea photo safari to coconut island. It just cleared up enough to take a couple of shots:

On the way back we stopped to see how much water was flowing down Rainbow falls... quite a bit actually, the newspaper reported that we got over a foot of rain over the last 24 hours!

Here is a brief (or perhaps not so brief) review of what happened this year.

JANUARY

The year started with a very nice gift from Santa: A sandy beach in Honoli'i!

All the sand had been washed away during the year, and lots of rain during Xmas brought a lot of sand back (so much that we still have some right now).

Then a very long trip for me which took me to New-Zealand-Australia-Arizona-Canada for a total of 20,963 miles, two hemispheres and summer and winter!.

But, I got a chance to visit the Breshears in Brisbane...

Kelly and Eric in Stratford....

Where I got to see their new B&B they bought: And the Chicos in Oakville....

This month was also when Howard came to visit and helped us set the tiles on the kitchen wall...

FEBRUARY

February started with the lots of rain. You may say "doesn't it rain in Hilo all the time?", yes it does, but this was the mother of all downpours! and it deserves its own special space on the Year Review Post. We got over 36" of rain in 3 days (same amount of rain Tucson gets in 3 years!)....

That was a lot of rain, even for old Hilo natives, rivers were running at full capacity, there was water everywhere!

Of course that meant lots of snow on Mauna Kea....

which also meant making snowmen here in town!

We celebrated Syd's B-day (late) this month...where the big hit of the party was the chocolate fountain!

And we went to Kona for the President's day soccer tournament.

MARCH

Charlotte's birthday, this year she went out whale watching with Jeri and Jim (while I took the girls to sell girl scout cookies)

Speaking of selling girl scout cookies, here are some members of the troop selling cookies to Mayor Harry Kim

This month was a big eating month. Two Luaus took place, the first one at our friends' Leslie & Macario and the second one at the Alan Wong's cookout at the farm where Charlotte worked.

Aunt Kim came to visit from New Mexico and we took her to Kona...

Easter! Charlotte cooked a wonderful ham...

and there was of course the annual Easter egg hunt!

APRIL

Not much happening this month, nice Spring weather,

And start of soccer season...

MAY

Sydney wins a food safety poster contest....

Hana learns how to ride her scooter...

May Day celebration at school...

Michelle, Steve, Kally and Eden came to visit from Tucson. That was fun, we took them to Boiling pots... and then we also went to Kalapana to see the lava flow to the ocean... Girl Scout camping weekend and horseback riding!

JUNE/JULY

We take the girls to Tucson for a week before they head down to Mexico by themselves to spend a month with their grandparents. In Tucson (hotter than hell! over 110F every day we were there) we got to see old friends and family, great time!

While in Mexico the girls went to the farm in Tapalpa

Guanajuato, And all kinds of fun places... Meanwhile back in Hawai'i, without kids, Charlotte and I had some time for ourselves which we spent mostly cleaning the girls rooms..... we also had some time to go kayaking and some cool hikes like this one to the back end of Waipio Valley..

And this other time when we went to Volcano National Park to see the lava glow at Halemaumau crater

AUGUST

Picnic and swimming at South Point with our friends the Dalls' before they moved to Germany,

Soccer Season starts and this time Hana is playing!

SEPTEMBER

Going away party for the Dalls

and Sydney's first biathlon in Kona!

OCTOBER

Hana breaks both the radius and ulna in her right arm and spends the next 8 weeks in a cast...

The big news of this month is that Charlotte quits her job at Hamakua Springs to switch careers and become a high school science teacher. She starts by working as a substitute teacher for schools in Hilo. Next year she will begin an online course to get her teaching certificate and then become a full time teacher.

Hana's Halloween party!

NOVEMBER

What a busy month this was. Charlotte was very busy running a brownie troop and a junior troop, besides those two troops, she was also running a robotics team with some of the junior girl scouts for a robotics competition here in Hilo.

Here we are at the Imiloa planetarium checking out an exhibit of some lunar rover prototypes that came to do testing on the Mauna Kea slopes (due to its similarity with lunar terrain).

Charlotte and her troop at the robotics competition

where they won the best robot design prize

November was also end of soccer season during which Sydney's team, the Hilo Wildfire went to a competition in Kona and ended up in second place.

Then of course there was Thanksgiving which we spent with our friend Gary and his daughters Kirrah and Raycee and Marisol and Esteban from Chile (hmmm smoked turkey!)

And a quick trip to Phoenix where I got to hang out with my brother, his wife (Roby) and Charlotte's cousin Jason

Another major breakthrough was Hana learning how to ride her bike without training wheels And last but not least there was the Christmas parade in which Charlotte marched with both her brownie and junior girl scout troops...

These were just some of the highlights of this year that went by. I'm sure there are many other events that were worth mentioning and that I probably forgot to write about. All in all it was a good year. Some interesting challenges came by, like Charlotte's change in career. Good friends like the Dalls' lef the island, and they will be missed dearly.

Next year looks interesting as well. Hana will be switching to a new school starting in January, she will be going to a public school near our house that is known as one of the best schools in the island.

Charlotte will begin taking her classes towards her teaching certificate while continuing to work as a substitute teacher for local schools.

Syd will play in a select soccer team from January through March and in April we'll be going to Honolulu to a soccer tournament with her team.

Also next year Syd is planning to switch to Hilo Intermediate for 7th grade. She will be testing for the G&T program in March.

And, yes, next year I will be turning the big 40! so there will be a big party planned, so start saving money so you can make it!

Happy New Year!

The Romos!