Trip to Maui

In early September the three of us trip to Hawaii. We booked our trip quite last minute and got an incredible deal on airline tickets, car rental and a condo in Kihei, Maui. 

 We have always flown to Maui using miles. And because Untied doesn't fly direct we have always flown to San Francisco and then on to Maui. This time we actually purchased non-stop tickets on Hawaiian Airlines. They were really inexpensive so we decided to save our miles. Our flight was to leave Seattle at 10:00 a.m. When we arrived at the airport we boarded our flight and soon found out that there was some mechanical issue that needed to be fixed on the airplane. So we got off the airplane and waited a couple of hours for them to replace the part. After waiting for two hours we were notified that they couldn't get the part for the airplane until the following day. So we had to wait until another airplane came in that we could fly on. That meant we would have a 15 hour delay!! Yes...you read that right...a 15 hour delay! Now...we almost always drive ourselves to the airport and leave our car in a long term airport parking. But this time around our good friend Sarah volunteered to take us to the airport. We decided it would save us a $100+ dollars so we let her drop us off at the airport. So we had no way to leave the airport. So we did a lot of NOTHING for 15 hours!! We felt like prisoners in our own airport! Luckily the airlines gave us some food vouchers so we could have breakfast, lunch and dinner! And I brought our Canasta cards with us so we played some games, read our books and did a lot of relaxing. At 12:45 a.m. we were finally on our way to Maui!

Isn't this the funniest sign? That is one LONG delay! To compensate us the airline gave us 3 vouchers to be used within a year for some $ towards a flight to Maui. So I hope we can use the vouchers and go back to Maui soon! That would be awesome!

We did lots of snorkeling and boogie boarding during our 10 day vacation. 

Brooklyn holding a bright purple sea star.

 We saw lots of cool fish and turtles. 

We ate at some of our favorite places.

 Our table was right on the water. Such a beautiful evening. 

 One day we took a boat ride over to Lanai to snorkel. While we were snorkeling we saw a spotted eagle ray. The coolest thing I have ever seen snorkeling. It kinda freaked me out a bit. It was huge but so very beautiful and graceful.

We saw lots of flying fish that took off flying as the boat passed through the water.

 We loved being in swim suits and flip-flops 

 Checking out a fruit stand along the highway.

 One night Steve and I went to Leilani's for their famous Hula Pie. Oh man was it good. 

 One day we rented scooters and zipped all over Kihei and Wailea.

We looked so cute with our helmets on!

 Brookie scootering...yes she had a helmet but she wanted to look cute for the pictures!

On Sunday we went to church in Lahaina. One of our cute nieces, Camrie, had just recently returned from serving her mission in Hawaii. And Lahinia was the last area where she served so we wanted to go to the ward where she served. 

Here are some of the wonderful and kind members of the ward who loved Sister LeBaron. 

And here are some of the sister missionaries, who served with Camrie.

We had fun taking pictures at sunset. 

 There's our hula girl Brooklyn!

  

 

 

 

 We had a great time on our trip to paradise.
Here's a short video that Steve made of some of our vacation highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ojxyxDxNk

Canning Peaches & Pears

This was our second year canning peaches and pears.

 We lay all our fruit on our dinning room table to ripen.

 The peaches ripened first.

I love the rich color of the peaches after being canned. 

The pears took a lot longer to ripen. We wanted to get them ripe before we left to go to Hawaii on vacation. So we did the trick where we put them inside brown paper sacks with a ripe banana inside each sack. After one week and the day before we left for Hawaii the pears were ripe enough to can them.

All ready to cook!

 Eleven quarts of pears. Now we'll have yummy canned peaches and pears to eat this winter.

Celebrating Steve's Birthday!

We started celebrating Steve's birthday a few weeks before his actual birthday.

I surprised him with a GoPro camera for his birthday. He was so excited! I love it when I can surprise him.

I gave it to him early so that he could have fun playing with it in the swimming pool during our swim parties. He also used it when he took the priest quorum on their high adventure rafting trip.

 The Sunday before his birthday I made two german chocolate cakes and took them to his Sunday morning meetings.

 

 On Steve's actual birthday we had a swim party! 

 We invited all these fun peeps over to swim and join us in Steve's birthday celebration.

 Our good friend Nancy brought over a delicious chocolate cake. 

Steve taking the first bite!

Happy Birthday Steve! We ALL love you!

The BEST Summer ever for Swim Parties

We have had our swimming pool for 6 years now. And this summer was by far the BEST summer we have had for HOT days! 

Steve was able to sneak away from work to join us for many of our afternoon swim parties. It's great when he can work from home later in the evening to make up his time. 

We invited a lot of families from our ward and neighborhood to join us on those hot days!

 Our nephew Trevor had a job in Eastern Washington selling for the summer. He and two of his friends came to stay overnight with us while they were here visiting Seattle. It was a lot of fun to have them here. We bbq'd hamburgers and had a swim party when they arrived. That evening Brooklyn took them over to the middle school tennis court so they could light tennis balls on fire! What a bunch of CRAZY fun boys! The next morning Steve took them on a tour of Boeing. We wish they could have stayed longer. We had a great time with them.

 One Saturday we had our good friends the Crosby's, William's and Davis's over for a swim/bbq party. It was a lot of fun. The Davis's left before we took this picture. They were getting ready to move to Utah so we're glad they were able to come join us for one last hurrah!

 We made homemade, hand cranked raspberry ice cream a few times this summer. It is always such a yummy treat on a warm summer night.

I love it when our pool is filled with lots of cute little swimmers!

At all our pool parties we serve up rainbow sherbet ice cream cones. It's become a fun LeBaron tradition!

It's the middle of September and we're still swimming! The 7 day forecast looks awesome. So our awesome summer weather continues!

Trip to Nor Cal

In mid August I flew to Sacramento for my nephew Jacobs mission farewell and to visit my parents and brothers and their families. 

Although I love it when my family can travel with me, it's always fun when I get to go home to visit my parents.

While I was there we went out to dinner a couple of times, to see the movie "The Hundred Foot Journey", shopping, swimming, out for breakfast and to my brother's houses for family dinners.

 I got to go on an early morning bike ride with my dad three days while I was there. We rode 7 miles each day for about an hour. It was so much fun. 

 Saturday night Gregg and Pat invited us to go to an outdoor concert with them. The theme for the concert that night was DISCO! Ya baby! Brought back a lot of memories swaying back and forth to the good old days way back when!  

 Sunday was Jacobs mission farewell. He did a fantastic job on his talk. I am so very proud of him. He will be serving for two years in Guatemala City, Guatemala. He will be an outstanding missionary as he shares the gospel with the people in Guatemala.