Playoff Game 2

Sorry, I took a long time to post this. The Falcons lost the second playoff game. Booo!!!

They played a good game but came up just short. The Highland Colts QB ran two long touchdowns and they returned an interception for a TD as well. The Falcons were doing well, but lost their main offensive weapon and key defensive player due to an injury at half-time.

The final score was 13 - 21.


Blake had a really good game. He made some great tackles and even got to play several downs at Wide Receiver.
Here are some pics of some of the tackles I managed to take. I'm still getting used to the camera so I sort of missed his biggest hit. It's the last picture and he's sort of cut off at the top.




So anyway, that's the end of our football season. Most of the team will be playing this weekend in a tournament in Maui and also in a tournament the following weekend. We couldn't play because we will be going off on vacation this week.

Guess where we are going. Yep, you guessed it.....Disneyland......again.

This time we are traveling with the Teruyas.
I'll try to post pics during the week. See you all from the Happiest Place on Earth.

Playoff Game 1

I'll cut to the end...we won our first game against the Kahaluu Broncos!!!
We play again this Sunday against the Highland Colts. Highland is probably the best team remaining in our divisional playoffs and if we can beat them, we have a pretty good chance of taking the championship. The last time we played them we won 13-12. So it'll be a good game this weekend.



So a recap of the Kahaluu game. The first quarter started out pretty good. Our team moved the ball on the ground really well. 10+ yards on virtually every play. But a bunch of penalties and an interception stopped our scoring drives. Blake played a great first quarter. He had several tackles and shut down any outside runs on his side of the field and defended the pass really well. The defense in general did a really good job.





At the end of the quarter Blake came out of the game with a hand injury. At the time, we didn't really know what was going on. Michelle went down to the field and his right hand was pretty swollen. A friend of ours had a relative at the game that was a doctor, so he looked at his hand and said that there might be a fracture. So the league official pulled Blake out for the rest of the game. Blake wanted to stay in and in fact, he stayed on the field for the rest of the defensive series before he told the coaches about his hand. Poor Blake had to watch the rest of the game from the sidelines.



At the half, the score was 8-6. I think Kahaluu scored on a short field due to another interception. We scored on a short run by Tyler after another good drive down the field by the Falcons. The third quarter went by really quickly since Kahaluu ran the ball a lot and ate up the clock. The fourth quarter was dominated by Kalani. The Kahaluu QB fumbled the ball at the line of scrimmage and one of our linebackers picked up the ball and some how got out of the scramble for the ball at the line and ran the ball back for a touchdown. Kahaluu then started to panic a bit and switched from their up the middle run offense (which was doing pretty well) to some trick plays, passes and outside runs. Our linebackers and defensive backs are smart and fast, so they were able to shut Kahaluu down. Kalani's final score came from an amazing run by Tyler. This was after he ran the ball up the middle, broke a couple of tackles and scored a 25 yard touchdown. That one was called back because of a penalty. The scoring play came from a run around the left side. As he neared the endzone, a tackler was on Tyler and he was about to be pushed out of bounds. Tyler then leaped back in and stretched out for the endzone pylon (ala ESPN Top Plays) and scored. It was totally awesome.

After the game, we took Blake to the emergency room to get x-rays. 4 long hours later, the doctors said that it didn't look like a fracture....but they weren't sure. So we'd have to wait for the Radiologist and Blake's Pediatrician to look at it. Turns out that it's not a fracture (whew!) and probably just a bad bruise or sprain.



The doctor cleared him to practice this week so hopefully he'll be fully healed by Sunday. He's already out of the splint and is back at practice .... and catching lizards (?? don't ask, we have no idea).




BTW, we used the new camera to take these pictures. The camera worked great and once Michelle figures out how to use the burst mode, we should have some nice action shots. So far she's managed to take a huge series of photos of the pile up after the play is over.

Panasonic FZ28

Got my new camera yesterday. Been trying to figure out how to use it. So far, I've been playing with all of the default settings. I think it'll take me a while to make the most out of the camera. The main reason I chose this camera was so that I could take better pictures of Blake's sporting events. I also seem to like to take scenic pictures and close up macro shots so I'm going to try to figure out how to best do those first. I'm learning about Aperture and Shutter Speed and ISO...who would have thought it would be so complicated. Anyway, here are some pics of the new camera.



Here are a couple of shots from Diamond Head lookout this morning. The two smaller pictures on the bottom are of a surfer. The one on the top is at 1X and the one on under it is at the maximum 18X zoom. Pretty good zoom...although I may need a tripod.









And finally, here is a comparison of the Macro shots. My old camera is on the top and the Panasonic is under it. It's a little dark because I was so close...but if you click on the image, you'll see that Boba needs some dusting.





So anyway, going to experiment with the new camera. Blake will be playing Sunday at Aloha Stadium and I'm hoping to get some good pics there.

Perfect

Blake's last regular season game was this past weekend. They won the game and finished with a perfect 8-0 record.
Blake has been doing pretty good so far. He's played his position well, making tackles when plays are run toward him. He's also been put into the Wide Receiver rotation during the last couple of games. He has 1 reception so far...a 4th and 5 play inside the 20 yard line. He caught the pass for a first down. Tyler scored on the next play.

Next up is the playoffs. They will be held in Aloha Stadium, so that should be a really great experience for the kids. I've heard that they will be able to use the locker rooms and get the whole football experience at the stadium.

GO FALCONS!!!!

Puffys

We had a football game out in Waialua a couple of weeks ago. We won the game and Blake played pretty well but the highlight of the day was the Puffys.

If you are ever in Waialua, stop by the Paalaa Kai Bakery. I've heard that everything there is good, but the Puffys were the things that we were after.

Puff pastry filled with cream.

They looked like they would be too sweet, but they were just right. Not too sweet and not too bland. The filling was lightly flavored and tasty. The chocolate design on top actually provided most of the sweetness to the Puffy. The puff pastry was flaky but not too flaky as to break apart when you took a bite out of it.

Puffys....Good

Game of Life

We recently played The Game of Life. I remember playing this as a kid. It was really fun...and it still is. They've changed a bunch of the rules in the newer version that we were playing. For example, in the older version, there were Lucky Day spaces where you could take some money from the bank or gamble that money on a spin to get more money. There's no gambling in the new game, probably not Politically Correct, but they do have a Stock Market, which I think is the same thing....or maybe worse.

In the older game, I think it was more of a toss up whether going to college or starting a career was a better choice. In the new game, going to college gives you a huge advantage. I also think that in the older game, you got extra money at the end for each kid you had, in the new game, they've done away with that too. Another PC change perhaps.



Tyler's car is the White one. He had 6 kids at this point in the game and had to tow along an extra car to fit them all. I think he ended up with 8 kids in all. You don't see that too much nowadays.

Anyway, playing The Game of Life was fun. We laughed and joked with each other all through out the game. We had a great time, all without a tv or gameboy or xbox....you don't see that too much either.

Weekend of Tyler

Been busy for the past couple of weeks so I haven't had time to post anything. I need to catch up so sorry for the flood of rushed posts.

First up. We got to have Blake's friend Tyler over for a couple of nights over the past two weekends. He's basically part of our family so we ended up doing a lot of what we usually do. We played a bunch of board games, watched a lot of TV, played video games, and did some exploring of the island.

One Sunday we drove out towards Sandy Beach to see what we could see.

View from a Tourist Scenic View Stop

Tyler and Blake Exploring






The shorebreak...it's dangerous



Beware Man-of-War....we got sticks

So we had a great time doing a whole lot of nothing. It was awesome.