Medieval Fair

The "Big Thing" for Iolani 6th graders is the Medieval Fair. They spend an entire quarter studying the Medieval period. All subjects material for all classes is centered around it and the culminating event is the
M  E  D  I  E  V  A  L    F  A  I  R

All 6th graders pick or are assigned a Medieval occupation. Everything from Kings and Queens to Knights, Merchants, or Peasants. There are also Artisans, Masons, Herbalist, and Jesters. Each group needed to create some sort of skit or demonstration of their occupation. They also had to make all of their costumes and any other items that they would need to best represent what they were.

Blake ended up with Archer. He really wanted to be a Jester and was already pretty good at juggling, but he settled for Archer. I, on the other hand was rooting for Archer. First of all, archery is cool. Secondly, I was looking forward to making a bow....how awesome would that be? And yes, this is a school project, so Blake needs to so most of the work...I just need to help him with the tools and what not. :D

Making the bow turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. Mainly because we got lucky and found a set of youtube videos showing how to make a bow out of stone age tools. Yeah, that's right, this guy used rocks. Here's the first video if you are interested (thx Tom Mills)
So I figured, all we needed to do was follow his instructions and just replace with modern tools...chisel, wood shaver, saw, hammer. And it all went exactly like the video. We made some mistakes with not choosing the right shape before we started and taking off a bit too much wood in certain areas, but for the most part, it came out pretty nicely.
We used a guava branch for our wood. (Thanks mom for getting us the branches) Guava wood turned out to be incredibly strong and flexible. I was really impressed with the bend that we got in the bow.


This is the shaving process. Took a long time, but lots of wood comes off with the shaver.


Here's Blake doing a floor tillering to test the bend.


We also had to create a costume for Blake the Archer. Blake did a lot of research on the clothing that they wore and designed a couple of outfits. My mom, then did a lot of great work helping Blake put all the pieces together.

The fair was pretty cool. All the students did a great job with their booths and costumes.



"Cruel Connor of Constantinople is charged for stealing 5 pigs, and the King's jewels. Reward: 1 pig and a fourth of the King's jewels"


The hilarious physicians booth. Loved that one.


Blake the Archer. He got a bunch of bulls eyes and some of his arrows actually went through the target. YEAH!!!

President's Day Tournament

We ended the 3 day tournament with at 3-0 record. I believe we played 2 of the tougher teams in the tournament. A team from Aiea and one from Ewa Beach. We outscored the three teams by a total of 32-5. Despite a couple of injuries and missing players, the team as a whole played very well.

Blake ended up going 2-6 with 5 Runs scored, an RBI, 2 Walks, and 3 Stolen Bases. For the most part, he hit the ball solidly, but just toward fielders. The good thing is that he's hitting a bit harder so he got on base a lot via fielding errors. Harder hit balls == harder to field.....yeah...I'm going with that.

I also have a web site up and running for our team. I've got some of the box scores and stats posted. Check it out if you want to see the details. KAC Twins

This week is the opening weekend for our league. Games on Saturday and Sunday. I'm going to try to get a bunch of pictures this weekend to post.

Taiwan Team

This weekend, we played against a team from Taiwan. They were here for the week to play a bunch of teams from Hawaii in an informal Goodwill type tournament. I think this team was the runner up to the one that went to the Little League World Series International tournament.



It was a really good game. The team from Taiwan was very disciplined, as you would expect, and the game was close and very competitive. We played by Little League rules, which meant that we were not able to steal bases. We were tied at 3 up to the 5th inning, but ended up losing 5-3 in 6 innings.

Blake played a pretty good game. He got on base twice and scored once. He hit two hard balls at the short stop. The first went under the SS glove and went into left field, so he reached on an Error. His second at bat was a bit stranger, the ball was hit toward second base on the short stop side. Since there was a man on first, the SS and 2B were pinched in to turn the double play. The ball rolled up the SS, out of his glove and up off his shoulder and landed right at the 2B who was on second base, forcing out the runner. Blake got on base...not sure if this is a Fielders Choice or an E6. In any case, he later scored on a bases loaded walk. We ended up only scoring that single run, leaving 3 men on base. His last at bat, he was way ahead of the pitch and hit the ball off the end of his bat to line out to the second baseman. He played well in the field, making all the plays that were hit to him at second base. He also just missed turning a double play. I may be a bit bias here, but the kid is smooth.



After the game, we had a potluck with the Taiwan team. All the boys mingled together and talked...even though there was a language barrier to overcome. The Taiwan team even did a little dance and a song for us. Our team went up and joined in during the dance portion and gave a good effort singing "Take me out to the Ballgame". The Taiwan boys also taught them a little game. I still don't understand it but it seems to be a mutated form of Jun-Ken-Po.



Anyway, it was a great game and an awesome experience for the kids to interact with people from another culture.

It Does Come In Threes

The saying goes, Bad Luck Comes In Threes. Seems as though they are right because one more injury has plagued Blake.
He chipped...actually he broke off two of his teeth. A fourth of one of his upper front tooth and nearly the entire smaller tooth next to it, broke off. This time he was running around after school and fell and hit a curb, or something like that.
Lucky for us, we know a dentist (thx again Peter). He came in on his day off to fix Blake up. He had to do a root canal on one of them and made temporary, cosmetic repairs on the other one. We're going to see him again once the teeth settle and he can better assess any additional damage to the teeth.

He's all fine now. Just having problems (fun) with saying words that start with 'S'.
Hopefully this it the third and final mishap.

Turtle Bay Getaway

Jan 17-19 2009
Last weekend, we stayed over at the Turtle Bay condos. We used to do this every year, way back when, with a bunch of friends of ours. We'd all chip in for the condo and food and other "essentials" and just relax for a nice long 3 day weekend. We stopped planning this once we all got busy with family and stuff. But now that the kids are a little older, we decided it was time to get back out to the North Shore for some fun and relaxation.

First of all, the condos are newly renovated, so they are much nicer than the 70s decore that I remembered from past stays. I took some pictures when we first got there, but they didn't come out too well, so you have to use your imagination here. The condo has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a loft area. New HD TVs, furniture, and appliances, all from Costco, we think. And some really ugly brown and green counter tops. But otherwise, really nice and clean.

So all we needed to do was pack away all our supplies...

And relax....



The highlight of our trip was a horseback riding tour around the Turtle Bay area. We got to ride out onto the beach and into some forest areas surrounding the golf course. The horses were all nice and calm and the ride was easy and the scenery was spectacular. We even rode past a set location for Lost.



We had a great weekend. The waves were a bit rough, so we swam in the pool (it was heated). We played Sorry and cards, built a ginger bread house, and threw range balls out onto the golf course. We ate good food, drank a bit-o-beer, and talked and laughed late into the night. Just like the good ol' days....but somehow better.











some extra bonus "Scenery" shots...that everyone hates, but i love.

UH Football Banquet

Another post from the past. The recent past....early December 2008 to be exact.

We were lucky enough to be invited to the 2008 University of Hawaii Football Banquet.


The banquet is an annual event held at the end of the football season where they give out awards to the players, recap the season, and let fans get up close to the player for photos and autographs.


One of the kids brought a football for autographs.....but only for certain players. He hid it from the guys who he didn't want to sign ball. (smart)


They had a bunch of huge screens setup to watch a video recap of the season. There were also a number of speeches, including one from Admiral Tim Keating, Commander of the US Pacific Command. He actually walked through the entire ballroom as he delivered his speech. Quite impressive.


Here's our friend Wendy, who just had to have a picture with Shawn Ching, former KITV news anchor.

We had a great evening. The food was pretty good and it's always fun hanging out with the Hamadas and Teruyas.

Hawaii Bowl

This post is a bit late.... but we got a chance to go to see the University of Hawaii play Notre Dame in the Hawaii Bowl. A friend of our bought a block of tickets (with the all so convenient parking passes included) to the game (thx Mark).
A whole bunch of us went out to the stadium for some football fun. We tailgated, ate some great potluck food, the kids played football in the parking lot, and we got to see Notre Dame pick apart the UH defense.
I think UH could have done better, but it seemed to me that the QB wasn't able to pickup the receivers that were open on the shorter routes and was also having trouble connecting with the ones that he did throw to. Add in the fact that Notre Dame was just a bit bigger and faster and I guess that would explain the 49-21 loss.

But we still had a great time and it was good to see Hawaii in another bowl game.


We are on the shady side!!!



Fire at halftime


Hawaii Bowl (I like Aloha Bowl better)