Camp Ho'omaluhia

July 19-20 2009

This past summer, we decided to go camping. Since we are not experienced campers by any stretch of the imagination, we chose to go to Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden on the Windward side. We wanted someplace fairly safe, not too far from civilization, and would also let you build a fire.
We went out a week earlier to scout several places. Ho'omaluhia seemed to be the safest because they close the gates at night and seemed to have some security personal roaming around. The camp sites there were nice and clean and were spaced out a good distance from each other so you have some privacy but also close enough together so that you can keep an eye out for each other. Most of the sites have fire pits and there are public bathrooms with showers.

So we got our camping gear together and gathered a bunch of wood for the fire. I went to the beach to grab a bunch of drift wood and also went to City Mill to take some scrap wood that they were giving away. I thought I had enough wood, but I now know, there is no such thing as enough firewood.

Here's some pics from the park. It's really beautiful there since the park has a lake and is located at the base of the Ko'olau mountain range.







The thing I was looking forward to the most was the fire. I may very well be a closet pyro. I researched a bunch of camp fire building techniques and ended up building the classic teepee with kindling and small wood and a square of larger pieces of wood around it. I also cheated a bit and brought along some cotton balls that were soaked in torch fluid. The fire caught quickly and if you didn't already know this...wood burns pretty fast. But the fire burned nice and hot throughout most of the night. We cooked up some steak kabobs for dinner and roasted up some s'mores later that night for dessert.




Towards the end of the night we rolled up some cardboard pieces that we got at Costco and tossed them on the fire. Those burned real nice too.

The next day we walked over to the lake and did some fishing. The lake is full of Talapia and the park has open fishing hours during the day. You basically put your line in the water and you get a fish. That's the type of fishing I like. We used bread as bait and that was working pretty good for us. There were some people nearby that were catching some larger fish and they were using pieces of corn for bait. I think that kept the smaller fish away, since they probably couldn't eat the entire piece of corn. Next time we'll bring some corn.



All in all, we had a great time camping. We're stil not the camping types and more than likely we will do more "camping" at hotels. But it was nice to get out and experience nature and have some quality family time.

Wienermobile

We were driving through Kaneohe one day and spotted the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile.



It was close to lunch time and hot dogs sounded good, so we spun around to get some. Well, they don't sell hot dogs at the Wienermobile. :(
The Wienermobile is one of 5 or 6 Wienermobiles that tour the country to spread Wiener-wisdom. So we stopped to get some of that. We also got a Wienermobile whistle and a short rest inside the Wienermobile.



Pretty cool. If only it had a hot dog rotisserie in there. Anyway, it was an interesting stop along our Sunday drive.

About a week later, I spotted this headline in the local paper. Wienermobile in the doghouse with Hawaii's Outdoor Circle
This kind of thing really upsets me. I know that the Outdoor Circle does a lot to protect the scenic beauty of Hawaii, but sometimes I think they take things a bit too far. With certain things, people need to use some common sense and not just follow the "rules" blindly. Enforcing the intent of the laws and using good judgment would probably make Hawaii an even happier place. (A little bonus Wiener-wisdom for ya)

Hilo

We didn't have much time to do anything else in Hilo except baseball, but we did manage to eat at some pretty good places. Usually when we go to the Big Island, we stay on the Kona side and sometimes drive over to Hilo for the day. So we really never get to do anything in Hilo except drive through it. The last time we were there, we did get to go to the Hilo Zoo, which was surprisingly good, especially the white tiger.
So anyway, while we were in Hilo for the baseball tournament, we found several good places to eat. The first place that we went to was the Kuhio Grille for breakfast. Breakfast was great, I really liked the fried rice....just the way I like it, some spam and egg and no green onions. I also heard that the loco moco and desserts were really good there as well.




We found this place called Hi-Ho Mongolian Grill. This place is exactly the same as the Big Wok restaurant that we went to in California. We were introduced to the Big Wok by my sister and brother-in-law (thanks guys, that place rocked). Hi-Ho was exactly the same. It has a huge round stone that they cook the food on. You basically fill a bowl with raw meat, vegetables, noodles, and sauces and they cook it up for you on the hot stone. I forgot to take a pic of the cooks, but it's a very cool setup and the food tasted great.

We had one of our dinners at the Seaside Restaurant. The cool thing about this restaurant is that they have an aqua farm out back where I believe they grow a lot of the seafood that they serve.
I usually don't eat fish, but since this was a seafood joint, I figured I should give one a try. I ordered a grilled salmon that was on the Specials menu. It was prepared just the way I liked it...a nicely grilled, crunchy crust and soft and moist on the inside. It also had a really tasty mushroom cream sauce. Another thing that stood out was the bread. I think it was a sour dough type roll, but it had a slightly sweet flavor to it.

Here's a picture of the Koi fishpond that they had out back. And no, I don't think that they serve the Koi.



Some of the other places that we went to were:

• Ken's House of Pancakes - probably needed to go here several more times since the menu filled over 5 pages.



• Don's Grill - was ok, I had the pork adobo, which I liked



• Two Ladies Kitchen for mochi



• Tournament concession stand - had to have at least one loco moco in Hilo...I didn't think I'd have a chance to get one before I left. But this one was still pretty good.



• Cafe 100 - I actually didn't eat here, but some of the other people said it was good



• Big Island Candies - Chocolate dipped shortbread cookies



• Big Island Delights - Macadamia Nut Snowball Delight Cookies (my current favorite snowball cookies)

Sorry I didn't get too many pics of the food and of the restaurants.
So I'll end this post with a bunch of random shot from Hilo....

They Cool

Best Laundromat Ever

Hilo Bay

Thanks Hilo....we'll be back.

Hilo PONY Tournament

The Hilo Tournament was a lot of fun. We ended up going all the way to the semi-final game. We lost to Maui, who then lost to Windward in the championship game.
Here's a link to the game box scores if you are interested in the details.

We lost our first game against Lihue. We really should have won that game but things just didn't go our way. We left 10 men on base, including 2 bases loaded innings. This put us in the losers bracket, which meant that if we were going to win it all, we'd have to play 6 more games over 4 days. It also meant that our backs were against the wall and one more loss would send us home.



The second game was against the host Hilo team. Our hitters got back into the groove in this game and we won 6-11. The next day would be a double header day, starting at 8 in the morning.
The boys were feeling good and were having a great time in Hilo. They were all getting to know each other a lot better and were having fun, on and off the field.



The first game of the double header was against Makakilo-Kapolei. KAC belted out 15 hits in this game and scored in every inning. The next game would be a rematch against Lihue. We pitched our Ace pitcher in this game. He went the entire game and pitched one of the best games I've seen all season. He had total command of all his pitches and kept the Lihue team off balance at the plate for the entire game. He pitched 7 innings and threw only 67 pitches.

We advanced to see another day. This meant another early game against the winner of Windward vs Maui and then the championship game. By now, the boys were feeling the affects of baseball all day and playing around all night. We almost pulled it off. In the bottom of the 7th, we scored 2 runs to make it 8-5. With 2 outs, we loaded the bases and had our leadoff batter at the plate. But it wasn't meant to be and the game ended there.



So that was that. Our season was over. The boys played great in that tournament. The game against Maui had some spectacular plays. Huge hits... a couple of home runs and triples that were hit to the deep Hilo outfield fence. Great defensive plays... a deep shot to center field that was caught over the shoulder and a diving catch of a line drive to the left field line.

I got to know a lot of the boys a lot better. They are all great kids and I hope to see them again sometime in the future....and that they remember me. :)

The tournament was a great experience. The team played great and I'm proud of what they accomplished. I think we all would have wanted to beat Maui to get a shot at the Windward team but I also think we wanted to win so we could stay together a bit longer.

Hilo, here we come

The KAC Bronco team advanced to the State P.O.N.Y tournament that will be held in Hilo. They beat both the Mililani A and B team to advance.

The games were fairly close, although we never trailed in any time. We ended up winning both games by 3 runs.

Blake didn't do so well at the plate during this tournament, but he played very well in the field, making all the plays that were hit to him.

Congratulations KAC!!! See you all in Hilo.

6th Grade Promotion

June 4th 2009
Iolani School 6th Grade Promotion

The last day of school was the 6th grade promotion at Iolani. This marks the final day in the lower school and a promotion into the upper school campus.
Since Iolani goes from K to 12th grade, this is a pretty momentous occasion for the students, especially the ones that have been there since Kindergarten. They will be going from being the top dogs in the lower school to the newbies at the upper school. They will now have classes in a completely different portion of the campus and are now able to select the classes that they want to take. This basically marks their first steps from being kids to becoming young adults.

During the Promotion ceremony, they announced various awards and accomplishments of the students over the prior year. Blake received one award. An award that we are extremely proud of him....the Headmasters List. This is an overall GPA of 3.5 and above and no grade lower than a B-. He accomplished this while having Football and Baseball practices from after school till sometimes after 7:00pm and then doing 2-3 hours of homework almost every night.

Congratulations Blake

Maia's Second Birthday Party

Maia celebrated her second birthday at Mac 24/7 in the Prince Kuhio hotel.


The theme, as you can see, was Elmo!!!



The food and cake were great. Maia has a very healthy appetite. She ordered the same thing as I did, the Chicken and Waffles, and I'm pretty sure she ate more of it than I did.


Here's one of the dishes that Mac 24/7 is known for. Super sized pancakes.