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.

Play of the Day

Just a quick update on Blake's baseball team. The regular season is over. The Twins took the championship and so our coach is now the head coach of the Tournament Team. We play in the PONY league so there is a qualifier in Waianae next month and a State Tournament in Hilo a week or two after that. The winner of the State tournament will play in California. It's very similar to the Little League World Series...just not as publicized.

So anyway, we are doing everyday practices and 3-4 scrimmages per week for the past 3 weeks now. Blake has been playing pretty well in the field and has been hitting the ball better. He's hitting 0.444 with a 0.667 on base percentage. He only has 9 at bats over 7 games because of substitutions and what not, but still, pretty good. Here's a link to our team page for more stats and info if you are interested.

And now for the Play Of The Day. We were playing a really good team this past Sunday. There are a couple of guys from our Twins team on that team. One of them is at bat in the video. Blake is playing second base. Earlier in the game that player beaned Blake in the helmet during his only at bat. This, I guess, is payback. (FYI They were and still are really good friends)



It's a little hard to see what's going on in the video so here is a little recap. There was 1 out with a man on second and third. The ball was lined to Blake, who had to go the his right and back a little into center field to make a diving catch. He then tossed the ball to the short stop to complete the inning ending double play. Daa da da Daa da da.