Happy Birthday BP!

The whole Hawaii Lemonds crew wishes the beloved "BP" (aka the original PawPaw) a very happy 83rd birthday!

The kids are on a bit of a Star Wars trip at the moment - as their cards reflect:



From Olivia (with a little help)


From Jack (with a little help from Olivia)

Jack Vader

Jack and his Star Wars stuff - kid is addicted.

Cameron Komae

Kid Crocs

Crocs drying out after a nice mothers' day hike to the waterfall behind the Ko'olau golf course.

Car Seaters

The kids - all strapped in and ready for speed...

May Day is Lei Day!

May Day is a big deal in Hawaii - and it has taken on (as almost everything here does) a very uniquely local interpretation and practice. Thankfully - as celebrated here, the holiday has nothing to do with dippy socialist and anarchist street marches like it does in Europe - instead it is "Lei Day" and ties in to some extent with the Japanese celebration of boys' day and girls' day. The elementary schools go all out - and Livy's school is no exception. They have a May Day celebration with a Queen and King - and they have a court representing each of the Hawaiian islands. This all happens in the big central lawn at Enchanted Lake Elementary and I'm telling you it's a big deal - almost all the parents show up and ALL of the kids participate. Each grade does a song - and this year Olivia's first grade class did a Japanese dance. It was darn cute - here are some pictures of Livy in action:



This year we had a special treat as Jacqueline Maero (eldest daughter of our across-the-street neighbors) was the May Day Queen - and though I didn't see it - Kristen said she did a beautiful hula as the final act of the celebration. Here she is with the rest of the "royals" enjoying the show from her throne...


Owen never misses a chance to eat and May Day was no exception. A very nice mom gave him a Spam Musubi after they sold out the snack bar. Here he appears to be attempting to gag himself to make room for more... yummy

Dave's New Board

6'8" Al Merrick Epoxy - 3" thick - floaty pig (you need that kind of float when you are weighing in at 200 pounds!)

Owen at the Beach

Owen is a pretty cute kid - these pictures were taken at the end of April down at Kailua beach...

Owen Annunciates

We were over at the Felix's for a very fun Cinco de Mayo party last weekend. Some of the moms and girls had Owen sequestered and were chatting him up and pointing to people that they wanted him to identify with his cute little toddler talk. He's going around the room and identifying various people with oinks and other grunting noises - and at least he gets Mama and Dada correct. When they pointed to Brian, Owen piped up as clear as a bell: "Uncle Brian" - It sounded like a 12 year old said it - I was looking for the ventriloquist.

Kristen was quite taken aback.

Jackisms

Happy Mother's Day!

This afternoon Kristen took all the kids over to Gracie's birthday party at a gynamics place in town. Jack pretty much ruled the place and we should probably fast track him immediately to a life of man tights, powdered hands, flourescent-light tans, and Russian coaches. I'm still holding out for Soccer or Golf - and Jack is still claiming to want to play Football and Baseball - so we aren't quite ready to go down the gymnastics road quite yet (fingers crossed).

Anyway - the point of the story. Jack dropped a couple notable Jackisms on us today:

Apple Tarts = Leotards

Duck Duck Goofus = Duck Duck Goose

Royal Cabby

Vegas Highlights - part 2: Cab Driver or Crown Prince???

On our last night in Wegas (per George Poon) or Begas (per Jack Lemonds) - we caught a cab from downtown back to the strip. The cab driver was a very interesting fellow named Hassan who explained that he was only in Vegas for a few weeks before he was off to New Zealand, Australia, then South Africa, then catching a flight to Ethiopia before heading home. He claimed to be in the midst of a multi-year world tour that had taken him through Europe (staged out of Stokholm for a year), the mediterranean, the Pacific (including Hawaii), and a large portion of the mainland US. He explained that he only arrived in Vegas a week before (the establishment date on his cab license seemed to confirm this) and that he took a job driving cab so he could really experience the city. When I commented that it must be expensive to travel so frequently - he simply said that life is short. At the end of the cab ride I paid and he pulled me inside to show me pictures of him standing in full arab headdress surrounded by bodyguards. On the back it read "Prince Hassan". When I inquired he said that he was in fact, a prince of Eritrea (a small country on the Red Sea opposite Saudi Arabia and Yemen). To prove it, he showed me another picture of him standing with Gene Wilder. That's royalty to me baby.

Dealertainers!

Vegas trip highlights - part 1: Dealertainers!

This was initially horrifying, but eventually became strangely comforting and even a bit endearing. Talentless pop celebrity look-a-likes (and some frankly look-nothing-at-all-likes), when not busily dealing cards or working table games, would "perform" by standing on a tiny stage and dance and lip-sinc to tunes ranging from Alice Cooper's "(no more) Mister Nice Guy" to the Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean". We had Madonna, two Elvises (one I thought was supposed to be Johnny Cash), the ever-popular Cher, the Blues Brothers, Louis Armstrong, and a couple others that I have mysteriously forgotten. There was one poor sap that nobody in our group could ID - he was definitely supposed to be a country singer - but what was about all we could piece together. Any way, right in the middle of "friends in low places" (Garth Brooks?) the tape deck craps out but the mic still worked - so we got to hear at least a few seconds of "real" singing - which was really, really bad - before the dealertainer broke the cardinal rule of show business and just stood there like a talentless guy in boots and a bad hat. All in all, though, you have to give these guys credit - they were out there working it! The best by far was the mock King of Pop - it was almost as freaky as the real thing...

Speaking of celebrity - I almost forgot - we ran into Hannah Montana! This is Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter - she was walking into the Wynn hotel as we were walking out - nice kid.

Leon Crump at 71

"The Legend" Leon Crump is doing pretty well at 71 years. It sounds like the 58's aren't happening anymore, but I bet he can shoot his age (or rather, he probably bets he can shoot his age). Click for the article. If you golf and haven't read his book "Drive for show, putt for dough" - suggest you add it to your reading list - Leon is a classic character. Thanks dad for bringing the article, and thanks to Larry Strawser for collecting that piece of history - Leon's old lead-taped 3 wood. Good stuff. The world needs more classic characters.

Owen's Vocabulary - 27 March 2007

Bubba = Bubble
Mama = Kristen
Dada = any man including dear old dad
wahwah = water
AahAah = Jack
Kah = car (Boston style) (also the movie "Cars")
Coooo = cool
Waaah = wow
Up
ByeBye
DooDoo = (poop)
DooDooo = sound a rooster makes
ButtButt
ShhhShee = (pee)
ShhhShee = fish
Nu = Nose
MuhMuh (almost a grunt) = dog
PawPaw = Grandpa Dave
NihNih = Goodnight

What else is Owen up to these days? He gives kisses, makes goofy faces - including an "o" mouth face and a funny squint face, flutters his eyes (bashful?), and grabs things and runs. He's discovered how to move the kid chair next to the counters so he can reach things he shouldn't (cell phones usually, also knives). He won't stay out of the fridge (see "Why Toddlers Shouldn't Play With..." below) and he has a great dance where he bends his knees and bounces (more or less) with the music. Owen is extremely rough and tumble - he wrestles with Jack and Olivia and routinely plays pretty dirty (slaps and hits to the face are his normal cheap shots). As a consequence of all this, he tends to be a bit rough with kids his own age and is generally a terrror at playgrounds (Mama has to be close at hand or there will be lots of tears and angry first-time moms huffing around). Despite his well deserved reputation as a brute, he is a happy kid that laughs all the time. He has recently mastered a fake cry where he squints his face up and cries but no tears come out. He will take short breaks from this and look around to see if anyone is paying attention. His favorite place is the backyard sandpit - where he will happily sit for long unattended periods getting filty and eating sand etc. Owen enjoys playing the "guess what I have in my mouth" game - where he comes up to Kristen and loooks at her while he chews with his mouth closed. When she asks him what he has in his mouth he gladly spits out whatever was in there (recently a rock, a penny, various small toys, sand, etc.) and hands it to her. This is similar to the "is this dangerous?" game - where he blindly feels around the countertops until he finds a dangerous object (screwdriver, knife, lighter, box of screws, etc.) that he brings to Kristen while sporting a look of mock concern. We're hoping he doesn't combine the two games.

Vadar family theme song

Jack loves Darth Vadar. He knows he's a bad guy - but he still loves him. Robin Miller dressed up as the dark lord himself (herself?) for a surprise visit for Jack's 4th b-day party. Jack was geeked. Kristen has a Darth Vadar dashboard figurine in the mini - push a button and he breathes heavily and repeats some recognizable quotes (my favorite: "most impressive"). Jack watches the original Star Wars triolgy pretty regularly, so I guess we shouldn't have been too surprised when Owen's first recognizable hummable was the Darth Vadar theme song. He even hums it for his sleep song... it is pretty creepy.

Anyway - I was following a You Tube link and ran across a very funny short called "Chad Vadar - Day Shift Manager". Jack loved it. There is a series of episodes - though the first was our favorite.

"You could not have written a script...

... that would match the drama here!" In life you are lucky to have a couple of truly amazing moments - John Skinner had one of those yesterday. John is an in-law of some variety - he is married to my brother's wife's sister (so I guess he's my sister-in-law's brother-in-law - at least that is the best I can make of it after some quick research). John rescued Jack last summer from a strong rip-current at Emerald Isle NC and likely saved his life - so we are big fans of John in any case. He's also a strong SCRABBLE player - but that isn't what this post is about. This post is about the 2007 NCAA Divsion II Basketball National Championship.

John is a volunteer assistant coach for the Barton Bulldogs. Barton is a tiny school (less than 1000 students) in Wilson NC - that has a solid basketball program. They finished the regular season ranked 15th in D-II and went on an unbelievable run in the NCAA tournament, beating some much bigger schools in route to a finals matchup with Winona State - winners of 57 straight games and defending D-II champs (and the team that knocked Barton out in the Elite-8 round of the tourney last year). So this is where is gets good - the game was shown on national television and the kids and I gathered around the tube trying to catch glimpses of "uncle John" on the bench. We did see him a few times - and the kids went crazy and we'd rewind the DVR to watch it again in slow motion. Well - the game was very competitive but Barton was down 7 points with about 45 seconds to go and it didn't look good. And that's when the magic started - Wilson's own Anthony Atkinson drove and hit a layup with 39 s remaining to make it 74-69. Barton fouled on the inbounds sending Winona's MVP Malvik to line for a 1-and-1.



Here is John looking slightly concerned about being down 5 points with Winona State's senior MVP going to the line...



More National TV coverage for Uncle John. Head Coach Ron Lievense was working hard.

But Malvik missed the front end, Barton rebounded, and Atkinson drove the length of the court and hit a 12 footer with 26 s left, score 74-71. Somewhat unbelievably, Barton's Kelvin McLean stole the inbounds and got it to Atkinson who was fouled while making a layup with 22 s left, score 74-73. The 82% free throw shooter was heartbreakingly short on the game-tying foul shot, and as soon as Jonte Flowers of Winona rebounded, Barton fouled. Flowers (75% free throw shooter on the year) bricked the first and made the second, making it a 2 point game (75-73) with 19.4 s on the clock. Yet again, Atkinson drove the length of the court and made a circus-quality reverse layup (this was probably the most clutch play imaginable) to tie it up with 7.6 s left. The inbounds pass went to Malvik (who looked absolutely focused on hitting the game winner) when 5' 11" freshman Billy Buffaloe (Fuquay-Varina NC, I couldn't make this up) made a great steal from behind with 4 seconds to go (this was incredible - you just didn't see it coming) and passed to the lightning-quick Atkinson - who dribbled in for the uncontested game-winning layup as time expired. It was movie script - it was better than movie script because no one would believe it in a movie.



Check the clock on this release - can't be much closer than that...



Mayhem ensues... John demonstrating pure bliss...



Group hug!

Amazing game - and it couldn't have happened to a better volunteer assistant coach! Congrats John! and CONGRATS BARTON!

Unseasonal Caroling...

Olivia and (slumber party) Sloane belted out the following carol this evening... "We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year! The tidings are hung, and we bring to you, the tidings are hung, and a happy new year!" etc etc. When I told them that those aren't the traditional lyrics they simply sang their version louder. Quite hung indeed.

Princess Olivia's precious things...

Not to be outdone by her brother, Princess Olivia assembled her most precious things and prepared them for their photo shoot. They include her soccer trophies, a set of Japanese dolls, a picture of Luna (the former family "Bichon Frise" that was given away for being a tiny, cotton ball Kujo), some foreign coins, a discarded cell phone, a diamond ring (Christmas present from Tudi), a working camera, etc. She is very proud.

Jack's precious things

These are Jack's special things this week. A couple rocks, a rusty bottle cap (Bud Light - where the heck did he find that?), a clipped electrical connector, and a part from a long-retired Spider Man toy.

Why toddlers shouldn't play in the refrigerator

In addition to being smeared with eggs - his face is covered in yogurt. He's learned how to open the fridge and he likes to take things out and eat them or bring them to us. Last week he brought a small glass container of horseradish into the bathroon and smashed it on the floor. He also enjoys the tiny Texas Pete hot sauce containers.