My New Wallpaper!

I just made new wallpaper for my desktop...



Isn't she lovely?!

I'm overcome by thoughts of Clay Aiken and people in scrubs!

Okay, maybe that's kinda disturbing, but she still is lovely.

First Day of School, Football and Flags!

These last few weeks have been filled with too much to do at work, followed by the worst case of the flu I have ever had in my entire life.

Thankfully both things are easing up.

But that translates into a really long blog post as we try to catch up on the silliness of the last few weeks.

The tuesday after Labor Day marked the start of the school year here in Door County. That meant the four kids to the left saw their summer come to an end...



The very next day, however, marked a first in our home. It was our baby Malia's first day of Kindergarten...



For the child that we thought would be a bit too shy for school - she proved us wrong and jumped into it with all the enthusiasm in the world!

For my lovely wife, however, this marked an important day as well.

This is the first day in nearly 13 years that we didn't have a little kid not in school.

Cari didn't know what to do with herself!

But as the first school day came to an end, there she was at the bus stop on the corner waiting for all our kids to come home...



To celebrate this week of firsts, we took a walk along the water...



And went out to eat for dinner.

I guess Cari was so busy not having kids at home with her that she didn't have time to cook!

I'm sure I'm going to get into trouble for that comment.

As a complete non sequitur, I was in Fish Creek the other day and stopped at my favorite hat shop - Hat Head.

What, you mean not everyone has a favorite hat shop?!

This place is great because it sells not only wonderful hats of all kinds, it also sells the most outrageous hats you can find. And in case you haven't noticed, most of my children seem to always be wearing a hat - some a bit more goofy than others.

Well, I discovered during my last visit that they also make customized caps.

Since my youngest daughters Malia and Nalani desperately wanted their own Dallas Cowboys hats but couldn't find a girly one that fit - we had some made for them...



Here's a closer look...



And of course, it says "Malia's Cowboys" on Malia's hat...



This saturday marked the third football game of the season for Bret Jr.'s Bobcats.

Bretty loves playing defense, but he also played a little center during today's game. And wouldn't you know that across from him at nose tackle was the biggest 5th grader on either team.

But our boy held his own against a kid who must have outweighed him by 30 pounds and was a head taller than him...



But what Bret really loves is playing on the interior of the defensive line. On one play he drove the quarterback into the ground and caused a fumble...



He made his best effort to recover it as well...



Here's Bret dragging down the running back in the backfield with a little help...



He really got into today's game as our Bobcats overwhelmed St. Joe's from Green Bay 30 to 0.



Just as Bret's game was coming to a close, we had to run down the road so our youngest son Kekoa could begin his flag football game.

Here he is tossing a pass...



Kekoa doesn't have his brother's bulk to play on the line. He typically lines up at wide receiver or running back...



Although I'm sure when he sees a sea of blue jerseys like this he wishes he had his brother Bret in front of him...



Shortly after Kekoa's game began, Cari arrived with Bretty.

And like a good big brother, Bretty stood right at the line of scrimmage on the sideline to watch his little brother play (Kekoa is the running back immediately to the right of Bretty in the red shirt below)...



Of course, one of the great things for Kekoa is his team's name...



Yes, as his jersey says, Kekoa plays for the Cowboys!

It was a long day to say the least and we were all a bit tuckered out...



Bretty wanted to know how I was able to take that picture when I was the person driving the car.

Kekoa said I must have taken it at a red light.

Uh, yeah, sure. That's it.

Finally, to continue with the non sequitur motif, we also spent the afternoon meandering around downtown Sturgeon Bay for the harvest festival. Look who else happened to be in town...



Elvis has left the building.

Apparently he's in Door County.

A Visit to Cowboys Stadium!

Growing up in Hawaii, I watched individual Cowboy players play in the Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium.

But the only time I've ever seen the Cowboys play a live game was watching them beat up the Packers at Lambeau Field last year.

Hopefully I'll see that again this season as I've got four tickets to this year's Cowboys game at Lambeau Field.

But I've never seen the Cowboys play in Texas.

And this is a vision which tops them all. Here's a picture of the brand spankin' new best stadium in sports...



Yes, that picture is of the new Cowboys Stadium.

And it was a picture that wasn't taken by me.

Sniff.

It was taken by my niece Dina...



Dina was visiting Dallas from Hawaii to attend a ceremony honoring her husband Gregg as the "2008 Navy Civilian Fire Officer of the Year."

And while there, Gregg's fire chief got them a couple of tickets to the Cowboys-49ers preseason game...



Dina writes, "Although we were three rows from the top in the nose-bleed section, you still had a view, and an amazing view it was. It's amazing! The jumbo-trons are unbelieveable. Aloha Stadium or even the old Texas stadium could fit easily in there with lots of room to spare."

"In all honesty, I don’t think anyone could out-do this."



Dina says, "I guess it’s true that everything is BIGGER in Texas!"

And from Dina's picture above, the same holds true for the Cowboys offensive line. On that high definition video screen, those guys must be 50 feet tall!

The Last Few Days of Summer

Or maybe we should just call this the longest post of the year.

Hey, our kids wanted to squeeze in every bit of play possible before school begins the Tuesday after Labor Day.

Since this is a long weekend, it had to begin with a cookout on Saturday.

While a cookout still means that I'm going to be outside on the deck in front of a grill, the kids now seem to gather in front of the Wii to play Guitar Hero...



You can always identify our sons in a picture because ineveitably they're the ones wearing the, well, distinctive hats. The other boy is their cousin John Paul.

When it comes to boys and Guitar Hero, though, no one is more focused than our boy Kekoa...



Aunty Dorothy, my cousin Sherry, and her daughter Rebecca joined us for a meal of hamburgers and hot dogs...



Which just left our vegetarian daughter Alyssa just overjoyed to be sitting in front of a giant tray of meat...



Thankfully, we did manage to pick up a loaf of fresh bread at the Farmer's Market that morning...



That's a loaf of "Aloha Bread."

Apparently Aloha is now a "Taste of Door County."

Even though it's made in Algoma.

Which isn't in Door County.

Oh well.

Since Aunty Dorothy was at our house, we used Skype to set her up on a call with my mom in Hawaii some 4,700 miles away...



I guess Nalani was so excited to see Grandma on the computer that she had to dance.

Later that day we walked to the beach (we live about a block away).

And while it's not like the kind of beaches you'd find in Hawaii, it is a sandy beach on the Bay...



David and Bretty were loving some of the pictures Alyssa had been taking...



And they all walked out to the giant rock...



But it was too late in the day to go swimming.

That didn't stop the kids from playing Baywatch...



On Sunday we took Alyssa back to Green Bay and spent the afternoon at Bay Beach Amusement Park.

Malia insisted that everyone get on the Merry-go-round...



Althought Bretty seemed to be riding a horse as if he were Atilla the Hun...



And I swear, if you look closely at the picture above, Nalani is riding a giant purple rat.

We also took the little train around the Bay which got David all fired up...



But that was nothing next to the thrill he and Bretty enjoyed on this ride...



To give you a better perspective on the ride, here they are from wider angle...



That's a bit much if you ask me.

But it wasn't enough for them.

In fact, Kekoa, Nalani and Malia all wanted to get in on the act.

So they all jumped on the next ride.

Check out their hairstyles...



And all you can pretty much see of Malia as she sits next to Bretty is her hair standing straight up...



On Monday, Cari said she wanted to go to Potawatomi.

I agreed because I thought she meant the casino.

Imagine my surprise when we ended up at a state park filled with green leafy things and bugs.

One of the landmarks of Potawatomi is this giant tower on the highest hill in the park...



And while all my kids climbed up at least a level or two, only Bretty was brave enough to climb to the top (gotta love that Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto lens!)...



Of course, Cari made sure to supervise all the climbing from the ground below...



We spent the afternoon walking along the shore...



Back at home, Nalani spent her last day of summer helping her little sister Malia learn to ride a bike...



Note the lovely purple door on our garage to complement Malia's purple bike helmet.

Malia got up a good head of steam...



Before she skinned her elbow on the sidewalk and that was the end of that.

David spent some time practicing his slight of hand...



All in all, it was a great way for the kids to end their summer vacation...



Because even though we're only a block's walk from the beach, there's always a sign pointing at what this beach will look like in just a few short months...



Happy Labor Day. School starts tomorrow.

Whew.