While Bret Jr. and Kekoa were spending their afternoons at football practice, Nalani was learning the fundamentals of a sport of her own.
Here is Nalani the basketball player...
What she lacks in shooting ability she makes up with in sheer intimidation.
Look at this girl try to psych out her opponent...
Of course, it's hard to seem menacing if during the game you keep chewing on your hair...
We also recently celebrated the birthdays of two of our kids.
First up was Bret Jr., who had a birthday party the same time as his cousin Tyler...
Tyler's little sister Analeigh was also there, hanging out with Alyssa...
While the presents were being opened, David occupied himself with other things...
Bret Jr.'s big birthday gift was a new bike. But rather than pick out the wrong one for him, we took him to Target and let him select a bike of his own...
Naturally, he's pointing to one of the bikes on the top shelf of the rack!
This time of year also brings work for our children. Specifically, it's time to rake leaves.
Malia has her own unique way of moving leaves from the front yard to the back...
Most of the leaf raking was done by our three youngest children this year for a very specific reason. They were building a pile in which to play!
Jumping in the pile is fun at first, but after a while it gets a little boring.
So I guess it's inevitable that a leaf war has to begin...
It didn't take very long before the leaf pile wasn't a pile anymore...
We also recently celebrated Malia's 7th birthday...
It's hard to believe that our little baby is now 7 years old.
She wants a puppy, but we have a 14 year-old dog that's near blind and deaf - and two old cats. So we opted for the best kind of new pet for Malia...
It's a digital pet she can raise in conjunction with Wii video game system. That's the kind of pet I'd recommend for everyone. Much, much cleaner.
And finally, there was Halloween. Here's our posse before heading out...
Both Bret Jr.'s and Kekoa's football seasons have come to an end, so this seemed like a good time to revisit all the fun they had.
Let's start with Kekoa's football team - the 5th Grade Bobcats.
Our youngest son is shorter and skinnier than most boys his age, so he played mostly in the defensive secondary and a bit at wide receiver, as we can see below...
That's Kekoa above, lined up at the far right side of the picture.
He didn't play a lot, but when he did, Kekoa had a grand ol' time.
Here is Kekoa playing safety, with the number 22...
Getting ready to throw a shoulder on a guy...
And chasing after a running back...
The 5th grade teams play first thing Saturday mornings - before the 6th grade teams - so sometimes it gets a bit nippy outside.
But at this level, they don't have handwarmers tied around their waists.
So Kekoa found another way to keep his hands warm during the game...
But of all the pictures from the season, here's my favorite of Kekoa...
Just look at the intensity of that boy!
While Kekoa's team is still learning the fundamentals of football, Bret Jr.'s 6th grade team truly learned how to kick some butt this season.
Bret Jr. is considerably larger than his brother Kekoa. Bret is a starter on both the offensive and defensive lines.
He's the starting center, and he's so consistent that he almost never comes off the field. Here's our boy just before he snaps the football...
While Bret Jr. is a very good center, what he really loves is playing on the defensive line. He starts at defensive tackle and he always seems to be in the offensive backfield, harassing the quarterback...
It's good to know that he wreaks as much havoc on the football field as he does at home...
This is one of his favorite pictures of himself just as he hammers the quarterback...
That poor quarterback got slammed to the ground several times by Bret Jr. that day...
The 6th grade Bobcats had a tremendous season. They finished up with a record of 6 wins and only 1 loss. Their one loss was by the score of 22 to 12. In the 6 wins, however, they were absolutely dominant.
Colectively in those 6 wins, the offensive scored 178 points and gave up only 18. The defensive was so overwhelming that they had 3 shut outs.
During the last game of the season, Bret Jr. had another great game...
He was consistently in the quarterback's face and harassing the running backs...
If there ever was a picture that tells you how good a game a defensive lineman is having, it's this one below...
Look closely at that picture above. Those are two offensive lineman and a fullback that are trying to block our son!
But the most exciting play of the year for Bret Jr. came later in that final game.
Bret is so quick off the ball that he consistently is in the backfield disrupting the play. He has claimed all season that sooner or later he would steal the handoff from the quarterback before the running back could get the ball.
Amazingly, in the last game of the season, that's exactly what he did.
Bret lined up at his regular position of defensive tackle and sliced through the offensive line. He got there so quickly that he disrupted the handoff and stole the ball away from the quarterback.
It all happened so fast that I didn't have time to get in position and take a picture of it with the camera. But I did capture Bret Jr. as he rumbled down the field with the ball...
He looks almost like a running back...
Unfortunately, like most lineman, he's not the fastest guy on the field, so they tackled him before he could score. But everyone went absolutely crazy on the sidelines!
Well, mostly crazy.
Here's how David, Alyssa and Nalani enthusiastically watched the football game...
And I'm not exactly sure what Malia's doing here...
But ya gotta love a football season!
Congratulations to both the boys. They worked hard and had a lot of fun.
Okay, these pictures are a bit dated - they're from May when we gathered in California around my brother shortly before his passing.
But I've been thinking of that lately, and came across a few interesting pics.
Here's a picture my sister Renee took of my brother James and me as we were entering the "best" Hawaiian BBQ in Mission Viejo...
And here's my picture of Renee at the same moment...
We were sampling food as we tried to decide if we were going to cater local food at a celebration of our brother's life...
As I did try out pretty much every local Hawaiian restaurant in the area (even a couple before and after my siblings were there from Hawaii), I can definitively say one thing...
This most certainly was NOT the best Hawaiian BBQ in town.
Oh, and if you ever need to find a good florist nearby, switch on your turn-by-turn GPS and get ready for a really wild ride.
One of the nice things about our old little sailboat is that it has a modest cabin below deck. It's great because Malia can go below and we don't have to worry about where she is while we're sailing.
Little did I know that she had taken over one of our mobile phones and started making little films.
The pictures are a bit bumpy - she's only 6 after all - but it defintely is Malia's idea of fun!
There is no journey quite so unusual as life with six kids!
With friends and family spread from Boston back east to Aiea in the middle of the pacific, we offer this little record of our adventures for all to share. Whether you're one of our kids' grandparents, uncles, aunties, or one of their many, many cousins, we welcome you to follow along.
And if you’re just someone who needs a bit of ridiculousness in their life (or a cure for insomnia), please join us on our nonsensical travels!
Bret & Cari
TRANSITION TO FACEBOOK: Once upon a time, this was the best way to communicate with our friends and family who were so far away from us. Today, we just use Facebook. So if you're a friend or family member from afar, looks us up on Facebook and let's follow each other!
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