An Exhausting Weekend, and it's Only Saturday!

One of the great challenges of having six children is the riduculous number of activities which fill up your weekend. For instance, consider just the last two days.

It began with a graduation ceremony. For some reason, nobody is satisfied with just graduating from high school or college anymore. We must have graduation ceremonies every time we finish pretty much anything, including preschool...



Of course, when it's our little Nalani, then it's okay to have a graduation ceremony because she's do darn cute...



Of course, that was just the beginning.

The Lied Discovery Children's Museum was holding a donor's event, which meant that it was closed to the general public - so guess who's kids acted like they owned the place.

Naturally, David found an exhibit in which he could make something and he brought along a couple of his siblings...



Then Bretty, Kekoa and Nalani wanted to go into this big telephone booth like thing. By the way, with all the mobile phones in the world, are there even telephone booths anymore? Where would Clark Kent change his clothes. Gotham is doomed. Oh wait, that's Batman's city, anyway...



That big telephone booth thingy above is a wind tunnel. You climb in and there is a wind gauge so you can measure just how fast the air is swirling around you. During our few minutes inside, we experience hurricane force winds of more than 100 mph.

As you can tell from the picture above, Bretty and Kekoa loved it. I held Nalani in my arms and we both closed our eyes to ride out the storm!

Among the many things to do, perhaps our kids most enjoyed putting on a puppet show for us...



Of course, with our kids, the puppet shows get a bit strange...



In case you can't tell, Nalani is controlling the white lamb in the picture above. Bretty and David and are the wolves.

And yes, the wolves are eating the innocent little lamb.

Ya gotta love our boys.

Then there was a little birthday party we had for Kekoa and some of his friends...



'cause a birthday party last weekend with just the family wasn't enough for Kekoa!

Party games have taken on a whole new dimension in this age of technology. Playing tennis on the Wii...



It's a heck of a long way from pinning the tail on the donkey.

Then, just 'cause it would be wrong for the day to be over, Nalani and Malia packed up with their mommy and headed off to a birthday party of their own...



Of course, this meant that our little girls had to get ready for the party. However, they continually insist on using my brush. My hair is very, very thick, so it is extremely difficult to find a brush with hard enough bristles. I finally found a new one at a beauty supply shop which thankfully comes with its own message to my kids...



Ah, the end of a very busy Friday and Saturday...



And we still have Sunday to go!

Strange Sea Creatures on My Son's Birthday Cake...

We gathered this afternoon to celebrate the 7th birthday of our youngest son, Kekoa.

And as it is with 7 year old boys everywhere in America, the party begins with SpongeBob Squarepants...



SpongeBob is the yellowish figure on the right side of the cake above.

Apparently, SpongeBob is a sea sponge. But unlike most sea sponges, he is square like the sponge used in the kitchen sink, which really doesn't look anything like a sea sponge.

Kekoa also tells me that SpongeBob "lives in a pineapple under the sea."

Logistically, I can tell you now that this would be very difficult. Growing up in Hawaii, I've seen pineapples that fall in the ocean. After about fifteen minutes, they're really mushy and well, it's just not something you'd want to live in.

Then again, this SpongeBob found himself knee deep in frosting on my son's cake...



After writing that last sentence, I couldn't help but wonder if SpongeBob actually has any knees. If not, could we really say he was knee deep in anything?

Anyway, here are all the kids gathering for the standard Bicoy birthday picture...



Kekoa really wanted a sword for his birthday so he could battle imaginary dragons and save damsels in distress in our front yard...



And if that weren't enough, he wanted a couple of video games...



...like "Zelda" so he could battle virtual dragons and rescue damsels in distress in a video game.

My, how times have changes since we were kids.

Then again, some things aren't all that different...



It appears that I'm not the only one who takes lots of pictures and insists on posting them on the internet for friends and family!

Cookin' on Mother's Day

All day on Saturday, Nalani kept asking when it would be night time. We couldn't figure out what was going to happen at night that made her so impatient. Finally, Nalani explained it to us.

"When it's night time pretty soon it will be Mother's Day."

And nobody was more excited about Mother's Day than Nalani. This is the first year she's been in preschool and she made her very first surprise for Mother's Day - a laminated picture of her hands...



It was a nice gift, but heck, we see those hand prints on the walls every day anyway.

This morning began very, very early when I was awakened by David, Bretty, Kekoa, Nalani & Malia - all of whom woke up at sunrise to help make a big Mother's Day breakfast. Everyone took a turn making pancake batter, cracking eggs, flipping pancakes and buttering the toast.

Although when Malia butters toast, you can count on far more butter than toast. Of course, that seems to be exactly as she likes it...



We also made a very rich strawberry shortcake topping for the pancakes that the kids loved when smeared in whipped cream. When combined with eggs, bacon and other artery hardening foods, it was a bit much.

Bretty absolutely wore himself out eating all that food...



After breakfast we got around to opening the Mother's Day presents. Apparently my children want to arm their mother with a very sharp knife and make sure she knows how to use it...



The functional gift was a really, really nice Katana 7-inch Santoku knife...



...and the various sharpening and storage tools to care for it and her other knives.

The fun gift was the Wii video game, Cooking Mama Cookoff.

The kids wanted their Mommy to practice cutting in the game before she used her new Katana knife...



Cooking Mama Cookoff is a competition in which two players go head to head in trying to correctly make a meal. Here is Mommy's shrimp sauteing on the top, and Nalani's on the bottom...



It was a tough contest viewed by the whole family...



Well, almost the whole family.

Alyssa slept in and didn't help make Mommy's breakfast so she got to clean up after the meal...



Then everybody decided to take advantage of this 95 degree day and join David in the pool (except Alyssa, of course, who had many urgent life-altering text messages about boys to respond to)...



Happy Mother's Day!

Strange Happenings, in no particular order...

We haven't gone anywhere or done anything particularly out of the ordinary lately, and yet somehow things still occur which make life an adventure.

Perhaps the least adventurous thing was when we finally got around to picking up the trophy and plaque for the winner of last season's Bicoy (fantasy) Football League...



The plaque is permanently displayed with great reverence and honor in the alcove outside the bathroom where our kids go potty.

We also picked up a new trophy each year for the League champion. This year's is a bit nicer than last year's, but it is also a bit more confusing...



Exactly which side of the trophy is the front? No matter which way you look at it, one guy is facing you and the other has his back to you.

Strange.

With the temperatures already touching 100 degrees outside, our kids tend to come back into the air-conditioned inside to hide from the afternoon sun. David and Kekoa spend the time perfecting their Jedi arts...



While Malia and Nalani play together.

Can you guess what it is they're doing from the photo below?



Well?

Clearly, they're in the midst of playing a board game..



A full-contact board game, apparently.

Bretty, unfortunately, has had enough of full contact for the time being.

The boys were playing football in the yard with some kids from the neighborhood when this big fat boy tackled my son then jumped on him a second time while he was laying on the ground.

Here's the result...



Maybe I'm being mean by calling the neighbor kid a big fat boy, but he broke my son Bretty and didn't even feel bad, so I'm calling him a big fat boy.

Poor Bretty has a broken collar bone. He was not a happy camper.

That was about a week ago, and the doctor says that it will heal on its own with his arm in a sling. Being a stubborn Bicoy, however, Bretty decided he is fine. The doctor told our son he could stop using the sling whenever he felt ready.

To show us how much better he was indeed feeling, Bretty decided to do a few jumping jacks. Altogehter, he did 24 jumping jacks.

That got Kekoa thinking. Exactly how many jumping jacks could he do if he tried.

So Kekoa began his version of jumping jacks...



His form may not be perfect, but he jumped up in the air and clapped his hands every time. They were as demanding physically as they would be if his form were perfect.

So we started counting to see if Kekoa could beat Bretty's 24 jumping jacks. I had no doubt he would because Kekoa is Mr. Endurance. He once ran a dozen laps for no reason other than because he felt like it.

But we were all a little surprised by just how determined this little boy really is.

Well, our Mr. Endurance did 1,002 jumping jacks.

Yes, that's one thousand jumping jacks, with two more added on just for fun.

It got tough there for him with the last 150 or so, but by then we got everyone involved in cheering him on. We even started counting backward for the last 100 because Cari and I wanted him to stop at 1,000.

I think if we would have let him, he'd have kept going until he dropped.

Kekoa is one very, very determined little boy.

Here is our very sweaty son swigging a glass of water his little sisters brought to him after his jumping jacks...



When asked why he wanted to do 1,000 jumping jacks, Kekoa explained it was easy. He said that he was born in the year 2000, which is the Chinese year of the Dragon.

Dragons, Kekoa pointed out, have lots of energy. That's why he could do 1,002 jumping jacks.

Mr. Endurance!

On another note, Cari and I had the opportunity to sneak away from the kids the other night to see the Producers, the Mel Brooks musical that won all those Tony Awards on Broadway. Someone had a few extra tickets and Cari and I were lucky to get a chance to see the show for free!

Here's a picture we took of the stage (with the curtain down) as people were arriving...



The Producers is a Mel Brooks comedy/musical about two Broadway producers who realize they can steal a fortune if the show is a disasterous flop. The original producers were played on Broadway by Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane (who reprised their role for the film). The great thing about the Las Vegas production is that it features the actors who starred for many years in the Broadway version shortly after Broderick and Lane ended their short run.

Anyway, the producers select a surefire flop which is a musical called "Springtime for Hitler" -- yes, that Hitler. As added insurance to make sure it is a disaster, they hire a gay director who likes to dress in women's clothes and is known for his outrageous over-the-top musicals. The director makes the Hitler in the musical a flamboyantly homosexual Hitler.

In the movie and on Broadway the part of the gay director is fabulously played by Gary Beach.

In Las Vegas, the gay director is played by none other than the Knight Rider himself...



Yes my friends, David Hasselhoff.

The first time you see the Hoff in the show he's dressed in a fabulous low cut sequined evening dress complete with long white gloves and a handbag my wife just adored.

How can you not love living in Las Vegas!

Bret's Relatives Arrive (and not from Hawaii!)

When you live in Las Vegas, the appearance of a long lost relative is nothing out of the ordinary. You'd be amazed at how many old friends and family decide to pay you a visit when your home is in Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cari's extended family members often fly in from the Midwest, and many a Bicoy has arrived from Hawaii or California. However in the case of my family, it has always been the Bicoy side that shows up at our door.

This weekend marked the first visit from my mother's side of the family - originally the Deerings of Wisconsin.

My dad is a Filipino guy from Hawaii who married a German lady from Northeast Wisconsin nearly 45 years ago.

Hey, come to think of it, that's basically the same story as Cari and me.

I'm a (half) Filipino guy from Hawaii who married a (part) German lady from Northeast Wisconsin. And in just a few short decades we'll have been married 45 years.

My ego would say that these ladies left Wisconsin because we Filipino men are just so darn irresistible, but then my wife reads this blog and I don't want to sleep on the couch tonight. So let's just be honest and say that this Filipino man was lucky enough to find a woman who'd marry him even though she's way out of his league.

Anyway, here are two of my cousins who visited Las Vegas this past weekend...



That's Bonnie on the left, my lovely wife Cari in the middle, and Karen on the right. And they were both kind enough to lose a few dollars at the tables and thus pay my taxes for the year.

Viva Las Vegas!

Looking for an Echo...

Normally this blog is entirely about the fun and sometimes bizarre happenings to our little family. But today is going to be different. Let me explain.

We're just figuring out how to use all the functions on the kids' new Wii game system that we set up in our living room. The newest discovery was the "internet channel" - through which we can surf the world of cyberspace from the comfort of our favorite living room chair.

So among the websites we were visiting last night was YouTube - the online video site. We were playing various segments of "Scrubs" episodes which never cease to crack our kids up. These are famous songs like "Everything Comes Down to Pooh", "Guy Love," the Star Wars Scene and my favorite clip of those men at work, "Overkill."

So after spending a half hour watching various funny songs which made everyone laugh, the kids went off to bed and I kept searching various musical clips through our television and discovered the Persuasions!

When I was in college, this was the song that we would sing - trying to pretend that we actually had musical talent. I couldn't believe that I still remember all the words and can sing it today (if you can call what I did "singing").

In 1992, shortly after graduating from Tufts, I travelled with a group of friends (old friend Amy DeBaun among them) from Boston to explore the environs of San Francisco. And wouldn't you know it, the Persuasions were filming a live concert in a small hall somewhere in Hayward! So we got to see them sing live!

So enjoy the Persuasions while they are "Looking for an Echo..."

Happy Easter to All, and to All a Good Night...

The tradition in our home is to color lots (and with six kids, we do mean lots) of eggs the night before Easter. That way the Easter Bunny can visit us in the wee hours of the morning and hide all the eggs.

That's our story and we're sticking to it.

Of course, this also means there is an absolute frenzy on Easter morning as the kids tear through the house at some very early morning hour...



While we appreciate his efforts, the Easter Bunny could have been a bit more sanitary than to put easter eggs in and around the bathroom toilet and sink...



But hey, he is just a bunny.

Alyssa isn't too excited about searching for eggs anymore, so she just bundled up on the couch (even though the temperature today was 86 degrees) and watched...



Unfortunately, her brothers realized that the Easter Bunny put a few eggs on the window sill behind her and so they swarmed all over her...



In addition to hiding the eggs, the Easter Bunny also fills the kids' baskets with candies and a book or magazine of their very own...



Now, both Cari's and my extended family are very Catholic, but apparently nobody told the Easter Bunny. Just look at the reading materials he put in my and Alyssa's baskets, respectively...



There was so much candy you'd have thought it was Halloween...



And if our mouths weren't stuffed enough, we all went out for an early lunch...



Although Alyssa kept getting interrupted by text messages from all her friends...



Nothing was going to disrupt Malia, however. As usual, she dove into this day with all her energy and vigor...



But when her tank is empty, she just plops down and comes to a complete stop...



And to quote from that famous Easter poem...

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Easter to all, and to all a good night."

Wii had a Fun Time at David's Birthday!

At about half past midnight many years ago, our son David Daniel was born. We were hoping that he would be born the same day as my father, but he held out until the wee hours of the following morning.

Of course, that was central time. It was still my Dad's birthday Hawaii time!

And in the decade since David's birth, he hasn't taken off a baseball cap since...



And as is our custom, each of us selects the "cake" of their choice - David's being a chocolate cream pie, of course.

To make matters even more confusing, we celebrated with a birthday breakfast, then sang happy birthday over the pie, only to put the pie back in the fridge for a lunch-time snack.

Why all this birthday confusion? Well, for the last two months the kids have known that on David's birthday one of his presents would be so special that it wasn't just for him - but for the whole family. And we wanted the whole day Sunday to play with it!

But before we go to that, David's first birthday present was to finally receive his personal checking account from the Bank of Bicoy...



This is a life lesson we started with Alyssa and are now continuing with David. Until this age, the kids receive a small allowance of a dollar or three a week, mostly to be used for fun stuff (and to contribute to birthday gifts for friends and family).

When our kids turn the right age, however, we open them a real savings account at a bank and a pretend checking account with the Bank of Bicoy.

Cari set up a budget for pretty much everything David would typically need over the year. How many new pairs of jeans he will need. How many shirts. New shoes, sandals, and socks. Haircuts, school supplies, and presents for birthdays, Christmas, mother's day, and the all important father's day.

She even built in money for activities like little league baseball and just plain ol' fun stuff.

Once that budget is set, we contribute 1/12th that amount into a savings account for David every month - and he can spend it however he wants. He can spend all his money on comic books and video games if he wants - but when he outgrows his jeans and he has no money left, too bad. He has to wear those high-water pants until the next regularly scheduled deposit. Just as one day as a grownup he'll have to wait until payday.

If he uses all his money on that really cool new jacket and he has no money to register for baseball, tough luck.

The goal, obviously, is to teach the kids to prioritize things, save money, and to recognize that money isn't a limitless resource. It also has the added advantage of never having to hear your kids say, "Can I have that?" when you're at the store. The answer is always, "It's your money." If they run out, too bad.

The good news is that if he's thrifty and buys his jeans on sale to come in under budget, he gets to spend the savings on fun stuff for himself.

To take the learning a bit further, we set up the Bank of Bicoy - which is a pretend checking account from which he "writes checks" to pay his bills as needed.

It's a lot of work on our part, but it worked well with our oldest Alyssa. She HATES spending money and has an aversion to shopping.

We love that.

Alyssa did such a good job shopping at sales and saving her money that she actually was able to buy a brand new ipod earlier this year, entirely because of her own good budgeting.

Finally, however, after the Bank of Bicoy and the other gifts, David was going to get to the big birthday present.

Grandma Betty and Grandpa Bernie sent Christmas money last December which, when combined with a change jar to which everyone in the family contributes, we were going to splurge and buy something completely ridiculous for the kids. Unfortunately, the gift on which we were going to use that money at Christmas was sold out everywhere. We searched high and low all December to no avail - and in fact even now in March Cari had to wait in line first thing in the morning at Target to get one of the only 24 units that were available this month.

It's really a gift for all the kids, and David's birthday presents from us were going to be all the anxillary things around the main gift. But we thought it would be fun to open on David's birthday.

What is it?

Well, we told Nalani and Malia that it was going to be spaghetti. And of course they went and told their brother David.

David, in turn, didn't believe his sisters, even though they ultimately proved to be at least partially correct...



Look above at the enthusiam on David and Alyssa's face after they finished opening a wrapped present consisting pasta and spaghetti sauce.

Then compare that reaction to the screams of the kids when they opened the real present...



Yes, it's a new video game system.

The brand new and best-selling Nintendo Wii.

Why is this video game system so darn cool? Look at the picture of David playing golf below...



You control the Wii with a wireless motion-sensitive remote. In the case above, David swings the remote as if it were the handle of a golf club and the character on the screen follows his exact motion.

Here's another scene in which David is throwing a virtual pitch and Bretty is swinging his virtual baseball bat...



The harder David throws, the faster the pitch. As Bretty swings his bat, so too does his character on the screen...



And this is just a simple game to teach you how to use the motion-sensitive controls. You'd be amazed at how much fun the Wii really is! That's why it has been impossible to find until just a few weeks ago - but we now finally have one!

Happy Birthday & Merry Christmas to the Bicoy kids!