Mixed Reviews

Hawaii won on Saturday and clinched at least a tie for the WAC championship. That is quite the accomplishment since they were picked to finish last in the Conference before the season started.

St. Louis won their 3rd State Championship on Friday night. It was Ryan's first year coaching at the varsity level as an assistant coach. We were happy that he was able to be a part of his Alma Mater's football success this season. It was really special since we were able to bring Brent home for the weekend.

He was able to come back because he wasn't selected to travel with the Linfield 52-man playoff squad for their game in St. Paul, MN.

The Wildcats played a terrific 2nd round game but came up short in the second Overtime period and fell to the St. Thomas Tommies to end their season. That was the only downer of the weekend.

Dinner!

Quite a spread.

Seafood Mac 'n Cheese with shrimp and King crab

The Bird!

The potatoes.

The Crew!

Happy Thanksgiving

A Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Much for which to be thankful.

I'm glad that we were all able to be together again today!

Wildcats back in the Playoffs!`

Linfield actually clinched a berth in the Division III football playoffs last week but the suspense since then has been about their seeding.

The brackets were announced on ESPN-News today and they are a #5 seed in the West Region. Normally that would mean that they would play on the road against the #4 seed, Cal Lutheran, but the Kingsmen had plans to demolish their stadium immediately following their last home game as they move to a new venue next year.

So the Wildcats will be hosting CLU on Saturday in a repeat of last year's playoff opening round.

There's quite a rivalry that has developed since last year when Linfield ended CalLu's season. Both teams started their season this year with a rematch in Thousand Oaks, CA. The Kingsmen won a close game in comeback fashion and left the then #4 ranked Linfield with what would be the only blemish on their record so far this season.

The loss sent the Wildcats tumbling out of the DIII Top Ten and undoubtedly spoiled their chances for a high playoff seed despite going through the Northwest Conference schedule undefeated with a string of convincing wins. Fortune smiled on the 'Cats as they were placed in the bracket opposite the Kingsmen who were unable to bid for a host position.

http://www.ncaa.com/brackets/2010/ncaa_bracket_DIII_football.html

Still #7 in the region

Linfield made no move in the NCAA Regional Rankings again. No one ranked above them lost last week so it wasn't a surprise.

The bottom half regional ranking probably would mean an opening round game on the road in the play-offs and, barring huge upsets, throughout the playoffs as well.

Official brackets come out this coming Sunday afternoon.

http://d3blogs.com/d3football/2010/11/10/ncaas-third-regional-rankings/

Waiting For Superman

Just saw it tonight.

Wow! Very powerful.

This is a really important movie to see. The cliff that the nation is headed for can be avoided but big changes need to happen very soon.

Take the Pledge to see it.

www.waitingforsuperman.com

made it thru the fog. On board the flight home. Ran a little late; hooray for Premier Club!

Made it back to McMinnville!

America!

30 knots is really fast!

On board the ferry. Heading back to Seattle soon

Excited!

At the airport. Next stop PDX!

Register

Field of Dreams

The Waipio Little League All-Stars will represent the U.S. as the National Champions in the World Championship of Little League Baseball in Williamsport, PA this morning.

These are pictures of their field taken about an hour before game time.

Friday Night Lights at Kahuku

We drove to Kahuku High School last night to watch St. Louis play Kahuku in an Interleague game.

It was a great high school football atmosphere. The estimate of the attendance was 4500 and there was a good representation of Crusader fans among that number.

Ryan was really excited about the game because it was a matchup featuring the #2 ranked Saints travelling for the first time up to the North Shore to face the top-ranked Red Raiders.

The game started off great for St. Louis with a touchdown on the second play.

The entire first half was terrific but too many mistakes in the second half doomed the Crusaders as the Red Raiders prevailed, 49-27.

Football is back

Ryan has moved up to coaching at the Varsity level at St.Louis this season. He's working with the Tight Ends, the position he played in college. He's real happy and excited; it's the first time the Crusaders have used a TE on a regular basis since the 80's.

They have a big game at Kahuku this Friday. It'll be #1 versus #2 in the State for an early season showdown. WooHoo!

Brent started his third football camp at Linfield last Wednesday.

He started off great in testing and looked to be having a great camp. He's wearing #54 in purple. Here's some video from wildcat11: (he shows up at 0:14, 1:42 and 2:09)

He called last night and said that he strained his left foot yesterday so he'll sit out and rest it for a while. Hopefully, it will heal quickly. He was really looking forward to this season and worked hard this past summer getting ready.

But more importantly, we did find some great news! Brent got a "B" in Chem 162! And his 161 grade got upped to a C+ so it was a successful summer for him!

Happy Birthday America!

Happy Fathers' Day

We spent most of Sunday out by the pool at the Hilton.

We started out with breakfast at the Rainbow Lanai where everyone had the buffet breakfast. It was pretty decent: omelette station; breakfast fare; fruit. Juliet really enjoyed the lox and bagels.



By late afternoon everyone was pretty "pooled-out" so we headed back up to the rooms to cool off a little.




We went back down for dinner at Tropics Bar & Grill.

Duck Spring Roll Lettuce Wrap



Orange miso-glazed Mahimahi with Thai Chili sauce



Pasta Pomodoro



It was a great Fathers' Day...

Stay-cation

We took a short Stay-cation at the Hilton Hawaiian Village over the weekend.

We used a 2-night stay I won from a contest on the Warrior Beat and also got an adjoining room for the boys and their girlfriends.

It was a nice way to relax on Fathers' Day.

Our room was a corner room and had two lanais.



This was the view from the mauka lanai.



This was the nighttime view from the Ewa lanai.



The view in the morning.

Day Trippin'

We played tourist this morning in Wailea.

We had breakfast at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea in the Duo Restaurant.

A beautiful Al Fresco setting and a very nice buffet breakfast.



The view of Wailea from the hotel.



The Four Seasons Resort Maui.

Tiffany's

We got together with some Tsaiko friends on Maui last night.

We finally made it to the Tsaiko-favorite Tiffany's in Wailuku.

From the left is me, Juliet, Brian (blog name, duffer), Ed (whitey) and Brian's son, Kyeton. It was nice to see these guys on their "home turf". Prior to this we had only seen them on Oahu but when we decided to come over to attend another party on Maui this weekend arranging to meet up with them was a must!



The food was terrific! What a menu...4 full pages of just about every bar pupu you ever could want.
There was also some dinner menu items but we just ordered everything Ala Carte.

Chop Chae



Honey Walnut Shrimp
The serving had more pieces but I couldn't get the camera out fast enough!
This was really good...



Misoyaki Butterfish
This was a generous serving and very nicely done.


Tofu Steak
The Ko Choo Jang sauce was flavorful and made this a good dish.

The Kim Chee Fried Rice was ono, too and we had the Fried Banana Lumpia with ice cream for dessert. Both of those were really good, too.

Alecs' Graduation

We attended our nephew Alecsander's graduation ceremony at Mid Pacific yesterday.

This is the graduate with his proud parents.



...and Aunt.



What good is a Graduation sign if it's not at least a little embarassing?

Birthday in Tropics

We celebrated my birthday at the Hilton Hawaiian Village's Tropics Bar & Grill.

Terrific sunset view just as we were seated and a nice evening with the family.



A complimentary birthday dessert- Coffee Cheesecake. Very good!



Mahalo to Dara Young for arranging the table for us.