My BIG birthday gift

I gots me my own paddleboard for my birthday, even if it’s on the Tokunaga installment plan. Schizophrenic as it is we now have four boards of different size and make. Mine is a purty yellow 11 foot Papa He’e Nalu brand. We just unwrapped this, but tomorrow we have to go put the pads on, the handle and the scag. Thanks Ken!

Confessions of a Foodie’s Wife

Hot dog

Originally uploaded by cathy.ikeda

Ken is a Food Network watching, me food hunter and gatherer kind of guy, so when we go traveling, I am usually in charge of finding accomodations (making house) and he is in charge of searching for food places. When he is quietly on the computer days before we leave, then I know he is plotting our food travels.

With that in mind, after getting into LAX at 9 pm, we headed out to La Brea (about 30 minutes away) and Ken stood in line for one hour for our hot dogs from Pink’s Famous Hot Dog stand. I kid you not, at 10 pm on a Tuesday night in LA, the line was still one hour long. There are so many choices that it’s rather overwhelming. We decided, in true foodie wannabe fashion, that we would try a different hot dog for every person present. We tried the chili cheese nacho dog; mushroom and swiss cheese dog; pastrami and saurkraut dog; and the Today Show dog which is a double hot dog with chili, onions and guacamole. It was an experience to stand in line, order and watch the guys make the hot dogs. It was even cool to avoid the well dressed guy that was actually trying to panhandle. Was it a great hot dog? No, not especially, but it doesn’t matter. The next time they talk about historic food landmarks on the Food Channel, we can say, “hey we went there – Pink’s.”

Heading out to Cali

It’s two weeks until the end of summer, and Ahi is on his usual whirlwind tour. We came back from camping on Thursday night, Ahi left for Honolulu on the first flight on Friday for cheer camp, came back Monday night, then we’re all headed to Cali today, Tuesday, for a baseball tourney in Compton. First stop, Disneyland, then call Becky.

“Staycation”

“Staycation” is the new buzzword in this economic downturn. It basically means vacations that we take at home. Lucky we live Hawaii, eh? We’ve been enjoying “staycations” for a long time – starting from the summers when our whole neighborhood (Kaimake Loop, Kailua, Oahu) would go camping together at Malaekahana, to our first timeshare purchase at Mauna Loa Shores, Keauhou, Kona, Hawaii when the two older boys were babies.

Our boys are lucky because through Boy Scouts and Kamehameha, we’ve been able to enjoy “staycations” that even the local residents don’t always have access to. Ken’s yakudoshi camp was at Keei, owned by Kamehameha. The boys have enjoyed private fishing spots through Boy Scouts like Papa’i Bay, owned by the Watamull family, as well as Kahuku Ranch, in Ka’u.

This past week, thanks to my friend Merle, and her friend Miles, a retired DLNR supervisor, we were able to camp in Ho’okena at Kalahiki, private kuleana lands. Ken and our friend Kerry caught a lot of fish from the kayaks and they landed at another bay and harvested abalone sized ocean opihi. On the charcoal with shoyu and chili pepper water – winner! Thanks to the Samuras and Nakatanis.

Hilo…

I gotta say, living in Hilo is nice. This past Tuesday after work I took Pono paddling in  Hilo Bay. After washing down the boards and loading them in the truck I forgot to get my homemade board stand. I only remembered about it on Wednesday just as I was leaving work. I thought to myself…oh no…gone…So I went home got my board and went to paddle to get some exercise and in the hopes that it would still be there. Yep. Still there. Gotta love Hilo. I was all ready to rant about people taking stuff that didn’t belong to them, but ok, I was wrong. (Although my friend’s hydration pack with his ipod in it did not make it through the night when he forgot it) Just one of the great things about Hilo…Hilo Bay Homemade board stand

Back at Mauna Kea Beach

After 3 years, Mauna Kea Beach finally reopened and we had our annual birthday Sunday brunch for Grandma Ikeda. Although we’ve been at Hapuna Beach for the past few years with many of the Mauna Kea Beach staff, today was proof that Mauna Kea Beach has the best Sunday brunch on the island.

Lea at the dessert table

The higlights: rack of lamb, butter and capers crusted ono, ahi sashimi, prime rib (they had rare), spicy tuna handroll sushi, crab claws, as well as beautiful scenery and attentive wait staff.

Ken and Blaine’s family with Grandma Ikeda

Everyone Now

Recently our family has taken up Backgammon so we play everyday. My dads undefeated so far and i’ve only won a few games and I only play dad when I am on a lucky steak. We also started playing Cribbage again which sounds boring but is really fun. One time I won dad and once or twice I beat mom. But I never win more than once every 2-3 days. While I always see the good side of everything, or i try, I can never see the good side of being Skunked or beind killed at backgammon. Though I do see the nice side of winning every so often. Backgammon brown (White would be pointless)

camping

Pono Helping to Scale Fish

We recently went out to the Kona side for some family camping with friends. These are a couple of pics from the trip. One is of Pono scaling a fish that we caught and ate for dinner. We only had two fish scalers, so he used his dive knife.

 

The other is Pono and his friends out diving. I took them out to check out the water. We saw a lot of kole, mamo, moano, opelu kala, and even a few moana kalis all swimming around…

Pono and friends diving

Kona’s Genki Sushi

Kona’s Genki Sushi is newly opened, but not cutting it as a Genki Sushi establishment. 1. They don’t have enough variety on the belt. 2. Service is slow. 3. They run out of common stuff and my shishamo was so sad!

Disney, a magical store…

Just in time for prom season?

can you tell which one he is?

Over the Valentine’s Day weekend we went to Oahu for some family stuff and a little r&r. during our pilgrimmage to ala moana we stopped at the disney store to use an old gift card we had sitting around.