It seems as though Ensen is doing something new everyday. It feels like only yesterday that he was rolling over and look now, he’s sitting up on his own! No need for that Bumbo in the background.
Six months flew by faster than I thought it would…but I’m excited to introduce him to New Year’s Eve at Grandpa Watai’s house tomorrow. He really doesn’t know what he’s in for. There will be so many sights and sounds. I hope he’s ready for it!
As of this posting at 6:00 p.m., we’re departing for the Sugar Bowl in less than 15 hours. To say we’re all getting excited is an understatement. The fabulous five traveling are me, my mom (Rhonda), my sister (Erin), and by buddies Regan and Lorne.
I’m getting ready to pack my bags and my sister Erin is spending the night at our place since we need to be at the airport by 7 a.m. to check-in. I spent today taking care of Ensen and mapping out our little roadtrip from Houston to New Orleans during his naps. I think we’re set, but if not, Lorne is borrowing his cousin’s Garmin GPS System to help get us to The Big Easy safe and sound.
This will most likely be my last Sugar Bowl post on this blog for a day or two (I’ll see if I can get Kelly to post daily updates of our travels), so I thought I’d go out with a bang. The photo of the guy in the upper right is Nostradamus, who according to Wikipedia is “a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous world-wide.” In reading a couple of chapters from his famous book Les Propheties, I came across some of his predictions for the Hawaii Warriors vs. Georgia Bulldog game on New Year’s Day:
FINAL SCORE: UH defeats Georgia, 51-48 in overtime COLT BRENNAN: 42-60, 537 passing yards, 5 touchdowns, no interceptions JASON RIVERS: 13 catches, 178 yards receiving, 3 touchdowns DEVON BESS: 10 catches, 137 yards receiving, 1 touchdown RYAN GRICE-MULLIN: 8 catches, 151 yards receiving, 1 touchdown ADAM LEONARD: 12 solo tackles, 1 interception DAN KELLY: Will hit the game winning field goal in OT…PRICELESS!
Okay, so maybe those are my personal crazy predictions and not those of Nostradamus. It will be interesting to see how good I am at foreseeing the future. Enjoy the game!
I really don’t have much to say tonight except, “New Orleans…here we come!” I still can’t believe we leave for The Big Easy in less than 48 hours. I’ve still got to pack but that shouldn’t really be a problem. Our group has agreed to travel light and to only check bags if really necessary. With two connections on different airlines heading to Houston, it’s probably a good idea.
But as more and more people learned that I was heading to the Sugar Bowl, the requests started coming in. Can you bring me back a t-shirt? A program? Something from the game you can’t get here in Hawaii? My answer: ABSOLUTELY!
So I’ve got my shopping list of all the things my family and friends want from the big game. It also means I’ll need to “go against the grain” and send at least one suitcase through baggage to bring everything back. It’s all worth it for the love of the Warriors and the fans who supported them throughout the year.
If anyone else wants something from the game, give me a call. I’ll try to squeeze it in the suitcase.
Regan and me at Aloha Stadium cheering on the Warriors as they defeat the Washington Huskies in the final game of the season.
Okay, I’ve got a confession to make. Even though I booked the travel for me, my family, and my friends for the Sugar Bowl, I really never stopped to add up all the time it would take to get there. I’m not quite sure why I never did, but it probably has something to with the fact that I knew deep down inside that it was going to take “a while” to get from Hawaii to New Orleans. A little case of denial.
So when I saw my buddy Regan quoted today in a Sugar Bowl story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune titled “Cultural Shift” by Stewart Yerton, reality settled in. It’s going to take almost 20 hours to get from here to there and another 20 hours to get from there back to here. HOLY COW! Quoting from the story (sweet…second story in the paper we’ve been included in):
Regan Onikama is typical. A Honolulu mortgage broker, Onikama plans to leave Honolulu on Saturday at 9 a.m. on a four-hour flight to Los Angeles. In L.A. he will switch planes for a two-hour flight to Phoenix, where he has another connection to Houston. After arriving in Houston at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, Onikama plans to rent a car and drive to New Orleans, where he hopes to arrive by 9:30 a.m. Sunday.
Factoring in the five-hour time difference between Honolulu and New Orleans, that’s more than 19 hours of travel time. Onikama’s return flight leaves Houston at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 3 so he will have to leave New Orleans on Wednesday night to drive back.
Altogether, that’s about 40 hours of travel time for the chance to spend about 80 hours in New Orleans, where Onikama says he plans to hit Harrah’s New Orleans Casino and Bourbon Street and enjoy some good food.
But his final quote in the story sums up our attitude about this trip:
As for the travel hardships, Onikama shrugged it off.
“I figure this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said. “Win or lose, everybody’s just excited to go.”
In just six months, Ensen has begun crawling. Here he is at my Grandma Kam’s house on Christmas Eve trying to get his hands on some peppermint candy. That would be my Grandma Kam, my parents, Kelly, and me in the background cheering him on. Everyone tells us he’ll be walking before we know it. Simon says: time to “baby proof” the house.
Seeing Ensen glowing with excitement just looking at all of his gifts was probably the best Christmas gift Kelly and I got this year…though we are extremely thankful for all other gifts we received too…don’t get us wrong. But to see your first child mesmerized by gifts taller than him was priceless and something we’ll never forget! And Ensen wasted no time getting right to the point.
Christmas has always been my favorite holiday of the year. Not just because Santa always brought me great presents (because I was ALWAYS a good boy!), but because it also meant our family would leave the Big Island to spend the holidays with the family on Oahu. Growing up, we couldn’t possibly spend enough time at grandma’s house in Manoa and Christmas was no exception. I’m truly greatful that both of our families were able to share in Ensen’s first Christmas.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so instead of trying to describe Christmas morning at the Kam family household, I’ll let the following photos do the talking.
A big “MAHALO” to all of our family and friends (near and far) who gave wonderful presents this year. A more formal thank you to come via mail. Until then, take care and Happy New Year.
From other Sugar Bowl reports throughout the week, it’s obvious that the University of Georgia Bulldogs are not going to that the Warriors lightly. What it means to me is that college football fans across the county, especially those from Hawaii, are in for one hell of an exciting game.
Ensen with his second cousins Cailey, Chloe, and Courtney.
Kelly, Ensen and I spent Christmas Eve with my parents, sister, Uncle Dickie,and the Tonokawa family (Aunty Steph, Uncle Alan, and their four girls Courtney, Chloe, Cailey, and Caitie…aka the “4 Cs”).
We all met up for dinner at Shokudo Japanese Restaurant and Bar on Kapiolani Boulevard, one of our favorite restaurants for “tapas style” Japanese fusion cuisine (more about the food and drinks soon in another “Restaurant Ramblings” blog). It’s been nearly four months since they last saw Ensen, so it was hard from everyone to restrain from holding the little guy…at least for a little while.
From left: Chloe and Ensen. Uncle Dickie taking video for the family archives. Aunty Erin giving Kelly and I a chance to eat.
From left: Uncle Dickie, Caitie, and Chloe. Alan, Catie, dad (Gary), and mom (Rhonda) with the little guy. Everyone having a good time.
Dinner was great and when everyone was full, we headed to the Tonokawa’s house in Manoa for more holiday entertainment. Bingo has become somewhat of a family tradition around the holidays, so this year Aunty Steph mixed it up a bit with some Christmas style bingo which used pictures instead of numbers on the cards. Everyone was a winner taking home cash and prizes. During the times when Kelly and I won, we let Ensen pick a prize for us. I gotta say, the kid has a nose for money as he picked three cash prizes. YEAH!
From left: Special holiday bingo cards. Ensen drawing a prize from the goodie bag. Family enjoying time together.
Well, we didn’t stay late enough to open presents with the family. Kelly, Ensen, and I headed home just short of midnight for a good nights rest. We figured we’d all need it for the following morning to keep up with Ensen’s excitement of opening his gifts. We were right. A blog about his first Christmas coming up soon.
Grandma and GrandpaKam from the Big Island arrived just in time for Christmas and Ensen couldn’t have been happier. Here he is striking a “muscle man” pose and showing off how he can sit up on his own. He’s gotten much stronger since the last time they visited.
Even these mice at Honolulu Hale are getting excited about the Sugar Bowl. I just hope they aren’t sitting next to me on any of our flights from Honolulu to New Orleans.
Speaking of getting to The Big Easy, we were just talking to Sarah(Kelly’s brother Jonathan’s girlfriend) who is also making the trip to cheer on the Warriors. Come to find out, there is someone that I know taking a “crazier” route to NOLA. If you thought two stops from Honolulu to Houston, then a five hour drive to NOLA was insane, think again.
Her trip starts on Friday when she leaves Honolulu for Maui. From there, she takes the red-eye to Los Angeles and has a nine hour layover. From LAX she heads to Dallas where she’ll spend the night before jumping in a car and driving nine hours to NOLA. She gets there on Sunday. WOW!
Now that’s a die hard fan…or so I though…until Sarah told me about a couple of her friends that are flying into Indiana, then driving 20 hours to NOLA. I wish them all the luck in getting there on time and hope weather in the midwest treats them kindly.
If you’ve got a story to share about your travels to the Sugar Bowl, let’s hear about it.
Our group touches down in Houston on December 30 at 2:30 a.m. That’s right…A.M.! Upon arrival, the plan is to get the rental van and immediately start driving east on Interstate 10 (I-10) to New Orleans. Google Maps estimates the trip will take about 5 hours, so assuming all goes well, we should be in The Big Easy by early morning.
Half the fun of getting to the Sugar Bowl will be the drive there. According to Wikipedia, I-10 is the southernmost east-west, coast-to-coast intestate highway in the United States. It stretches from the Pacific Ocean at State Route 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) in Santa Monica, California to Interstate 95 in Jacksonville, Florida.
While I expect most of the drive to be in the dark, I do look forward to seeing whatever scenery there is to be seen along the way.
If anyone has suggestions on places to stop along the way for entertainment, a bathroom break, or easy refueling, I’m all ears.
If our cat Jabbey ever became President of the United States of America, I imagine his headshot might look something like this. What a handsome cat at age six!
As chance would have it, the New Orleans Hornets play the Toronto Raptors on December 31 at New Orleans Arena. So in the true spirit of doing everything possible while we’re in The Big Easy, our little group of five will be going to the game on New Year’s Eve.
I hate to admit this, but I have no idea who plays on either team. Does Vince Carter still play for the Raptors? A quick check of the team roster confirms he doesn’t. GREAT! I officially know nobody on either team. But it will be fun regardless and I’m going more for the excitement of attending a NBA game.
I do have one more question. I wonder if our family is somehow related to the Shinn Family who owns the Hornets? My mom’s maiden name is Shinn, but I’m not getting my hopes up. My mom nor my Grandma Shinn ever spoke about an Uncle George that owned a professional basketball team. But if by chance we are related…or if the very kind Mr. George Shinn wants to adopt a Shinn Family from Hawaii for the night…the five of us would be glad to sit in Uncle George’s luxury box and catch up on old times.
Now that Ensen is six months old, loves eating baby food, and has two bottom teeth coming out, it’s time to try some new things…like Baby Mum Mum snacks.
