Back on the Blog.

Apologies to all who read this space. I've been very bad at posting. I had every good intention of posting while we were in Hawai'i, but as you'll read below, it wasn't an easy trip. So here's a catch-up post to let you know how our holidays went, and I promise to get back on the blog more regularly.

Nicole and I flew to Hawai'i on Christmas eve. The good part, Sean Patrick was great on the plane. The bad part, we were in such a rush to pack, I forgot to pack the power cable for my computer, so I wasn't able to get online to blog when we landed. Yes, I could have used up my battery power to connect at the hotel, but for some reason, the connection at the hotel doesn't work on my Mac... Nicole's PC, no problem. I'm thinking conspiracy against Macs. Naw, I'm not really thinking that.

Yes, I am from Hawai'i. Yes, I have family there. Yes, we stayed at a hotel and not at a relatives place. Why? Well, all the brothers have started families. My older brother Ray, has his daughter, Carolina, and they (smartly) converted their guest room into her bedroom. So there's no real room for us there. My younger brother, Matthew has his son, Dylan, and they stayed at my dad's house, so they got the guest room. My dad, has adopted the grandson of his wife, so he's now living in the other "spare" room. We stayed at this hotel last Christmas. It's a fine hotel with reasonable rates and comfortable rooms. It's nothing fancy. This year, they actually gave us a room with a partial view.
That's Diamond Head in the background past all the other hotels of Waikiki. Honestly, this time, I wasn't very jazzed about the hotel, aside from the non-Mac friendly internet, they had one of three elevators down for servicing, which made for long, excruciating waits for elevators and then always crowded. It's not fun trying to stuff yourself into an elevator with a baby in a stroller.

As I had said before, Nicole and I arrived on Christmas eve. We landed mid-afternoon with grand plans to get in some final gift shopping and then attend Christmas eve dinner at my brother Ray's house. But first a stop at my dad's so he could meet Sean Patrick.

"Bruiser" is my dad's nickname for Sean Patrick.

Then, somehow (and it happens more often now that we have a kid), time just got away from us. We rushed to the stores to find last minute gifts, then rushed to Ray's house for dinner. But because of miscalculations, dinner was delayed by 2 hours. So by the time Nicole and I lugged everything up to the hotel room, we were too tired to wrap presents, and just fell asleep.

Christmas day brought another interesting story...

After scrambling to get presents wrapped and get to my dad's house for Christmas, we were still late. FYI all future parents, getting anything done with a kid takes 1/2 hour longer, minimum. Matthew and his family flew in that day so when they arrived at my dad's they threw the presents under the tree, we quickly snapped pictures,
And then doled out the presents for everyone to open. Most of the presents were for the kids, which makes for really fun times.

As is often tradition, we have a late lunch at my dad's house, with each family contributing a different dish. Matt had to go shopping for stuff, so he and I headed out to the only grocery store open on Christmas day. This was to be no ordinary shopping trip. Since it's the only store open, everyone was there picking up last minute items. And to add to the fun, they only had two registers open and each had a line 50 people deep. After 20 minutes of standing in line, Matt and I were two people from the register when this woman yelled out, "OH MY GOD, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" We looked over to see a tall skinny Caucasian guy holding his nose as blood drained out onto his shirt and shoes. "That guy just punched him! Somebody stop him!" A couple of customers ran out the door and the store manager came over to the bleeding gentlemen.

"I don't know what happened. He just came up and punched me, I didn't say a word to him. I have no idea who he is," said the guy, as his nose started dripping blood on the floor. The lady, started taking over the situation, "Someone call 9-1-1!" She yelled, "Can someone get some towels or something to wipe up this blood?!"

Matt and I paid for our goods, and walked out to the rental car, only to discover it had a flat tire. Yep, like Christmas eve dinner, Christmas day lunch was going to be delayed. We called my dads house to let him know what was happening. My older brother Ray, volunteered to go to his house and get a scuba tank he had filled and bring it to the store and fill up our tire so we could get home and change it there. So while we waited for Ray, the entirety of the Kaneohe Police force showed up at the store to find out what was going on with the incident. Matt and I watched as different officers questioned everyone involved, even following the guy who threw the punch to his car.

Our theory is that they Caucasian guy parked to close to the other guys car and he took offense to it. And it being Christmas and all, the best course of action was to cold cock they guy, or "false crack", in pidigin english.

Reminds me of a story from my youth... I was in high school and meeting some friends at Zippy's the local equivalent of Denny's for dinner. I parked my car and walked to the door. A local gentleman (I use the term lightly) was holding the door open, so I said thank you and walked in. I found my friends in a booth and sat down and started chatting. A few moments later the guy who was holding the door came up to me and pointed right in my face, "Brah, I was holding dah doah fo mah family, not fo' you. Next time, I going punch you in da face if you walk in front of mah family." I don't recall seeing anyone near him, much less walking in or out of the door. I just nodded and he left. People are strange.

The rest of Christmas went off without a hitch, we were supposed to meet with old family friends, the Stices, for dinner. The Stice girls wanted to meet our children. But they lost track of time too so we arranged to have dinner the following night.

The next evening brought ominous clouds and rain. As Nicole and I drove to the Stices, we could see lighting strikes in the mountains. "That's unusual," I said to Nicole, "Normally we don't get electrical storms, just lots and lots of rain." As we drove on the highway, there was one bright flash, and all the street lights went out, not good. We arrived at the Stices, walked in the house, say hello, introduce Sean Patrick, and then the power goes out. Oh dear.

We stayed anyway and had dinner in the dark. We chatted about old times and about our new budding families. When it came time to leave, Matt (who had left earlier) called my cell phone to tell me that power was out on the entire island and wasn't expected back on for at least 12 hours. Waikiki was mayhem, he said, with fist fights and traffic accidents in the streets. Our hotel was already down one elevator, and the thought of having to lug a stroller up 7 flights of stairs was not appealing. So we slept on the floor of my dad's house.

By morning, power was restored in some parts of the island. Turns out, Hawai'ian Elecitric has a "fail safe" system that if, for any reason, there is a surge somewhere, the entire island's power is shutdown. Doesn't seem very fail safe to me...

That's enough for now. Next blog... How to celebrate New Years Eve, Hawai'ian style.

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