Happy Father's Day!

 Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there! Kian celebrated by spelling out "DAD" in a little photo shoot.  Thank you Brenden, for being a wonderful father.

i love him so.

From the photo booth at Third Man Records

Brenden: Have you seen my phone?
Marissa: It's on the coffee table.
Brenden: *goes out to look, comes back to bedroom* It's not there.
Marissa: That's the last place I saw it.
Brenden: *goes to look for phone again, comes back with phone in hand*
Marissa: Where was it?
Brenden: A different place.
Marissa: where?
Brenden: A different place on the coffee table.

Nashville Sunrise

I was up earlier than usual on Friday because Brenden was leaving for Virginia later in the afternoon and I wouldn't get to see him again.  I'm pouting just typing this because I miss him so much. Even though I've left Brenden a lot, he's never left me and we have not been apart at all since I've been pregnant. I spent a good deal of the morning crying.  Then I walked into an empty house after work and started crying some more. He gets back tomorrow and I can't wait! I'm considering staying up way later than I usually do just to see him. I miss my dear husband.

Sandwiches & Star Wars

Sandwiches and Star Wars.  That's what Brenden wanted for his birthday and thats what he got.  Along with a few other things.

Brenden is a huge, HUGE coffee drinker so for this birthday I got him a subscription to Mistobox which sends different types of coffee from around the world every month.  Since Mistobox sends all their coffee in whole bean, he also got a grinder. Usually I like gifts to be a complete surprise but I don't drink coffee so when I was getting the grinder I had to ask Brenden what he would prefer, hand or automatic, and try to be all nonchalant about it.  Well if he didn't know then he certainly knew a week later when we went to Kauai Coffee and I said he should get whole bean. But thats okay because he still loved it all.

For dinner Brenden requested sandwiches and I obliged by getting all the sandwich fixings including four types of cheese and three types of mustard. We tried this new cheese that has caramelized onions in it; so good! For "cake" we had homemade Oreos following this recipe.

I think it was a successful birthday and Brenden was happy which is all that really matters.

Happy Birthday Husband!

Today is Brenden's birthday!! Here are some pictures of my love muffin:

love you.

Brenden & the beach

I took Brenden to the crab beach over Labor Day weekend and he enjoyed it by standing in the water and reading.  He is one of a kind, my husband.  

There was also a ton of crabs out again.  Brenden discovered that if you throw rocks near them they will run, grab them & check for food.  We watched the crabs for a while, then a storm rolled in and we left to go look at puppies. 

college football is back

College Football Season is back! Though soccer (Football/Fútbol) is my favorite sport to watch & play,  College Football still comes in a close second. There's just something special about the Fall season.  I love trading phone calls & texts with all of the friends back on the East Coast on Saturdays. 

As I've probably previously stated, I graduated from Penn State in 2004.  Though our school is currently under a myriad of sanctions & fines for the unspeakable crimes committed by Jerry Sandusky, our school is still allowed to play the sport that brings us all together on Saturdays.  So while our boys play for little more than pride & the love of the game, we get together & cheer them on from homes & bars around the country.  

Here in Honolulu we have a small but growing chapter of the Penn State Alumni Association.  The first game of the season generally draws the largest crowd, which this year appears to be our biggest to date.  The head of our chapter, Angela Anderson, was able to gather 30+ Nittany Lion faithful at Rivals Sports Bar & Grill in the heart of Waikiki.   It helps that the kickoff was 9:30am local time. The true test of loyalty comes for the 6am kickoffs.  Some might complain that 6am is too early on a Saturday to be watching sports, but I happen to love it.  While you're more than halfway through your day on the East Coast at the end of the early games, we have a full day ahead.  I happen to love watching our Nittany Lions over breakfast & an Irish Coffee.  

This past Saturday all went well on the gridiron.  Penn State took on Syracuse at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ.  Our boys came out on top, 23-17.  I'm personally quite pleased with the start to the season.

Though I'm a Penn State Grad, I have a soft spot for the good people of Virginia Tech.  Being from Virginia many of my closest friends are Virginia Tech graduates.  So, I was quite delighted to see their alumni association met at the same bar for their game vs. Alabama.  Though the outcome of their game wasn't as positive as ours, they still seemed to enjoy the morning.  Hopefully they'll have plenty of victories in the coming season.

So, that's a little glimpse at the life of a College Football fan in Honolulu, Hawai'i.  If you're reading this & want to join us, I'll see you at Rivals next week at 6am when Dear Old State takes on Eastern Michigan.  Kickoff: 6am HST.   Just come ready for our chants:

We Are...Penn State!
Mahalo...You're Welcome!  


*This post brought to you by Brenden!

how to have a fantasy draft with your east coast friends when you live in Hawaii

Step 1: Wear a bandana and ask your east coast friends to do the draft at a reasonable hour.  The first draft Brenden did in Hawaii started before 5am here.

 Step 2: Set up your draft station ( computer, coffee, breakfast, phone, remotes, print outs, your draft copy).

 Step 3: Keep track of who has been picked.

 Step 4: Make sure one of your East Coast friends can Skype somehow (Brenden's friends used an iPad).

 Step 6: Seriously, keep track.

 Step 7: Have someone on "Skype Duty".  It's really difficult to hear player names when seven people are talking at the same time.

 Step 8: DRAFT

Step 9: Have fun & look forward to doing it again next year!

Note From Brenden:

I'm terrible at Fantasy Football, but I totally enjoy it.  Fantasy Football makes Fall the easiest time of year to keep in touch with friends back east (that & college football).  I was able to make it back to Virginia for the draft last year, so this marked only my third draft from the Aloha State.

I'd like to think I did a great job drafting this time around, but if I'm honest with myself I know that's not true.  My personal draft results are listed below.  This is a 10 team league that just implemented a keeper system last year.  I didn't keep anybody on my roster from last season (we can only keep players drafted after the 6th round), but I did end up with my son (Cam Newton) for a third straight season.  When I drafted him as a rookie I was laughed at.  The laughing stopped when he took the field.

So, see below & feel free to judge me.  In the end, I had fun drafting which is really all that matters to me.

1.) Cam Newton
2.) Chris Johnson
3.) Darren McFadden
4.) Dwayne Bowe
5.) Montee Ball
6.) Antonio Brown
7.) Michael Vick (odd pick for a vegetarian)
8.) Vernon Davis
9.) Mark Ingram
10.) Sidney Rice
11.) Seahawks D
12.) Kenny Britt
13.) Brandon Pettigrew
14.) Shonn Greene
15.) Matt Prater
16.) Michael Robinson...Now, other than say the Vick pick, this one needs explaining.  Michael Robinson is my favorite player in the NFL.  This is mainly because he was my favorite player when I was in college.  After I graduated, he helped put together one of the best football seasons I've had the pleasure of witnessing.  He wasn't promoted to starting QB until his final season.  In that season, he lost just one game, & he was not to blame*.  So, like many Penn State graduates my age, he holds a special place in my sporting heart.

*The NCAA does not recognize any Penn State Football victories from 1998 through 2011.

Brenden's best friend

Here are a few of the dozens of pictures Brenden took of Izzy over the weekend. Brenden and Izzy have a special relationship.  They play hide and seek, they play fetch and Izzy loves to cuddle with Brenden in the morning.  But... Izzy also likes to wake Brenden up every half hour starting at 3:00am just to get a little love.  You would think that this habit of Izzy's would turn Brenden off and he would hate him.  But no, Brenden regularly announces that Izzy is his best friend in the entire world.

We went to Portland!: part 1

^ bird books^

We went to Portland! The day after all of our family left, we packed up for our weekend trip to Portland.  We had such a great time.  90% of our time in Portland was spent eating and we didn't even get to half of the restaurants on our list.  The food is amazing!!!!

On to the trip...Our trip actually did not start off so well. My ticket was booked in my married name while my picture idea was in my maiden name.  Luckily we had gotten to the airport early so we were able to get that sorted out. Then, we found out while they changed my name, they also changed our seats and would not change them back. Anyway, we figured that problem out too and then we realized we both forgot our rain jackets. And of course, it rained almost the entire time we were there.

We spent our first full day in Portland driving out to Multnomah Falls and Hood River. It was gorgeous  out there! I have missed the forest and the mountains so much. We must have 100 photos from that hike alone, Brenden was a fan too. We hiked to the top of Multnomah falls and half way up we had lunch with some sandwiches we had picked up from Bunk Sandwiches.  They were so good! We were raving about them for the rest of the day.

After our hike, we checked out the kite surfers on the Hood River and then headed back to Portland.  We went to Powell's Books and saw the massive bird book aisle.  We were missing our bird identifiers just a little bit. After, we had dinner at Deschutes and we highly recommend the brewery pretzel.  All of the food was delicious, but that pretzel, it was amazing. Deschutes was also where Brenden had his first sampler of the trip. After Deschutes, we finished off the night at Ringler's Annex  so that Brenden could have a Pineapple Jalapeno Margarita. We had shared one the night before and he was jonesing for another one.