2011 was a year of many firsts for us. We got to see many new things and experience many new experiences individually and as a family. Here are a few of my favorites.

One of the big changes had to do with a change in the way I think about what I eat. In addition to trying to eat healthier (which i often fail at) I also started trying to grow my own food. Here is my attempt at doing aquaponics and growing some lettuce, eggplant and tomatoes. I have since gone on to grow broccoli, green onions and kale and I’m thinking about expanding to more systems in 2012.

A few weeks into growing

Manoa lettuce

For the first time since my wedding in 2007, the Hasselhoffs reunited and played a few gigs. Two to be exact. That may not sound like a lot, but it was more than we played for the last four years!

We’re getting the band back together (not pictured is our drummer, Clinton)

Slugger also got to celebrate her first Easter! We had her all dressed up nicely for church but by the time we took an Easter picture, we had already changed her into something more comfortable.

Happy Easter!

Then in May I revisited the Lone Star State again for a short conference. The trip wasn’t too memorable, but I did get to visit the new Cowboy Stadium. That sucker is impressively massive!

Sitting in the owners box

On the famous star at midfield

After I got back we got to go to the Big Island! We were very excited because it was Slugger’s first time on an airplane and the first time she would be able to meet her Aunty Genesis and Uncle Jordan, Keao’s sister and brother. It was also her first time meeting her cousin who was born just three weeks before her.

Slugger was absolutely glued to the window

Aunty Genesis meets Slugger for the very first time at the rodeo

The cousins weren’t too interested in each other at first

Uncle Jordan and Slugger

Zylin and Aunty Keao

Keao also tried stand-up paddling for the first time too

Rather than make this a super long post, I’ll stop here at six months and bring you up to speed with some highlights from the second half of the new year later. Stay tuned part 2 of 2011 coming at you soon!

That all changed Tuesday night. For the longest time, we were both eagerly awaiting the day when Slugger would walk and not just take a few steps, but we were also somewhat reluctant to know that our little girl would be walking. In fact, we knew that once she started walking the game would change forever. I don’t understand how someone learns to walk as it has been a while since I’ve been anything but bipedal, but I assumed that she would take a few steps, followed by three or four steps and then she would gradually build up. I totally did not expect her to go from two hesitant steps to confident walking overnight! Now, that’s not to say that Slugger only uses walking to loco-mote but she is a lot more surefooted than I would have expected. In other words, watch out! Things are going to get a lot more hectic in our home.

Our friend Gina was on hand the other night to capture her walking on her phone. Click here to check out her video.

Prepping the food for our Hawaiian pupu party. On the menu tonight: Spam musubi, fried rice, macaroni salad, pork sandwiches and chicken long rice. It will truly be an authentic Hawaiian experience.

On the mound for the Fighters was their star pitcher Yu Darvish. From what I hear, he may be the next pitcher to break into the Majors in the next couple of years. He pitched a great game but he didn’t get much run support and if he caught a few bounces here or there, he may have been the winning pitcher instead of losing a 3-1 pitcher’s duel.

On a side note, we were having a hard time figuring out how hard the pitchers were throwing because they display the velocity in kilometers/hour. Luckily Kristin figured out a conversion formula for us and Darvish was throwing in the low 90s.

Banners everywhere walking into the Sapporo Dome

The sign welcomed us

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the stadium was how seriously they take cheering. I mean we cheer on our team, but these guys were organized and they waved huge flags and had trumpeters and it seemed like everyone in our section had Fighters jerseys and noisemakers.

The flag wavers stand on the concourse

Those plastic bats provide the noise

The guy in the orange leads the cheers

Not to be confused with the actual cheerleaders

If you want to get a good idea of what I mean by organized cheers watch the video below. There are about 10 cheers or so that we yelled over the course of the game. It is interesting because when your team is up to bat, everyone in the section stands throughout the entire half inning and cheers. When your team is in the field the section becomes quiet and the opposing team’s section takes over the cheering. Of course the visiting team has a smaller cheering section, but they were loud nonetheless.

I don’t think anyone mistook me for the real Darvish

Dural and I were matchy-matchy

Despite the loss we had fun anyway

I am currently in Japan, where I usually go once a year, with my church. This year, for the first time, we flew on China Airlines because we couldn’t find a good price on Japan Airlines. Up until now, I had always flew on JAL so I kind of knew exactly what to expect on the trans-Pacific flight. When we fly on JAL, I always get the Japanese meal because I figure I can always get an American meal on any other flight. Plus, I like Japanese food and I’m rarely disappointed. Following that mindset, when it came time to order on China Airlines, we had a choice of the eggs breakfast or the Chinese one. I’m pretty sure the flight attendant told me exactly what the Chinese breakfast had in it, but either she told me it in Chinese or she just had a thick accent. Either way I wasn’t sure exactly what I was getting. I love Chinese food, but when I opened the tray this is what I saw.

So that’s what Chinese people eat for breakfast!

So what is it? Your guess is as good as mine. The only things I recognized right off the bat were the bread and the juice. The left dish held some sort of rice dish that reminded me of jook and the one of the right was small pieces of the stuff that is the cone of a cone sushi. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t that.

Our next meal came four or five hours later. This time, I knew exactly what the flight attendant told me. She gave me the choice of chicken with pasta or beef on rice. Not really being a pasta guy, I opted for the rice. It turned out to be almost like a beef stew dish except there was just one thing slightly amiss.

Can you spot it?

It’s not that there wasn’t enough beef, rice or vegetables. No, that part was fine. My biggest issue was the amount of fat on the beef. I guess they haven’t heard about the hazards of eating straight fat in China, because it seemed like that was all I got. Here’s a close up.

Mmm, oh so yummy!

Now don’t get me wrong, I like a good piece of fatty meat every now and then, but that was a little too much even for me. At least they did have a good Diet Coke for me. That helped me to wash down my lunch.

I think that says Diet Coke (or at least Coca-Cola Light)

So when you go to Texas I guess what you’re expected to do is eat meat. Lots and lots of meat. Not just any meat. You’re supposed to eat Texas BBQ. Last year when I went to the same conference we ate at a BBQ place called Dickey’s BBQ Pit. It was some pretty good stuff. This year we tried Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse. Like Dickey’s this place is a chain, but don’t let that discourage you. It was lots of smoked meat and deep-fried goodness.

Outside the Smokehouse on a rainy evening

I had the BBQ ribs, brisket and chicken with a side of fried okra and green bean casserole

Continuing on our meaty-goodness theme, we asked a barista at one of the coffee shops where we could get some steak. We didn’t need a fancy, gourmet steak. We just wanted a place to eat a big hunk of meat. His answer? Texas Land & Cattle. Let me tell you, it didn’t disappoint. Ruth’s Chris it’s not, but it was a good piece of meat. I had the ribeye with a baked sweet potato and it was under $20 ($17.95 if I remember correctly)! I probably wouldn’t eat there every week, but for a nice dinner it was quite reasonable.

I didn’t quite get the meat sweats, but I got close

Our cheesy queso appetizer

The main dish!

On our last day, we had a few hours between the end of the conference and our flight so we ventured down to Fort Worth. As luck would have it, we got there at the tail end of Western week so the town was abuzz with people dressed in Western regalia and doing some educational demonstrations for the kids.

It was like we ventured back into the Old West complete with people on horseback and cowboys.

This is what the Old West would have looked like with paved roads, cars and stoplights

Deb and some settlers

I’m also sure the Old West had tons of mice riding on cats riding on dogs

One thing I did want to try were calf fries. I had never tried one before and I didn’t know when I would be able to try them again, so I figured I’d take my chances and go for broke. I also had a normal lunch of a chicken-fried steak sandwich too just to make sure I could wash the calf fries taste out of my mouth.

The infamous calf fries

What the inside of a deep-fried calf testicle looks like

Mmm, so ono

My rather mundane chicken-fried steak sandwich (which was huge by the way)

Of course we did try to eat healthy when we weren’t eating meat, but I figured you can eat healthy anywhere. As the old saying goes, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”. So meat it was.

One thing we really didn’t try was Tex-Mex. Maybe if I go back again next year, I’ll make sure that it’s on the menu.

Last week, Debbie, another staff member at church, gave me a book called Heaven is For Real. It’s the story of a little boy who briefly went to Heaven and returned back. It’s a fairly short book and it’s an easy read, so this morning, while I was watching Slugger I read the book.

In the book, the little boy, named Colton, describes going to Heaven and meeting Jesus. He also mentions over and over again that Jesus really loves children. He really, really loves children. Colton also goes on to tell his parents that he met his sister in Heaven. The strange thing is that before Colton was born, his mom had a miscarriage and they never told Colton about that. He met his sister that he didn’t even know he had!

In case you didn’t know, today is a special day. Five years ago, July 28 was just another day on my calendar, no more special than any other day. Four years ago on this date I got married. July 28 now had a very special meaning because it was one of the happiest days of my life. One year ago on this date I became a father. I became a dad to three teeny, tiny girls: Astro, Gizmo and Slugger. July 28 now had even more significance.

But July 28 also carries sadness as well as elation and joy. Although we brought three girls into this world, we lost Astro too. What should have been our happiest moment also became one of unimaginable grief as well. As if anything else couldn’t go wrong, a little over two weeks later, we would go on to lose Gizmo too.

If Heaven is for real, and I believe it is, then that means that this story will end happily! One day, whenever that day is, I will be reunited with all of my girls and we will never be separated again. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul writes that, “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love” (Romans 8:38). Along with that I believe that once we hit Heaven we’ll be together forever (along with all of our other loved ones that know Jesus). What a joyous homecoming that will be. I can’t wait for my girls to show me around and give me the grand tour. There I’ll be able to hug and kiss them as long as I want to.

But today we also celebrate too. While we remember our lost girls, we celebrate with the one that turned a year old! Today Slugger turned one and she isn’t showing any signs of being born three months early. In fact, if you didn’t know anything about her you would never believe what she went through. You would never believe she spent the first 81 days of her life in the hospital fighting for her life. You would never believe she was only 2 pounds, 4 ounces when she was born. You would never believe that she was hooked up to so many machines that helped her breathe, eat and survive. All these things you would never believe because today she looks so perfect. We rejoice at how our little Slugger has turned out and we look forward to seeing her grow for many more years.

Thank you Jesus for blessing us with three beautiful little girls. I can’t wait until we can all be together again! Daddy loves you guys!

Happy Birthday Slugger!

A few of us were sent to the Fellowship One conference to learn about the system powering our church’s database. I know, it’s super exciting. But we arrived the day before the conference started so we decided to do a little sightseeing.

Our first stop was lunch. When I go to the mainland there are three fast-food restaurants I like to eat as that we can’t get in Hawaii: 1. Chick-Fil-A, 2. Sonic, 3. In and Out Burger. I know, some of you may think that In and Out should be higher, but truthfully, while I like their burgers, I would still rather eat at the other two places first. Plus, they just opened the first In and Out in Texas while we were there and the line reportedly stretched over a mile.

But Sonic. I love Sonic. Not only do they have a wonderfully large menu, but you get served by carhops wearing roller skates! Plus, with all the drink combinations you can order a different drink every time you go there.

They even have instructions on how to eat this massive foot-long Coney Island beast

I got mine covered in chili and cheese

Last year when I went to the Fellowship One conference with Cindy, we saw Cowboy Stadium from a distance but we didn’t have a chance to visit it so this year I really wanted to make sure i got to take a tour of the “House that Jerry Built”. In a word, Cowboy Stadium is massive. I’ve been to other ballparks before but this one was so huge and impressive I don’t think pictures will do it justice. It’s a sight you have to see for yourself, in person.

The first thing you notice about Cowboy Stadium is the insanely large HD video screen. It’s reportedly the largest in the world and it cost $40 million to build. To put it in perspective, Texas Stadium, where the Dallas Cowboys played before, cost $35 million to build. The entire stadium cost $5 million less than the HD screen.

How would you like that in your living room?

A view from the owner’s box

Pretending to be Jerry Jones for a few minutes

How many ways can you say “win”?

I wanted to spike a football, but I was afraid of the ramifications

The locker of former University of Hawaii punter Mat McBriar

Tony Romo’s locker (I hear you can rent the locker room to do weddings too)

Do you really need to tell professional football players NOT to share razors?

A statue of the great Tom Landry

After the tour we were a little tired so we headed to our hotel to take a short nap and then we headed back to Arlington to take in a Rangers game. Cindy and I attended a game last year too, but you never get tired of watching a major league game live. Plus, the Rangers did make it to the World Series last year so there is quite a buzz going on in Dallas.

The Ballpark at Arlington

Your better-than-average stadium fare, a BBQ brisket sandwich

Home Run!

The ground crew covering the field during the rain delay

Apparently one guy fell down and got covered too!

The stadium quickly emptied when the lightning started

Truthfully I’m not sure who won since we didn’t stick around through the rain delay. We had traveled all night and we were tired (plus we didn’t want to be too tired for the conference). I didn’t take too many pictures of the conference since I figured that it wouldn’t be that exciting for everyone to see but I did take more pictures of food so please join me next time where I’ll show you what else i ate in Texas.

Until then, happy trails!

Before I got hired on staff at Hope Chapel, I helped in the youth ministry for ten years. One of my favorite “traditions” I had with the youth was sending postcards. Anytime I went off island I would try to send my MiniChurch a postcard from wherever I was and in return many of them would send them back to me. I don’t know about you, but anytime I get a piece of handwritten mail, whether it be a postcard, thank you card or even an invitation it makes me smile. Ever since I became an adult, it seems like 90% of my mail are either bills or credit card solicitations.

But seeing those postcards again made me realize how many places our youth visited and also fun postcards are. Here are a few of my favorites from both near and far.

The road to Hana at Keanae, Maui

I love this one because even though it’s just on Maui, it showed that a postcard was still worth sending.

Paramount’s Great America in Santa Clara, California

Las Vegas, Nevada

I know these aren’t very exotic, but you have to admit that many islanders go there quite frequently.

Sent from Ketchikan, Alaska, just a reminder to stop peeing like pup

A nice shot of the Rockies sent from Denver, Colorado

Still not totally unusual but now we’re getting a little further off the beaten trail.

Possibly the only state with more state pride than Hawaii from Houston, Texas

Not a state but a district, Washington DC

One of my favorite places on earth, the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida

This looks like Scotland, but it’s really Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Now we’re getting a little further east and I’ve received postcards from Texas, DC, Florida and Pennsylvania. But enough of the domestic stuff. Here are a few international ones.

Of course this is Japan and the famous Osaka Castle in Osaka, Japan

This one, from Edinburgh, Scotland, is probably my favorite because of its unusual shape

Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Now that I have a daughter, I think I’m going to start sending her postcards whenever I leave the island so she’ll have a little collection of where I’ve been when she gets old enough to read. However, you can participate too. If you’re going on a trip, I’d love to receive a postcard from you and if you give me your address, I will make sure you get one from me. You can send your address or request mine by emailing me at beiberfever808@gmail.com.

I hope to hear from you and see where you’ve been soon!

My friend Ryan tweeted about Friday 5 this morning and about how one of our mutual friends used to do it and it seemed like fun so I thought I’d give it a go. I’d like to commit to doing this at least twice a month but we’ll see how it goes.

Remember, I didn’t come up with the questions, I’m just supplying the answers. So without further ado, here is this edition of Friday 5!

1. If you were suddenly unable to make any excuses, what could you realistically do today to address whatever in your life is keeping you from being healthy and happy?

That one’s easy. There are three things I would like to do everyday but never seem to do. 1. Practice guitar for at least half an hour. 2. Exercise for 40 minutes. 3. Do three lessons of Rosetta Stone. Unfortunately the only reason that I don’t do it is laziness and a lack of motivation. I know, it’s lame, but it is honest.

Junkyard Dog, my all-time favorite wrestler

2. What are your feelings about professional wrestling?

When I was a kid I loved professional wrestling. It was my favorite television show and I watched it religiously. Once the 90’s hit, however, I kind of just lost interest in it. I knew it was fake from pretty early on so that wasn’t the reason for my lack of interest, I think I just started pursuing other interests (like playing guitar) and I never went back to it.

The legendary shorts!

3. What is the brightest, most colorful article of clothing you actually wear once in a while?

In general, I like to wear colors (especially red for some reason) so I have tons of colorful things. Of course, this is Hawaii so I also have tons of loud Aloha shirts too. But I would have to say the loudest article of clothes I wear every once in a while is my pair of orange booty shorts I picked up from a street vendor in New York. I’ve used it at several costume parties since (does that qualify as once in a while?).

4. What’s something you do, not because you want to or because someone’s compelling you, but because it’s the right thing to do?

Ever since the birth of our daughter Slugger, Keao and I always fight over who is going to change her doo doo diapers. While I don’t hate doing it, I can honestly say it’s not my favorite thing to do. I do it because it is the right thing to do otherwise poor Slugger would have to sit in her own feces for who knows how long.

5. What’s a food you’ll keep eating until it either runs out or someone stops bringing it to the table?

Chinese! I think I go through withdrawals when i don’t have my filling of Chinese food. Whenever we go to a Chinese restaurant and we order family style, I have to make sure to quickly box up the leftovers otherwise I will keep eating and eating until all the plates are empty (then I moan and groan for a while about how full I am and why I keep doing this to myself).

And that’s it for now!