Ancient Chinese Secret

I've been cooped up home sick these past days. I'm using my "chinese medicine" to help me thru it. I think it worked! I'm much better now. I just wish I could find a chinese allergy medicine.

Chelsie Volleyball Tournament

It's the last time Chelsie will compete in the Las Vegas Volleyball Classic. It's always held during Presidents Day Weekend. Their team, Oahu 18's Tommy, did okay. They finished 57th out of 100 teams.Some other pictures taken while in Las Vegas.

SFO New Year Parade

San Francisco continues to celebrate Chinese New Year with the Grand New Year Parade. It's sponsored by a competitor I won't mention. I did not know that this parade is one of the top ten Best Cultural Parades in the USA, cool. It usually rains, but it was nice and nippy.

The outgoing Miss Chinatown USAMiss Chinatown 2009, Court and contestants.The final float, Miss Chinatown USA 2009
(okay, it's not the best picture, looks like she's flipping the crowd)

Narcissus presentation

The Au In Kwai Family Club is the official vendor for the Narcissus plants. As part of the festivities, we present the newly crowned Narcissus Queen and her court with their own Narcissus flower plants.

Oh my gosh! Who is that lucky guy presenting the Queen her flowers?

Au Family Narcissus Sale

Every year the Au In Kwai Family Club sells Narcissus plants as part of the Narcissus Festival. The narcissus flower is prized by the Chinese during the New Year festivities. Not only is it very fragrant, but also beautiful. There are two types of plants that are sold, the upright and the "crab claw" styles. The crab claw style takes much time and patience to cultivate. Here we are cleaning and prepping the bulbs for sale.

Dr. Francis Au and Dr. Cora Au (sitting) they're in their 90's!Jerry Chan cleaning a crab claw narcissus

After all the decayed and old scales of the bulbs are removed, leaves trimmed and non blooming bulblets removed, they are placed into styrofoam containers till we plant them into pots the next day.And the final product all planted are ready for sale.Above is the upright style, and below is the "crab claw" style.My "cousins" in front of the boothCallman and Francis Au

The winning Talent for the Pageant

Okay, I found a video of the winning talent for the Narcissus Queen Pageant. I think that in all the pageants I attended, this was one of the best. Great concept and choreography. By the way, she won the crown too. Enjoy!

Narcissus Queen Pageant 2009

First trip of 2009, back home for the 60th Annual Narcissus Queen Pageant.
This year, Creighton's cousins daughter, Lori Chong was a contestant.
During the Talent portion, she did a very graceful Hula.Lori during the Cheong Sam, or Chinese Gown phase.All of the Contestants before the big announcements.

And the winners are...

"First Asian Boy"

First Day of Winter!

The first day of Winter will be remembered forever for those of us in Seattle. The area is mostly shut down. Luckily, I'm on my days off, otherwise I would be held hostage at the Airport or at the DoubleTree. I had (as of 4pm, Sunday) at least 8 inches of snow at my house. More expected overnight. Next storm is due on Wed. EEK!

View from the front door

Snow right up to my first step!

View from my lanaiView looking out to my deckThe 8 inches of snow on outside my deck against the screen door

My new BFF

Here's my new BFF pimping my latest CD, at the Grammy Award Nomination Show.Don't hate! I'll be signing copies by request only.

Kona here we come! (late photo)

Here we are, Leslie and I about to board the Inagural flight from SEA to Kona.

Here is the first departure from KOA.
Took it from the tarmac as I was boarding my HA flight to HNL.

Thanksgiving 2008

Sorry, no photos, but I'll give you the run down.

Again, Mom & Dad came up to SEA, and so did Kim.
We didn't get back to the Seattle area till about 9pm.
That kinda left us in a pickle to get groceries for Thanksgiving dinner. Well, anyway, my plan went okay. We went out on Thanksgiving day to Safeway and purchased a Jenny O turkey. It was pretty good. The turkey was frozen, but came seasoned and in a oven ready bag. Perfect! "From freezer to oven" is what the package claims. Well, 4hours later we ate! There was a little bit of a fiasco with the yams. I put marshmallo's on top of the casserole then went downstairs to get started. Well, our meal was so delicious that I totally forgot about it in the oven. EEK, ran upstairs and let's just say Kim and I had to open the deck door and windows. So, yes the top was completely black. But the yams below tasted yummy!

Black Friday

We left at 430am for Black Friday shopping. We pretty much got all that we wanted. We were one of the first 100 people at Cost Plus, and this is what we got.Humm, what do you think, was it worth it? ha ha

While I'm on the ornament thing, here are some other ones I got.
Saturday after at Pikes Market

Dang, it was super crowded.
Shopping at the Chukar booth. Mom likes the dried cherries.The market all decked out in Xmas garbSwine-dolph leading the way