The Pings: Jon, Jenny, Elton, Rafa and Charlotte

Jonathan entered the Play for the Cure, Charity Tennis match this weekend.  It was a benefit for the Susan G. Komen for the cure fund.   Jonathan’s team  played excllently and he won their division and got a nifty trophy!

Of other oncologic topics, Dad completed his fourth round of chemo last week.  He took a CT scan on Friday to evaluate the tumor growth, and we got great news yesterday from Dr. Okazaki, Dad’s oncologist.  Dad’s tumors responded well to chemo, and are now shrunken down and scarred.  This means no chemo during the holidays!  He’ll still need to go in every three months for screening CT scans, but for now, no more daily trips to the outpatient treatment center, no more port-a-cath pokes and blood draws, and no more aweful nausea inducing, taste changing, appetite supressing, body weaking chemo!  Yeah!

Congratulations Jonathan! Jonathan got a new part time job as an assistant tennis pro at the Oahu Club!  He coaches the little kids and will run the family tennis night.  Yeah!

Bye bye bugs and hair lint.  Jonathan and I spent our Saturday spraying ant killer around our house and snaking our drains.  We now have a relatively bug free home and clear drains.  Thanks mom and dad for watching the puppies while we sprayed chemicals around our home.

Our green pool. Jonathan and I have been batteling our green pool for the last few months.  We’re now treating the pool with “algecide”.  The pool is now blue, but still a lille murkey.  Definitely not fit to swim yet, but hopefully we’ll get it clean sometime soon.  I’ll put up pictures later. 

Happy Friday!  Jonathan, dad and I spent the day (OK, more like Jonathan and Dad), building  a new fence.  Our old one was ugly, old, green, and fell over a month or so ago.   Unfortunately, the fence partitioned our house from our neighbors, and we caught Elton running around in the neighbors yard.  In fear of our neighbors calling animal control (very likely, since they don’t talk to us much), we decided that it was time to finally fix the fence.

Breaking down the remnants of the green monster.

Dad drilled the base board into the concrete and built a frame while mom and I cleaned up the yard.   We filled our green bin and pruned our palm trees.

Elton and Rafa waited semi-patiently inside the house.

and Jonathan and I (with extensive help from dad- thanks!) screwed in a vinyl lattice….

and painted the frame.  (Elton got a little paint on him!)

I was lucky enough to win tickets to Letterman.  A lot of people asked me how I got tickets, so here’s my story.

A month of so before I left for NYC, I went to the Letterman website and filled out an online form for tickets.  I don’t know how they screen through the ton of e-mail requests, but I think I told them that I was from Hawaii, and don’t get out to New York much and we were celebrating our fifth year anniversary (or something like that).  They might have liked my e-mail, or not,  but in any case, a week before I left, I got a call from the Letterman guys.   I was told that I had to  answer a quiz question.  Later, I was told that Dave Letterman only likes to have audience members who are true fans and follow his show…. not just random people who want to see a celebrity.  I’m not a Letterman expert, so I printed out  the “study guides” on the internet and crammed.  There are a bunch of study guides on the internet, but I found this one to be the most useful 

http://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/Television/David-Letterman-2226.html

Success!  I answered my question correctly!  I got a “magic password” for two tickets for Wednesday taping.

Wednesday:

I arrived at 2 pm-3pm and lined outside of the Ed Sullivan theater.  After telling the security guards my “magic password” and showing a few other guards my ID (yes, I’m legit),  I was given my golden ticket.  The staff numbered my ticket (I’m guessing in the order that I arrived), and I was promptly kicked out of the Ed Sullivan theater, and told to return at 3:30.  Luckily, Broadway is a busy street, so I spent my time noshing on a fabulously rich cupcake and shopping at tacky tourist vendors.

At 3:30, I again  lined up in order of my number on my golden ticket.  It pays to show up early at 2pm for the first line, because the guys at the end of the line got seats at the back of the theater.

We were ushered back into the theater, where we had a rousing  “dos and don’ts” lesson by one of the Letterman staff.  Do laugh A LOT, do clap, don’t chew gum, don’t boo, no cameras or phones… easy enough.  And then, after much fanfare, we got seated into the theater and enjoyed a Letterman preshow.    I am not normally a fan of pre-shows, but I truly enjoyed the show:  A comedian,  a few tunes from the band, a famous Letterman clip, and Dave himself came out to talk to the audience and to take questions.   And after all of the pre game excitement, we settled down for the Letterman show taping.  Jason Bateman was the guest, and it was AWESOME.  The entire show was so funny, and had so much energy.  I loved seeing the “behind the scene” stuff, like the camera and lighting guys.

My episode.  I’m sitting in the fourth row, middle section, in the middle of the row.  Fabulous seat. 

http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_show/video/?pid=_BN03qjGeQt4ReFhPVPQt1jgRg2mdZHv

More off key singing and you tube videos of the family.  Love it.

ps- The cake was the Chocolate Ganache from Diamond Head Bakery.  It was light and fluffy, chocolately, but not too dense. Delicious.

We celebrated Labor Day and Julie’s Birthday  at Bellow’s Air Force Base Cabins.

Our view was pretty sweet.  Jr. requested beach front cabins, so our newly renovated (and thus, very nice) cabin was right on the sandy beach.

We had a great time eating food, roasting marshmallows, and playing mini golf.  We had an especially successful day on the golf course– Four hole in ones! (Two from Janell!)

Random NYC pictures.  Jonathan and I only spent five days in New York, but we were able to cram in a ton of sightseeing.

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge

Times Square!  It was so bright and loud.  They put up bleachers, so you can just sit and people watch all night.

We went to the Broadway show, Avenue Q.  It’s about puppets in New York.  Here I am goofing around infront of the theater.

Jonathan in front of the “Friends” apartment on the corner of Grove and Bedford street in the West Village.

I was lucky enough to get tickets to a Letterman taping.  It was awesome.

Washington Square Park. Home of “Dosa Man”.

We got dinner with my old friend Tina at Fig and Olive in the Meat Packing district.

Brooklyn Flea Market, right under the Brooklyn Bridge.  It read about it in my House Beautiful magazine and wanted to check out the junk collection.

Jonathan and I aren’t foodies, but we love to eat.   I was scrolling through our pictures, and I noticed that a ton of our pictures revolved around food.  Here’s some of the food highlights of our trip.

A yummy corn and cheese concoction from a street fair on Broadway.

Crumbs Bake Shop Vanilla cupcake with sprinkles.  “Best Cupcake in NYC”.   Delicious.

Lobster rolls  at Brooklyn Flea.  Expensive ($13!!!!), but decadent.

Pupusas from the Red Hook soccer field vendors.  I chose the pork and cheese and the chicken pupusa.  Each pupusa are made by hand while you wait;  $5 for two piping hot pupusas, plus sides.

Bagels from H and H Bagels, lox from Zabars, and a nice picnic in Central Park.

Masala Dosa and Roti from the all vegan Vendy award winning street cart at Washington Square park.  The line was long, but for $5, this was a steal.

And, of course, our DB Bistro meal.  Definitely the fanciest meal in NYC.  I got the DB Burger-  Foi Gras,  black truffle, and  braised short rib- and  Jonathan got the pre-theater prix fixe menu and enjoyed lamb with gnocci and pureed peas.

We had a great time in New York.  We primarily went to watch tennis at the US Open.  The US Open is like Disneyland for Tennis fan, so we watched a ton of tennis.   There are 18 courts and matches are scheduled all day.  In total, we watched over 12 hours of tennis a day, and between sets, or if it got too hot, we enjoyed hanging out at the practice courts or trying out the tennis related activities on site.  We took a ton of pictures of tennis players– Here’s a picture of Federer (in red) during his first round match against Devon Britton.

We also stalked tennis players, ESPN and Tennis Channel commentators…

Jelena Jankovic

Tested Jonathan’s service speed.  (It registered 122 mph!)…

And goofed on an empty court.  Someone forgot to lock up for the night, so Jonathan and I enjoyed checking out the courts.

Nontennis NYC pictures tomorrow!

Happy to be home!

We got back tonight after a fun, but very busy five days in New York.   On the way home, we picked up the puppies from Grandma and Grandpa Sato’s.  They had a great time running around Grandpa’s yard and fell asleep as soon as we got home!

I’ll put up some pictures tomorrow after work.