It was a busy Saturday for me. My son is in the Hilo High Band who marched in the Veteran’s Day parade in downtown Hilo.

My daughter had her first high school soccer tournament that weekend at HPA in Waimea.  Or so we thought.  More on that later. Luckily, my son could catch a ride with a friend to and from the parade and so I drove just over an hour to Waimea.  I left a little earlier than necessary so that I had time to stop at the Parker School farmer’s market that is on the way to the HPA campus where the soccer tournament was. It was a beautiful, slightly windy day in Waimea.

I decided to get an acai bowl from Hina Rae’s and selected Hina Rae’s original bowl. It was delicious!

I asked for it to be packed so that I could eat it at HPA while I watched the soccer game.  They wrapped it in foil and I easily transported it with me to the field. When I got to the field, I easily found parking, which surprised me a little.  But I thought maybe we were the first game and I was just extra early. I saw my daughter and her team warming up on the field but no one else was there except for our team and some parents. After about 10 minutes of warming up, my daughter came to my car and informed me that due to a miscommunication, we were at the wrong location!  No wonder I had such a good parking space. The actual location of the tournament was at Kealakehe in Kona! I gave the rest of my huge acai bowl to my daughter and she shared it with her teammates on the unexpected drive to the tournament.  We totally missed the first game since this field is another hour away from where we were. I figured that since I was already halfway to Kealakehe, I might as well drive out to watch at least one game.  We played our second and third scheduled games and the coordinators were flexible and rescheduled the game we missed later in the day.  What a fun time our Hilo High JV Girls soccer team had. For some of the girls, this was their first soccer game of their lives and they did great!  Goals were scored and the athletes bonded well with each other. I’m looking forward to an exciting soccer season!

After the first game I watched, I had to leave the tournament and get back to Hilo to get my son to the semifinal HHSSA football game that Hilo High played against Maui. Since Kealakehe is so close to Costco, I made an unplanned stop there on the way home for my dinner.

I bought some bread, garlic shrimp poke, and tapenade. Since my son was going to be at the football game and my daughter was going to be at a soccer sleepover, I thought this dinner (and a glass of wine) would be the perfect way to unwind after a long day of cheering and driving. Well–my plans didn’t quite go the way I had hoped.  My daughter came back from her soccer games later than expected, the football game finished earlier than expected and so I didn’t have too much time to sit and relax with my pupu and a book before having to pick up daughter and feed her dinner then pick up son then drop daughter off at soccer sleepover and finally get home with son. We had to get to bed early because we were working at the Sunrise Athletics Fun Run the next morning.  That’s ok.  Once my children graduate and (hopefully) go off to college, I’ll have lots of time to relax, right? I’m enjoying every moment with them while I can. Living Hilo Style.