A happy “Aloha Monday” to you all! It’s the start of another week here in our beautiful island home and after a full schedule of performances last week and over the weekend, I’m about ready for a little music “down time”. Last Friday and Saturday were also our last performances at both Lulu’s and Kani Ka Pila Grille for the month of July since we’re headed back up to Japan for our summer tour, but we’ll be back again in August. I’m sure after experiencing the heat and humidity of Japan’s summer for a couple of weeks, it’ll be great to get back to cool & breezy Hawai’i!
It was another packed house last Saturday at Kani Ka Pila as the boys & I gave it our all … we had performed at a graduation event earlier in the day so we were pretty much “running on fumes” by then! But the crowd was loud and energetic, and thanks to manager, Nicole, who’s back from her vacation, the evening was perfect! There were also many visitors from Japan who were here to participate in a hula competition, and we even met several from the Sendai area which was hit by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. I’d like to send a big MAHALO to Reiko of Studio Rim and her group, to Gregg & Ruthann, Eddie & Myrna Kamae, Bobby Mac and family, the Hamada family, KP, and many of our other dear friends and visitors for coming down to enjoy a really fun evening! 
Here are three of our friends from Tokyo and Chiba who not only came to all of our performances, but also shopped at IOLANI on KONA ST. – check out their very cool dresses!!
I joined the DNA Golf Club yesterday out at the New Ewa Golf Club for a relaxing round of golf … even shot a decent score of 82! Afterward, I picked up dinner at one of my new favorite take-out restaurants here in Manoa … GRYLT! Yes, the spelling may be weird but the food is awesome! Steak, chicken, fish, vegetarian – all done perfectly and served with a great variety of side dishes – and at decent prices. Check ’em out and let me know what you guys think!
We’ll be getting ready to leave for Japan this week so there’ll be no more performances except for a brief appearance at Bruce Shimabukuro’s CD release party out a Gordon Biersch on Sunday. It’ll only be me and Alex, however, since Nick will have left for Japan already …
Aloha, “D”