Birthday cake .... again ?!

More Gemini babies! James Brennan, our video producer, and Kara Wagner, our office manager, are also celebrating their birthdays this month, so we headed to Stuart Anderson’s Cattle Company in Pearl City.

James’ birthday wish had already come true: This restaurant has his absolute favorite sandwich in the world, their chicken, avocado and bacon sandwich. I swear, this guy is soon going to grow feathers! He eats nothing but chicken every time we’re with him.



We all ended up choosing the same thing, except for Lissa, who had to be the rebel and try the French dip. It was OK, but I would highly recommend that if you’re a chicken lover like James, this is the place you have to go and the sandwich you want is the amazing chicken, avocado and bacon!


Kara has the sweet tooth, so we let her pick the dessert. She was still contemplating what her birthday wish would be as they got ready to blow out the candles on their birthday cake/mud pie.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to sing Happy Birthday—the wait staff took care of that—because none of us can carry a tune. Thank you, wait staff! And oodles of happy birthday wishes to our very own James and Kara!

High five!

Cathy: We did it! What a relief—our contest went live this past weekend and Lissa and I had been holding our breath along with everyone else in the office. She’s here with me and we’re doing a joint blog. Just think, with all the glitches that could have happened—

Lissa: It’s cool to see a contest coming to reality. Remember six months ago when it was just an idea? We were having a meeting in this conference room and James came up with the idea of doing a makeover contest, but one that was different.

Cathy: Well of course James—he’s our video director and the only guy we work so closely with—it all has to come back to him! He said not only do a makeover, it should turn into a TV show. We started brainstorming and one thing led to another, and we came up with the concept that it shouldn’t be just a makeover, the homeowner should be involved!

Lissa: And then as we started plotting out the contest and how it was going to work, Mari was on board to conceptualize the ideas for the website—

Cathy: What’s great about Mari, our editor, is not only does she put words in our mouth, she also puts a lot of food in our mouth! She’s a foodie, and we like that!

Lissa: And all the work that went into the look of the contest, all the ads, that was Katie, our graphic designer.

Cathy: But I have to say, the MVPs of this whole process have to be—

Lissa: Bigger Bird Creative.

Cathy: Absolutely. Annie and Aaron are our web developers and Bigger Bird at http://www.biggerbird.com/ is their company. They’re responsible for the look and functionality of our website. This contest was a whole new ballgame. It’s a whole new functionality—

Lissa: And making sure it was easy for people to enter, looked visually pleasing, going back and forth as the rules were being approved by lawyers from two companies, making sure every page was easy to navigate and user-friendly, right down to the wire!

The contest launched at midnight last Sunday, and last Saturday was amazing, let me tell you, the whole day a bunch of us—Annie, Aaron, James, Mari, Kara, Melissa and I—we were working the whole day doing last-minute touch-ups, proofing, banging out our test system and making sure it all worked, til just about midnight.

Cathy: And amazingly, everybody came through on deadline! Needless to say, it was a huge group effort.

But you know what I’m excited about, Lise? I’m excited about finding a winner. Actually finding lots of winners, because we have the seven weekly winners and the final Grand Prize winner. Seeing the entries that have come in so far, it’s heartwarming because people are saying they really want to learn.

Lissa: And you get to help them spend $30,000!

Cathy: I can do that!

Lissa: That’s going to be a heck of a living room.

Cathy: I can’t do it for everyone, but I can do it for the winners, and it’s going to be documented on TV and that’s how everybody will learn.

Lissa: Yeah, you can’t go to everybody’s house, but with the TV show at the end you’ll sort of be going into everybody’s living rooms.

Cathy: I’m relieved, I’m happy, and really excited about helping some Hawaii homeowners. We wouldn’t be able to do this without The Honolulu Advertiser promoting this contest and really getting the word out.

Lissa: And making that great full-page ad—

Cathy: And also KITV for agreeing to air the program in June.
It’s been a tremendous team effort, so I just wanted to give credit where it’s justly due and let you meet some of the people who don’t get the recognition, but who play such a huge role behind the scenes.

Great job, team! High fives all around!