There was no mistaking that Kristie Suza was throwing a Super Bowl party at her Palolo Valley home.

Orange, blue and white balloons fluttered in the wind just outside her garage. A massive propane grill was about to be fired up. And neighbors looked on as Suza's cousin, Tiffany Jardine, used cans of orange and blue spray paint to write "Bears vs. Colts" on a light blue banner hanging from the fence.

"We do this every year," said Suza, dressed in a bright orange T-shirt and wearing orange and blue gift-wrapping ribbons in her hair. "It's a family thing. We love football."

In the past, Suza's party included 20 or more guests, but almost half the family is away on a trip to Las Vegas, she said.

About 10 members of Suza's family sat around in the garage watching the pre-game television broadcast on a big-screen Sony propped up on two stacks of tires.

"Go Olin (Kreutz)," Jardine yelled, as the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts prepared for kickoff. Jardine said she is related to Kreutz, the Bears' center and Saint Louis School graduate.

And when the Bears' Devin Hester returned the kickoff for a touchdown, Suza's party erupted.

"It's been 21 years for Chicago. They're hungry," shouted Martin Verece, Suza's cousin, who is visiting from Hilo, Hawai'i. "It's going to be a war, baby," he said.

"Yee-hee," Jardine shouted as she pounded on a folding table.

Across town, a different kind of family celebration was centered on the biggest sporting event of the year.

Kathy O'Connor surprised her 48-year-old brother, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, with a Super Bowl party of sorts in his room at the Convalescent Center of Ho-nolulu.

O'Connor went to great lengths to get her brother, Brian Burke, a longtime Bears fan, a Super Bowl T-shirt. She even got permission from his doctor to have a can of beer administered to him through his gastro tube.

A few weeks before the Super Bowl, O'Connor began looking for a Super Bowl T-shirt for her brother, but they seemed to be sold out everywhere.

"I called every place I could think of. No one had any," O'Connor said. "It made me want to get it more."

She called relatives on the Mainland and her mother was finally able to find shirts, but was worried sick that Michigan's snowstorm would slow delivery.

"I walked into the room this morning wearing my shirt and he kept eyeballing it," she said.

O'Connor soon presented Burke with his own shirt, which she cut in the back so it fit like a hospital gown.

"When you have Lou Gehrig's disease and you can't move your arms and legs, can't speak, all you can do is sit around and watch football. He watches three or four games a day," she said. "Today is extra special though, because he's been a Bears fan since he was 19."

Back in Palolo, Leynes Corpuz sat outside his house in a party tent with friends watching the big game on a projection screen.

Corpuz bought a special TV projector just for the game and sat in a darkened tent watching it on a big screen.

"Last year we brought out the TV set, but I wanted to try something else," Corpuz said, as droves of his son's friends arrived just after kickoff.

"Have you seen the high definition?" asked his friend Lester Kapuniai. "Its beautiful. Can't compare."

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.