Milestone Weekend!

This was a very important weekend, for it marked several milestones in our new adventures in Hilo. It was this week a year ago that we packed all of our belongings into a 20 ft metal container (which those of you who saw it may remember that, given the conditions of the container, it was questionable at best whether it would survive the trip to Hawai'i).

This week was also the end of the girls first year of school here in Hilo, and not only that, but Hana's graduation ceremony from Kindergarden.....and that's how the weekend started:

Kindergarden Graduation Ceremony

The ceremony was short and sweet. The class stood in front and they sang some songs, recited some prayers and then each kid got an award based on some skill they excelled in. Hana's award was in reading! Here she is receiving her award from her teacher.

Here is her class signing a song about living in Hawai'i

St. Joseph's Kindergarden class of 07!

Hana and her teacher.

FIESTA!!!!!!

In Hawai'i is traditional to throw a big Luau party when your child turns one year old, and I mean BIG Luau..... So we figured, we've been here one year lets throw a one year Luau.

But then Charlotte had the bright idea of making it a Mexican Luau, I mean, everyone here has had Luau food (and after being at Leslie and Macario's Luau it would be a tough challenge to match) so she said "lets give them real mexican food". And so the idea was born.

The weekend before the party Charlotte and a friend (who happens to be an Excellent cook!) spent all day at home making like 3million tamales. They made pork in red chili sauce tamales and cheese tamales (yumm).

Then during the week she made a traditional pinata from scratch! We found out that the original pinata (the one that kind of looks like a sputnik, round with spikes around it) had 7 spikes representing the 7 capital sins. That is how the first priests from Spain taught the native indians in Mexico that if you break away your sins you get a treat (or something like that). Our Pinata I believe had only 5 spikes, we figured gluttony could be taken off and pride wasn't that bad either...... Here she is with her creation:

For the party Charlotte got online some mexican party banners and strung them all over the place, we set out the canopy in the back yard and the menu was:


Tamales of course

Obliguitos, or sopitos


Chicharrones (pork rinds)

Ceviche

Cilantro mousse

Cocos Colima Style : a BIG hit amongst locals! coconut meat with lime salt & valentina sauce

We also had: chips and salsas, pico de gallo, requeson spread, champinones al ajillo, nopal salad, and flan for dessert.

Drinks, besides mexican beer we had:

Agua Fresca

Home made cerveza!

Party Scenes:

Detail of the decoration

Fresh cut flowers (from the market)

A comer!

Doing the Hula

Jump-a-thon

going for the food

Talkin' story, or "en el chisme"

Pinata Time!

Charlotte keeps the rowdy masses under control while they wait for their turn

whacking the treats out of the capital sins

Reinforcing the attaching mechanism after a little mishap...

Collecting the treats

Beach Sunday

After that long party, we needed a break so we headed out to Honoli'i Beach Park, it was a beautiful sunny summer day. Waves were small which meant that very few surfers would be ther, and the ones that were there would be the mellow gentle kind, or beginners like us so it was perfect. We took the board and the boogey boards and had a nice fun time at the beach....

Hasta la Proxima! .... A Hui Hou!

Curious Factoid for our friends in Arizona
We seem to be going through a serious drought here in Hilo. Precipiation year to date has only been 40.41"!, normal year to date should be 54.22"......oh dear!
We haven't had any significant rain for at least the last TWO FULL WEEKS!!!!
We've actually had to water some of our plants!
High temperature over the weekend reached a sweltering 86F!

PS: Many of the pictures from the Mexican Lua'u were courtesy of our Famous Writer friend Leslie Lang. If you need to have any written work done, you should contact her. Visit her website at : www.leslielang.com