Preparing For The Party

I've been in denial for months now about the planning for Moana's Birthday Party. I'm just not a natural party planner- that would have been a really bad profession for me. Anyway, the fact that I ignored it for so long didn't make it go away, so little by little I did start planning.

The weekend before Kona we picked the place (our friend's backyard in Kailua) and the morning before Moana and I flew to the Big Island I sent out the invitations. That was pretty much all I did until today, and the party is tomorrow!

Did you know that Costco is like the worst place to be on a Saturday morning? I never knew that, but that's because I'm usually out riding my bike on a Saturday morning. Regardless, consider yourself warned. Stay away from Costco on a Saturday. I suppose the same could be said for Sunday, but I have no first hand experience with that. Just a guess.

All I can say is that it's a good thing I got my fix in this morning before attempting to maneuver that big cart through the warehouse floor. Had I not gotten sloshed around in the Pacific Ocean for an hour first, I might have really lost it before even getting the chance to pick out any of the prepared party food in bulk.

My vision for Moana's party was that it would just be a small gathering of some of our closest friends, and those who Moana interacts with regularly. We'd just spend a couple hours in someone's backyard, maybe pick at some simple finger foods, then everyone would go home after watching Moana make a mess of herself with some birthday cake.

Scott's vision was different. He wanted all of his friends to be there. He wanted a whole array of local Hawaiian food. He wanted a band. 1st Birthdays are a really big deal here in Hawaii and people really go all out planning such things.

So it appears now that we are each going to get a bit of what we envisioned. There will likely be more people there than I'd anticipated because Scott got on the horn this morning and invited old friends whose addresses he couldn't find in time to mail an invitation. And apparently, while I was out getting sloshed around in the Pacific this morning, he found some local guys to come and play slack-key guitar tomorrow. And while I was ramming my oversized grocery cart through the oversized aisles buying oversized bags of pita chips, he was arranging for a local restaurant to supply that local kalua pig he wants. I told him that nobody actually eats that stuff, and he said that was fine. It's his daughter's first birthday party and by god, we're going to have kalua pig.

So there you have it. We'll have baked pita chips and pasta salad... and we'll also have kalua pig and beer. Most of Moana's close friends will be there, and others will come and meet her for the first time. Slack key guitarists will play while Moana discovers cake with her bare hands. And we'll take lots of pictures for the blog.