A Luau For Our Friends

Last summer Devin's friend Jimmy Kaholoaa came to South Carolina to help with things and  witnessed all of the generosity that was being shown to our family.  He suggested that we host a luau to show our appreciation, so this May he found a pig in the Polynesian town of Utah. He cooked it, froze it, and checked coolers full of pork on his flight back to the South.  

 

We thought we would be doing all of the work for the luau, but as word got out that we were having a luau, some of the same friends that helped us before helped us again!  Becuase the luau was the same day as the Run Ella Run race, much of the coordination and planning was done without our involvement. 

Hand-drawn wall art

This fruit table was the center of the room.  Jimmy had done many luau's in many parts of the world, but was impressed with many of the decorations and ideas that Dacia and her friends came up with.

 These very creative center pieces were created one late night while the dads were on a father & sons campout. 

We had far more food than we could have eaten.  The biggest hits were the desserts.  The pineapple-upside-down cakes were delicious, but the guava cakes were unbelievable. And they looked just as amazing. 

 Our friend, Milo, gave our boys matching Hawaiian shirts and all the guests wore plastic leis. 

Milo's family also arranged to have dancers come and perform various Polynesian dances while the guests ate.  Our boys even got up in front of all of the guests to perform one of the dances that they just learned. 

It was so much work that as we were preparing for the luau, we were often reminding ourselves that this luau would only be a one-time event.  However, after the luau was over, we felt that this life doesn't get much better than good food shared with good friends.  We may just have to do it again sometime.