the bash

Now that the weekend is over, I feel like I can finally breathe! It was a LONG weekend, but everything turned out better than we could have hoped for...so YEA for a successful party! We simply took too many pictures to post individually, but I made a slideshow of just some of the highlights from the day...

For starters, the weather forecast said scattered showers, but we were blessed with beautiful weather--sunny and breezy. It got a bit gusty here and there...but since we were on the East side of the island (where it's known to be more windy and often rainy), we weren't too surprised. It actually made the heat more bearable and was actually quite welcome.

We weren't able to do all the games we had planned (over-planning on our part...) but got in most of the activities we had hoped to. Waterballoon fights (this was not planned...but we managed to save a few waterballoons for our waterballoon toss competition), limbo competition, races (did you notice my sister Airi competing with the kids? oh, and the Dad's got WAAAY into the race and asked for a "photo finish" to see who won...just a tad too competative, don't cha think?), pin the tail on eeyore, and then the pooh pinata. The pinata looked a bit creepy since it was only the "head" of pooh...also, it was one of those pull string pinata's (where you pull ribbons and the "one" ribbon opens it up instead of having to hit it), but we decided to let the kids take turns at bat & they ended up hitting it open at the last "whack." Yay for more sweets!!

Finally, after all the games were done and the food eaten, we hit the beach. The beach on this side of the island is a bit rocky (and out deeper, is known to be shark infested!) but along the shallow shoreline it's super warm and crystal clear. The kiddies had so much fun splashing around, we seriously had to pry them away from the water when it got time to go. Especially Anna... our little Mermaid. She loves the water & the waves. We have to always watch her because she heads straight out into the water with no fear--and me being the paranoid person that I am, had to literally fight to keep her close by. And since the weather was so breezy, we completely forgot to put sunblock on the girls until the very end...so we all got a bit pink at the end of the day. Oops. Anna didn't even stop to take a nap the entire day-until it was time to break down camp. She was "out cold" before we even left the park, and Kela followed soon after we left the parking lot.

I so wanted to join them and take a long nap, but we actually had a busy evening as well. After letting the girls nap for less than 2 hours, we headed out to Waikiki to meet up with Mitch's Aunt to take them shopping and run some errands. We ended up getting home at midnight...TOO LONG OF A DAY FOR ME!! I don't think I've yet to recoup all my energy! But, it was a lovely day and we all agreed that it was a success! Especially Mitch who hasn't gotten a day off in FOREVER, got to enjoy a day of no flying, teaching, or stressing about the construction of our house...Horray!