Fara-Mone's Luau

Tonight was Fara-Mone's Graduation Luau!
Boy! These locals sure put a lot of work into their celebrations!! It was wonderful though!
There was even a rainbow just for Fara's special day :o)

There were TONS of people!! When we got there, they had a nice little greeting table set up where we got to sign the guest book, and greet Fara.

Here's Fara's sister, Charne, greeting everyone with her cute smile

The Luau theme was "A Whole New World" because she's leaving the warm, beautiful islands of Hawai'i to go to the nasty cold mainland, where the only "beach" will be the Great Salt Lake, to attend college at BYU Provo in Utah!
(sorry to all of you Utah lovers out there...but i'm not one of them)

Here's Fara on the other side of the greeting table, greeting everyone who came in.
See all of her leis?? I hugged her and said, "IT'S STARTING......!"
because I'll never forget the leis up to her eyeballs at graduation!!


The entertainment: Click PLAY to hear a little bit of a song that they played
by IZ called "A White Sandy Beach of Hawaii"



I love how they decorated the stage with their little Arabian castles!!
So creative!

Now, I just found out that Fara's dad, Frank, has a hidden talent!!
He whipped this up for stage decoration!
Way to go Frank!
YOUR SECRET IS OUT!


The tables were decorated with silver buckets with pink tissue paper inside, and a little bitta *bling*bling* spilling out onto the table, and of course Plumeria flowers:


And the AMAZING Maria Hodges made Fara's cake!!
BEFORE:

AFTER:
Yeah, they destroyed it! But it tasted SOOOOOOO good!
I secretly wanted the Genie Lamp, but I thought that'd be rude.
But no one took it!!!! I shoulda taken it when I had the chance!! LOL
I heard it was a big Rice Krispie treat!! Yummmm!


I took this picture at the very beginning. By the end of the night, the gym was packed!!


Here's everyone getting a few appetizers before the Luau began:
(you can see Matthew)


My crazy kids

Natalie wanted to make a funny face....
i think she's accidentally flippin' the bird! LOL!

Here's Nathan's "Take a picture of me Mama!" face:

Matthew looks GROSS in this picture! I call it Gargamel:

Ok, back to the Luau!
Manu was the MC because he's so good at it, and in the beginning, he called the Akhay ohana up on stage so everybody could see who they were:


Then he introduced all of Fara's fellow Kamehameha graduates who were attending,
and they SANG!


Then Fara invited anyone who knew the hula to "Where I live there are Rainbows"
Here's the video:



After that, we had a blessing on the food (in Hawaiian) and then it was TIME TO EAT!
The line wrapped around the whole gym!!!! I couldn't believe it!

Here's what I ended up with:
SOOOOOOO ONO!
(but not the poi... sorry sis. DeRego)


Mi Familia being silly

I had to PASS on the fish heads....

Fara was so sweet to give ME a lei for helping her out:


Now HERE COMES THE GOOD PART.......
The rest of this blog is purely VIDEOS of the entertainment!!!
So you must watch:

First up, was Precious, a girl from Wahiawa 3rd ward.
She's Samoan, so here she is doing a Samoan dance:


I couldn't help but laugh at Manu (who is also Samoan)
dancing backstage, having a good ol' time!



Next up was MORE Samoan dancers :o)
Who DOESN'T like brown men, with tattoos, in skirts??
Cuz if I'm wrong... I don't wanna be right! LOL!



After that, Fara and her cousins came up on stage and did this neat little dance (i think it's Samoan too) all dedicated to Fara!
Listen for them to shout "FARA!"

Who'da thought that all you need is a chair and two wooden spoons to make a drum at church? LOL!

Next up was Nalu Rivera and I don't know the other little boy, doing a hula.
Yes, boys do hula too!



Then the little boy did another little hula by himself:



After their hula, it got exciting when the Samoan dancers came back out on stage
to do a New Zealand Haka!! It's like a war chant. I love it!
(watch their faces... in New Zealand it was a method of intimidation;
big eyes, puffed up cheeks, and long tongues!!)

Then Moana (Fara's mom) did a hula while Charne (Fara's little sis) sang,
and it made Fara CRY! :o(

Then they had a really neat PowerPoint slide show (that I didn't video)
and then Fara thanked everyone and invited all of her cousins up
to do the ELECTRIC SLIDE!!

It was the best Luau I've ever been to!!
Good luck in Utah, Fara! Bring a sweater! LOL!