This and That

This past Saturday Dave and I attended our first luau here in Hawaii. It was a "Welcome back to Paradise" luau for his unit. Normally when a unit comes back from an overseas tour (as Dave's new unit just did) they have some kind of welcome back celebration for the whole battallion...sometimes even the whole brigade. This was just a battallion level event, but his Company had a formal ball a few weeks ago.

I'm not sure if I like the formal balls better or the casual setting better. Usually, the formal ones seem more structured and intimate. I guess because you are forced to sit in a certain place with certain people and you are served your meal by a waitstaff and there's dancing and everyone is in their uniforms and fancy dresses. You have a Keynote speaker usually. It's as formal as one can get with a bunch of drunk soldiers I guess.

Now the luau was something different. It was more relaxed obviously and my feet weren't killing me because I had to wear heels all night. It was entertaining as there was a hula show. They still had pictures as you can see here.

And of course there was still the mandatory drinking and acting stupid by most of the soldiers. Dave and I usually get a good laugh out of watching people getting silly drunk...as long as we know they have a ride home who ISN'T drinking.

The food at the luau left a little something to be desired though. But maybe that was just the venue...like I said, this was our first luau so who knows. It was served buffet style and I learned that poi is not very tasty at all! I know that you're not supposed to just eat it by itself so I even tried dipping my pulled pork in it, but it just made the pork taste nasty! I learned that purple sweet potatoes aren't bad, but would probably taste better warm rather than cold. I tried chicken long rice for the first time...it was ok, but kind of bland. I have also come to realize that the Hawaiians eat white rice with everything! Must be the Asian influence here in the islands.

Dessert was good though...I love haupia and haupia cake:)

Ok, enough rambling about the luau, here's a picture of Kierian on Memorial Day at the Schofield Barracks cemetary. His troop helped put the flags on the graves and then they performed the flag ceremony that morning. This is the only picture Dave got of him and his troop. (the girls and I stayed home). I know that he enjoys doing scout stuff, I just hope it continues and drives him to get that Eagle!