Everyone gets Leid at a Hula Party!

I like to throw parties but because of my lack of patio furniture, I take advantage of the areas offered to us at the park where we stay. I also like to have "theme" parties. You may remember my Italian-themed bocce ball party that I held at the beautiful bocce ball courts that were newly built this year.

It's been getting warmer finally, so I decided to have a Luau Party. I reserved (free of charge) the barbecue patio right next to the pool. There is a huge gas grill, several round tables and chairs, and a nice overhang to shade from the sun. I wanted to play the game, "Pictionary", and asked at the office if they had a small dry erase board that they used at meetings that I could possibly borrow. Well, low and behold, they checked around and it seemed that the only thing they had available was this huge board on wheels. Yes! Score! So two lovely gentlemen wheeled that bad boy down to the area the morning of the party, including the markers and eraser.

I tried my hardest to get some Hawaiian music - I asked everyone if they owned any, I searched my library - and nothing. If I was really on the ball I could have ordered some CD's from another library, but I guess I wasn't that sharp. Then my sister told me about Pandora radio. Have you heard about this? You go to www.pandora.com and it is a virtual radio station. You make your own radio station, pick your own songs and/or artists. It is so cool. So I chose "Hawaiian Music" and wha-lah! All morning in my trailer I was listening to that kind of music. Great! I just needed to hook up speakers to my laptop and bring both down to the patio, hook up to the Wi-Fi and we'd be all set. Jim ran out and bought an IPOD docking station with speakers and it worked great at home.

Everyone was pitching in and bringing food. We were bringing salmon. This recipe, which we got from Jim's brother, Mark, (thanks, Mark!), makes the salmon taste like lobster, or put near. Maybe it's because of all the butter you smother it with......

This is for a big slab of salmon. We had a piece about a foot long by 4 or 5 inches wide.

MARINADE

1/2 cup of butter
1 Tablespoon white worcestershire sauce
1 pinch of rosemary
1 pinch of oregano
1 pinch of parsley
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt


Microwave the butter to soften it enough to mix the above ingredients into a sauce. We usually let the mixed marinade cool so it is somewhat thick when applying it to the salmon. This gives a little more time to apply it before it melts and drips into the coals or gas grill causing flame-ups.


MIX MARINADE AND SET ASIDE.

Sprinkle sea salt over the meat side of the salmon (about 10 granules per square inch)

Sprinkle sugar on the same side.

Let this sit for about 30 minutes.

Grill salmon meat side down for about 10 minutes per inch of thickness.*

Flip salmon over to skin side.

Spread marinade over salmon and grill until done.

It's usually best to do the grilling with the grill closed.

*Our piece of salmon did not have any skin on it so Jim put the marinade on both sides of the fish and it turned out great.


I also made a coconut rice, which I got from the Food Network. It is delish and one of my favorite rice dishes. Other meat dishes included sweet and sour pork and chicken chow mein. We had all kinds of appetizers and desserts, too.

A couple of friends arrived early to help me decorate. Jim plugged in our laptop and the first problem we had was - NO ELECTRICITY. YIKES! So I had to go to the office and report that little detail. Luckily they jumped right on it and sent someone down. It must have been a minor problem because we had electricity in no time. Next problem? No music. The Wi-Fi was so slow that we couldn't download the music. I was a little upset because I DO believe that music makes the party! Jim ran home and grabedb my IPOD, but I didn't have any Hawaiian music on it. The crowd didn't seem to mind.

I greeted everyone with a kiss on both cheeks (on their face!) and put a lei around their neck.

Party Guests



Shannon's grandson, Blake, was visiting her, so he joined in the fun.











The "crazy ladies", a.k.a. Sandy and Carol.



These aren't all the guests, but a good handful of them.

Come and get it!



Yum!




The definite hit of the day was the game. Oh, I forgot to mention that I could NOT find my game ANYWHERE. So last minute frantic search and a friend came up with a similar game. Whew!

Here is Sue with a "WTF" expression on her face. Funny, we had the same expression on all of our faces. I can't remember what she was trying to draw, but when she told us what it was supposed to be, we all had a good laugh.



It was the men, the "cocoNUTS" against the women, the "leis". It was a pretty close game, although I must say the men cheated a lot. Then things started going down hill fast. Carl got up and drew something like this:




It didn't have anything to do with the game. Give up? It's a fat man on a stool.


Well, I couldn't let him show me up. So I stood up and drew this one.



Know what it is? It's a giraffe walking past a window.

It doesn't stop there, folks. Oh no it doesn't. Here's one more.





Think out of the box. It's two people walking a(breast).

I know. Us old people know how to have fun.

The moral of the story is, it doesn't matter that everything goes wrong no matter how much you plan. As long as you have good friends, good food, AND A LOT OF BOOZE, there will be GOOD TIMES!!!