Arizona Aloha Festival

This past weekend Phoenix held it’s annual Aloha Festival at the park at Tempe Town Lake. Woo and I had gone last year (in fact, I danced last year, hard to imagine it’s been a year!) and it was actually even more crowded this year. Evidently this thing has been getting bigger and bigger since it started, which is awesome! So Jin had his first full Polynesian experience, which is a shame because he slept through most of it (haha). Woo and I had some Samoan food, or I should say we got duped into paying $12 a plate for some palusami that wasn’t very good at all, but eh, oh well. I know there were some really great food vendors and we just stumbled across the wrong one and were hungry enough not to care too much.

Of course, as with any event where our people are gathered by the thousands, we ran into friends close enough to be considered family. We grew up with Sonny Stevenson and his family back home; his sister Laurie was my college roommate and a dear friend of mine to this day. Sonny and his beautiful girlfriend Michelle were hanging out listening to the bands play on the main stage when we ran into them, so Jin got to meet his Uncle Sonny and Auntie Michelle for the first time.

Turns out I just missed Sonny’s Dad and his other sister Paula who was also a great friend from back home. Gotta love being Polynesian. I feel at home with my people even this far from home.

It was such a great day out! We ate shave ice, got some really cute t-shirts for Jin and his first ever aloha shirt, isn’t it cute?

And these are huge on him right now but I couldn't resist getting him these two as well, even though next year's Aloha Festival will probably come and go before he even fits into them.

 

The red one is a little Maori warrior doing his pukana face. As soon as Jin is old enough to learn, I'm gonna teach him how to pukana. ;)

We also watched just a little bit of the dancing, but we weren't nearly as involved as we were last year. I miss that, but I'll get back on it next year. Been a little busy lately! Here’s are a couple of throwback photos of me dancing last year with Kilali’s Polynesian Revue.
This is the connection that landed me the gig dancing at two resorts in Florida last summer. I had a blast and I’m glad I got to dance again before having babies…even though I found out when I got there that I was actually pregnant! I’m four month pregnant in this photo…

Not bad, huh? I actually look more pregnant now than in this pic, and I’ve already had the baby! Ugh, time to start dancing again. ;) And it doesn't hurt to have a nice tan, so come on summer!

I LOVE this festival, and it comes around just often enough to keep us from getting too homesick. Hope you had a great weekend as well. Aloha and Alofa!