It’s Graduation Season

Yes, it's graduation season again. As the lu`au invitations continue to arrive I'm starting to lose sight of my fridge door. The colorful pieces of paper are neatly arranged by date and starting time.   

I’ve learned to work a ‘graduation gift card’ category into my budget for this time of the year.  I’m growing more and more impressed with the creative menus I have come across especially in the last two years, as folks have ventured from the traditional lu`au, and have opted for steak and egg breakfast,  Chinese, roast beef or pasta.

I’m glad we're giving our kole and 'opihi population a break, letting them boost their numbers – ho'ola lahui!*  

I can't wait to celebrate the class of 2007's accomplishments, taste the creative grinds, and reminisce through those photo slide shows…as it reminds me I'm getting old…er! Let's have a safe and responsible graduation season, drive carefully and aloha one another. 

*Ho'ola Lahui – King David Kalakaua, 7th monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom adopted this phrase as his motto, which means to "Increase the Race or Peoples". He did so after his wife miscarried, and he learned that many Hawaiian children were not surviving past the age of one. 

Seeing the decline of the Hawaiian population due to disease and displacement, he proclaimed this to be his mission, to see that the Hawaiian race did not fade away. Achieving a first birthday became cause for much celebration, from whence the modern day baby lu'au tradition was born.