Wahiawa Pineapple Festival

Son1 and I attended the Wahiawa Pineapple Festival together. Hubby was home writing more grad school papers, and Son2 was taking a much needed nap after breakfast at Sandy's.

Wahiawa is a little town on the way to the North Shore. It was here that Del Monte company first grew and canned pineapple in 1902. In July 1900, James Drummond Dole won a government auction for 61 acres of land. He built the Dole cannery next to his pineapple fields in Wahiawa and packed his first cans in 1903. By 1904, Wahiawa was known as "The City of Pines". Some years ago, the Wahiawa Pineapple Festival came to be.

Another major pineapple company is the Maui Gold Company. Thought the company has been in existence since the 1900s, it took them nearly 80 years of hybridization to develop this particular pineapple variety. It has only been sold for the last 12 years. These pineapples have 3x the Vitamin C, are juicier, and less acidic.

Do you love their float with the surf boards and hula skirt for the truck? In Hawaii, parade floats give out goodies. I never imagined we would get whole pineapple.

Son1 clutches his pineapple gift

We also got pineapple from the folks on the Dole float. Below, behind the costume pineapple is a papaya tree. It must have been at least twelve feet tall. The Dole float was a plantation theme, with a fruit stand. That is how Dole first started in Hawaii, as a road side stand. If you look between the two girls in the yellow Dole shirts you will see the word Dole. The letters are all made of fresh island flowers in a lei fashion. Below the pineapple characters are real pineapple plants. This is a children's ukulele band. A ukulele is a Hawaiian small instrument derived from the Portuguese guitar in the 19th century. It only has four strings, and is played by plucking. Most traditional Hawaiian music incorporated the ukulele.

Wahiawa is just outside of Schofield Barracks, the army post on this side of the island. Mahalo Nui Loa means thank you from the heart in Hawaiian. To the right of the American flag is the red, white, and blue Hawaiian flag.

After the parade, Son1 and I made our way to the festival held in the community park. The camera was left in the car. That's too bad. I didn't get pictures of the pineapple salsa or the pineapple chocolate dipping station, or any of the other free pineapple food. But my biggest regret was not taking pictures of the Chinese lion dance, because I learned so much, including feeding the lion with money.

The Chinese lions were accompanied by drums, a gong, and cymbals. These instruments are the voices of the lions, and set the mood for the lion dancers. The lion dance is performed by two dancers, one at the head, and the other at the tail. There were two lions. When they began dancing, and when they finished, they bowed to one another, three times each. These particular lions (by their facial features) were male. When there is more than one lion dancing, one lion is the alpha male, and the other follows suit. This wasn't too hard for these lions, since one lion was danced by adults, and the smaller lion was danced by keiki (children in Hawaiian). The lion cub copied everything the alpha lion did. Neither lion turns his back on the other, as a means of respect, and also civilization and tameness. As the lions dance by, it is common to give the lion money, to bring good fortune. This particular dance organization is a non-profit that preserves Chinese culture, so any money they receive goes into their dance club fund.

Son1 really wanted to feed the lion, so I handed him a dollar. When the lion danced by he became so timid. The instruments were very, very loud! He watched another little girl feed the lion a dollar through his mouth. Son1 felt brave instantly, and headed toward the head of the lion. The lion's head dropped low to the ground, as part of the dance. He missed Son1's hand! The dance jumped up high, and extended the lion's head far above his own head. As he came down, a boy reached through the mouth of the lion, and clasped the dollar from Son1's hand. He absolutely loved it!

Parade Groupies

We missed THE big electrical parade downtown. No matter. We hit the second largest electrical parade on the island! After sitting in traffic on a single off ramp for eons, we turned into the closest parking lot. With the hoards of people no one would think to park there, BUT THE FARMERS. We bounded out of our car, and snuck into the last group the police allowed to cross the street into the parade route. We popped open our folding chairs in the middle of an intersection, on a triangular concrete island, host to the traffic signal. Yup, Hubby, HERE is where we should sit.

Son1 is looking on at the University of Hawaii mascot, Vili the Warrior. He is an entertainer that has been the mascot for the last 7 years. He is a controversial mascot, because he fully gets into his Warrior act. The fans go nuts. The University of Hawaii football team is the WAC champion, and will play in the Sugar Bowl.

Infamous Engine 50 that we will ride later in the month.

Most of the vehicles honked and turned on sirens. Hubby loved on Son2 and cupped and covered his ears to keep him from being upset.

These folks belong to some sort of legion of people that walk around dressed up like this.

This was my favorite vehicle. It was blaring Transformers music from the movie. The transformer actually came out of the top and started to transform. Then the hood of the engine popped forward. It was very robotic and synchronized.

We asked Son1 if he wanted to go to a parade before we left the house. He responded by asking me for a bag for his candies. I cracked up. He remembered from last weekend and was prepared.

He figured out rather quickly he could get a limited amount of candy sitting on this curb.





So he went to stand with the big boys. And I supervised. A grandmother went and scolded some of the bigger kids for not giving candy to Son1. Sheepishly they came over and offered Son1 some candy. HA! He just stared at them, like, what's your problem? I don't want them from you. You are not part of the parade. I don't want any of your stinkin' candy. I thanked the bigger boys, anyway.

A Christmas Day

Just as hard as it is for the Farmers to be away from family, it is hard for the grandparents, too. They don't often get to do all of the grandparenty kind of things they always imagined they would. So I planned a Christmas grandparenty kind of day. Saturday morning started out with a Christmas parade in our town. My mom is wearing a shirt that says...There's Snowone Like my Grandkids.


A nice church along the parade route served a continental breakfast, provided parking, and provided chairs. They even took a family picture for us.

Our high school band with decorated instruments.

There is actually a man in that lion suit. The kids went nuts over him.

Ridin' local style.

Yeah the man in the red suit is driving.

Look, it's Flo from the movie, Cars.

Adults and children were Chinese dragons. The smaller dragons with the kids were too cute! Obviously there is a large Chinese population here.

These folks from a local church gave out Christmas leis and played the hand bells in the "Hawaiian station wagon." Gotta have a truck.

My favorite float, and NO that is not a guitar; it's an ukulele.

Engine 50 is a refurbished 1929 fire engine. We will be riding in it later in the month.

We were total amateurs. This is the first time we have gone to the parade. Every participant in the parade handed out candy to the kids. The kids next to us brought shopping bags to save their candy. They knew what was up. Uh huh...T.I.H. This is Hawaii. We threw our candy in the bottom of the stroller.

I rushed the family home after the parade. Son2 needed a nap, and Son1 reached a milestone: gymnastics in the 3-5 year old class, sans Mommy or Daddy. Nice. We picked up Grandma B. and we were on our way to "town." That is slang for east on the H1.
We stopped by the Winter Wonderland at the Hale Koa. Son1 pet the animated reindeer.

By this point we were starving. So we headed toward the mall 1.5 hours before the Christmas performance. Grandma B. treated us to Islands, and Son1 chomped down his meal with the promise he could ride the Candy Cane Express....the candy choo choo train that travels through the mall. The train is based on the book, The Gift of Aloha. Here is the final scene from the performance, and Son1 went nuts over snow in Hawaii. Well, Son2, did, too. I was a little concerned about him licking the wet soap bubbles...you know what ingested soap does, right?

We tried to purchase Candy Cane train tickets after the show, but they were sold out until 8:40. :( I had to tell Son1 that even though he had been the sweetest little boy, and had eaten all of his Islands dinner, we just couldn't wait that long. That would put us home and getting the 2 boys to bed at about 10pm. Not good for getting everyone out the door for church the next morning. Besides, I knew we could always come back. He cried and was heartbroken, yet again. Ugh. Here I was heart broken, too. But a few minutes later, he knocked out in the car on the way home. It was a full, full day.