"4th of July, Luau!"

The 4th of July and Luau's have a lot in common. They both call for friends and family. The warm weather. Lots of food and fun. All you need to do is add some games, some quick recipes and some decorations. A pool would be great. If not, I have some other ideas.

Your local party store can help provide decorations, and other supplies. Also the Oriental Trading company online, is a good place to shop. While shopping, look for paper plates, napkins and cups. It's not hard to find them with flowers on them. Even plain white plates would go well if you find the wicker plate holders. I've seen the flowered plates, dolphins, aloha shirt plates and even Tiki plates, with the napkins and cups to match. They even have the party invitations to match. You can find fish nets almost anywhere and after you put it up you can add some seashells. You can find seashells and colorful starfish by the dozen at either of those stores.

For our upcoming 4th of July Luau, we passed out the Aloha shirt Invitations and wrote their names and their Hawaiian names on them. Trying to say and remember everyones Hawaiian names will be fun. We will pass out Lei's, that we had bought by the dozen, as everyone arrives and will have the Hawaiian CD playing. We are fortunate to have a swimming pool and will have starfish at the bottom for kids to find and to keep for themselves. So the fastest divers and swimmers will have the most. Lei's and starfish are already two party favors that they get to take home. We will be playing the Beach boys CD as everyone swims and plays games. You can get your music from Kaaza or order online. We have quite a few bamboo poles. With the poles they can play limbo in the pool by swimming lower and lower, trying not to touch the pole. Limbo can be played without a pool of course. We will also have the aloha potato sack race. I found the aloha sacks at the oriental trading company. We will also have the aloha bowl. I have saved some 2 liter bottles that i will fill a quarter of the way up and use a coconut to see who can knock down the most bottles. The last game we will have is a pinata. You can easily find pinatas. If you don't have a pool and this is a party for kids. A sprinkler and/or a slip and slide would be great.

For the Buffet table, I bought a grass Hawaiian table skirt. I will have whole pineapples as decoration, maybe lei's wrapped around the bottoms of the pineapples and silk flower petals thrown around. We have the tiki theme for our 4th of July Luau. You can also buy the coconut cups for your drinks and hibiscus decorated straws.

The food buffet, i have kept simple. After all, i also want time to enjoy myself. For drinks, i will mix a little bit of orange juice to 7-up, then mix it up, add sliced strawberries and oranges and lots of crushed ice. I will also have a cooler with sodas available. I'm making fruit kabobs. On the kabobs, i will have pineapple, kiwi, papaya, and strawberries. Assorted differently for each kabob. I will have teriyaki chicken kabobs. Rice and noodles, add your own shoyu sauce. I may, make manapua or just order it at Zippy's online. They have all the Hawaiian locals favorites menu to choose from. Manapua is one of my favorites. I also love the saimen noodles, nothing else like them. Unless you have them, you won't understand. If I don't order the saimen noodles then i may substitute with raimen noodles and have the shoyu sauce available. Also shoyu sauce and soy sauce is different, At least for me. For dessert we will have coconut petites, and available diced pineapple. I have bought serving platters and bowls from the party store also.

After dark, we will have a few fireworks ourselves and may go see more. We will come back and light the Tiki torches and the fire pit for the kids to roast marshmallows. We will have sparklers for the kids. I bought plenty of torches, so there will be more than enough light for swimming. Well the only thing we aren't having is a roasted pig. Manapua is pork, so that will have to do.

Good luck, I hope you have just as much fun as my family, friends and me.