Aloha Summer 2014: Oops, we missed it...

Fail
A great thing about having a holiday fall on a Friday, is that you still have the weekend afterwards to have some fun! And there were so many options of things to do, we wanted to make sure to take advantage. However, our plans fell short when we slept in and didn't make it to the Makawao Rodeo Parade. Ah well, we still had intentions of going to a barbecue and then heading to the actual rodeo later in the afternoon. But this is how my day went instead...

Brunch
Since the parade was at 9, and that's about the time we got up, we decided to go get something to eat. E had mentioned a place called Baked on Maui that she wanted to take me to, and brunch sounded about right, so we headed out to Haiku. The place has a covered patio with tables for outdoor dining which meant she could take Jordan (her dog) with us, so she was happy about that. I ordered a spinach omelette with bacon, which was pretty good. E said they had the best chocolate croissants, so she got one for us to share. OMG! So delicious. I mean, you'd really have to try hard to screw up a chocolate croissant in my book. In fact, we often make them with Pillsbury pre-made croissants (I just like saying that - "croissant") and chocolate chips. But this one was definitely a notch above any I've ever had. I guess I now know what they mean when they describe a flaky buttery crust, because I could really relate to that. Plus, they were warm and the chocolate was melty... Ok - enough about that. Brunch was good is my point.

Baked on Maui
375 W Kuiaha, Pauwela Cannery, Haiku, Hawaii 96708

More new friends = No Rodeo, but there was Karaoke & a Pirate
E was invited (and when I say E, I mean wE, because that's the rule - remember?) to another barbecue by a friend who was actually invited to the barbecue. The plan was to meet up with his group at the hostesses house and walk over to where the parade was going to be held and then come back to her place to hang out and eat before heading over to the rodeo. But this is how it went instead...

As I mentioned above, we missed the parade, and since we ate brunch and it seemed late for the barbecue, we figured we would skip eating with the group and just head over to the rodeo with them. There was a good sized group of people gathered and E's friend did a quick introduction. I'm getting pretty good at party crashing by now, so we sat on some blankets that were laid out on the grass and sparked up conversation with A'n (E's friend), S'h, and A'm. Turned out that S'h was actually invited to the barbecue but A'm, it turns out, was a tag-along - almost like me. The story was that S'h and A'm have a mutual friend and the mutual friend told A'm to contact S'h while he was here. He had just decided recently to make the trip and didn't have any plans or travel partners, so when S'h told him about the barbecue, he decided to join.

The hostess sat and chatted with us too and let us know that we were more than welcome. We ended up staying so long, we had a late lunch and by the time we went to the rodeo, it was pretty much done. A group of us decided to go to one of the few local restaurants (The Stopwatch) and grab a bite to eat and a drink and we ended up running into a few others who had left the party earlier that evening. Did I mention that the original friend that invited E had left by this time, so we were now hanging out with his friends and the other tag-along from Connecticut?

Well, we ate and drank (I became the DD at this point, which is unusual, but totally cool) and sang along (some performed) to karaoke. Finally, it was down to me, E, A'm (the other newbie) and the hostess, E'a, who had not been feeling any pain since the early afternoon. We were happy that she was prepared for nights like this as she came with her own headlamp - which helped immensely on our dark late-night walk to her home to pick up our cars. I thought it was pretty funny that out of all the people - she ended up with three total strangers she had met just earlier in the day. In the end, we all made it home, safe and sound, with no bull riding stories to tell, but with a handful of new friends - which I think, is even better.

And. We met a pirate.