Waimea Cherry Blossom Heritage Festival

This morning we went to the Waimea Cherry Blossom Heritage Festival. This was the 25th celebration and it was packed! We parked at the Waimea Rugby Club field along with a lot of other people; its right across the street from Church Row where a lot of activities were taking place. But the main entertainment was at the Parker Ranch Center; we took a shuttle over to the center.

Can you guess which direction the prevailing wind blows from?

The Parker Ranch Center is where they had the entertainment and more vendors & food booths. There was about 30 minutes of bon odori, Arlene & some people from the church were dancing there. Governor Ige was also dancing! We happened to be right along the path that his security guards led him so we got to shake hands with him; I wasn't fast enough to get a photo of him with Kai. Big Island Mayor Kim also shook our hand; I wasn't prepared for that either. FYI The security guards were wearing Aloha shirts instead of suits.

Governor Ige is in red in the center; the guy to the left is one of his security guards.

Governor Ige with one of his other security guards to the left.

Arlene in center in happi coat with pink trim.

After we walked around and looked at several of the booths we had lunch at one of the food tents. Kai had the Kalbi Plate and I had the Pork BBQ Plate; forgot to get photos of either of them. After lunch we returned to Church Row to look for cousin Leilani. She was volunteering at the booth for the Kamuela Hongwangi; we found her in the kitchen.

Besides Chantilly & Lilikoi Mousse cheesecake from 808 Cheesecake, we also stopped at the Manuela Malasada Company food truck at Waimea Center for malasadas and poke nachos. Kai says Leonard's Bakery plain malasadas are better than the Tex Drive In ones and Leonard's filled malasadas are better than Manuela; he says he now needs to try Tex filled and Manuela plain. I liked the poke nachos the best!

This one at Waimea Center is supposed to be the best of the franchise; we've been told not to go to the one at Puako.

Ordering directions.

Poke nachos.

While on the way back we saw a car that was decorated to look like Lightning McQueen from the animated movie Cars and the sequels. There were so many people and cars at both places Kai was wondering if everyone on the island was there!


When we got back to the house I checked my texts and found that Pat had sent me information about the motion detector floodlights. He said to go and pick out what I wanted at Sunshine True Value, so I did. I got a 180 degree one for along the side of the garage, a 270 degree fixture for the back corner of the garage, and LED floodlight bulbs for both. While there I saw a pink power strip and a candy-striped one!



We started out the morning with bagels from Mamane Bakery for breakfast. I unpacked the antique toaster oven and fired it up! It still works fine.



After dinner tonight, Arlene brought over Big Island Candies Apple Pie & Roselani Hawaiian Vanilla Ice Cream for Lem, Jessie, Kai & me. We also sampled the cheesecakes and malasadas that we picked up at the festival. I always like getting together with them to hear what has been going on in the community.

Happy Birthday to cousin Fran! Happy Birthday also to Susan!