Hawaii - Day 8; Riding the Storm (and the Luau!) Out

The night of Hawaii - Day 7; MORE Swimming & Some Stargazing we found out all the parks and beaches on the Hilo side of the island had already been declared closed for today due to Flossie making landfall this afternoon.  Knowing this, and realizing how tired day 9 would be with travel, we decided to purposefully sleep late.  It was still nice when we got up and ate a late breakfast.  As the wind and rain were not supposed to hit the Kona side until mid-afternoon, we snuck in some game time.  The girls and I enjoyed playing ladder toss.

I guess Gretchen played before as she won every time!  Maybe it had something to do with the late morning Pina Colada!?!?

We then snuck into Kona to buy Hawaiian shirts for the luau as well as some t-shirts and other tourist nonsense.  Back at the house, we started watching the news and were thrilled to hear that Flossie was breaking up a bit.  As the radar shows, it still hit us.

It was pretty soupy, but nothing like I had been expecting.

The Sheraton Kona Resort's Luau was moved indoor due to the rain.  It was even soupier once I had to drive in it, but we made it there safely.  We even had our matching shirts on that we picked up at Hilo Hattie's earlier in the day.

The luau got off to a slow start and the food was only so-so; hey, I'm simply not a big poi fan or for too many purple foods.

It did pick up when the show began.  

The finale was the fire knife dancer who had to perform outside (those pesky fire codes).

The weather was almost perfect when the luau finished up and Connor was "visited" by a cool preying mantis.  I'm not sure he thought it was so cool.

The girls finished up the night in good spirits.