Happy 4th of July!

We spent the day (a little drizzly at first, but then beautiful and sunny all afternoon) at Kapi'olani Park, celebrating the 4th of July with the ALS support group, comprised of friends and family we have come to know over the years, since Grandpa was first diagnosed with ALS. The event was also held last year as a fundraiser for ALS TDI. This year, all the donations we received went to our local ALS support group. They hope to focus on respite for caregivers this year.

Vi's family always gets a lot of surfing paraphernalia donations, plus I got some Menchie's gift cards and Bikram yoga gift cards from my friends as raffle prizes. There were kiddie games and adult games, the favorites being the tug-of-war, water balloon toss, and coconut shell relay race (but I couldn't do that one since I'm not even good at holding rubber slippers in between my toes). I enjoyed shooting my new water gun at Daddy and Uncle Jay, playing with their puppy Buddha, eating a huge bowl of shaved ice and watermelon, and running around in my new patriotic Ocean Minded trucker hat. We visited with Chester, Vi, and Britt, who are in wheelchairs and the latter two who are dependent on ventilators and 24 hour nursing care. There was a softball game afterwards, too, as a tribute to Lou Gherig, whom ALS is named after.

I didn't have any nap, so when we got home by 5 pm, I took a quick shower, ate some dinner, and went straight to bed. I hear that Mom and Dad watched the Ala Moana fireworks from the lanai while I was sleeping. They said it was a 25 minute show!

There was a huge fire on the mountains of Kalama Valley last night, but at least Uncle Jay didn't have to work last night. Firecrackers went off all night long, but I slept right through them.

Happy 4th of July! Hope everyone had a safe time celebrating!