May Day Celebration

We just came home from the May Day Celebration at the kids's elementary school. I still have NO IDEA what May Day--all I know is that each of the grades learned a special song and dance to present to the "king and queen". I can't BEGIN to describe how cute it is to see a bunch of four year old preschoolers doing the hula!!!

But I'm getting ahead of myself....let's start at the beginning. He were are walking the beaten path from our home to the elementary.




Here are the king and queen of the celebration. There was a huge ceremony explaining it all (which I didn't catch since we were chasing Marcus and Evelyn) and introducing them. Lots of music, representation, and the blowing of those huge seashells (awesome!). As each class presented their song/dance, it was all dedicated to the king and queen. I have no idea what the saying is on the left, but the right is celebrating 50 years of aloha. We were given quite a few fascinating history facts about Hawaii and it's origins. Oh, check out the girls's dresses--yeah, almost all the grades had costumes to wear and it seemed that everyone's classes (oddly, except for my kids's) wore native hawaiian clothing).


Chilling out while waiting for the next grade to begin...aren't those flowers in the trees pretty?





Yeah, those purple flowers were raining down on us and Marcus was trying to clean them all up. :)


Let the show begin!!! Actually, by the time 1st grade came, the hula dancing preschoolers and the sassy-something-bird kindegarteners (who are sitting right there in front--those weird hats that are obstructing the view of Jacob are their bird hats) had already done their songs/dances. But here's Jacob singing/dancing to "Spread A Little Aloha". It had to be the cutest thing I'd ever watched!!!!!





Now onto Julia. She did an actual dance--not just hand movements like Jacob's grade. She was sooo nervous about messing up--but I think she did a marvelous job. :)






And here is the Hawaiian bow? Or at least that's what Julia told me. :)


Hooray for such a good job!


Jacob and some friends from his class.


Julia and her teacher.


Doesn't she look pretty?


After all the grades performed, all "the ladies of _________ elementary got up and did a certain hula for everyone. It was very beautiful, so graceful. Then the men got up (to much cheering and laughter from the all the kids) and did one especially for the king and queen. In closing, the queen got up and did a special dance about aloha love and how it goes on and never dies. Soooooo beautiful. There was a lei involved and at the end she presented it to her mom. Apparently it's a huge honor to be chosen to be the queen because of this dance which you would have to perform in front of the entire school. This young girl did an amazing job.

Anyway, it was an extremely fun celebration that the kids have been practicing for ever since we moved here. We are so proud of how well they did--and can't wait til next school year when little Miss Evelyn is going to be one of the little hula dancing, lava lava wearing dancers!