Welcoming 2010

We have been living in Waipahu, Hawaii for almost a year now. Every night fireworks go off in our neighborhood. I am not talking black cat or even bottle rocket type fireworks, but the house rattling, car alarm setting off, sounds like a gunshot, up in the air, 4th of July type fireworks. People refer to them as “The Waipahu Fireworks”. Elementary school kids sing songs about them. Well we had heard a lot about the New Years fireworks but nothing could have prepared us for what we experienced.

I got home around 7pm on the 31st. Driving into our neighborhood I saw people everywhere in their driveways, setting off every kind of firework you could imagine. There wasn’t a millisecond that went by that a firework was not going off. These non-stop fireworks went from 7pm till 1am! At midnight it was like a never ending finale. People were on their roofs watching. Our usual view of Honolulu was completely blocked by smoke and we could barely see past the house tops in front of us. It was crazy. And no its not legal, its just accepted as a fact of life here. Lilo, surprisingly, was not bothered by it at all, which is so silly considering the next day we figured out that she is afraid of the dust pan, goofy dog.