For my daughter's 9th birthday we had a luau..her friends had a blast and I have to admit my friends and I enjoyed it as well. My husband took the day off and surprised our daughter by turning the backyard into a beach!!  First we had sand brought in and spread all around a pool..then we added seashells to the sand and floated flower shaped candles in the water..this gave the girls an ideal place to hula and limbo to the hawaiian music..we lined our drive and back yard with tiki torches and had huge tiki's carved out of wood with spotlights on them. We greeted all the girls with leis and grass skirts..shell necklaces and ankle leis..Each girl had their own tiki cups to drink out of along with the paper umbrellas.  We hung fishing nets and added huge plastic shells I found and painted all colors and big plastic goldfish. We hung tiki lights and chinese lanterns all under the eaves of the patio. For the menu we chose simple things..pizza, punch with an ice ring made of tropical fruits, popcorn and cake in the shape of a pinapple..then all the girls spent the night were we played slumber party games..I had my girlfriends spend the night to help entertain and dance and sent my hubby and son off camping for the night..