The last few months were a blur! All of October and November I was feeling really blah- by far the hardest first trimester of all three pregnancies. I didn't clean at all, the boys entertained themselves and had way too much screen time, and I cried over anything & everything (thank you crazy hormones). Thankfully, I have a REALLY good husband who washed dishes, did laundry, and mopped floors for eight straight weeks- all while working and playing with the boys every spare minute.
The primary presidency planned a fun Halloween activity for the kids a few days before Halloween. We had a costume contest, played games, and trick-or-treated through the church. We had ward members sign up to decorate all of the classrooms and they did not disappoint! The rooms were awesome and the kids had a blast. Moses was a pe'a (bat) and Des was an ula (lobster). The only problem was I ordered their costumes on amazon- they were, of course, made for Halloween in the northern hemisphere so both of the boys sweat to death in the heat and humidity. I think Des wore his costume for a total of 5 minutes. Moses was excited enough about being a pe'a that he suffered in his FLEECE costume all night. When we took it off he looked like he had just stepped out of the shower!
We finally moved into our new place on November 20. We're renting from the Folasa family in Mapusaga Fou. The house is huge! It's got four bedrooms which will come in handy when the visitors start rolling in! I was really excited for the boys to have there own bedrooms so we could all sleep better at night. Turns out most nights I fall asleep in one of the twin trundle beds next to Moses' toddler crib (his room is really small- it's the coolest room because the fan moves the air better in there). Des will not fall asleep unless he is literally touching his face against Nathan or I's arm. So he either falls asleep next to me in the twin bed and gets moved to the twin trundle right next to me (so there are three of us in the smallest room in the house... haha!) or he falls asleep next to Nathan in the master bedroom. So much for separate rooms and getting more sleep!
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| The view from our bedroom. The ocean is down there but it's hard to see since the sun is rising in this pic. |
All in all we like the house. The boys wear themselves out just running around in the living room and they swim in the yard almost every day! On clear days we can look out of the windows and see the ocean through the coconut/banana plantation in the backyard! Downsides- no AC so we've been battling mold like crazy, there are termites, and our neighbor has SEVEN dogs... basically we have the same problems as every other family living on this island:) I guess I just need to get used to it.
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| I went to pick up Moses from school after their Thanksgiving Program and found him dressed like a turkey! |
We spent Thanksgiving at the Reid's house. It was really fun! The kids played with each other the whole day and we all hung out and played card games and laughed a lot. It was potluck so everyone brought some traditional thanksgiving food or Samoan dishes. The food was really good. I think we ended up counting six or seven different types of meat and no vegetable side dishes (actually, we had mashed potatoes and taro - those are vegetables;))! Haha we had a very Samoan thanksgiving.
A few days before christmas Des swallowed a Nickel! I was freaking out but we looked up online what to do and everything we read said money smaller than a quarter will usually pass on it's own. So we spent the next week and a half sifting through stinky diapers- yay.
We went to our ward Christmas party the Saturday before Christmas. There was, of course, a ton of food and the primary had a short little program. All of the younger kids ended up swimming for a couple of hours. As a primary presidency we had planned to have Santa come but needed to get them out of the water to sit on his lap. Bishop Goodwin suggested we have santa ride around the corner on one of our Kayaks so the kids could follow him out of the water. What an inspired bishop! Haha. It worked out perfectly- the kids all started screaming when they saw Santa coming around the corner. They swam as fast as they could, ran out of the water, and made a line without us having to say anything. The kayak was the best idea ever:) Moses was loving it and Des had no idea what was going on.
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| Santa comes to Samoa on his Kayak! |
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| The sunset after our Christmas Eve kayaking adventure in Leone |
We didn't have any plans for christmas day but it turned out to be so fun! Christmas morning the boys woke up to lots of presents thanks, in large part, to Nana. Nana sent new clothes and shoes (which the boys desperately needed), a play mat, a tee ball set, and gifts for Nathan and I. I called Tino (one of the sisters in our ward- she's got a 9 year old girl Helen and a boy, Kendall, just younger than Des) and she spent the day with us. Tino showed us how to fry fai and ulu chips while the kids went swimming and played with their new christmas toys. Wyatt, from our ward (his wife is off island to have their first baby) came to the beach with us too. we all hiked down to Fagatele Bay and swam, snorkeled, and had lunch.
It was pretty nice not to have to stress about anything on christmas (no preparing food, setting up big fancy christmas decorations, buying fancy gifts...) but I think we all missed being with family.
On New Years Eve Des was gagging a ton at dinner and we still hadn't seen any sign of the nickel he swallowed. Nathan ended up taking Des to the ER to check for the nickel in his throat and Moses and I popped little poppers to celebrate the new year at midnight (actually it was 9:00 pm, but we were both sleepy so I just pretended it was midnight.) The doctor said there was no way Des could have been eating if there was a nickel in his throat so Nathan got sent home- no x-ray for Des.
A few days ago Des ended up back in the ER because his left leg had a bad infection. His knee and his thigh were so swollen! He was in so much pain that he wasn't sleeping and he couldn't put weight on his leg. He would get really mad whenever we tried to look at it. He was put on antibiotics (for like, the millionth time in his little life) and his leg is looking way better now that he's taken it for a few days. I think the whole episode started from a bug bite on his knee. Whew. Please, no more fevers, ear infections, bug bite infections, or nickels... This kid is giving us a run for our money. Lucky for us, Moses has been relatively healthy (aside from his eye infection, the rash on his neck and face, jellyfish stings in both hands, and the flu)... haha so I guess he's had his share too. Good times in Samoa.
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| Moses wrote his name for me for the first time! He's been working on it at school. His 'E' is the best! |
Luckily we managed to have some fun in between my crying fits and constant episodes of nausea. In October, we took a tour through the Starkist Tuna Cannery. Nathan did some dental work on the manager and he invited us to come check it out. We had to wear hair nets and ear plugs which Des wasn't too thrilled about. We didn't get to see the entire operation since we had the kids with us, but I'm glad we brought them because they had a good time. The cannery used to run 24/7 but because of new international fishing laws, the cannery has been struggling. When we took the tour they weren't running the assembly lines- just cleaning the equipment and waiting for a shipment of fish to arrive. The assembly line workers make a little over $4/hour... I worked at a tanning salon one summer in college (the easiest job in the entire world) and made $6.50/hour! It's pretty crazy to think that the cannery is Am. Samoa's economic backbone and its workers make so little. Hopefully they'll stay in business- I can't imagine what would happen if they went under.
