Garden

"Luka's banana tree"

Hello friends! It's November so I've been thinking about what I am grateful for lately and I'm grateful for a WHOLE LOT! But today as Luka and I took a walk around our house I couldn't help but be super grateful for where I live and all the beauty that surrounds me! I happened to have my camera with me because I had to take pictures of our studio that's attached to our house because our tenant is moving and so I had to post some pictures on craigslist to get it re-rented but anyways I am so happy that I had my camera, now you can see what I am grateful for too! Luka has so much fun exploring our yard, and it's no wonder why! I remember as a kid exploring the yard and finding new and interesting things all the time! The flowers in our yard are in full bloom lately and there are even some new funky mushrooms that appeared because of the recent rain. Another thing I noticed while exploring is how good our mini garden is doing, I say mini because all we have planted is a banana tree, 2 papaya trees, tomato's, basil and taro. Writing that down just now actually seems like a lot! haha. We have enjoyed plenty of our basil and had taro a couple of times but we are still waiting for the others to bare fruit. I only snapped a picture of Poata's banana tree because it is just growing like crazy! Poata planted it "for Luka" a few months after he was born so it is about a year old. Anyways I am so very grateful to be able to live in Hawaii and to be able to grow my own little garden and be able to explore with my very curious little toddler. Happy November people!

Firefighter's, Puppies, Monsters, Temple's, Pumpkin's...

after our Laie Hawaii temple tour

pumpkin patch

at the hare krsna temple

the cute little Indian girls

our new puppy Sole

my hello kitty jack-o-lantern

our owl and hello kitty

Poata's owl

my boys

my monster cupcakes

do you see the green vampires have blood on their teeth? that's my favorite part

my firefighter

i think it's bed time

the lickety split ice cream truck gave out free mini ice cream cones! yum

firefighter family

HALLOWEEN!!! Well before I get ahead of myself, let me first explain that like most of my posts, this is a pretty random one. But I'm sure you figured that out by the title! So The title isn't in chronological order but I think my post will be. So first we went to visit Temples! Most importantly of course was the open house of the Laie, Hawaii LDS temple! It is being rededicated after being closed for over a year for renovations but before they rededicate it they have it open to the public to witness it's glory! It is beautiful! We took a tour of it last Saturday. It's really neat because they let you see all of the rooms, including the brides room, the sealing room, the celestial room among others. It was such a great opportunity and experience and I was lucky to be able to go with not only my dear husband and silly son but I brought along my brother, sister and cousin as well and as non-members  they were really impressed! Now in my title it says "temple's" not temple. The next day we went to the Hare Krsna temple in town for their free Sunday feast of amazing Indian food and as usual it was delicious!! There were also these darling little girls in the most beautiful little outfits! I had to snap a pic of them! Next on the list... Pumpkins. We took Luka to the pumpkin patch to pick a couple pumpkin's to carve. It was so much fun to pick out a pumpkin that is still growing on the vine, I actually had never been to a pumpkin patch! I had no idea there was even a pumpkin patch on the island until this year! We picked out a couple perfect pumpkins and we carved them into an owl and hello kitty! Luka had a great time flinging seeds around our living room and trying to help us carve. Puppies comes next chronologically on our list. We got a puppy yesterday! His name is "Sole" which obviously Poata picked out. He is a pure bred, purple ribbon, papered (whatever that means) Blue Nose Pitbull. He is such a sweet and mellow puppy! Luka is still getting used to him but has fun poking around his body. The puppy really likes Luka! Next, "Firefighter's." Luka was a firefighter for Halloween this year. He even had a fire truck to ride in while trick-or-treating! He was such a cute little hero! He kept his hat on the entire night which really surprised me and every time it fell off he would hand it to me and wait for me to put it back on! He also loved his boots! Ever since we bought them he has been bringing them to me and making me put them on him then he will walk around the house for the rest of the day in them! I love my little fireman! Ok, last but not least... Monsters! I made little cupcake monsters to bring over to my mom's house on Halloween. They were so fun to make and I thought they came out so adorable! I can't wait to make some more! Hope you all had a fun Halloween! Now it's time to get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas!!

Our First Trip To SAMOA! (and hopefully the last... just kidding)

Luka's first plane ride!

the view of Samoa before we landed

Poata's brother Faaee

a lady and her baby selling pillows... yes- pillows

really really extremely expensive produce

gnarly weird bread with frosting and fruit loops?? no, i did not buy it or eat it!

poata's dad Falefasa, at Poata's grandmother's house

Poata's arm and his mother and grandmother

some little cousins of Poata on the swing set in front of his grandma's house

Luka with his grandma Lupe

the tombs of Poata's relatives, outside of his grandmother's house. Everyone has tombs like this right in front of their houses! It's crazy how different cultures can be!

Luka made so many friends while on vacation! I'm sure he misses them! They were so sweet to him!

the open market! This one sells produce and there is another for clothes and souvenirs and such

the inside of the buses! And they blast music like nobody's business!

sene (cents)

the Apia harbor

the clubs!

crazzzy amount of coconut trees all in one place! This was how it was everywhere!

kings tomb

kings tomb

the parliament building

the robert lewis stevenson house/ museum

statue depicting the a story about king malietoa who was a cannibal

amazing pathway to a waterfall!

a baby waterfall

more friends of Luka

the road to Poata's house in Solosolo

cool hut in Poata's yard

Poata's house

crazy glowing tree

little cuzzy's

cool island in Poata's village

these little convenience stores were everywhere! Like every 10 houses!

Falefa Falls. Gorgeous!

the stairway down to falefa falls

Poata's cousin Henry, who I was a little infatuated with ;)

Poata's little cutie cousin with Luka

this should be at the top of the page because it is Luka at the HNL airport waiting to board

the open market

oh heaven, especially when it is a million degrees outside! Scoop's ice cream! yummmm, pretty much a daily treat

Poata and Luka sharing their scoops

the SAMOA APIA temple! we can see it from Poata's parents house!

helping his grandpa Fasa fix their truck

Luka on "White Sunday" a huge kid's holiday in Samoa

at church

GNARLY FEET!!!!!! OMG!

White Sunday

with 2 of his little cuzzy's

oh just chillaxing with some frozen apple juice

at the solosolo sea wall

just another gorg waterfall!

with little cousin Menime

Poata's brother with his future wife Ana

my BFF'S!!! I loved these little piggies!! they live at Poata's aunts house and they are so cute and small!

Luka on the phone at his great grandma's house with his cousin Peta

at the Apia sea wall with the harbor in the distant background

at the airport going home

Luka on the flight home in his pj's, it was an overnight flight so luckily he slept most of the way, this was right before landing.

We took our first, long awaited, trip to the friendly islands of SAMOA! We have been together 5 years now, married 3 1/2 and finally made it to my husbands home country! Of course he was beyond ecstatic to be home! All of his family were dying to meet our little "baby Luka." Everyone called him that there! It was really cute! We had an amazing 2 week stay there. Number one on my list of things we did was going swimming in 3 different beautiful waterfalls! Samoa is beyond lush and gorgeous! Even more so than Hawaii and obviously Hawaii has no shortage of lush-ness! There were rivers about every other mile and waterfalls flowing into the street and the mountains are un-tame and beautiful with overflowing coconut and banana trees. And while I'm on the subject of coconuts and bananas, I should add that I drank on average the water of 3 young coconuts (niu) a day! As well as bunches of bananas, papayas and other yummy fresh fruit from the HUGE open farmers market. We went on a couple historical outings as well, like the Robert Lewis Stevenson museum (author of "Treasure Island" and "Dr. Jackle and Mrs. Hyde." Turns out he lived in Samoa the last 4 years of his life and loved it there so much that he moved his entire family there and wished to be buried there when he passed. His home was beautiful and was in my favorite village in Samoa that Poata and I referred to as "Mill-Ville" because of all of the gorgeous giant houses! We also visited the tombs of past kings of Samoa, in a gorgeous coconut tree filled park along the beach. We went to the open markets a lot just to look at all of the neat crafts that people make and to grab a few souvenirs. We spent a lot of time visiting Poata's family in his home village of Solosolo. We met mostly with his mothers family because his mom doesn't really like his father's family for some mysterious reason, and was pretty adamant about us staying clear of them. We had a good time in Solosolo!  Samoa is just beyond humid though! I think maybe Samoa is close to Hell? Another thing I didn't care for was the cultural view toward money. I thought it was strange to have such amazing people, who work so hard and live off of their own land and raise their kids to be so respectful, religious and diligent, revolve their minds around money! Maybe it is just because we come from the states and they think that we are all rich here, when in reality we work extremely hard to survive here! So because of this false idea of money growing on trees they expect us to just give all of our money freely to them, to everyone! From high school friends to family, to beggars, to random acquaintances, NOT COOL! Especially when you brought money thinking you were going to have lots of fun with it! I mean this in no offense possible, this was just my interpretation. Anyways besides the heat and the shortage on cash we lived and we had a very memorable trip and my husband is dying to go back! His brother is on a mission in the Philippines and has a beautiful girl waiting for him so assuming he is going to marry her short after his homecoming we are planning to visit again for the wedding. Which is a little too soon if you ask me. ;) I'm really thankful I live in Hawaii where it is beautiful and a little cooler.