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| Luka's first plane ride! |
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| the view of Samoa before we landed |
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| Poata's brother Faaee |
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| a lady and her baby selling pillows... yes- pillows |
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| really really extremely expensive produce |
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| gnarly weird bread with frosting and fruit loops?? no, i did not buy it or eat it! |
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| poata's dad Falefasa, at Poata's grandmother's house |
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| Poata's arm and his mother and grandmother |
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| some little cousins of Poata on the swing set in front of his grandma's house |
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| Luka with his grandma Lupe |
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| 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! |
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| Luka made so many friends while on vacation! I'm sure he misses them! They were so sweet to him! |
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| the open market! This one sells produce and there is another for clothes and souvenirs and such |
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| the inside of the buses! And they blast music like nobody's business! |
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| sene (cents) |
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| the Apia harbor |
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| the clubs! |
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| crazzzy amount of coconut trees all in one place! This was how it was everywhere! |
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| kings tomb |
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| kings tomb |
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| the parliament building |
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| the robert lewis stevenson house/ museum |
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| statue depicting the a story about king malietoa who was a cannibal |
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| amazing pathway to a waterfall! |
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| a baby waterfall |
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| more friends of Luka |
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| the road to Poata's house in Solosolo |
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| cool hut in Poata's yard |
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| Poata's house |
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| crazy glowing tree |
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| little cuzzy's |
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| cool island in Poata's village |
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| these little convenience stores were everywhere! Like every 10 houses! |
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| Falefa Falls. Gorgeous! |
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| the stairway down to falefa falls |
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| Poata's cousin Henry, who I was a little infatuated with ;) |
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| Poata's little cutie cousin with Luka |
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| this should be at the top of the page because it is Luka at the HNL airport waiting to board |
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| the open market |
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| oh heaven, especially when it is a million degrees outside! Scoop's ice cream! yummmm, pretty much a daily treat |
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| Poata and Luka sharing their scoops |
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| the SAMOA APIA temple! we can see it from Poata's parents house! |
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| helping his grandpa Fasa fix their truck |
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| Luka on "White Sunday" a huge kid's holiday in Samoa |
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| at church |
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| GNARLY FEET!!!!!! OMG! |
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| White Sunday |
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| with 2 of his little cuzzy's |
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| oh just chillaxing with some frozen apple juice |
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| at the solosolo sea wall |
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| just another gorg waterfall! |
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| with little cousin Menime |
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| Poata's brother with his future wife Ana |
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| my BFF'S!!! I loved these little piggies!! they live at Poata's aunts house and they are so cute and small! |
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| Luka on the phone at his great grandma's house with his cousin Peta |
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| at the Apia sea wall with the harbor in the distant background |
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| at the airport going home |
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| 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.
