so much to blog about...

We loved seeing all of you who came to visit before we left! I wish I had been a bit more on top of the picture taking though - we hardly have pictures of any of you! We finally finished up all the moving/packing/cleaning details the evening before our flight left, although at times it seemed that we'd never get it all done.

The trip here was fairly uneventful, although there were some differences. The flight from Hawaii to Pago was the only flight I've ever been on where the flight attendants walk down the aisle with seat belt extenders before take-off (the kids kept confusing rocket & airplane terminology and asking when we were going to "blast off" - the flight attendants and I were amused by that). We also noticed that people were much more polite on that flight than the other two we'd been on earlier.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the kids were so exhausted after 24 hours of traveling that they fell asleep on top of the luggage as we were waiting at baggage claim in Pago Pago.

Although they did get to play some computer games in between flights.

We met a very nice, informative Samoan woman during our layover in Hawaii. Since then she's stopped by our house a couple times - she found the place when she spotted the boys outside (it's a small island!) and just tonight she brought by some fresh bananas. It's been a nice reminder of how interconnected we all are on this island.

Our first couple days here were pretty slow. The High Court put us up in the Tradewinds Hotel where the kids enjoyed racing each other in the pool and we had some time to get over our jet lag.

It was a good transition to a completely foreign-feeling place because we still had American style lodging. When we got to our new house, we had some adjusting to do! It's a lot like camping. And we have these bugs that are like mini-ants on crack. They are superspeedy and basically act like vacuum cleaners because they completely devour any dead bugs or food that we don't clean up right away. It's pretty weird living in what is essentially a screened-in porch, although the geckos that crawl on the ceiling at night are pretty cute.

A couple days ago we had a bit of excitement when Clif caught a tiny one and it crawled around on him. The kids loved it and insisted that we let it go in their room so it could eat their bugs.

Simon's had a bit of a rough time of things the past week. Our last night in our Boise house, he got a spider bite that made his arm look a bit like Popeye's. I didn't think to get a picture until after the Benadryl so you don't quite get the full effect.

Then we went swimming/snorkeling in the ocean on Saturday where he fell and cut his hand on the coral. It's doing fine now, but he was nursing injuries for a couple days.

Everett is adjusting very well. He's generally pretty oblivious about many details and it's coming in handy! He doesn't seem to notice that things are not as sanitary as we're used to or that the grass is maybe a bit too rough to be rolling around on or that he's one of the only palagi's in his class at school -which means he doesn't really have to adjust at all! He did let out quite a squeal when he realized that the shell he picked up at the beach wasn't just full of dirt. The hermit crab that lived inside started to emerge on our way home!

And, as promised, we've got pictures of creatures! Our second morning here we woke up to find a poisonous centipede in our bedroom. We sprayed it with extra-strength Raid and it seemed to have no effect. Clif wanted me to step on it - in flip flops. There's no way that was happening; the thing was at least 4 inches long! So we got out the only trusty weapon we had - the frying pan!