Simon is Seven!

Simon woke up singing "today is my birthday, today is my birthday" over and over, but when people would wish him a happy birthday he got all shy and didn't know what to do. It was kind of cute.

We had a bunch of kids over to properly celebrate. They seemed to have a great time.

Simon is Six!

We had a few people over for Simon's birthday dinner. He had a great time and loves all the presents.

Sharks!!!

Well, not really... just one shark. We went snorkeling at Airport Lagoon on Sunday and I saw my first shark - a blacktip reef shark that was probably about 5 feet long, but it's hard to estimate underwater. I was a little scared at first, even though it wasn't big enough to eat me or anything, so I swam as fast as I could to Deepa who was out snorkeling with me. Deepa wanted me to show her where I saw it so we turned around to look for it! Six months ago I never would have believed that I'd voluntarily swim toward a place I had seen a shark just moments earlier! It was pretty amazing to see a shark in the wild - a bit intimidating, but still a very cool thing to see. Even better than the 2 unicornfish I saw at Faga'alu the day before - I think they are so funny-looking with the little horn bumping out.

The weekend before last we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves too. We went to Tisa's with a group of friends, three of us were celebrating birthdays that week so it was a perfect excuse to get babysitters and enjoy a night out. The dinner was delicious, but it was the great company that made the whole evening most enjoyable. The next day we went to a group of fales between Vatia and Ofono, in a small village called Amalau for Liz's birthday celebration. It was a great location - the guys went scuba diving, we bbq-ed some hot dogs and had a great time talking and playing in the waves. Then we hurried home, I showered and changed and headed over to Maliu Mai for a dinner and night of Polynesian dancing.

Saturday was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Because I found a maggot in my hair. (Don't worry, no pictures of nasty stuff. Only vague descriptions so no one gets too grossed out.)

I know that the house we live in isn't exactly a fortress and that screen walls can only keep out so much of the riff-raff, but we saw a mouse a week or so ago and I was not ok with that. We bought some poison and put it out and saw a rat (thinking it was the mouse) and believed that it had somehow escaped death. Turns out, it hadn't.

Friday, our house started to stink. We looked around and couldn't find the problem. Then on Saturday we remembered that we were attempting to be mouse-murderers and looked in our little attic area. We saw a dead rat. It was huge and had obviously been dead for several days. Clif took it out (I'm sure I wouldn't have dealt with it as well as he did) and we waited for the smell to clear up. It got a little better, but it was still pretty stinky.

About 1/2 hour before Everett's birthday party (oh yeah, did I mention we were trying to get ready for a party?), Clif realized that the mouse was dead too in the attic area, under a piece of wood that was under a door. We only knew because the hole in the ceiling for the laundry room light fixture is too big and the mouse was right on top of the hole and some "stuff" from the mouse fell through. Nasty "stuff" that you don't want details about.

So, he cleaned up the mouse too. This time, I helped hold the chair in place that he had put on top of the counter in order to climb up into the "attic" (it's more like a loft above the kitchen/laundry/bathroom). We thought we had the mouse/rat problem taken care of.

Soon after, it was party time. We did all the standard birthday games, pinata, cake, presents... you know. Nothing momentous, but fun. The kids all seemed to have a great time and got really competitive trying to win the gold medals we made out of cookies and ribbons.

We chatted with the kids parents when they picked their kids up, cleaned up, tried to relax a bit and, when I was washing my hands, glanced in the mirror to see a maggot in my hair. I freaked out! I nearly shaved my head and started yelling and, mainly, went nuts trying to figure out HOW it happened.

I have two theories. One, that when I was holding the chair for Clif a maggot fell on my head out of the bundle that contained what was left of the mouse and other nasty stuff. This theory has the unpleasantness of thinking that the maggot had been on my head for many hours (about 4 or 5) including an entire birthday party, several chats with parents, the entire clean-up process, and even a short conversation with some new friends who live in Lion's Park. I don't like that thought. That is much too long for a maggot to have been on my head (it's sad when I have degrees of acceptable amounts of time for a maggot to have been on my head).

Two, that we have yet another rodent that had some tasty poison and is dropping nastiness through another hole in the ceiling. I hadn't been in the laundry room so that isn't a possibility, but there could be another one lurking somewhere in the great unknown that is our attic-ish area. This theory has the unpleasant aspect of thinking that we have another dead rodent in the house, but also is pretty unlikely since the smell is gone and it was mainly created out of my need to believe that the maggot was not in my hair for several hours.

The creatures in this house had been getting to me Saturday anyway. I saw a skink on the "clean" dishes in the dish drying rack earlier and I actually chased it out of the house screaming at it because I was so tired of cleaning only to have all the bugs and lizards crawl all over things. So it was not a good day for finding a maggot in my hair. As if there is a good day for finding a maggot in your hair.

Sunday was great though. We went to the beach and got some snorkeling in, the kids had a blast playing with all the new toys at our house (thanks to some very generous party-goers), and, most importantly, I didn't find a maggot in my hair.

But from now on, we're using traps.

fun stuff

Geckos are all kinds of fun, especially once you learn how to catch them. Everett and Simon have been working on it. And they're getting pretty good at it.

It's a good thing they've found a way to occupy themselves inside since Rainmaker Mountain keeps on making rain. We got rained out on Saturday. Turns out, swimming in the rain isn't that much fun. Well, the swimming's fine, but when you get out and it's cold (ok, we're wimps already) and your towel is wet and you never dry off so the sand never falls off and you end up wet and covered in sand and you try to drive home, it's not so fun. I guess we just need to plan to go to rocky beaches on rainy days.

We were lucky to be invited to a couple parties last weekend which were really fun. And our backyard is pretty fun too. There are loads of these cool, exotic toys sticks lying around for ... uh, swinging around and hitting stuff.

And plenty of lizards and toads to try to spot.

This one, a small marine toad, blended in so well the boys nearly stepped on it.

Of course, I have to mention that there was another event too: this crazy kid turned 8 on Monday. We had a small party with the family.

We'll have even more fun next Saturday when friends come over so we can do it again!