Mountain Dew is Delicious

Even geckos think so. And then they run away really fast.

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!

Lizards in the Yard

Yesterday I decided to go outside and take some pictures of the birds. There are a couple of common birds that hang around in our yard that I want pictures of. As I walked out the backdoor a couple of lizards went scurrying away and I changed my mind and instead started taking pictures of the lizards. I was able to get pictures of two different types of skink and also of the poisonous toad that is common on the island.

This first skink is by far my favorite. In the shade it has a dark brown upper body with copper colored stripes and a blue tail. They are smaller than the other skinks that I have seen. The largest that I saw was about 3 inches long. When they are in the sun their color changes to a bright gold on their body and their tail becomes a shinny metallic blue. As you can see it is a very colorful lizard.

(Blue-tailed copper-striped skink; Tafuna; American Samoa)

I followed the poisonous toad around for a while until it hopped into a little hole in a stump. It felt safe there and I was able to get few great pictures (although I had to use the manual focus and take several shots since the frog was basically the same color as the stump). I also was able to get a picture of what I think is a Pacific Black Skink. I'm not exactly sure because of the stripes and color variation on its body. The drawing I have in my animal identification book has it as a solid black. I am assuming that it is a Pacific Black since the Samoan Skink is found only in forest habitats.

(Marine Toad; Tafuna; American Samoa)


(Pacific Black Skink; Tafuna; American Samoa)

This morning I caught this cute little Gecko. Actually they are hard to catch so the trick really is to put your hand in front of them when the are running and eventually they will get frustrated and just jump on your hand and then climb all over you. After I caught him he sat on my arm for about five minutes and we visibly noticed his color change. He then climbed up on my hair and sat on my head for about ten minutes (while I got the kids breakfast) and he changed to a dark brown color. These pictures clearly show his color change (and yes this is the same lizard). We were impressed. There is nothing more spectacular than an animal that can change its color to fit into its environment.


(Stump-toed Gecko; Tafuna; American Samoa)

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!