Vatia (again)

We spent Saturday in Vatia - it's becoming one of our favorite places for diving and hanging out on the beach. The dive was incredible. We saw a bunch of fish, but the most amazing thing was the Tahitian stingray we saw. Clif almost swam right over it before I could get his attention. We watched it for a while, swam around to the other side of it so we were able to get a great look, watched it some more, and then it finally got tired of us hanging around and swam away. Watching it lift up off the sand and swim away was one of the coolest things I've seen in the ocean.

hello Idaho!

Although there are many things that I absolutely love about living in American Samoa and my job at the High Court, sometimes I really miss life at the Idaho Supreme Court. Back in the good ol’ days (uh, last year) when crazy things came up in conversations, like Tenielle’s, “just so you know, I’m not breastfeeding the puppies.” Just in case you were wondering. She’s not. She does sometimes call them the granddoggers, but that’s where it ends.

And other fun stuff: the screeching tombstone that I hope is still making its rounds, pranks on the summer intern, treat days & coffee runs, sock puppet appearances in offical court photos, a certain wedding blog, and conversations about grammar ballet (because really, a sentence-semicolon-conjunctive adverb-comma-sentence combination is the most graceful way to transition. It’s also a great format to follow for “however,” which I realize is in dispute as to actually being a conjunctive adverb by certain folks, but I think it is. Speaking of “however,” why is it so insanely overused in legal writing? There is more than one way to begin a sentence that has a point to it. If you don’t actually have a point, “however” isn’t going to magically create one. “However” is not necessary at the beginning of every sentence or every paragraph. Once per document is more than enough, and it’s especially great when you save it for when you really mean it. Ahem. I’ll climb down from my soapbox now. I hardly know how I got up there in the first place.).

Anyway, I certainly don't wish I were there right now (I'm loving this too much to want to come back), but I do miss you guys!

an aiga bus competition

I've been meaning to get pictures of the aiga buses, but hadn't gotten around to it- good thing there was an aiga bus competition on Monday! It was held to determine the best buses on the island so that those lucky buses will be assigned to transport VIP's during the upcoming Pacific Arts Fest. Unfortunately, we were expecting the event to be in Samoan-time so we got there just as it was ending, but I managed to get some pictures anyway.

When we first got here the aiga buses were one of the most noticeable foreign-feeling things in the territory because there is nothing like them in the states. The are basically just a pickup truck that has been converted into a little bus. Most of them are very colorful, many have beach scenes on the back, and they are loud! Whatever music they decide to play, it's on full blast so I wasn't surprised to hear that the competition had a category for best sound system.

snorkeling at Tisa's

When it's calm, Tisa's (Alega Beach) has some of the best snorkeling we've seen on the island. We've tried to snorkel there a lot, but it's usually so rough that Clif is the only one who ends up going out. So I decided not to bring my snorkel gear on Sunday, but on the drive out there I noticed how calm the waves were along the ocean road so we turned around to get the snorkel stuff. It turned out to be a great decision. I had one of the best snorkel days I've had on the island. There were tons of fish! Some of my favorites were the raccoon butterflyfish, regal angelfish, achilles tangs, huge schools of white-spotted surgeonfish, groups of orangespine unicornfish, black snappers, and flagtail triggerfish. I didn't want to come back in!

Fagatele Bay

Saturday we hiked to Fagatele Bay. It's a marine sanctuary and, of course, beautiful.

After all this time at the beach, Everett has had to come up with ways to amuse himself other than playing in the sand, climbing on the rocks, swimming, and snorkeling (poor kid, Saturdays at the beach make for a pretty rough life). So he attempted to carve a totem pole using a rock and a piece of driftwood.

Larsen's Bay

We hiked to Larsen's Bay last Saturday. It was a beautiful day to spend at the beach. It wasn't so great for snorkeling except in the shallows, but we still had a lot of fun. The kids even found a coconut palm to climb and swing from.

our socially conscious son

Everett: I'm not a terd, I'm a vegetarian.