the vegetarian who doesn't like vegetables

Everett has gone vegetarian. It's been a few months now so it seems that he's really going to stick to it. I'm a little surprised that he's lasted this long, but mostly impressed that he thought the whole thing out - that animals are killed for food and he doesn't want to be part of the reason. And he's only eight. I think my major concerns at eight revolved mostly around Barbies and cabbage patch kid dolls.

I'm fairly sure that this is a result of the "funeral chicken" and the fact that it actually resembles chicken, or at least, resembles chicken more than the boneless skinless chicken breasts I usually buy. I went to a Samoan funeral a while ago and, as the custom is to give gifts, I was given a huge box of chicken leg quarters, not so affectionately referred to as funeral chicken at our house. It has bones and skin and veins and all those things that pampered palagi kids like mine don't usually see. We were planning to have a big barbeque to use the funeral chicken, but we slowly made our way through it all by grilling it here and there.

Whenever I'd mention that we were having chicken for dinner, the kids would ask - funeral chicken or regular chicken? And if the answer was funeral chicken they'd wrinkle their noses and pretend to be unhappy until the grilling smell got to be too much for them and they were salivating by the time it was ready to eat. But then, when eating, they would inevitably come across veins and bones and be thoroughly disgusted and refuse to eat anymore (which I think is crazy. We are so separated from our food's original form that seeing reminders of it is enough to ruin appetites!? Clearly my children would not survive farm life.).

After a few weeks of this, Everett announced that he was vegetarian and not going to eat meat anymore. Simon agreed. Simon lasted less than 24 hours, even though he does tell people that he used to be a vegetarian. Everett has stuck with it, which is great. He's got conviction and he wants to do something about it. It makes me proud, except for one small detail... he doesn't like vegetables. He even wrote his own version of Green Eggs and Ham about broccoli in school this year. Fortunately, the broccoli book led to the same result as the real book - he tried broccoli (many different ways) and now he likes it (only when boiled). But that is about the only vegetable he'll eat.

Boiled broccoli is fine. It's just that I generally like a few more options when I'm considering what to cook for dinner. Nevermind the fact that boiled broccoli with pasta/rice/whatever is hardly a balanced vegetarian diet. So we've been doing our homework - figuring out all the stuff that the kid needs to eat now that he won't eat meat and eating much less meat ourselves because it's just easier to only cook one meal. There's just one thing left to do: figure out how to make the vegetarian eat his vegetables.

fighter jets? here?

I suppose crazier things have happened...

We live close to the airport so when we were driving home last night we were able to see fighter jets sitting on the tarmac. The kids were so excited! We weren't the only ones checking them out -by the time we left a small crowd of people had gathered by the airport's fence to look.

Happy Easter!

We spent Easter enjoying a delicious Easter umu, massive Easter egg dyeing party, and Easter egg hunt. We had a great time!

And, of course, Easter wouldn't be complete without loads and loads of sugar.

Spring (Fall) Break

My kids are going to grow up to be seriously confused. We live in the Southern hemisphere so it's supposed to be fall right now, but they just had Spring Break. And in the winter, they get summer vacation.

Anyway, Everett made some fun Bionicle creations over Spring (Fall) Break and I promised I'd post them for everyone to see. He was anxiously waiting for me to get around to taking the pictures so it was (obviously) quite a chore to pose for the photos! The first one is designed to be a hat and the 2nd has light-up eyes so it took a bit of concentration to make sure they were actually lit for the picture.

While I still had the camera out, Simon caught this tiny gecko. He loved playing with it and cracked up when the gecko climbed all around his neck and onto his head. He had just peeled an orange and we discovered that geckos like oranges -enough to lick Simon's dirty hands for a long time!

Mt. Alava hike

Sunday I hiked to the top of Mt. Alava in the National Park. This half of the trail isn't particularly hard since it's just a double track dirt road, but it's long (3.6 miles each way) and it's tall (1610') and it's hot (8o-something degrees) and it's humid (80%) and it's exhausting (no data on this, you'll just have to trust me).

The beginning of the trail is at the star in the picture and the trail/road follows ridgeline for the most part. At the top are the remains of the old cable car that used to take people (including my father-in-law when his navy ship visited the island) from Fagatogo/Utulei to the top of Mt. Alava.

I've been wanting to do this hike for a while, but was a little unsure at how seeing the entire island at once would affect my sanity. There is a huge difference (at least for me) in knowing that the island is less than 55 square miles, and actually seeing all 55 square miles at one time. Especially since we still haven't left those 55 square miles and have no plans to do so in the immediate future.

At first I avoided places where I could see too much of the island at once, refused to drive to the end of the road on each end of the island, and just generally behaved psychotically in my attempts to make sure that there were edges of the island still left to be seen -because if I hadn't actually seen that the island ended in a certain place, I could always imagine that there was land behind those particular mountains instead of ocean.

Well, the Mt. Alava hike was the end of those mental games. I clearly saw just how small the island was and it really didn't feel that small. Small. But not "impossible to live on, I have to get off this rock" small. Maybe the "serpentine island" thing (long and winding, like a serpent sleeping in the ocean) makes the island look bigger than I thought 55 square miles should look or maybe I've finally wrapped my mind around the idea of living so far from a continent that the only thing visible from one of the highest points on the island is a little bit of island and a whole lot of ocean. Regardless, it was a pretty amazing view and I'll definitely be doing it again sometime.

Vatia (again again)

We spent another weekend in Vatia; this time at the other side of the village near Pola Island. The side with the National Park is great for hiking and scenery, but not the best for spending time at the beach. It's rocky and the waves tend to be pretty big, while the other side has some sandy areas and is more protected from the larger waves.

That's not to say we didn't enjoy ourselves. Everett's especially good at keeping himself entertained - trying to pull a piece of driftwood out from between some rocks took at least an hour! As always, the diving was great.

Vaitogi