Sledding

Last saturday I was lucky to have the day off and wanted to take the girls sledding for the first time. We have never taken Ana sledding before now, I don't know why maybe because I always felt she was too little to enjoy it. Because it was Ana's first time I thought she would be scared on the first time down so I asked my 10 year old niece to go with her and Ana LOVED it, she went on her own after that and then she and her cousin Ashly joined together and screamed for joy the whole way down. They went so fast at one time they almost went right into the parking lot. Ana had so much fun.

Penina seemed to like it but was more interested in sitting down and playing in the snow and eating it.

Christmas in Samoa

We arrived in Samoa on Christmas Eve night. Jethro's mom had no idea that we were coming she thought it was Joe and Kai and their kids. So she told me when she saw Ana at th airport she looked at her and told Lela "Hey that little girl looks like Ana" and then she saw Penina behind her and realized that it was Ana. She slapped the person standing next to her, I think it was Jethro's dad, she was so surprised and excited to see us.
As we drove home I was surprised to see how many people in Samoa go all out on Christmas lights. A lot of people ask Jethro what they use for a Christmas tree in Samoa, I even asked him that when we were dating, because its hard to imagine a pine tree on the Islands. But thats what they use, fake ones of course, in case you were wondering.
As I was putting the girls down for bed, Ana asked if we were going to put out some milk and cookies for Santa. I didn't even think about that, I asked Jethro if he thinks his parents have cookies but they didn't. So we told Ana that Santa gets so many cookie we were going to put out avacados for him instead. LOL She liked that idea and so we laid out a plate of Avacados.
The next morning was unorthadox for me. We got up WAY before everyone and because Lela and Reenie were sleeping in the living room with all the presents we waited for them to wake up. While we waited Ana and Penina hung out with grandpa, he took them outside to look at the dogs and walk around. Poor Ana kept asking when we can open presents. Finally everyone was awake and we had family prayer and opened presents.






After the fiasco of the morning was over we got ready to have lunch with the Fano side of the family. I was a little nervous meeting the Fano side for the first time after 7 years of marriage but they were all great and very friendly. It was especially nice to see Aunty Ofa and Tiana again. We had a typical Samoan lunch ham, chicken, beef, rice, mac salad and green salad, I blame samoan food for my curvacious body they rarely have vegitables in their meals!! (I know I know of course lack of excersice doesn't help either.)
After our meal and pictures with the Fano family we went to visit Jethro's moms side of the family in a nearby village. This is the family Jethro was raised with so his uncles and auntys are more like brothers and sisters to him. Jethro was so excited to get a chance to visit with them and introduce his family to them for the first time!! It was so fun to be there and see the house Jethro grew up in. Jethro took me for a tour of the land, I have it all on video and am sorry to say I didn't get one still shot of the place. It was amazing to be there I even teared up a little, it meant a lot to me to FINALLY see where and how Jethro grew up. We live in the area I grew up in so I get to share with Jethro and Ana all the places and things I did growing up and now Jethro finally gets to share that with us. It may sound weird but I have a better understanding and appreciation for the way my husband grew up there was so much I didn't know and realize.

The first part of our trip

We fly out a day later than planned because our flight got cancelled but when we finally made it to Hawaii, all the misery of that day was gone!! I love the smell of Hawaii when you first walk out of the plane and into the airport. Hawaii smells so good, it smells like Plumeria! I love to suck in the smell as much as I can before I get use to it and can't smell it anymore.

We arrived at night so we when straight to Jethro's brother Joe's house and Ana was so excited to sleep in the living room with her cousins. I thought for sure she would end up in bed with us before the night was over. She did come into the room a few times just to give me a hug and kiss in the middle of the night and when she turned to go back to bed I asked her if she wanted to sleep with me and she said "No, I just wanted to kiss you" It was so surprising and sweet!


Of couse the next day we got some beach time in before we loaded on another plane for Samoa. It was a perfect beach day too!!




Ana was so excited to see her cousin Gracie again.

Ana was in dog heaven, she immediatly went into "dog mode" and started digging in the dirt and running on the beach like a dog. It was so funny that girl LOVES to pretend to be a dog!!


Penina was scared of the beach at first. I don't think she liked the feel of the sand or something.
But it was such a great way to kick off the trip!
A few hours later we were on a plane to Samoa. Joe works for Hawaiian Air, which is the only airline that flies to Samoa so he made sure his co-workers hooked us up and we got star treatment!! And the best part was the girls both slept the WHOLE flight!!

We are back....

We are back I am working on a post of our trip. Right now I'm tackling unpacking and laundry and then folding the laundry ( I hate that part) but I will post as soon as I can.

The flight to nowhere

We are suppose to be in Hawaii laying on the beach and chill'n instead we are back home from a LONG day at the airport. We are flying out to Hawaii to be with Jethro's family for Christmas and our flight was at 3:15pm today. We left at 11am because it was snowing hard and got to the airport at 12 noon we waited and waited and waited our flight got delayed and we didn't board until 5pm. I was a little concerned because we had to catch a connecting flight in San Francisco and we ended up sitting in the plane for 2 1/2 hours when they told us our flight had been cancelled because the flight crew has gone over their allotted fight time because they had been working flights all day. So I'm thinking DUH get a new flight crew in here lets go. So we exit the plane and Ana is heart broken. She has been so SO excited to fly on an airplane and go to Hawaii. The whole time we sat on the plane she kept asking me if we were flying yet. The poor girl cried for a good 20- 30 minutes. She was tired, hungry and very disappointed. Once we got some food in her she calmed down and was much happier. I guess this was a test run I found I needed more snacks. The girls did great tho I was so impressed with them they were happy and content and just played while we sat and sat and sat. A lot of people on the plane commented on how well behaved they were, I was so proud of them. We didn't get home until 10:45pm, almost a 12 hour adventure. We are going to try again tomorrow, lets hope they do just as good and the flight takes off!! The interesting thing about it all is usually I'm a stress case and I'm very impatient with the kids but Jethro and I were both very relaxed and did everything we could to keep the kids entertained. When they announced the flight was cancelled we were of course disappointed but we felt no grief or anger about it. We feel like there was a reason we didn't fly out tonight. Jethro and I and his family have fasted and prayed for every ones travel plans and Jethro gave us each a priesthood blessing before we left this morning. I feel like Heavenly Father as blessed us with patience thru out the day and maybe there was something defective with the plane that it wouldn't have been safe for us to fly. We feel like the Lord has blessed us and is watching out for us! This experience has truly strengthen my testimony of the spirit of the Holy Ghost and the power of the priesthood!

Mele Kalikimaka

So much to do and so little time. But here is a post that I've been wanting to do but just haven't yet. Ana's hula class taugh by my sister in-law Maria did a recital earlier this month.






It was really cute, I love watching Ana dance and she really enjoys it! Of course Jethro and the boys playing for the recital and sounded really good! Ana's cousins came to watch, its always fun to have family there to show support, I know Ana loves to have her cousins around she is a lucky girl to have cousins to dance with as welll!!