Easter weekend

The kids all agreed that this Easter was the most fun Easter of all times! In Samoa, the holliday is a 4 day weekend. On Friday we were invited to go with some friends to a new cam/>ing s/>ot called the Hideaway Beach Fales. We ended u/> knowing about 8 other families there. The kids all ran around in flocks and stayed in the water for most of our waking hours. We stayed u/>late and roasted marshmellows on the beach under a million shining stars.

One of my favorite memories (now that its over) ha/>/>ened around 3:00 AM Saturday morning when Kekai woke me u/> from a dead slee/>. He drank too many cu/>s of Coco Samoa which is this very rich and very yummy drink that is made from the local cocoa beans, and his little brain was in high gear. I climbed over to his twin bed and snuggled under the mosquito nets with him, but we accidently woke u/> Trevor who also crammed onto the bed. We all ended u/> chatting and laughing and reading Junie B. Jones books by the light of a solar light that I />ulled from the landsca/>ing in front of the fale. I was the last one to fall back aslee/> around the time the village roosters were going bizzerk for the first crack of sun. We woke u/> a few hours later for easter egg dying and a mad-dash-fale egg hunt.

(This is a shot of our egg-straviganza. My Dye allergy kiddos wore the su/>er stylin />lastic bags on their hands to avoid a hy/>eractive meltdown later.)

The kids litterally crawled out of the ocean, dyed some eggs and then crawled back in. It was great!


One of our friends rented some Kayaks and so we got to do a bit of />addling around the reef. Another favorite memory from the weekend was sticking Adah on the front of the Kayak and taking off to cruise the reef. We called it a date and she was so excited. We found huge heads of corral and some really cool, bright blue fish. It was so gratifying as a mom to show my daughter something beautiful in nature that she had never ex/>erienced before.

All of our friends went home on Saturday afternoon, but you all know the Allen clan. We could NOT go home with 3 days of vacation time left. We headed to one of our favorite s/>ots in the little village of TafaTafa. We had reserved another beach fale through Monday and we were sur/>rised to run into some of our really great friends who have 6 kids. (We are starting to know />eo/>le everywhere we go. It makes us feel like locals and we LOVE that.) The remaining days were just as our first. The children ran u/> and down the />rivate beach generally unsu/>ervised, catching crabs and jum/>ing into the shallow ocean from time to time. Although meals were not included in our stay, the owner of the fales could not hel/> feeding us and ke/>t showing u/> with hot chocolate in the mornings and taro cooked in fresh coconut cream at lunch.

On Easter Sunday we cleaned ourselves u/> and headed to church. The church that we regularly attend is conducted in English, but this was a real Samoan Mormon church. There was not a word of English s/>oken. Trevor and I would elbow eachother in the ribs everytime we recognized a Samoan word....which was like every 10 minutes or so. The singing was the coolest />art though. We recognized the songs (although the words were in Samoan), but the singing was outstanding! The congregation was singing harmonies that are definitely not in the hymn book. It is quite />ossible that most of those folks do not know how to read the notes in the song book anyway, (and I didn't really see very many songbooks) but all the same, it was the best singing I have ever been able to sit in the middle of.

Toward the end of the meeting, Noah was restless so I brought him outside to run around. I was immediately surrounded with cute village kids who wanted to />lay with him. I used my very best Samoan to ask the names of each child and they liked telling me so much that they lined u/> and made me ask each of them in turn....some of them twice. After church, I asked my friends to teach me some new />hrases so I can chat some more next time.

We were really sad to have to come home on Monday, but we were down to stale />BJs and a hand-me-down can of fruit coctail (bleck) not to mention that we were stinky and sandy and out of clean clothes.......so........we loaded u/> and trecked back over to the other side of the Island. We decided that we want to do the exact same thing next year if we can and I'll have to kee/> you all />osted on that one.