Monday, May 27, 2013

Splash-n-Dash

The American Samoan Swimming Association has put on this Splash-n-Dash for a couple years now but this is the first time any of my boys have tried it.  One of Micah's good friends, Victor Chen  was competing and asked Micah to sleep over and go with them to compete the following day.  It was a early day and they were at Coconut Point at 6AM!  Our family met them at coconut point where the swim/run was going to be help.  We got held up a bit because another car had died in the road and we had to pushed it off the road.  

We missed the swimming part but I heard it was challenging.  The wind was really blowing and the ocean was choppy but they did well.  They swam a 100m.  We got there right as Micah was slipping on his shoes for the run and off he went to complete the 1000m run. 


Here are Micah and Victor running.  

It looked like they had a lot of fun and Micah won the 1st place ribbon in Boys 8-10 with a time of 9.09 minutes.  Victor came in second.  Great job boys!!!



Temple Trip April 16-19, 2013

Written by:  Alec



May 16, 2013 right after school I left to Apia for the Temple Trip.  We stayed at the patron housing near the temple and on the first day (or night I should say) I did not have a permanent room for a while and I was constantly switching rooms.  Because of this I missed dinner and my meal (it was more like a snack) ended up being the beef jerky I had brought and was not very filling.

The next morning we woke up at 5:00 a.m. and had cereal for breakfast served by the Priests quorum.  An hour later we ran through the rain to the temple to do the temple work.  While in the temple I felt the Spirit.  We we were done we went back and had basically the rest of the day to ourselves due to the change in plans.  Around 4:00 p.m. we went back and finished doing baptisms for the day.  

That evening we had a "fireside" with President Leota (Samoa Mission President) where I led the meeting.  President Leota challenged us to read the Book of Mormon by the end of June.  After that we ate dinner and had ice-cream with an abundance of toppings.  After dinner we went to bed.


The next day we did not have time for breakfast and went to the temple. We were interrupted again and had to wait outside for an hour for the group to finish.  Finally they got out and we did the baptisms.  We finished and went back.  It was the Deacons turn to do breakfast but Tauasu, Coli,  Mickey and I were the only Deacons.  Two of the young women helped a lot with cooking the pancakes.  By the time we had finished making breakfast it was basically lunchtime.  We ate pancakes and very few people dared drink the steaming hot chocolate.  After a while we went to the pool and coincidentally (I think) met with the Pesega 5th ward, we made a few friends and, after swimming, we had lunch. 
 After that we did baptisms and after that we had testimony meeting with Pesega 5th at the school near the patron housing.  We walked to the school's gym and there was an activity where Elder Oaks spoke. After that we walked back to patron housing and had dinner with Pesega 5th.  After that we had a talent show and it was really fun (more like funny).  After that we had the leftover ice cream (we shared with Pesega 5th).  Finally after a long day we went to bed.

The next day I went to the market with brother Talataina, Tala, Mickey, Malachi and Mako.  I got a necklace for me, my Dad and my mom and rings for my brothers.  We went to patron housing, packed up and left to the airport.  The temple trip was a great experience for me.  I am so glad I was able to go.



Sunday, May 12, 2013

Happy Mother's Day

Here is a special Mother's Day gift for our Moms.  

We love you just the way you are!




Happy Mother's Day!


We love you!!


Sunday, May 5, 2013

Riley's 1st Haircut

So I finally broke down and cut Riley's hair for the first time!   I didn't want to cut his hair and I put it off as long as I could.  But it was getting long enough to get tangled so I have to bite the bullet.  Say goodbye to his beautifully colored hair.  Riley had golden tips and in the sun it had a reddish hue.  As it grows it is getting more brown.  

Bye-bye long hair!

"Wait a minute!  What did they do to me!"

Dad finished up the haircut with his trusty FloBee.  

Oh getting a little nervous about Dad's FloBee skills.  

All done and all smiles!  Nice haircut!!

Handsome boy!  


Thursday, May 2, 2013

A lot of candles!

Jason had a birthday and it started off with..... playing basketball at 4:30AM!!!  Then he got his Birthday Breakfast in Bed.
 It's not much fun eating breakfast alone so the boys joined him in there too.  Yikes!!!
 We took Jason out to Dinner and then home to blow out his candles.  Look at the flames coming off that cake and we weren't even close the the right number of candles!!!  ;)  All in all Jason had a good day.  Happy Birthday Jas!