Sailele

Over the long Christmas weekend, a group of us decided to spend a day at the beach just relaxing and hanging out. We chose to head to the north side of the island and visit Sailele. Check out the super sweet gold sequened fabric that is draped around the sign posts. Oh yeah, they're not playing around. To get there you drive up and over a fairly steep pass, but then you pretty much drive right up to the beach, get out of your car and you're there.

The next four pictures are shots of the coast line taken from left to right starting with the road that runs into the village where you park and moving along the beach.

Here are Nunu, Ben, Steve, Aaron and Naomi getting set up underneath one of the fales along the beach:

LTM and me:

Steve got a boo-boo:

He was in shock:

But Ben kissed it and made it all better:

Several beers in, Naomi had quite a bit to say about the awesomeness of libraries in general and the legalities and ethics of accepting donations of burned DVD's. She was in rare form and it was fantastic! We were just watching the show:

There was a group of kids playing in the water that day. They looked like they were having a blast:

Nunu taking a swimming (aka potty) break:

Emily had to be instructed on how to pee in the ocean. Sit down Emily, sit down:

Aaron's X-mas Eve Extravaganza

On Christmas Eve, Aaron and Naomi hosted a great holiday party complete with good food, holiday decorations and even a gift exchange. Despite 90 degree temperatures, for this one night, it actually felt like the holidays. They even had a Christmas tree! Everyone brought a dish for the potluck and we ended up with an awesome spread. I made broccoli souffle, which is my favorite thing about Christmas dinner. I had to make a few adjustments based on island ingredient availability, but it turned out great. Aaron even fried a turkey, which was awesome. After dinner, the gift exchange got underway. Each person brought 2 gifts--1 in the $20-25 range, and another in the $2-5 range. We drew numbers, started picking gifts and then the stealing began. There were a few hot items including an American Samoa flag and a eukelele from Western Samoa. I walked away with the eukelele and a cooler. A pretty fantastic haul. Others were not so lucky. Ned ended up with 2 floppy fisherman type hats. Aaron got a collage photo frame that he was not happy with. And Naomi got stuck with a callous shaver. Dr. Dave & Maria scored a hamper set after some serious stealing back and forth with Nunu. There were also a couple of bottles of booze that kept getting stolen by Ben and Erick. All in all it was a fun evening and everyone walked away with a little something. Below are Aaron and Naomi explaining the rules and having people draw numbers to begin the exchange.

Here's Siri waiting for the present show to get on the road:
Voj chillaxin:
Julia & Liz:
Everyone waiting for the games to begin:
Melissa & Siri opening the eukelele (which I went home with...bwahahahaha):
Nunu opening the cooler (which I also went home with).
Voj unwrapping the hamper set. You can see Maria eyeing it off to the side..."Those will be mine...oh yes, they will be mine."
Ben in his reindeer gear:
Alden digging in:
See how happy Aaron is with his frame:
Ned and his floppy hats. Sweet.
Nate got LTM an extra special gift...it's Sport Action Lisa, complete with black eyes, a broken leg and Doug's drilling field.

35th Birthday Bash

Every year on my birthday, mom and I would take the day off of work and have a fun bonding day. We would go to the movies, go shopping, get mani's and pedi's, go to lunch, and whatever else sparked our fancy. It was something I looked forward to all year. This year, however, that wasn't going to happen and wasn't sure how the day would go. Yet despite being 6000 miles from home in the middle of the South Pacific, Lisa made sure I had a great birthday. I got a pedicure, we went out to lunch, saw a movie and had an awesome 80's party that night at Ben and Emily's place in Coconut Point. We did a little shopping and I found all sorts of dayglow jewelry, a rockin' shirt and even tights with lace on the bottom! All right here on the island if you can believe it. Lisa decided to come dressed as a Cabbage Patch Doll. Note the pig tails. Sweet. Like we were like totaly set for an awesome 80's party. Below are some of the boys chillin' like a villian...Steve, Erick, Evan, Ben and NuNu (standing up).

More folks enjoying the evening on the deck. From left to right around the table are Emily, Kiwi Sara, Oscar, Haz-Matt, Kayla, Alyssa, Julia (hidden behind Ned), and Ned.

A few brave souls actually dressed up in the 80's theme. LTM as a Cabbage Patch Doll, Evan in his Def Leopard island tour T-shirt, and me and Steve all decked out.

Here is Evan's tour T-shirt. The stops on the tour were priceless:

Check out Steve's vans and his peg-legged jeans:

Julia, LTM and Ned hanging out on the deck. Check out LTM's blue eyeshadow. Awesome.

Aaron and Naomi came a bit later after the library Christmas party so they were dressed in another theme. Here is Lady Naomi, otherwise known as the Snow Princess:

And Aaron, her little helper:

A totally awesome dance party broke out. Here are Lisa and Emily taking a turn on the floor to Cindi Lauper's Time After Time:

LTM and Steve rockin' out to some Depeche Mode and Ben in the background loading up the queue:

You can call this Lisa's exorcist dance move. Steve isn't sure what's going on:

Ned and Lisa playing a little grab-ass:

And of course Naomi, LTM and Emily singing and dancing the night away right into the camera:

Church Decorations

Some of the villages go all out with the decorations around the holidays. The Catholic Church in Leone has one of the best displays. There are all kinds of decorations plastered on every square inch of this place. Everything from your traditional baby Jesus in the manger scene, to Santa's of every size, shape and configuration, to penguins (and lots of them) and palm trees, candy canes, ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds, geese aglow in lights, Disney characters of every kind, reindeer parachuting with umbrellas, Christmas presents all tied up in bows and just about every other sort of decoration you can imagine. It was definitely worth the visit. Below you can see Ned, me and Nunu (Sean) in front of the church at night. Awesome...

Reindeer parachuting with an umbrella:
The church all aglow:

Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus along with Santa's, palm trees, Mickey Mouse & Whinney the Pooh: