Keni
Phantogram Three
Color Me Curious
Jimmy Eat World
macklin celebrini has autism
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Fai_Ryy
No title available
titsay
Game of Thrones Daily
NASA
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Origami Around
shark vs the universe
tumblr dot com
No title available
TMBGareOK. The Official They Might Be Giants tumblr
YOU ARE THE REASON
hello vonnie
Cosimo Galluzzi
seen from Argentina
seen from Moldova
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from India
seen from India
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from India
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from Jordan
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
@tropicalislandadventures
Today is Wednesday, June 3rd, the second to last day of school!! I can’t believe it’s finally here. We scrubbed the floors and put all the desks away and it looks exactly how I found it when I first walked into my classroom 10 months ago. It’s crazy how the time seems to go by so quickly in retrospect. Here are a few more pictures of my kids. I’m trying to take as many as I can to remember them!
These are some of my favorite island songs! Click on the picture twice to take you to my playlist.
With the year coming to an end, I am starting to realize I only have a few more weeks left with these faces.
This is the Don Bosco dance from Flag Day 2015. It’s pretty hilarious, but it gives you a little taste of their typical siva (dance). Hint: if it’s super blurry, change the setting quality to 480p.
Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
Dr. Seuss
Every year American Samoans celebrate Flag Day, which is to commemorate the year they became a territory of the United States. It’s a huge deal and everyone decorates their houses, repaints bus stops and other buildings, and gets ready for the most monumental moment: the fautasti boat race. A fautasi boat is basically just a long rowing boat. Some boats hold up to 40 rowers. Most of the villages have their own boat so everyone is extremely territorial and supportive of their respective boat. This year the village I stay in, Utulei, hosted a boat from Western Samoa called Don Bosco. It was the only boat that was still wooden and not fiber glass and it was also the only boat with a female captain. On the day of the race Nikki, Allison, and I decided to climb Mount Alava to get the best vantage point to watch the race. Unfortunately, the race was cancelled because the waves were too large and actually sunk two of the boats (whoops), but it was still a great hike and a beautiful day to enjoy the weather. Manulele Tausala (Nu’uuli’s boat) ended up winning the rescheduled race!
More pictures from our second trip to the bat caves.
I let my kids go crazy and decorate the classroom however they wanted for Christmas and this is what they came up with! I think they did a pretty good job! The boys are Tima, Onesimo, Fetu, and Herman (who won the Mr. Santa Claus competition!) and AJ aka "J," who is the Samoan teacher's niece's child who hangs out in my classroom most hours of the day. The next two photos are from our experience at Mormom Church! A ton of our kids are Mormom and they invited us to their Christmas Program so we just had to go! It lasted about 6 hours, but we only stayed for 4. It was actually really enjoyable! The kids were so pumped that we came - after the performance they all rushed over to see if we liked it. The last photo is of Kate and I yesterday on our deathly trip across to the island Aunu'u. The waves were HUGE and we almost died crossing over in the tiny boat. Luckily we made it and here we are on Christmas Eve!
These are different photos from my walk to and from school. The two sunrise photos are my favorites. It still amazes me that I get to see this view every single day. I'm a lucky gal!
Aunu'u
On Saturday morning our friends Nikki, Kathryn (we call her Kitty), and Roy took an early morning bus from their village, Leone, to meet me in Pago Pago at the bus depot. We had decided to try visiting the small island of Aunu’u, right off the east end of the main island, Tutuila. We knew buses that travelled that far out east were rare, but within a few minutes a driver said he would take us all the way. We had only been to the east side on the first day we had gotten to American Samoa, which was nearly 8 weeks ago! The east side is beautiful; it’s all along the coast with beautiful beaches, coconut trees, and fales lined up along the road. I was lucky enough to be sitting next to a native from the east side who was my personal tour guide as we travelled along. She told me the names of all the beaches and the different villages and let us know that the woman a few seats ahead of us was from Aunu’u and was taking the boat back there today. We got dropped off and chatted with the woman and her two younger daughters. The woman happened to be a teacher at the one school on Aunu’u and she told us her daughters would be more than happy to take us around the island.
We got the complete tour. They showed us the school, took us up the mountain to see the crater lake and showed us the quicksand before taking us back to the wharf for a swim. The island is small, but so incredibly beautiful. The beaches have pristine white sand and the villagers describe themselves as being all part of a big family. After an hour of snorkeling we took the boat back to Tutuila. On the way back the driver pointed to our right and said, “Whale!” I saw him blow air out and then we saw half of the whales body before his entire tail came out. It was amazing! I scanned the ocean the entire ride back, but unfortunately we only saw him once. The boat driver told us that it was mating season for whales and he sees them a lot during September. I guess it’s common for a family of dolphins to jump and follow alongside the boat, too. Wish we could have seen that!