A Photo Shoot at the Beach

What do you do when you can't get in the water at the beach? As the mom of a new baby, I guess you go camera crazy. I am still avoiding the ocean until my c-section incision is completely healed so to entertain myself I played with our Nikon SLR camera. After owning this camera for over a year, I am finally trying to venture beyond the auto setting. Wow, am I really the mother of two lovely daughters? It's still hard to believe. Carol got a similar Nikon camera for mother's day and she took this wonderful shot of 6-month- old Scott with Ona. She posted the same picture on her blog, but it is too cute to not be repeated.
Photos taken at Tisa's, June 22 (Ona - 6 weeks old)

Michele in Samoa

We were very fortunate to have had a recent visitor to American Samoa. Paul’s mom, Michele, traveled all the way from Michigan to the South Pacific to visit her two granddaughters. Ok, maybe she came to see me and Paul, too, but we all know Ona and Emma were her true incentive to finally get that passport. Michele was a huge help to us, as I was still recovering from my c-section. She rescued Paul from having to do all the dishes and she of course held Ona and entertained Emma. Paul and I even went out without kids one night. Grandma arrived with a suitcase full of goodies, including a very yummy lamb (an appropriate gift for Ona as one of the meanings of her name is lamb). Emma also got a lamb and made a cool "sheep house." I didn’t get to take Michele on as many adventures as I would have liked, but I think she still saw most of the island and experienced quite a lot of Polynesian life in her three weeks here. One of the highlights of her trip was fabric shopping and she got a custom-made lavalava sewn. Another highlight was a trip to Tisa’s Barefoot Bar, where Candyman makes an awesome pina colada with fresh coconut and pineapple. No trip is complete to the South Pacific without dancing so we took Michele to a fiafia night. This is an evening of eating and dancing, and it was great that she got to see traditional Samoan dancing as well as try some of the local food. I was excited to drive again after not being able to do much for over a month after my surgery so one day we went on a long, scenic drive on the west side of the island. Michele particularly enjoyed getting to see the post office, where miraculously all of her many packages end up. I love the hand painted U.S. Post Office sign with the letter emerging from a hibiscus flower. Paul took his mom to do two of our favorite things – hiking and snorkeling. They spent a day together in the National Park, where Michele loved the jungle and the views from the mountains. We had a lot of winds and rough seas during June, but finally on her last day Michele got to snorkel. There was still quite a current, but she did great for her first time snorkeling and saw starfish, sea cucumbers, fish and coral. With her island experiences complete and her grand baby fix for awhile, Michele headed for home, taking Emma with her. Emma is spending 5 weeks visiting family and friends in Michigan and Colorado. It was a bit hard to say goodbye, but I am extremely proud of Emma's independence and I can't wait to hear all about her mainland adventures.

1 month old

It is amazing how fast a month goes by. From making just a few squeaks for the first couple weeks (her little cry literally sounded like a mouse squeaking) to making her presence known now (especially in the evening), Ona has grown a lot this first month. She is smiling now and I can't seem to get enough of her smiles. I haven't caught much of a smile on camera yet, but I did get some great screaming shots. You can tell how much she loves her bath time. Ona went to the Tafuna Health Clinic (which makes our hospital seem like a palace) for her first check-up and shots the other day. That was quite an experience. The so-called check-up consisted of the doctor telling me to lay "it" on the table -- referring to Ona and then proceeding to ask me if my baby was ok. Isn't the doctor supposed to tell me that? Ona weighed in at 9 lbs, which I'm assuming is pretty close to accurate as she is starting to chunk up after her small start on life (she weighed only 5 lbs, 14 oz at birth). I noticed that all the other babies at the clinic were getting even measurements, too, but I'm not sure if the nurse was rounding up or down. Apparently ounces aren't important here. All in all, Ona is a healthy, mostly happy and very loved little baby.

Guppy trail

One of my biggest "pet-peeves" is mis-information. The internet is thus somewhat of a thorn to me as there is very little if any fact-checking on things which get posted. If that wasn't bad enough, people then find this incorrect information and then perpetuate it further and are often adamant that they have the right information. Drives me nuts. Here is an example. I was recently told (by several people) that there was a new trail on the island. Great. I thought it strange that working for the National Park (that maintains most of the trails) I had not heard of this new trail. I love to hike, so I was intrigued. I asked where had these people heard of this "new trail" So and so's blog, they said. Really. So I looked. Turns out this "new trail" had been established only recently.... 1942. By the U.S. Army. In addition to being the National Park marine biologist I am also the park GIS specialist/ cartographer. Here then is the trail map I made about 6 months ago (before said blog post).

This trail is part of the Department of Interior's National Historic Site for the Blunt's Point Cannons. As a National Historic Site this area is administered by... yup, the National Park Service. I requested that the area be cleaned up and revitalized about a year ago during one of our weekly staff meetings. We then sent out our trail crew to clear the area and restore the guns. Ah.... a "new trail".

Incidentally, the second cannon up the hill which is still partially flooded has a freshwater fish species that nobody knew was here. Everyone has been "rubber-stamping" along that our streams had Mexican mollies, Poecillia mexicana. Well, Emma and I went and collected some for an aquarium I built a few weeks ago. I immediately recognized that these were not the Mexican mollies that were supposed to be there. More samples were collected and sent off to North Carolina and the Netherlands (museums that have the leading world experts on Poecillidae- the molly/guppy family). Turns out our fish are Gill's Mollies, Poecillia gillii. So no new trail, but we did get a new fish.