good times with friends & family

Our family friend Tinni is getting married to Filipo's cousin Liuaki on January 29th in the Hamilton, New Zealand LDS Temple. Before she leaves she wanted our families to get together so that we could just hang out and have a good time together. They decided that we would cook food and eat on Friday. Even though it was pouring rain and so windy (POURING RAIN + HIGH WINDS=FREEZING COLD POLYNESIANS!!) we still had our feed in the pavilion. It was too cold but we had a nice time just spending time with each other. Congratulations to Liu & Tinni and wish you guys all the best.
'Ofa atu ki he famili.

manuia le kirisimasi

Filipo talking to
his family on
Christmas Day

Tafa Christmas tree
Little Alani aka Vito
opening our gifts on Christmas

Alani opening his
"community christmas gift"
aka
shoes in Chris's size so he can wear them too
haha

Finau getting his present!
Diapers!!
Hallelujah, those things are expensive!

It was our first Christmas as a family. We've been talking so much at church about starting traditions with your family and I wanted to start some but it seemed like everyone was too tired to do anything, we all just wanted to catch up on our sleep. There's always next year though! I do want to make it a tradition to read the Christmas story every year, open one gift on Christmas Eve, and find someone/family to give gifts to for the holiday because giving is the best part of the holidays!

I caved in three days before Christmas and bought us a 2 ft. christmas tree. It was the perfect size and since it was so cheap I would even be okay with chucking it in the trash and getting a new one next year :) Well Finau got a lot of Yankee baby stuff, dad's starting him early!! They also bought our family a new camera which was nice because the other one had the lense completely fall out and shatter at Iona & Nio's wedding so we were happy about that! They gave us board games too. I got clue and I had to smile because when I was nine, or about that age, I made my own clue game with cardboard and made all the pieces. It was kind of sad but I used that to play clue for so long. My parents offered to buy me a real clue game but I became attached to the homemade one I had for so long, I kind of miss it now.

Filipo gave me a samoan turtle shell bracelet that I really wanted and I love it. I printed off a picture of his entire family a while back and finally got it framed, it looks really nice and he was so happy about it. The best present for Filipo was the camera from my parents, for Finau it was his Yankee baby pacifier (and I think Filipo loved that too cos he didn't have to buy one now) but the best present for me was my parents paying my medical bills for my present. Thank you mom & dad, I love you.

Finau knocked out after opening presents
&
one of the first pictures we took with
our new camera

Our first Christmas as a family was nice enough but I did miss being around family members. I missed opening presents with all of the family and starting from youngest to oldest. I also missed eating my grandma's great cooking especially since Kulisi said we were going to have a mean as feed at his house after pixies and they had no food, what a BASTOS!! haha....As a sidenote Alani drew my name for pixies and bought me a toaster. As we're leaving he says "That's really good for the bagels yeah? I'll come and use it some time." lol, gotta love those boys.....

Our little Christmas tree
that we love

A Special Thanks to my mom:
Just in case you read this I want you to know how grateful I am for you. For some reason I have been thinking a lot lately about when you and dad were here and we all went to PCC to watch Filipo dance at the night show. You paid the $20 for each of our tickets so we could sit in the very first row that night. Filipo asked me to record so I spent the first half doing that. I went to change Finau and ended up staying up at the top. Filipo wanted the show recorded so I asked you to take care of it. I am sorry that I was selfish and I didn't even think about how you had paid for the extra money to sit down there and I spent half the show sitting at the top. I am sorry that you were there to enjoy yourself and I made you spend the time recording the show for us. I hope that you had a good time anyway. I love you mom, you're the best and I miss you so much. Thanks to dad and you for all you do for us, we love you guys and can't wait to see you again.

Christmas Time!

Washington, D.C. Temple Christmas Lights

Gingerbread house Hawaiian Style

[Washington, D.C. Temple at Christmas Time]

I'm gonna miss being home this Christmas especially with my family!
Merry Christmas Eve Mom & Dad
We miss & love you guys.

'Ofa Lahi Atu

Enna took this picture of Finau at church a couple of Sundays ago.
WE LOVE OUR LITTLE BOY, FINAU LEKA.
He is the best thing we could have ever asked for.

mali lahi

Filipo & Aulelei Saipa'ia

"Love season is in progress..."
Ou te alofa tele ia te oe

December is definitely the time for weddings around here. So many students get married especially with the Laie, Hawaii Temple closing for taha.valu months. That is a long time and we're all broke so no one has money to go anywhere else, even to Kona. So several of our good friends are getting married. So here's some photos from Nio & Iona Laulotu's wedding which happened on 12 Dec 08. Massive congrats to my uso brookie & sam, they got married on 17 Dec 2008! Also congrats to Jay & Candace Iafeta whose wedding we just came from. Candace looked amazing in her dress!!

Nio & Iona Laulotu

[[Happy Anniversary to us too, 'Ofa Lahi Atu Filipo]]
20 December 2007
(One year down, an eternity to go & I can't wait)

Tonga Blowholes

as we go on, we remember...

GRADUATION
BYU-Hawaii
13.12.2008
Laie, Hawaii

CONGRATS TO ALL THE GRADUATES!!
[Enna, Tinni, Cayla, Lita, Crissy, Teena, Kalo, Ana, Papa]

Our family with Enna Taulanga (Tonga)

Allie & Cayla Ho Ching-Latu (American Samoa)

The Saipa'ia Boys with Tinni Bailey "Tupou" (New Zealand)

Finau leka with Viliami Toluta'u, our uncle
(Pangaimotu, Vava'u LAhi, Tonga)

Saipa'ia Family

He LOVES us, you just can't tell here
he was way tired

timu.timu.timu

The water was crazy outside...

& as the storm raged outside, Finau just slept with pooh

When I was a freshmen at BYU-Hawaii during winter semester it rained pretty much for 90 days straight. We got over 70 inches of rain during those three months. It was so disgusting because everything would flood and it contaminated the water and people were getting sick over in Waikiki because of the sewer going into the ocean and all of the polluted water that people were coming into contact with. Today was almost like reliving it all.

We're living on the bottom floor of our building. I had slept in the living room Wednesday night because Finau & Filipo were taking up the whole bed and I just could not get comfortable. I feel asleep but all night I heard it raining and people outside but I didn't really think anything of it. At 8 AM I was walking out of my door to go to work and my boss calls and tells me not to go to work because it is so flooded. An hour or two later there were so many volunteers sand bagging our houses and trying to get the water out. It's amazing to me how people come together in a crisis. So Filipo went off to take his final but then after the teacher told them they had to come take it he changed his mind. Filipo went out to help and I watched Finau. Around 1 we went to eat and then I spent all day/night working in the Emergency Shelter as a volunteer.

It was sad to go over to our old building. Those apartments are below ground level so the water rose to the tops of their windows and flooded in and there was at least 7 inches in their homes. It ruined so many things. All over Laie it was waist deep or higher and people were out in Kayaks and boats. The important thing was nobody got hurt & the things that got ruined are just that, things.

plus i got an extra day with my family, that's what matters most to me!

After it was all over...

Malimali!!

We have been so busy with school, work & everything else we have going on that I have not had time to get on here as often as I would like. I mostly just update this for my family that's not here in Hawaii so they can read what's going on with us but since I've been so busy I haven't been getting on every time something happens lately.

First off my old roommate & one of my best friends here at school (Aofia from Samoa) little sister Flora got married on December 6 in the Laie, Hawaii Temple. I really wanted to go to the sealing but Filipo went with some of the guys from night show since Sekati dances too. We went after and took pictures. Here is one of Sekati & Flora. (As a side note I just found out that Sekati changed his name in the school records to "ROCK" as in "The Rock"-Dwayne Johnson just because people think he looks like him when he does that side eyebrow raising thing, AiSEA!!?!?)

So Filipo's sister's husband's cousin, whew...is leaving for Vava'u this Sunday so we're trying to make all these DVD for them. After church finished we went to the temple to take pictures and video but Finau got restless so we only took a few, mostly of Filipo since he's the camera hog!


t
a
h
Finau is getting so chubby but he sure is cute, I love him so much. He's been doing a lot of things for awhile. He rolls on his side, not all the way over but just on his side and he'll stay like that. It's too cute. He's been smiling for awhile but now he smiles and laughs all the time especially when he's with Filipo. Finau loves him and the two of them laugh and laugh when they're together. We had to go into town to try and correct his insurance and while we were waiting here are some pictures that we took of him smiling and laughing, such a handsome little guy!!





Here are some pictures of Finau wearing the BYU shirt that Filipo bought him. This is also the shirt that he wore to the wedding with swim trunks hahaha....I won't even tell you what size this shirt was ;)

Happy 2 Months KiNG FiNAU LekA!!

Finau will turn 2 months old in exactly 2 hours. Well I would like to stay up and post this blog at that precise moment, I am dead tired and have had little to no sleep while taking care of my sick guy for the past two days. So I am going to sleep. I just wanted to wish my little guy the best & when he looks back on this I hope he knows how much we love him.

just born

1 month

2 months old
&
already a
t.a.m.a.s.i.i l.a.h.i

P.S. I did my visiting teaching tonight and the message is so wonderful about Christ. I loved it especially since little Rayden died and someone was telling me today how nice his tangi was. They said everyone was bearing testimony of Christ & the plan of salvation. How lucky we are to have the gospel.

BLaCK fRiDaY

So I went looking through the sales last night to try and see if there was anything I thought was worth getting up before dawn for. I made a list and I came up with these things:

500 GB hard drive from Wal-Mart (to store all the videos we record, photos we take, and music we listen to) $69.00
Internal DVD-Burner from Best-Buy (since we need something to burn all those videos we take cos we have too many & they're taking over all our disk space) $99
Roxio Media/Video-Edit Program from Office Depot (to create those DVDs...) $49

There was other things but we just decided to go with the flow. Before we went off to sleep we had this conversation:
Filipo said "We should wake up and leave at 7:30?"
Me: "What!?!?"
Filipo: "So 8:30?"
Me: "The lines will be so long & we won't get anything we want, we have to leave at like 5:00!"
Filipo: "Oh okay, so we'll go to Mililani, Pearl City & then get to Costco for gas/groceries and come home."

So I'm knocked out and all of a sudden I hear all this movement and I open my eyes and it's Filipo getting all of Finau's things together at 4:30 in the morning! He was up before me so I got ready and we were off. We went to the Mililani Wal-Mart & it was insane! I wish I had taken a picture. There was a line out the front door and up and down 3 1/2 aisles of parking! So cRAzY! So we left and went to Pearl City. We were going to go to Best Buy but mum had said there was a Wal-Mart over there so we stopped to see if we could get the hard drive. There wasn't any line so I dropped Filipo off and went inside. There were so many people and so I went hunting for the hard drive but they were out along with this DVD player I was thinking of getting. I called Filipo to see if he wanted to leave but he had already gotten to the $2 movies. He was standing in a line so I joined him. A hour and a half later a worker comes up to us and asks if we were waiting for the camera and I said "No just waiting to check out." She just said "Okay" and walks away. At this point the line had slowed down a lot and so Filipo went to see what was happening. He comes back and exclaims "It's so slow because this is the CAMERA LINE! Everyone is waiting for a camera, they get to the counter and tell them what they want and then the workers go search for it!" I was kind of irritated but at that point we just decided to stay in line. Looking back on it, the whole situation was too funny but it was so annoying at that time.

So while we wait we took turns going off looking at different things. Finau was only awake for part of the time and most of the time he slept. I felt so bad for dragging him out of bed when he had been sleeping so good. So Filipo comes back from one of this trips with a crock pot. I ask him what it was and he says "I don't know but it was $4!!" It was so funny! Even the lady behind us was laughing, at least I think she was.

We got out of Wal-Mart by 8:30 and went over to best buy. We walked in and got the Blu-RAy DVD Burner. After that we picked up some speakers and looked through to see if there were any good movies. We checked out and went over to COSTCO. We went grocery shopping & found a portable hard drive that Filipo wanted that was on sale so that was his Christmas gift. Then we went outside to get our free pizza. Since we hadn't taken pictures all day we finally got some with Finau & us. We pretended to put ice cream and the soda straw in his mouth, at least I pretended, Filipo did not. Which may or may not be evident in the video I posted.

This is getting long so I'm finishing up now. We ended up going to Mililani Wal-Mart and they didn't have the hard drive so we went back to Best Buy to return the dvd burner I bought to get one from Wal-Mart but then I decided to check out their other dvd burners. I got one that wasn't Blu-Ray but got the job done and it was $50. After waiting through the long line at customer service we finally got through and the dvd burner ended up being $30 so that was our deal of the day. Now we can make all our movies and get them off our camera & computers.

I'd like to say that Finau and I spent the rest of the night sleeping but we had other plans. Filipo went off to work and I stayed up with Finau but it was fun. When he finally knocked out I stayed up taking pictures of him instead of getting some sleep myself. I cleaned the house & put everything away and Finau slept the whole night even through my study group, what a great baby he is. 'Ofa Atu kia Finau LekA!

oku ou fakamalo

'Oku ou fakamalo ki he famili koe'uhi 'oku nau ofa kiate au.

'Oku ou fakamalo ki he 'api koe'uhi 'oku ou mohe fiemalie ki ai.
'Oku ou fakamalo he BYU-Hawaii koe'uhi 'oku ou ako malohi ki heni.

Te tau alu ki he waterpark he 'aho ni he haafe e honogofulu. 'Oku ou fiefia he taimi ni. 'Oku ou fie alu ki he waterpark he 'aho ni. Te u alu ki he waterpark mo Finau & Filipo and Losa & Lani.

WAterPArk-->KapoLEi
[[As you can tell Finau LOVED it!!]]

Na'a ku nofo ki he pavillion mo pepe kiNg fiNAU. Na'e 'afua lelei he 'aho ni. Na'a alu ki he fRiEnD a Filipo. Na'a heka e ka ki KapoLei viA EWA mo FarRinGton HiGHWaY...LOL!!! 'Oku ou sai'ia he waterpark, fiemalie....Na'a ikai te u kai TuRKEy....Na'a ku kai lu sipi & moa, 'oku malie ia.

Na'a mau alu ki he fale faiva 'i Mililani but no good movies until late so foki ki La'ie. Na'a tau fiekaia 'anepo but no food :( Na'a tau alu ki he fale kai but they were closed too.....Na'a tau alu ki he 7-EleVEN and KAI LAHI, isa kulimi, moa teriyaki, & SluRpEe..lol...

'Oku ou fiefia he aho ni. 'Ofa lahi atu ki he famili. 'Oku teuteu BLaCK fRidAY!!

[[I know it isn't all right but at least I tried since I've decided Filipo & I are going to just speak Tongan so by the time we go next summer I'm already fleunt and will be able to speak to people and have some friends there haha.]]

'Oku ou fakamalo Filipo mo Finau koe'uhi 'oku tau ofa lahi 'aupito kiate au.

i'm a big boy now...

Finau turned seven weeks today & the time is just flying by. It seems like he is getting so big and growing up each day but really he is still a small guy & I love him just like that. I took him into our offices for University Relations and everyone smiled and was so happy to see him. They all were surprised at how big he is getting and commented how they all think he's going to have colored eyes. He's already palangi so why not throw in those green eyes...lol...It's surprising to me how many people have commented that he's going to have green/grey eyes!



After the basketball game we took a ride in the car and I was talking with him asking him if he was really ours and if he got mixed up with another baby and he just opened his mouth and smiled so big! He smiles all the time but mostly when he's sleeping,

I'm happier when I'm sleeping & getting enough sleep, so I guess he is too! I told him that he's done more than mommy did when she was a baby. He's already got two concerts, volleyball games, basketball games, temple trips, beach trips, library trips under his belt and he's still a little BIG BOY! ...and SPOiLED RoTtEN, and I wouldn't have it any other way :)

Well he's eating like crazy, growing like crazy (especially his fingernails!! watch out for those guys!), and still wearing those newborn clothes and we love him. He makes it all worth while & I'm so glad he's healthy and ours. It's still amazing that we have this handsome little guy to call our own and raise, it's already been an adventure so far & I'm sure there will be plenty of adventures to come.

just one of those saturdays

We went and watched "Forever Strong" at the IMAX at PCC last night. It was nice seeing it on the big screen but since we'd already seen it we weren't too disappointed about leaving early to go to Songfest. We wanted to make sure to get there on time to get some good video of the clubs. Overall, in my opinion, this years songfest was worse than any that I've been to. The only one I really liked was Tonga & unfortunately I must have hit the wrong button so I only got the first half of it on video. Samoa would have been good but they shut the lights off after the first song and they were off the rest of the time. I'm still not sure if that was on purpose but it was stink.

Today we have white glove and thanks to mom and dad we don't have to clean too much. Filipo went to do the laundry this morning and when he came back I started to fold it. Finau was hungry so while Filipo was making his bottle I distracted him by burying him in laundry. He liked it but then Filipo started piling it up so only his little head was showing and then he started crying. We did get some pictures though & isn't that the whole point...hahaha...