thanksgiving & black friday

We were supposed to get a pig for Thanksgiving but they went up $100 from when the boys went and first asked about it so the night before Filipo decided we were gonna go get all this food to cook. We woke up on Thanksgiving and I attempted to cook the food. Even though Filipo never likes to admit it I'm a pretty good cook but I've never cooked Thanksgiving food before so it was very interesting. About 1/2 hour before the food was finished my next door neighbor brought over 5 pans of food. I think she knew I didn't know how to cook all that food and felt sorry for us. She's a bomb cook though. We sat down to eat and even I ended up just eating her food. It was so good. She always makes the best food. Anyway we had a nice feed and then spent the afternoon sleeping and playing card games. We also got a nice surprise when we were talking to my parents but that's another post altogether....






On Black Friday we were going to wake up early to go to the store but I never set the alarm so we didn't even leave until 7:00 a.m. which for most people is too late to get anything. The only reason we went is because this summer Filipo's laptop he got last Christmas broke and so Best Buy gave him a gift card refund with $750 on it. We went to Best Buy looking for a new video camera and nothing else really but we ended up spending forever there trying to decide which one to buy. We ended up getting a few things but we still didn't spend all the money. Anyway it was a good day but poor Finau was so tired so as soon as we got to the car he knocked out all the way home.

finau [lahi's] birthday

Finau Leka waiting to blow out the candles

All that hard work and nobody even realised this said "Finau"

Since we have Filipo's parents here with us we were able to celebrate Finau's 77th Birthday with him. We made him a chocolate cake and that was about it. Birthday's aren't a big deal in Tonga like they are in the U.S. and so Finau was kind of weirded out about it. Later Filipo told me he acted so weird because he's never had a cake or had anyone sing Happy Birthday to him his ENTIRE LIFE, EVER. Wow....It was all good though and I'm glad he finally got one cake. I felt kinda weird singing and being the only one so that's why you pretty much only hear Filipo in the video.

lately

A few weeks ago our friends invited us over for dinner. They are seriously one of the nicest family I've met ever here at BYU-Hawaii and they are so humble. They're both from Fiji and they just had a little boy that's almost five months old. Finau was really sick but he loved playing with the baby.



The following week we had to go to town to get Finau's teeth checked out so the picture was of him playing at the Dentist office. The building where the dentist office is located was so shady looking and I was really scared to go in but inside it's super nice and the dentist is really friendly and helpful. They even have all these play stations for the kids and a movie playing all the time. He finally went back this week to get his teeth fixed so he has his caps on. He was such a trooper while they put them on and he's finally getting over being sick from the operation and all the medicines he had to take.

A couple weeks back when he was originially suppose to get the operation he hadn't eaten anything for a while since he was sick and we didn't have any food so we ran to macca's and got some burgers and Finau was just finishing them all off even though we bought him the chicken nuggets. He still ate his nuggets and 1 1/2 burgers. He cracks me up sometimes.




On Sunday we finally put Finau in his taovala from Aunty Pina. I was surprised he kept it on so long. The only reason it finally came off was because he was so active in nursery that I went to tighten it and just decided to take it off him.



This picture was taken a couple nights ago. I was trying to get one of his teeth but he didn't want to open his mouth because he was exhausted and still in pain. He still has a little bit of his chubby cheeks but he is loosing all his baby fat. When he was nine months he wore 2+ age clothing. Now he's back into wearing all those 2 year old clothes. He's getting skinnier by the second. The plus side is at least we won't have to buy him clothes for the next 4 or 5 years since we usually buy everything larger for him so now he can use it for a while.


None of the pictures are the best but that's as good as it gets with a cell phone camera and an active little man. I'll try and put up more pics this week because tomorrow is the Laie Hawaii Temple Re-dedication and I am so looking forward to it and going inside for the first time since it re-opens! I watched some of the "cultural celebration" on t.v. and I hate to say it but I thought it was so very, very boring. For the hour and a half I watched they only did Hawaiian/Asian dances and so I didn't really enjoy it. I thought the Tongan Temple celebration a couple years back was much better. Anyway I'm still excited and can't wait to go to the dedication tomorrow!

famili

Well no pictures but some exciting news for Filipo. His parents and oldest sister arrived in Hawaii last Saturday and he is loving it. A little too much if you ask me because he's been trying to entertain them like crazy and got really sick and missed two of his classes. The little man was also sick with a bronchitis infection for two weeks but now he's better. Since he's better he goes in for his operation this week. He's getting four caps on his teeth....poor kid...that's what he gets for having a mum and dad that would rather give him a bottle of juice than spend 30 minutes rocking him back to sleep. Thankfully he has the best grandparents and they have so graciously offered to pay for his white caps so he doesn't have to go with the silver ones for the next 7 years!

Finally we've got Finau back to sleeping in his own bed every night and since he's been doing that he's been sleeping through the night. He's back to drinking only water but we're still working on getting him out of diapers. Lets hope that comes soon because I am not paying for the super expensive ones in Tonga. He can run around naked when we get there for all I care.

On a side note my baby nephew Manukia is in the hospital in Tonga. You know it's serious when the family calls you from Tonga. My sister-in-law said he's fatter than Finau was at six months and he has severe asthma. The doctor's say they don't think he's gonna live much longer so we've spent the past few days thinking a lot about him and praying that everything works out. It made me so grateful to be living in the U.S. where Finau's insurance covers all of his medical expenses and many, many, many hospital visits and his medicine and for his own machine that he can use at home. That's definitely something I'm going to miss when we go to Tonga. Since my visiting teachers came over and encouraged me to express all my thanks I think that's what I'm most grateful for right now especially with everything happening with baby Manukia. I'm grateful that Finau's taken care of and we don't have to worry like Paita does. I can't even imagine going through what they are especially since they already lost one son. Just remember to take some time out to give thanks for what you have cos you never know when it's gonna get taken away.

countdown: HALLELUJAH finally leaving TVA on December 20!!
December 17 - Filipo's graduation [after being on the 10 year plan]
December 24 - Flying with Nau to New Zealand....woohooo vacay!!

birthday boy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FINAU JR!!

This is the most ridiculous dinosaur I've ever seen but everybody loved the cake...it was chocolate and vanilla cheesecake something....

This photo was actually taken in Pangaimotu when we visited Tonga and totally has nothing to do with this post but I forgot to include it with the last one. If you're tongan than you know that's Tinitini and that would be enough but since most of my family reading this isn't tongan....let's just say he's the funniest guy in all of Tonga and every single Tongan in the whole world knows him.....so naturally we had to get a picture with his brand new bus and plus Finau is wearing his Liahona shirt that the Tonga kids gave him...

Man our little man is not so little anymore. Every day I look at him and I realize how big he's getting and how sooner than we think he's gonna be off on his mission, getting married, and having his own kids. It really makes you treasure every moment you have with them and according to the doctor at Finau's current growth rate he's gonna be 6'8 by the time he's 18....must be from his real dad's side hahaha....kidding!! Everyone else wants him to be a rugby star or a football player for byu (seriously when we were at our family beach house one of our family friends every five seconds kept telling everyone they had to protect the future all star since he's gonna be the money maker in the future...it was funny at first but they said it ALL THE TIME) but my dad and I decided we're training him to be a future YANKEE! He loves baseball and plays every day so we're off to a good start.

This picture is of Lina and Finau. She's the daughter of Filipo's bishop from his home ward in Tonga and now they're going to school here at BYU-H....and Filipo loves it.

Onto the whole point of this post....Finau turned 2 on October 2nd! I told Lipo we weren't gonna do a big feed just a small cake and ice cream with us and one of our cousins but of course they had other plans. Filipo's cousins spent the afternoon cooking all of these different foods and I kept thinking it was too much but within three hours all 10 foil pans of food were gone. Never underestimate the tongan boys when they eat. Good thing they came over or else I probably would've thrown the leftovers out. We just had a cake from costco and since I don't have a camera these are the pictures that our friend took of Finau and his cake.

Manuia lou aso fanau to the main man in our life....love you long time finau leka

major slacking

Finau watching the butterflies in my parent's front yard

I have been sooooo bad about blogging for the last year. Actually I've been really good I just haven't been publishing my posts because what's the point without pictures??? Nobody wants to read through a novel.....anyway long story short most of our photos were on the laptop which just stopped working for no reason one day so I've been blogging but not publishing just so I'd have something to remember what we've been doing because keeping a journal has been so not happening this year. Anyway my family really wants updates on our life and have been bugging me about blogging so I guess old photos or cell phone photos are just gonna have to do for now. We haven't been up to much this year except beach, being so lazy and watching movies with friends all day for the first five months of 2010. In June we went to Tonga for a month and loved every minute of it! So good to see family again and give them a chance to meet Finau Leka(the most favorite and most handsome grandson in the entire family)
Here's a couple photos of Finau at school. He went the entire time we were in Vava'u and loved it. I can't wait to get back to the island cos he is going back to school pronto so I can get back to cleaning my house and not being lazy all day watching movies. It was sad coming back to hawaii because the lifestyle over there is so different but it's so easy to live the right way....I can't really explain it....I just love living in a place that's not so caught up in having material things and actually has a law that all the stores have to be closed on Sundays and everybody actually uses the day to go to church and spend time with family. Anyway it was a nice break and then it was back to reality, back to late nights with our sick little man, long days at the hospital getting asthma/pneumonia/flu treatments, just quality time with me and nau and filipo gone all day working hard to earn our rent money.

Filipo started school and then Nau and I got the best surprise of the entire year. We got to have a little vacay back to F'burg/Washington, D.C./New York City/Outer Banks/Palmyra, NY! It was so much fun and we loved every minute. It was hard not having Filipo there when Finau got sick but we had a blast just spending time with Mum & Dad, visiting all the tourist places back home, and living in a house WITH AIR CON and WITHOUT UKU's[the best part by far!!], cockroaches, geckos, biting ants, rats, wasps, bees, and every other thing we have hiding in our little tva apartment back home. My family is DIE HARD YANKEE'S FANS FOR LIFE so here's some pictures of our trip to the new stadium in the Bronx....loved it!! Thanks mom and dad for taking us and buying tickets!!!

After the game...Finau loved it

With our favorite pitcher, Mariano Rivera #42!

Even if you're not a Yankee fan you have to admit that's the best shirt....so cute

We spent most of the time at the house playing outside and going for walks or swinging on the front porch swing but here's a few pics of that:

At the National Zoo...which would have been better if they actually had some interesting animals but anyway....
Checking out his future house lol
Chasing the birds and trying to play baseball

After a month and a half of that Filipo said we had to get back to tva so back we went in time for Nau's 2nd birthday. Had probably the second most horrible day of my life due to Finau's illness and difficulties with flying [ask me about the rude swedish people on my flight...so irrits] and spent some time on Maui in the hospital and then got stranded there and had to call a cab and then when we finally got to oahu they lost our bags so we had to wait around for that too....it was a long journey back and sorta good/sorta bittersweet....
so now we're spending our days soaking up the hawaii sun during our beach sessions for the most part and for the other 75% we're at home watching movies...haha...just kidding....

Oh, Filipo will be graduating in December 2010 with a degree in Mathematics and Education from BYU-Hawaii. So we're spending most of our days lately filling out visa apps and hoping to have some of our tongan family over for a couple months...we'll see how that goes. So we'll be getting kicked out of tva December 20 and either moving to Tonga via New Zealand or heading to mainland for six months and then onto New Zealand/Tonga. Either way I'm going with Finau to New Zealand to get some kiwi chocolates....delishhhh well the licorice not so much the peanut slabs.....but i actually kinda like the meat pies now but still not a fan of meat.....anyway off topic but hopefully this suffices for my aiga and i'll try and keep all of my famz updated from now on.

Halloween Laie Style

MY SPIDER UKU BOY!! Love you Finau Leka!!

Kaloni in her Mulan outfit

Finau with the fighter pilot and Soni

The TONGA Family kids
Kaloni, Nelson, Dorothy

After a long night of trick-or-treat

Action shots...

SHERIFF FINAU

Before we started and we were still smiling
because our feet didn't hurt

Dorothy & Nacho about to fly away in the
tornado, look at that cape fly :)

Nacho & Mulan

Before the ward party

NACHOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I just thought this was a funny pose

Yes, that is Spider-Man & Jesus....lol
Malachi as a jedi and Finau as spiderboy

Everyone else got candy at the booth
but Finau got a whistle that we spent
all night whistling and annoying the
neighbors with

Finau celebrated Halloween for the first time today. Yesterday he wore his spiderman costume that Grandma & Grandpa Weber sent him to our ward party. He also wore it to the school activity they had. He was super cute. He ended up sleeping in it and when we went to town today we just woke him up and he wore it all day today. Everybody kept telling us he was so cute and they just wanted to eat him up. So for Halloween today Finau and I went with two of the Tongan ladies to a swap meet they have in Pearl City. I've never been to this one before and it's a good thing because I'd probably be broke. It's basically everyone coming and selling their stuff and most stuff isn't new like the one at Aloha Stadium. They had so many really cheap toys and clothes and so our friends bought Finau this little piano with a seat. I also spent some money buying Disney movies and a couple videos for Filipo. After the swap meet we went to Wal-Mart looking for a mat for our house.

As a side note the girls at night show that Filipo works with really wanted to dress Finau up as NACHO LIBRE. I ended up going around Wal-Mart getting stuff for his costume so I could sew it and he could wear it to our friend's ward party. Who knew finding baby blue tights and red socks would be so difficult. We also bought him some cowboy boots so he could wear those when we went around Laie in his Sheriff outfit.

We came home and I had to rush to pull Finau's costume together. It turned out alright for a last minute thing. He was so cute and EVERYBODY knew who he was. They kept asking to take pictures of him so I'm glad our last minute planning was a success. After the party we walked around Laie and went trick-or-treating with some of the tva kids. It was so long and we were so tired. I think if I take Finau in the future we're only going down one road and going home.

We had a lot of fun and I'm glad Finau had a good time with some of the kids even though he didn't really know what was happening. It was still a fun experience for him.