California

First, some history…

Seuao has a sister, Lanu who lives in L.A. She and her cousin (one of Auntie Tolofulu’s daughters, Naivi) were sent from Samoa to live in California to be raised by their uncle (Malo [short for Alaimalo, Seuao’s mom] and Tolofulu’s oldest brother) when they were teenagers. When Lanu came to America, Seuao was only 2 years old, so they really had no relationship to speak of while growing up. When Seuao came here in 2003, after the rugby tournaments he was competing in, he stayed with Lanu in California for a few months. Since then, they have developed a true brother/sister relationship, and it is so nice for Seuao to have some honest-to-goodness family on the same continent! All the rest of Seuao’s siblings live in Samoa, New Zealand, Australia and Italy.

Well, for a while, Seuao and I had been talking about bringing his mom over from Samoa to visit. The last time his parents came here together was about 10 years ago, when Lanu had her son, Tyler. Although Seuao’s dad has been back a time or two since then, his mom hasn’t made the trip, and now she has two new grandchildren to meet: Tessa, of course, and Lanu’s second son, Trey.

So, Seuao rallied a couple of his brothers who are engineers on a cruise ship based out of Italy and together they arranged a trip for Malo to come to America. Both of these brothers, Misipati (Misty) and Vaosea (pronounced vow-say’-ah) have to travel back to Samoa annually to renew their visas for work. Misty was scheduled to come back the first part of August, and all of their flights from Italy to Samoa are routed through Los Angeles. So, rather than having a layover for a couple of hours, he changed his ticket to fly out to Samoa from L.A. a week later. Well, all the stars aligned, all the flights were scheduled, and we planned our trip to California for the gathering!

Seuao drove out to California a few days before the girls and I flew out to meet him there. It was nice for him to have some good time with his family before the drama and the chaos arrived! I will admit though, flying by myself with the two girls was a little unnerving! We did survive though. And Lily handled it (mostly) like a pro! Just look at her all settled in!

Tessa hated being confined – she is one girl that wants to be on the MOVE!

The first couple of days we just mostly hung out. Seuao’s cousin’s wife and her three kids came and stayed with all of us for a little while. We went to Long Beach Harbor and walked around a bit.

We took Misty and Tyler to Universal Studios one day.

Sorry, Tess. Next time you can come too! Lily had so much fun, especially at the animal show and in front of the cooling fans and dancing to the music!

Lily had Misty totally wrapped around her little finger. Come to think of it, she had most everyone, except her mean old momma wrapped around her little finger!

She was definitely spoiled on this trip!

We drove to Ft. Irwin Army Base to visit with Seuao’s cousin Manu and his wife Eti and their family. Poor Misty had to sit in the back seat of the car with the girls – good thing he loves them! There was a LOT of crying on that drive (like 1.5 hours one way). The boys stayed up late watching old wedding videos and talking about the good old Samoa days.

Lily had so much fun with Lani and Kaira.

They just played and played and played! Eti is an AMAZING cook, and did not stop cooking the whole time we were there. They had a comfy home and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

Seuao and Misty loved taking pictures with all the Army gear – boys will be boys, I guess!

Wow’s cousin Naivi, her daughter Lena and granddaughter Baby Naivi all came to Lanu’s house towards the end of the week. We had a big barbeque and a bunch of Seuao’s friends came over too.

One of my most favorite parts of the trip was shopping in the Alley! The Alley is blocks and blocks of knock-off sunglasses, purses, DVD’s, clothes, toys, electronics, you name it, they have it! I got some fun new things, and we had a great time down there!

We really had such a fun trip. Yeah, the first day in the hot house without air conditioning, 2.5 bedrooms and only one bath with like 15 people was a little overwhelming, but now I can’t wait to go back! It was so fun to have so much of Seuao’s family gathered together, and Lanu and her husband Lynn were such wonderful hosts. We love you guys!