Just like my last post… photos from February 2020.
This was the calm before the storm… but the storm never came. Thank God!
We enjoyed a really pretty sunset. We had a couple more cyclone scares right after this, but so grateful they passed without incidence.
Photos are actually from February last year. Ian and I drove out to the north side to check on the swells, which were supposed to be really big. This was just before an expected cyclone. We had prepped our house for the foul weather — boarded our windows, stashed up on water and canned food, moved all our plants indoors — and while we waited for the imminent winds to pick up, we heard there was going to be huge swell from the north. We stopped by the Mafa Pass, took a few photos, and then went over to the NPS trailhead overlooking Fagasa. We could see the waves, they were huge. The boat ramp was broken, the water crashed on the coastal road and washed inland toward the houses. We decided not to drive all the way down to the village in case the roads were inundated.
It’s a year later, and the boat ramp is still broken and hasn’t been fixed.
BTS the evening before the 1st Pacific Roots Open Mic (PROM) Showcase from back in Octoboer.
In the weeks leading up to our mini home wedding, Ian built this 10-foot wooden table!
We were only going to have 8 people, including us, for our dinner party, but we didn’t have a big enough table to seat us all. We were going to borrow my parents’ dinner table but it’s one of those really nice heavy ones and we didn’t want to truck it over and accidentally nick it. Plus we were going on our honeymoon trip the very next day so we wouldn’t have time to truck it back to their place for Thanksgiving weekend. Thus, we decided to DIY our wedding table!
We bought some plywood from our local hardware store, and Ian did pretty much everything himself, I just helped with the planning process. I worked on painting our wedding signs while he built the table. I forgot to take progress pics, so these are just mid-progress.
The frame had been built, and was super sturdy, and the top panels were cut and fitted but not yet screwed in. It was Halloween and as the afternoon turned to evening, we had to hurry to quickly make last-minute costumes (we went as Princess Leia and Han Solo) and head out to meet up with friends, so we ditched the project for the evening and resumed the next weekend.
After a few coats of stain and varnish, it looked amazing!
Pics to come 🙂
Bonus pics of Ian and Yodi girl being so cute that day on the couch.
More iPhone pics from yesterday’s hike to Fogama’a with friends.
Ian and I woke up a bit late – around 9am, and saw that Sabrina had messaged a group of us about a beach day. We hadn’t decided if we were going to join until we fully woke up and got out of bed. It was a gorgeous day out – why not?
We had less than an hour to get out of bed, eat a quick breakfast that Ian prepped (egg, cheese, and avo taco!), pack our day bags, and head over to Joe and Sabrina’s house to catch a ride to Vaitogi.
The hike was nice and easy on the way down. It was a really hot day, but we had short reprieves from the breeze rustling through the trees. We met up with a couple of other friends, Gustin, Guy, and Guy’s pup Povi, down at the beach. There was some swell, and the waves were breaking inside the cove. We settled in the shade — meanwhile Ian snorkeled out past the reef and climbed up the cliff with a gaggle of seabirds all around —and we spent the rest of the afternoon wading in the calm shallows, laughing and debating about random topics. We hadn’t hung out with this group of friends in a while, so it was really nice to hang out altogether on a little adventure. The hike back up is always a bit dreadful, but we took lots of little breaks and I felt good and strong. Next weekend, if the weather permits, we’ll hike to the cove next to this one!
See the little adventure reel I put together here.
