Underwater Mama
Black and white edits of some maternity pics that Ian shot of me at almost 32 weeks pregnant with Alava.
And some random color edits I liked as well of most of the same pics.
Coconut Point sunrise with Alava
It felt so good to be back home.
Everything was just as it was. Except it wasn’t.
Same same but different.
Coconut Point. Sunrise. Me and Ian.
Different how? We have been joined by our sweet darling baby Alava. We moved out of our place at Coconut Point, the cutest apartment that we made our home nest together.
We were untethered, no place to settle for now.
We were temporarily living out of suitcases, with boxes and bags of our belongings spread out between American Samoa, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
We stayed at my parents’ house while we were home to tie things up for our move. And our wonderful friends and neighbors, Traci and Ano, invited us over to spend several nights at their place at Coconut Point.
It was nice to be back to enjoy the sunrise and be surrounded by the views that we associated with home for almost 10 years.
And with Alava, our little ball of love. Nursing her here in the treehouse where Ian and I got married. So much to be mushy about.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Everything is changing so fast and I just want to hold on for dear life to what we have, but alas, a new dawn has come — and as before, the sun will rise again 🌞
Random pic I took of Gabs in her backyard sometime last year 2022. Such a mood.
We sold all our stuff at the Rotaract x Moso’oi Fest Swap Meet
We decluttered our house in prep for our baby girl, and sold a bunch of stuff at the Rotaract x Moso’oi Festival Swap Meet back in October.
We’d somehow accumulated more and more stuff despite our number of attempts at minimizing what we own. It was a chance to get rid of the unused masses of mess and allowed us to focus on a ‘fewer but better’ approach — especially with baby soon to come.
It turned out to be a blessing too because we have since relocated. We did the darn thing and actually moved off the island, after many many years of saying ‘maybe next year.’ And now that year has finally come, with opportunities for growing our little family.
I don’t miss our stuff so much, but I am very happy that we got to re-home pretty much all of it! Grateful for the Rotaract x Moso’oi Festival teams for making this swap meet possible. It was also really nice to see American Samoa embracing this mode of sustainable living — using and exchanging things already on island so they continued to be used rather than sent to the landfill.
