WE'VE BEEN BIT...AND STUNG!!

She constantly talks about how much she loves it here. Can you tell by this picture? This was right before the incident.
The kids and Fasi playing on the beach.
Her battlewounds from the blue bubble. There is more on the back side of her leg but this picture was the only one that came out clear. It looks like she had a thousand tiny little suction cups on her leg.
Last Saturday Leila had one of these (Portuguese Man of War) sting her. We were in front of my cousin's house on the beach. It is too rocky and dangerous there to swim so the kids were throwing rocks into the water and playing in the sand. A really huge wave washed up and all of a sudden Leila is screaming and crying "GET IT OFF! IT'S PINCHING ME!" We had no idea what "it" was because the sun had just set and so we couldn't see anything. Fasi ran her up to my cousin's house where he had a flashlight and there revealed the blue bubble (our unofficial term for it) wrapped around her ankle. The poor thing it must've been at least 3-4 minutes that it was on her. Tali grabbed it off with some newspaper and then we took her into the bathroom where we ran cold water on her leg and also vinegar..which was an instant relief, just enough though. She cried the rest of the night:( But got up at 7 the next morning and said she wanted to go to church...isn't she a trooper!?

Alright, so it's true...I cannot deny the beauty of this island. HOWEVER, I did tell some of you that there were some things I'd help you all in the states appreciate more. The next time your Truly Nolen man or choice of bug killer person comes to your home...HUG him! 2 weeks ago I was stung by that thing above. It was in the middle of the night though so I don't know if it was a baby centipede or a full grown one. I felt a really sharp pain in my left shoulder while sleeping. I sat up and was rubbing it really hard and must've fallen right back to sleep. I woke up the next morning with a really sore and itchy left shoulder but didn't think much of it. While at work I was talking to someone about it and happened to pull down my sleeve to show where it was hurting. Sure enough my shoulder is all swollen, red and hard and there were also 2 bite marks where the friggin centipede left it's mark:( A few days later after talking about it with another employee she told me that the Samoan way to cure a bite from a centipede is to trace the letters MOA (Samoan word for chicken) right where the bite is it will immediately cure the infection. Now I know for the next time...hopefully there isn't one though!

Apolo was bit by a dog earlier this week. My poor son!:( The move down here had transformed him as well as our other kids to loving animals instead of fearing them. Maybe a little too much so for Apolo though. He loved taking out his Uncle Danny's dogs everyday after school. When he is inside the house you could always find him under the kitchen table playing with the cats and kittens. The other day we went to my cousin's house to pick up Puka and Sunni from the babysitter. There are a ton of stray dogs always hanging out over there but never once had they ever shown any kind of aggression to any of us. There was one lying by our car and so Apolo approached it to play with it, and the dog jumped up and started barking at Apolo. The other dogs around also starting barking at him, so he turned and started to run for the steps to come up where we all were but the dog he approached chased him, pinned him against the car and tore his shorts and bit him right above his calve. One of the housegirls ran out and chased the dogs away and by the time I got out there Apolo had made it half way up the ramp and was shaking, screaming and bawling histerically:( The bite was really bad and there was blood running down his leg. Tala had just taken Tracy to the health clinic nearby and so I called her to tell her...she talked to the Dr. there and he said to bring Apolo straight there. MY POOR SON!! He as well as his brothers and sisters were all shaken up really bad, since they had all witnessed it and the blood gushing out didn't help. I wanted to pass out and cry myself but I saved it for later. They cleaned up his wounds and said that since he was up to date with his immunizations he didn't need a tetnis (sp?) shot. I'm still weary about that..but Apolo is actually fine. Later on that night he was walking around playing with his cousin Fou. Myself as well as all my kids are very scared of any and all these stray dogs now. We won't step foot out of the car or house or store if we see one anywhere near. *sigh* Just when we thought we were all adjusting fairly well.