Visualizing Samoa

Thus far, I've been a little worried about where exactly we would be living in Samoa and hoping our house had walls, let alone screens (the traditional Samoan houses called fales don't have any walls, its just a big open hut). But luckily Andy came home from a training last week with these pictures of the two houses they have reserved for us and the other family thats going over with us. I was thrilled to see that they're nice houses. Probably a little nicer and more spacious than where we're living now. They're about 10-15 minutes from the city and 5 minutes from the temple. I had to comment though that throughout this process I've made a lot of jokes to my family that we're going to go live on the island that the t.v. show "LOST" takes place on (they say its close to Fiji). I imagined the terrain to be similar. But I couldn't help but notice that these houses to do look strangely familiar to the homes the "others" live in on the island. My dad asked if the company Andy's working for is called "The Darma Initiative." (If you're not a LOST fan, sorry for the digression)

Packing

My mom was in town last week and was a huge help in getting a big chunk of our packing done. Everything is being sorted into one of 4 piles: Samoa, storage, DI, or trash. Tyler of course has been a huge help during this process. (I hope you can sense the sarcasm) He does love all of the boxes lying around and wants to pull everything out of them that we just packed. I was going through his room on Saturday and he couldn't understand why Mom didnt' want to bring ALL of his books and toys to Samoa. And yes, that is an infant digital thermometer in his mouth that he found during the process.

The Zoo

A few weeks back I sent out an email to the family saying I'd wanted to take Tyler to the zoo and wondering if anyone would want to join me. 30 emails were then sent back and forth over the next 4-5 days and in the end everyone in the family wanted to come! Unfortunately at the last minute Andy's brother Brad wasn't able to come because he was sick, but otherwise everyone else came. It was a lot of fun having all of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandma and grandpa there. Tyler was fascinated by all of the animals. He's point and yell something we didn't understand. It was one of those moments where I wish I knew what was going on in his head.

Graduation

Its finally here! Andy is done with school. We're so proud of all of the hard work he put in over the past two years. I know he made some great friends that I'm sure he'll have for the rest of his life. They're all social workers so they have to be "relationship oriented' people and are therefore very nice and willing to help each other. I enjoyed all of the commencement speakers and their inspiring thoughts on serving others through their professions. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of inspiring messages they had at the "Finance" graduation. (Donate money to the University when you're making six figures in the future maybe?)

Health Concerns

Tyler's Passport Photo

So our preparations for Samoa continue. I'm excited more days than not now, but still have a lot of anxieties. For the past few weeks my biggest concerns have centered around health issues. I read a blog of a missionary who lived in Samoa and discovered the mosquito born illnesses that live there, specifically dengue fever. I realize now that I should have never read this, because its been a source of stress for me ever since.

I need to preface this next story by saying that a curse runs in my mother's family that all Franklin women are prone to an excessive amount of worry when it comes to their family's safety and physical health. My mother never questioned the moral character of my friends growing up or asked if I'd done my homework, but did make me swim in water up to my waist until I was fifteen years old. I've thought that the paranoia lessened through the generations (my grandmother being the biggest nut job, my mother and aunts - fairly nutty, and my sister, cousins, and I -fairly normal). We are all quite aware of it and can have a laugh of it occasionally.

Being the first Franklin granddaughter to have a child, I realized that the onset of this excessive paranoia actually occurs with the birth of your first child. I am embarrassed to say that Tyler has been checked for various symptoms in the Urgent Care 4 times over the past 6 weeks. I'm quite sure Tyler's chart now reads "overly anxious parent." (This wouldn't be the first time in the history of the Franklin family).

I scheduled an appointment this past week with the Pediatrician at the BYU student health center just to ask some questions about my "concerns" with having a toddler living in Samoa. I was asked multiple times "why exactly" I was there and realized the doctor offered little information to settle my anxieties other than saying Tyler is a healthy baby and should be okay. (The doctor had never even heard of some of the diseases I'd read about on the internet).

Andy made a good point afterwards though that the doctor that will know best how living in Samoa effects a toddler is a Samoan doctor. I guess I'll just have to have more faith in the health care system there and I need to stop researching diseases on the internet.

Moving to Samoa!

For some of you who haven't talked to us in a few weeks this might appear to be a joke. I can assure you its not. I've tried to wait to tell anyone outside of our immediate family until we had the official offer, which came yesterday. To fill in those of you who we haven't talked to in awhile: for this past year, Andy and I had our hearts set on Andy working for LDS Family Services after he graduated. He did an internship with them, liked it and felt he had a good chance for employment. Well about 2 minutes into his interview back in February he was told they had no openings this year.

Thus began our long search for plan B. Its been a roller coaster of emotions ever since, applying for random jobs throughout Utah County and planning on staying around for another year until Andy could reapply. Well in the midst of all of this, Andy talked to a friend in the MSW program about a possible job at a boys treatment center in Samoa, Coral Reef Academy. Of course my intial reaction was - We are NOT moving to Samoa! . . . I guess the idea has grown on me. This is not an indefinite move for us, but more of a temporary adventure while we're still in a place to take one. We'll sign a contract for a year. The irony was that during his interview for the Samoa job, LDS Family Services called Andy and asked him to come in for a second interview. We figure that job will be here when we get back. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

We'll be leaving the beginning of May/ end of June. So for right now its cram time! Sell the house, get Tyler a passport, pack, make sure Andy passes all his classes and the licensure test, visas, insurance, travel itineraries, and probably more we haven't even considered. We want everyone to know that we have an open invitation for anyone to come visit us during our stay. Airfare is expensive, but after that you'd have a place to stay, no need for a rental car, and we're told eating out is fairly inexpensive there.

We'll be living on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa and in the "city" of Apia, the captial. This isn't Americanized like American Samoa and will have a simpler, slower pace of life. I may actually miss the crowded Springville Wal-Mart when I have to go to 5 different stores to get my groceries. But I guess thats all part of the experience. I plan on becoming a more dedicated blogger over the next year to keep everyone up-to-date with our adventure in Samoa.

Easter (a little late)

I've wanted to post our Easter pictures for awhile now, but we "misplaced" the cord to load the picures onto the computer until this past Sunday. So here they are finally. We spent the weekend down in St. George with Andy's family. Andy got to place tennis with his siblings, I got to go on a nice run, and the kids had an Easter egg hunt out on the lawn. Here's Tyler with his cousins, (L to R) Bella, Caroline, Tyler, and Ben. I think Caroline was the winner of the Easter egg hunt, being the only cousin who can walk on her own.

I put Cheerios in Tyler's eggs this year instead of candy. With only two teeth I decided the sugar could wait another year. I loved the look on his face when he finally got an egg open and realized there were Cherrios inside. It was like he said "I didn't know Cheerios came from plastic eggs!" He ate all of them while sitting on this bench for the photo shoot.

Caroline needed to share the wealth.

The hunt.

This picture was on our other camera with the lost cord. We had a request for a cake smashing picture so here it is: Tyler's induction to sugar at his first birthday party.