Spit Rock

This is a picture of a huge boulder called Spit Rock. It's called that because either it was spit out of the ocean by a tsunami and ended up about 250 yards inland, in the middle of a grassy field, or because the ancient chiefs spit on it before all their meetings. Either way, you can see that it's been here for thousands of years, and probably before people inhabited the island. If any people had been here then, they would have been wiped out by the tsunami that moved this huge 2,500 ton boulder. You can also see that it has been here long enough for plant life, bushes and even a palm tree to grow out of its side. It can sometimes be hard to find. You would think locals, being local, would have heard of, or been to it. Unfortunately, no one we asked had any idea what we where talking about. They obviously don't get out much. The most people we have seen at a beach at one time was on Christmas. Any other time we go to the beach or attraction, we see few people, if any.
-Lincoln

Mr. Bean Wanna-be

This is a picture of my dad eating a lobster on another island group called Vava'u. We saw a funny movie called Mr. Bean's Holiday. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, some time during the movie Mr. Bean is in France and decides to go to a fancy French restaurant. He hardly knows any French (him being from England) and accidentally orders some seafood. When he tries to eat the lobster, it was extremely hard to devour it. Instead of cutting it into individual pieces, he tried to eat it in one bite, leaving half of the organism exposed. I took a shot at it with a smaller one we found on the beach and cooked up, because every one else refused. I posed a Mr. Bean look and Mom took the picture. Who do you think has the more edible one?
-Lincoln

Fishing

Here is a lovely picture of Dad after he went spearfishing. He had a pretty successful night, spearfishing around the reef. They caught quite a few fish and this is one of them. We researched it later and found out that it was a 'stonefish' which is actually poisonous! if you step on it with no shoes on then it will sting you and put poison in you! and then it hurts really bad for a long time. But anyways, when they speared it, they had no idea about this. all they knew was that it looked dangerous. So they just tried to be careful. Nothing bad happened though. Then afterwards, Mom took some pictures of him and the fish that he caught. They all agreed that the stonefish was the ugliest fish on the planet (except they didn't know it was a stonefish yet). So here is dad, holding up a poisonous fish, and making a lovely face. They do look a bit similar there, don't they?
And here's the rest of the fish that they caught, along with the stonefish up there too. That's an eel in there, and I believe I ate some of that one. Accidentally of course. Who would willingly eat an eel? Well, a few people would but I'm not one of them. It actually was pretty good, until I realized what I was eating, of course. Well, that's an adventure for you!
-Michaela

A Roasting 'Puaka'

This is a picture of a roasting puaka--the Tongan word for pig-- while my dad rotates it on a spit. We had purchased it earlier that morning and had brought it to some friends to 'take care' of it. As Dad, Dallin, and I watched them kill it, I felt my stomach sway and pointed out that I didn't fancy squealing pigs. So I left for a moment to recover, and the next time I saw it they were shaving the fur off after boiling its head in a pot of hot water. Last, they ran a pole through the pig and they took turns turning and rotating it over the fire. My comment on the killing of the pig was: at first they used a knife no sharper than a butter knife to kill it, and eventually got another one. It made me think of it a little differently when I started to eat it.
-Lincoln Higginson
P.S. all of the earlier posts were done by Michaela.

"Danger Beach"

This is the first beach we ever visited in Tonga. It is really pretty, and it may look safe, but beware! We were all playing around and looking for seashells (in that sandy spot just across the water) when a huge wave came and almost swept us all away! There were a few minor injuries on the coral, but we all survived. After that, we were more careful just in case. And from then on, the kids all referred to that beach as "Danger Beach." It really was a nice beach, though. There's a fun place to jump off a rock into the ocean. I didn't want to jump off, because of all the waves, but Aubrey did it. She's really brave! But anyway, that's our Danger Beach.

Tongan Masks

There is a nice guy in town named Victor that does wood carvings for us. He carved some of our Christmas presents and such things. well, when we first met him, he came to our house and delivered some great carvings for free! we were so happy. It was because my dad helped work on his teeth. Besides the cool tiki masks, he gave us a cool piece of driftwood that had two faces and awesome designs carved into it. Doesn't little Dallin look dangerous? Lincoln, however, looks rather ridiculous. The boys are in our front yard in this picture.
Another thing that Victor carved was a traditional Tongan wooden chess set for my Christmas present. It is really fun. In fact, my parents were so impressed when he brought it to our house, on Christmas Eve, that they decided that they would keep it and then leave it to me after they die. Figures.

Attack of the Giant Centipedes!

This is... the dreaded GIANT CENTIPEDE. They are really disgusting. This is one that my dad chopped up outside, but a couple days ago we found some in our house . Well actually, some isn't the word, because there were about forty (they hatched out of eggs). When they are just hatched, they are about an inch long, and we saw two of them crawling out of our bathroom and we freaked out. Soon more came. My dad got the bug spray out and started spraying around the toilet, which is where they were coming from. They just kept coming and coming. We all were grossing out, especially poor Mother Dearest, who can't stand them. I mean, none of us like centipedes, but she likes them least of all. They are really bad because they bite, and the baby ones bites' are like bee stings, and then they just get worse when they get bigger. Full grown they are about 5-6 scaly, creepy, crawly inches long.
So after most of them were gone, we decided to tape up the crack in the wall where they were coming from, just in case, so they couldn't come out when we were asleep. the next morning we found a full grown one on the floor and Dad flushed it. Well that's a lovely story for you. what will happen next? You never know.

Whale bones

This is a whale skeleton that was at Old Tonga. To give you the idea of how big this guy is, the skull is about as big as a twin-size bed. he's really long, too. We actually got to see some live whales early this month. Usually the whales are down in Antarctica by late September, but we spotted a pod of whales on their way when we went to the beach. We didn't get any pictures, unfortunately, but hey, at least we have a picture of a whale skeleton. That's almost as good, right?

Outriggers

Our family went to a "backyard resort" called Old Tonga. It was a fun learning experience where we got to learn about some Tongan history. This picture shows a little dock and two Gilligan's Island style outriggers. We ate lunch in one of the little covered spots on the dock. We threw some of our table scraps down into the water, and the fish would gobble up the food like piranhas. It was fun, and there was a big old turtle swimming around by us. There were some huts made of woven palm leaves, and carved totem poles. We learned how they make tapa cloth, which is a kind of cloth made of pounded leaves. We have a tapa cloth hanging in our kitchen. While we ate lunch, there was some traditional Tongan dancing. We learned about some Tongan legends, and there were some fun carvings and things for sale. At the end of the program, they gave us free carvings and jewelry. I got a little turtle, Aubrey got a dolphin necklace, and Lincoln got a cool tiki head necklace. We learned a lot and had a great time.

Spearfishing

Here's Link and my dad getting ready to go spearfishing at Good Samaritan Beach. This is during the daytime, but usually they go at night. We went camping earlier this week and about midnight my dad and Samisi (our friend who is good at fishing) went out fishing. My dad didn't have that much luck then, but Samisi caught a puffer fish, and I think an eel, and all sorts of parrot fish. Now, just last night, my dad caught two fish, and brought home a plateful to gut and cook. He speared a lionfish, which we saw earlier when we went snorkeling. Samisi thinks they might be poisonous to eat though, so we aren't cooking up that one. My dad's spears are homemade from old mop handles. We can't wait to try some new fish!

Our Homemade Christmas tree

Here's our Christmas tree. All the fake trees they sell here are really expensive, so we made our own. We got the idea from the senior missionaries. There are some pine-tree-looking things on campus, about fifteen of them around the streets. The kids worked hard collecting pinecones but they weren't falling fast enough for us. We needed them by December. So my mom and I both went gathering them one day and we whacked a bunch down off of the trees. We needed about sixty total, but we actually had more than enough. The angel on top is also homemade from seashells. We bought the cute little Tongan Nativity scene. Notice the pig instead of the sheep? I think that there is no such thing as a Tongan Nativity with a sheep and no pigs.