Much clearing and cleaning up has been going on in many villages, preparing for the April 17th, Flag Day, celebrations. Plantings, can just be stuck in the ground and they root and grow into large shrubs. American Samoa became a U.S. territory in 1900. A.S. celebrates with much to-do. We plan to watch the Long-Boat races, next Saturday. There will be 40 rowers in each boat. Hopefully, we will have pictures of the celebration to share with you.

There are 96 villages on the island and 90% had tsunami damage. There are 97 christian churches on the Island. Every village has at least one church. The Methodist church in the photo above is about one block from our compound here in Fagalele, in the village of Leone (pronounced Lay own a) . The Catholic church in the photo below is just around the corner.

Many of the churches had repairs and were repainted since September.

Enjoy the beauty of the ocean. This whole island is lava rock from a volcano.

The mountains are covered with vegetation, you would never know its lava rock below.

I hope you had a good a wonderful Easter. There were many crosses in the yards here in the neighborhood, celebrating Easter.

This is the house that MDS is working on now. We have been laying cement block, putting on a new roof, and various other jobs, trying to complete their tsunami damaged home.

An interior picture of Nua and Lee's home.

This is a detour created by the earthquake in September.

Another home repaired and rebuilt by MDS.

Damage from the tsunami, a block from our compound.

Easter Sunday, we attended a Samoa church, A few words were spoken in English.

Wilbur and Chief Tau and Lisa, his wife, in front of the church.

We went for a drive on Sunday afternoon and saw this really large Banyan Tree.

Verna Martins and I went to a roadside stand for fruit and vegetables.

Many roadside stands were selling fresh flower bouquets this weekend to be used for decoration in the churches and the tombstones.

There are many beautiful flowers on the Island. Here are a few that I photographed on Sunday.

American Samoa is beautiful. The ocean is almost at our door. We have coconut trees right on our compound, so we have had fresh coconut. Yum. It brings back memories because my mother used to love fresh coconut, and when I was a little girl she would get fresh ones and we would have the milk and then the fresh coconut meat.

McDonald's is here, just thought you should see the island version.

Our home, away from home. MDS has two houses in this compound, with two bedrooms in each house. It is hot, and humid everyday and all day, but beautiful.

This is what we see from our compound, the Pacific ocean, right out the front door.

It was so beautiful on our flight from Hawaii to American Samoa. The sun was setting and the sun was so reflective on the clouds.

We went to South Padre island on Sunday afternoon and the waves were beautiful. We enjoyed pizza and the Super Bowl at Butch and Esther's Condo.

The Yucca is in full bloom in the Rio Grand Valley.

This is the office of our RV park. Love the Spanish influence in the architecture.

One of the many birds we have here in the park. The Valley is an area for many migratory birds to settle for the cold months.

We go to this market weekly for fresh produce.

Butch and Esther visited us in our park last week.

The Quilting Bee (club) made snap bags on a day that I was unable to attend, so I got the pattern and made a few on my own machine.

The snap bag gets its name because it snaps shut, with the aid of the mystery product in the top binding.

Just another beautiful scene in our park.

Sunday afternoon we went to a kite show on South Padre Island. The sky was filled with many stunt kites, very large kites, steerable stunt kites, shaped kites and one kite that pulled a go-cart. There was a world renowned group called I-Quad with six members flying their kites. They were joined by a Rio Grande Valley group and their show was spectacular. Their kite flying was like precision swimming, but in the sky. We will share a few pictures of the event.
When the two groups were flying their precision kites, they had 40 kite strings in the air at once. Each kite uses 4 strings to control their actions. Their goal was to entertain us but also to keep the strings untangled. This is the group flying the kites.

It was cold enough to wear heavy coats. Wilbur is strolling along with two Canadian friends.