Now that we had reached Samoa, it was time to see how my arrangements would work out. The first thing was the car rental. I had emailed the few companies I could find online and got a few responses back, however, only one company had a van big enough for all of us and our stuff. Mind you no one on the island that I could find had mini-vans, this company had the big 12-18 passenger vans. So I opted for one of those. Besides having room for everyone, it was way cheaper than renting two smaller SUVs. The company that I had reserved the car through was Friendly Car Rentals.
They were friendly, unfortunately that is one of the few things they had going for them. A driver picked us up at the airport. Probably the only time in my life when I will have a driver waiting for me with my name on a sign, lol. I think he was a bit overwhelmed when he saw just how many of us there were and how many bags/packages we had. I just stood to the side and let Pete and Pat get everything loaded, kids included, into the van. All those years in Infantry between the two of them are good for something--hee hee. They had that thing packed tight as a sardine can. The driver took us from the airport to the rental place to get our van--I actually thought the one they picked us up in was ours. But the other van's A/C was not working and we did end up keeping the van we had for the night. I had also reserved a small SUV so Pat would have something to drive around in. So for the night, we were set. We headed to our hotel and Pat headed up to their house. (More on the vehicles later.)
This is the hotel that we stayed at. It was very nice. We had two adjoining rooms and the bathtubs were great (I'm all about the tubs). They actually had a full size crib in our room for Cole and it was very nice to have for him. We all crashed that night, went down and had breakfast in the morning. But this is where we ran into our first problem. This is the only hotel that I have ever stayed in-and I've stayed in a lot-that has ever asked me to pay for my whole stay upfront. This was a problem because we only had a certain amount of cash available to us for the first few days (we were waiting for taxes) and did not have enough for the bill right at that minute. Luckily they let us wait until the next day to pay, but we had to find somewhere else that we could afford (which basically meant free) until we got our taxes. My husband came to the rescue and got us a place to stay. His foster family that he lived with while he was in high school put us up. They were wonderful and gracious and cleaned out a room for us to use and put in an A/C unit so we could be cool. Unfortunately, the rest of the house did not have A/C and it was very hot. None of us but Steel
This is Pete's foster mom. She was so wonderful to us.took to the weather and everyone was sick to one degree or another that first week we were there. Poor Connor looked like death warmed over for the first three days. He was coughing something awful and we felt so bad for him. Reilly had heat rash within two days and Cole was just listless and wouldn't eat anytime he was in the heat for over an hour or so. It was very hard.
I felt very rude and anti-social because there were times that I just had to take the babies and retreat to the cool room so I could recoup. There is a curse in the Lofland family and it is sweating. Most of us sweat a lot. I did not escape this. I sweat in Alaska when it is 50 degrees, can you imagine me in Samoa when it is 92 degrees and 100% humidity? Not a pretty picture. Pete's family was constantly worried about me, I was always mopping my brow and back with a paper towel or napkin. It was only the last few days that we were there that I could finally go a few hours without sweating to death--but it had cooled off a little bit by then too.
By the end of the first week I was desperate to be someplace cool. I think all of us but Pete and Steel were. I talked to Pete's mom and told that it was nothing to do with their hospitality, I was just very worried about my kids. She was very gracious and I hope I didn't hurt her feelings. One of Pete's cousins told him about another hotel called Sadie's by the Sea. We went down and asked them if we could check out one of the rooms to see if we wanted to stay. It was great. A/C and a little fridge and microwave, and enough room for all of us to sleep. Thanks to some timely help from my brother Mike, we were able to move to Sadie's for the last week we were there. It was such a blessing.
The difference between that first week and the second was amazing. The second week was closer to the vacation that we had imagined for the family--but still lacking, just because we hadn't had time to plan it like we wanted to. But Matt and Connor got their media and electronic fix, Steel and Reilly got their cartoon fix, and Mom got to look out her window and the beach and ocean all day long. Paradise, lol.
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