A little ambitous...

I'm the type of person who loves to re-organize, re-arrange and renew.  I get bored with seeing the same thing every single day for a long period of time.....Even back in the day before I got married, when I lived with my parents, I would always move my bedroom furniture around, or re-arrange the living room. You could find me making some kind of changes to my room at least every other month.  It just makes me happy to see something new.....and makes me feel accomplished.....(silly I know...haha)

When I got married, it was no different.  You could constantly find me re-arranging or decorating or trying to fix something.......at the beginning of our marriage I used to solicit for Ova's help, BUT I've learned over the years to just do it by myself.  I always have a vision in mind of what I want to do before I do it, but everytime I try to explain it to him he can't see what I see and gives me that face that looks like he's saying "um, that's gonna be ugly"  I decided to stop asking him for his help, or even telling him my ideas because that face makes me mad......and he ALWAYS loves the ending result!  Since I love surprises, especially giving them, I figured that would be another way I could surprise him.  That way I'd be happy re-decorating and he'd be happy with the "new" whatever I did. 

We moved into our house a year ago and I've made a lot of changes already....painted the living room, hung the pictures, put up vinyl....etc.  But I never really did anything with our room.  Everytime I walked in there it was just white walls with mis-matching furniture and it was so blah..........SO, I made up my mind one day to re-do my bedroom.....here's what I did:

1st, I waited until Ova was at work and I went to Lowe's and bought some paint (dark chocolate brown) I moved the bed and dressers into the middle of the room, taped the windows and doors and painted the entire room.  It was so dark, but it actually made the room look a lot bigger.  I LOVED it!!  Ova came home from work that night and was so surprised because he had no idea I was doing that.  Since I painted the whole entire room, there were a lot of fumes in the air so I told him he had to sleep with the boys in their room that night.  While he was sleeping I moved the furniture around the room....put the bed on the opposite side of the room moved the dressers around....it was all coming together so nicely, I was so happy!  BUT the dressers were so off, they didn't match each other and they didn't match my newly painted room.....so I had another idea brewing in my head to re-do my dressers!  This project was so much fun!

This is the dresser that Tea has had for years and years....she got a new bedroom set and we inherited her old stuff.  I'm not a fan of the carved leaves in the dresser, but we've been using them for several years.  Don't know why I didn't think of this project before!  haha  This was the stand-up part of the dresser (with missing bottom drawer and all), and there's another dresser that matches it that is long.  Both peices have the same carved design.

This is the same dresser.... opened, it had a shelf in the middle that divided the top part of the dresser

My idea was to make this part of the dresser into an armoir to sit on top of the long dresser, and put our TV in it..... Since the bottom drawer of this dresser was missing, I thought I could use it as the place to put our cable box and dvd player.....I broke out the shelf that divided the top part of the dresser and pulled off the black rails that the missing drawer was supposed to slide on (that part was so hard....I must admit I broke a sweat struggling to get them off....haha)

I hated the design that was carved in so I wanted to change it.  I went to Lowe's again and bought some wood putty and I filled in the carved part of the dresser.  A little tub of wood putty went a LONG way!  I didn't know how many to buy so I bought 4 and ended up only using one so I returned 3. 

After the wood putty was dried, I sanded the dresser down........you obviously could still see the design, but when you ran your hand down it it was smooth and you couldn't feel the design.  The next step was to paint it.  I wanted to paint it black to match our bed frame, but before I painted it black, I had to prime it.....

The dresser primed.....ready to be painted black...

The primer dried pretty fast, which I was so happy for.....because I was able to putty, sand, prime and paint all in one day.....I bought new handles from Lowe's when I was there, the cheapest silver ones...here's my finished project.....I am SO happy with how it turned out! 

(You can still see the design on some parts of the dresser....I guess the paint absorbed differently to the putty than to the dresser.....but my idea is to buy like a flower vinyl to put on the dresser to take away from the old design you can still see.....that project will have to wait a little bit)

After the room was painted and the dresser complete, I put my vinyl up

Made a little picture collage on my wall

I wanted to dedicate a wall to Ova's music so I asked my sister to make a sign using photoshop (since my computer was still broken) we just used a quote by Bob Marley, I printed and framed it.....then, I went to a guitar store and bought the guitar hangars and here's how his music wall turned out

Here's my new room!  Such a huge change from white walls and mis-matching dressers.....I LOVE IT!

I still have to paint my other dresser black, and change the handles.....and then I'll be done!  I'm a little ambitious, I know!  :)

Money well spent!!

So if you made it through my last post (super long, sorry!)   You'll know that I had a little incident with my camera..... Ova says it's my fault, I blame Mone....but what happened was that Mone was drinking a red gatorade while we were watching the show at the PCC....he was done drinking so he put the bottle in the backpack, without the lid screwed on tight.....well,  my camera was in the backpack!  I didn't notice anything was happening until I felt my foot getting wet as we were walking from the show to the car.....as soon as I felt it I started to panic....stopped and grabbed the backpack and grabbed my camera out of it.  It didn't turn on.  The digital screen on the back of the camera was wet, you could see the moisture inside the screen..... NOT GOOD!!  I was freaking out....I took off the lens and tried my hardest to dry it, but it wouldn't turn on.  I was thinking that maybe if it dried overnight, it would turn on in the morning....no such luck.  My camera was BROKEN!!  :(

I had a Nikon D40X, it was an awesome camera.....I used it all the time and I loved it!!  I got it for Christmas back in 2007 and have used it a lot through these past 3 years........I remember when Ova and I went to the store to get it, they were trying to sell the warranty to us, and normally I would just decline it.  Ova kept telling me that I should get the warranty, but I was super hesitant because the camera was already so expensive.  He ended up talking me into it and we paid like an extra $130 for 5 years coverage, the kind that covers everything, I specifically remember her saying that even if I took it to the beach and got sand in it, they would cover it......I totally thought that was the biggest waste of money, but this little incident with my camera made me completely and totally change my mind!!!

The day we got back from Hawaii I dropped my family off at home and went straight to Best Buy to drop off my camera to be fixed.  They asked me what was wrong with it.....and I told them that it won't turn on because gatorade got spilled all over it.  They wrote up their little report thing and took it from me and told me they'd be in contact.  Not even two days later I got a call from the Geek Squad telling me that they were unable to fix my camera, but since it was under warranty I could come in and get another one.  I was just thinking that they would give me the same camera......BUT they stopped making the D40X back in 2008 so they had to find one that was comparable....I guess the camera specialist person was on lunch break or something but the other people that were there covering for him didn't really know which camera to give me.  They asked like four different people and none of them knew the right answer.  There were two cameras there, one that was pretty much around the same price that I paid for mine back in 2007 and one that was hundreds of dollars more than I spent.  The worker asked me how many megapixals my old camera had and I told him 10.4.....the camera that was about the same price only had 10.2, so he made an executive decision to not downgrade the megapixals and to give me the one that costs a couple hundred dollars more than I had paid back in 2007.  SCORE!!!  I walked with him up to the register and watched as he rang up this brand new camera....the register read $949....he entered my warranty information and I owed NOTHING!!!  That $130 we spent on the warranty was the best money we've ever spent!!  :)

I didn't really know what the difference was between my old camera and my new one, the D3100....so I did a little research online.  Every website that I ran into actually said that the D3100 was not and upgrade from the D40X, it's just an update.  But regardless of what the internet says, it's totally and upgrade to me!!  My old camera was 10.4 megapixals, my new camera has 14.2......my old camera didn't have a video camera on it, my new one has a HD 1080 video camera on it.....it's lighter in weight....and pretty much everything else is the same.  I LOVE IT and I'm so happy that Ova made me buy the warranty back in 2007!!

Hawaii

~Taking a break from the now to get caught up on the past~

January 2011

So after Uncle Ula's funeral we decided to stay in Hawaii for a few extra days......I mean we had all our kids w/ us and Jr & Tina were there with all their kids, and so was Gramma & Grampa Fangupo and Sau.....so why not make a vacation of it??  The funeral was on Thursday and Friday, and we stayed in Hawaii until the following Wednesday.  We had tons of fun on our little family vacay....spending the whole time just cruising the island, swimming and of course, eating!!  :)

Friday after the services were finished and we had buried him, we all decided to go on a little drive......we just wanted to go site-seeing and we stopped by a beach and let the kids get out and throw some rocks in the ocean. 

It was getting dark really fast, so we didn't site-see that long that night.  Gramma & Grampa took off and we went with Jr & Tina, just crusing around.....we went and visited old Tonganville.....it's the place that all the Lomu's lived at back in the day....called Tonganville because it was full of Tongans.  We drove through it and now it should be called Phillipinoville, cause it's all Philipinos now....hahaha... The houses were so close, like if you walked out your door in 5 steps you'd be at someone else's door.  I just sat there and listened to Ova and Jr reminiss about the time they stayed there and how they can't believe how ghetto it is, but when they were there they didn't think it was.  There's a huge mango tree on the corner that they all used to hang out at....we drove by that, it was still there.  It was a nice walk down memory lane for them.  After that, we decided to go back and get some sleep so we could wake up bright and early the next morning to hit the swap meet.  That's one of my favorite things to do in Hawaii.......we don't really buy too much stuff when we're there, but we eat the li-hing mui mangos and pineapple and chew on the sugar cane as we walk up and down the rows of vendors.  Ova always gets his beach shorts from there because they're big, comfortable, and cheap!  And I think 8 t-shirts for $20.00 isn't to shabby of a deal for my boys!  And of course, I bought Lautala the jade bracelet that I've always wanted her to have!!  Fun times!

After walking around the swap meet for a few hours, we were all hot, tired and hungry.....so Gramma and Grampa took us all to Rainbows to get some good Hawaiian food.  We stopped by 7-11 to get some drinks and then headed down the street to a little park to eat.  It was so funny because while the kids ate and played on the playground, all us adults sat on the little cement fence and didn't say a word for like 20 minutes while we stuffed our faces.....must have been hungry!  hahaha

After we got our grub on, we all wanted to go swimming.  We were heading to Kailua beach.....which is the beach right down the street from Uncle Ula's house, the one that we always go to, but when we drove by it...it was WAY too packed.....we didn't really have a plan in mind or where we were going to go, so we kept driving and headed to Lanikai, where Uncle Ula worked.  We drove by the Paul Mitchell estate and it was a huge rush of emotion remembering all the times we were there with Uncle.  I couldn't help but cry.  Of course, the house is enclosed by a big huge fancy gate and you couldn't see the house through the gate...so we pulled over and went up to look over the gate.  As I looked inside I saw one of Uncle Ula's co-workers in there cleaning up and doing the maintenance on the yard.  I immediately called Tina over (cause she has no shame.....and I love it!) and told her to talk to him.  She yelled his name and he came over to the gate and Tina was just chit-chatting with him, telling him that we just wanted to come one last time to see where Uncle Ula worked and that we wanted to swim but the beach was too full......he told us to hold on and he walked away, and all the sudden the gate opened!  He invited us in to swim on Paul Mitchell's private beach while he finished up his work.  It was perfect and totally made our trip to be able to swim there for the last time. 

Can u believe the background? Breathtakingly beautiful!!

Kina, Ova & Lautala w/ Rick (Uncle Ula's co-worker)

On the beach

Couple shots!....Fun in the sun!

Hangin' out enjoying the view

We swam pretty much until it was dark and by the time we were done, we were all exausted.  We went and grabbed something to eat and went home to sleep.  The next day we didn't really have anything planned....we slept in until like noon and then went to Cinnamon's, this little restaurant down the street from Uncle Ula's house....we used to go there with him everytime we were in Hawaii.....so now we always try to make it there, just to remember him.  They serve breakfast all day and it is delicious!!  They have the most delicious guava pancakes and Ova loves their loco moco!  We didn't do much that day, just drove around a little more and enjoyed our family time!  That night we met up with all the rest of Ova's cousins that came for the funeral and headed to the Laie point.  All the boys kicked it outside talking and catching up while us wives sat in the cars with the kids (not fun! haha)

The next day was Sunday and we just wanted to spend the whole day cruising again.  Jr & Tina left Hawaii that day so it was just our little family and Sau.  We drove the entire island.....from the North Shore to Hawaii Kai........we do that every single time we go to Hawaii and it never gets old.  I love going there, it always reminds me how beautiful nature is and how much I love it!  The greens and colors of the flowers make me happy!  Honestly, that's one of my most happiest times is when I'm cruising around Hawaii with Ova just enjoying each other's company and the beauty of nature.....we always seem to have the best conversations about anything and everything while driving around.  We went to Pali look-out.....that's the first time we'd ever been there....there's a whole history story about that place and how it was founded and stuff, but to be honest I wasn't really paying attention to the story....I was completely mezmorized by the beauty I was seeing.  We were high up in the mountains and we had such a nice view of almost the entire Oahu.....so beautiful!

Some random pictures while cruising the island

That whole entire day was spent site-seeing, it was such a good day!

Monday came around and that was our PCC day....always gotta have one of those!  :)  We got a hook-up from one of Ova's family members that got us a full-day pass with dinner and the show for a very good price.  We spend the whole entire day at the PCC with our kids.  Good times!

They've got a new night show now....they've changed it from the one they've had forever....their new show is called HA, the breath of life, and it was awesome!  I actually LOVED it and thought it was so much better than the old show!  The Tongan section did a laka laka and it was so powerful....I really enjoyed myself and my kids loved it too!

The next day we packed up our things from Aunty Lavi's house and headed to spend our last couple days in Hawaii with Ova's other side of the family, the Fangupo side.  His cousins are the Kemoeatu's......one of them, Chris is #68 on the Steelers and the older brother Ma'ake plays for the Washington Redskins.  They grew up their whole lives in Laie, their dad is the faifekau for the Methodist church in there.....but when Chris won his first Super Bowl he bought a mansion in Hawaii Kai (the rich part of Hawaii where a lot of the celebrities live)  We'd never actually been to that area before besides just site-seeing, but the houses there..... W.O.W!!!  And Chris and Ma'ake's house is no different.  It's huge and all decked out....they have a waterfall and pool in their back yard and right across the street is a private beach.  The house was totally a bachelor pad all equiped with a pool and foosball table, a bar and a theatre room with reclining couches.  It was probably nicer than any place I'd been in before.  Chris and Ma'ake were not there, of course, since the Super Bowl was in a couple weeks....but while they are out of town, their little sisters live in and take care of the house...so we stayed with them!   It was really nice!  I had a hard time sleeping there though because there are really no walls, the entire house is surrounded by windows.....so I kept freaking myself out that someone was looking at me (I hate that I do that to myself....haha)  Ova's cousins were there from New Zealand and Australia, and we all stayed together in Hawaii Kai.....family time is always fun!  I'm so sad I didn't get any picutres of them....or of the house, but Mone broke my camera when we were at the PCC so the last two days in Hawaii I took no pictures.....uugghh....that frustrating blog post is coming next!!  :)

Even though we had a lot of fun, I was ready to go home by the 3rd day......I was just exausted because Lautala was sick the entire time we were there....she actually broke 5 teeth all at the same time, and of course during the week we were on vacation.  She was fevering and fussy and because her gums were sore and swollen and bleeding, she didn't want to eat.....I had to buy some orajel to numb her gums just so she would drink her bottle.....so sad!  It's not fun to have sick kids....but when you're on vacation and your kids are sick, it's even worse!!  She was such a trooper though!!  Hopefully on our next trip to Hawaii she'll actually get to enjoy it!