Alex Messina is here!! We were so excited to pick him up from the airport on Friday night! For those of you who do not know Alex, he is Jameson's close friend and colleague from SDSU. He also happens to be the sole reason why we are in Samoa in the first place. Alex is en route to receive his Ph.D in Geography and is doing research on sediment runoff at Faga'alu bay (the sediment is actually killing the coral reef, eliminating fish and other marine life). Alex has been doing research here for the past 2 years. He introduced us to the idea of working and living in American Samoa and connected Jameson with the right contacts. Jameson and I give full credit to Alex entirely for our journey here. Thank you ALEX! haha. It's so great to have someone from home come here. It actually got me feeling really homesick to have him here. It just reminded me of all my friends and family back home and how much I miss them already. It's only been a month! I can't think like this. I'll never survive the year! We partied really hard in honor of Alex this weekend. The boys especially got really "excited" and decided to kill entire bottle of wild turkey. haha! Let's just say the fun really started! I went with Jameson, Bob, and Alex to watch them surf at Alao. Alao is an amazing white sand beach on the east side of the island. It's so quiet and peaceful! The boys surfed for about 3 hours. The waves were incredible. It was just the 3 of them out there, had all the waves to themselves! Lucky boys. A few of the local kids sat and watched too. They hooted and hollered whenever Jameson did an air or when Alex came out of a barrel. They seemed so amazed and captivated by the surfers. It was awesome to see them so interested in what these boys love to do best. It was nice to finally get some good weather. We joked around that Alex brought the sunshine with him from California. Rain or shine, our world is a lot brighter here with close friends near by. This just gives me hope for my girlfriends or family to come to visit soon. I would be in heaven, literally!! :)

Picking up Alex from the airport! 

A day with the boys! 

Local fans! :)

Don't hate on my crocs! ;)

The party continues!!