Hash Harriers, Dancing, Dinners out

The last week has been full of fun things.   I will be brief here and try to speak in pictures more than words.... (hard for me).  

Last Wednesday we ate dinner at a friend's house.   She does not give her children another option for food besides what is put on the table.  If they don't eat it, that's fine...but they don't get anything else.  I remember I used to be that way, but slowly changed to accommodate my ever-increasing picky eaters.  I am committed to going back.  No more making a second meal for them.   If they are hungry, they will eat what is served!    If children are hungry enough, they will eat anything.  I do not want to be creating even more picky eaters!   (Although it is killing me to not give in!   I've decided if they don't eat what's on their plate, they can have carrots or cucumbers, but that's it!)    My friend told me of one family who serves the same meal again for breakfast and lunch the next day if his kids don't eat it the first go around.  That's pretty hard core.

Before we ate dinner, we left the kids with her housekeeper and headed over to the Grand Pacific Hotel for our PTA meeting.  Not too bad of a place for a PTA meeting!

On Friday during the Cyclone Day off of school we went to see Cinderella at the movies.  It's so cute!  The girls loved it!!!  (I did too.)

So sweet!

After the movie,  I went to a ladies of the embassy happy hour.  It was also great!   Later I went to a friend's house who has a visitor here from the states.  She is here on a grant to do spoken word.   It turns out she went to JMU, where Warren and I went to undergraduate school!  She knows several of the same people as we do.  It feels like such a small world to meet someone in Fiji who went to JMU.  Bizzare!   (I  hate when people run into you in a restaurant in your home town and say, "It's a small world!"  No, it's not really.  Of course we could run into each other because we live in the same town.  BUT, this instance really does give me that small world feeling!)   I got to have a private showing of her performances, which was way cool.  I can say I've never had a private spoken word performance before that.

Once the rain stopped, we headed downtown to meet up with the ladies from my bootcamp class.  Everyone was out to dance!  It was so much fun.  We danced and danced and danced.  I was sweaty and sore and happy.

Medicine here.  Loving the title!  Needed it after my night out dancing.... I didn't intend on getting such a work-out!

On Saturday, we ate dinner at some new Australian friend's house.   The incredible view was the perfect back drop for a nice dinner and even better conversation.   A little fun tidbit about the new friends....they are good friends with Brenda from Six Feet Under.   I am star struck!

On Sunday morning I ran 15k with Wendy.  We ran all over the island and saw some amazing views.  I hurt during and after, but it was worth it.  So glad to have found someone to do long runs with me!
She got me interested in doing Suva Hash Harriers as well.  If you've never done a hash harrier run before, it's pretty fun.  You run in a group, following a trail with several HPs (Hash Pauses).   This is a weekly run in all different places around Suva.  It was really cool because we got to see parts of Suva that I would have never seen otherwise.  After the run, everyone drinks beer (or soda) and a lot of silliness occurs.   Here's a few pictures from the run last night.

It's a silly group with lots of rituals, like toilet seats and dousing newbies with water or beer. Good times!

Oh, also...a very important event in our house was Andie's doll's birthday.  We made cookies, sang, the whole nine yards.    Funny.