Naigani

The girls are off of school for the next two weeks for a break.   (They go to school year round and have extended breaks).    We decided to get away fro the weekend to Naigani Beach Resort.  (http://www.naiganiresort.com/)   We looked into several places and it turned out that Naigani was the cheapest and probably most what we were looking for.   I was not sure how our trip would turn out because when I called to book the room, no one answered.   Someone called me back saying, "I just missed your call."   I inquired, "Is this the Naigani Island Resort?"   The man replied, "Yes, can you call me back?  I am almost out of credit."   (This sort of thing happens a lot here when you communicate via phone with Fijians).   Despite how common this is....I questioned whether the resort would be as accommodating as we would like.  

My first impression from the phone was wrong.  This place provided such a relaxing, fun-filled, secluded, quality family time.....great trip.    We had to drive to a little beach and take a boat over to the secluded island.  All that is on this island is the small resort and one village.  The resort does not have electricity from 2-5pm and 2-6am.  The village only has electricity from 6-9 pm.   Most of the people who worked at the resort were from the village.   The village does not even have a school, so the children have to be boarded at a relative's house from year 1 and onward in order to go to school.  

While the resort does have fairly frequent customers (they are booked for Easter weekend) we were the ONLY guests for the whole weekend.  We had the entire beach, pool, hammocks, staff, restaurant, bar, etc to ourselves and only ourselves!  It was so nice.   Our family had such an amazing time, just us. The girls bonded playing on the water slide while Warren and I enjoyed swinging on the hammocks together and just generally catching up with each other, the girls, and our books.   

My pictures are a little disappointing, because all weekend I kept losing my breath at the beauty surrounding us....but the pictures didn't capture the awe of it all.  They couldn't capture the perfect breeze, the girls' laughter, and the serene feeling we all had for the weekend.    I'll share them nonetheless.   

Our boat to the island. 

Flowers everywhere

Silly times by the pool

They probably climbed up those stairs more than 500 times in the course of the weekend.

Zoe took a little snooze on the hammock while I read and Warren and Andie snorkeled.

Those little heads are Warren and Andie snorkeling. 

This was the hammock right outside of our bure. 

The girls fell in love with the game they invented, "Crazy Rope."

They had fun on the little swing as well. 

This was our bure.  

Every morning the girls were up by 6 and we took a walk along the beach. 

During low tide, you could walk out to this little island.   Andie loved the adventure of it all!

Warren being funny. 

The activities just for us!

We took a little boat out to another cove on the island to snorkel.  It was so gorgeous!

Tarzan!

Learning to make baskets our of coconut tree leaves

enjoying freshly picked coconut

baskets to take home