Smattering

A little late, but it's time to write about last weekend....Fiji Fashion Week and Andie's swim meet.  As I mentioned (http://passintimeinfiji.blogspot.com/2015/05/fiji-fashion-week.html), last week was Fiji Fashion week.  It was pretty cool to see how a fashion week plays out here.  I don't have much to go on as these were probably the first fashion shows I've ever been to...but it was enjoyable.  It was facinating to see what is trending here in Fiji as opposed to the rest of the world.  It was also refreshing to see that the models for Fiji Fashion week come in all shapes and sizes.   These models had curves...even some rolls...and everyone seemed absolutely fine with it.  They looked like real women...beautiful, real women.

 There were four big shows for the week.  Thursday was resort wear, Friday was couture, and Saturday was the children's show (which we unfortunately missed due to Andie's swim meet) and Saturday was bridal wear.  I only made it to Friday's show....but here are some of the pictures from the professional photographers from all the shows.

    
Lot's of Sulus!

      
Just a small piece of what was shown...

Like I said, we unfortunately missed the children's show because Andie qualified for the Fijian national swim meet.  It was an honor for her to qualify, so we were all super excited to watch her compete.  I was SO nervous!  I tried not to be.  I wanted her to feel good about her performance and that was it...so why was my heart pounding as she stood on the block?   I did my best to act completely casual about the whole thing because I really didn't want her to feel any pressure.   This parenting through sports thing is complicated!

 Well, she killed it!  She swam so fast and got second place in all of Fiji!  Yay Andie!  She was super pleased with herself    It was pretty amazing to see the smile on her face afterwards.  What was even better was laying in bed with her the night of the meet.  She told me how nervous she was before she went to stand on the block and she was thinking to herself that she didn't know if she could do it.  Then she said, "So, I decided to change the way I was thinking and I just kept telling myself, 'I can do this.  I can do this!'".   Wow!   I love the positive self-talk!   Maybe a little bit of what we reinforce with her is working!!!    She said once she hit the water, she stopped thinking anything except that the water was SO cold that she had to swim her fastest just to get out!   It worked!   50 meter freestyle in the books.   Yay!

This was right after she got out of the pool.  Tired and happy girl. 

Mom and Dad waiting on the sidelines.  

The rest of the weekend we did a lot of relaxing.   My awesome cousin, Lori sent us this incredible care package which included this adult coloring book.   I've never seen myself coloring, but it was such a relaxing activity to do while Zoe colored in her book and Andie and Warren worked on a crazy lego set that Warren's mom sent.  We colored, built lego castles, played games, and had a few dance parties for the rest of the rainy weekend.   It was perfect.   I love the down time we have as a family here.  For some reason, this time was few and far between in Atlanta....but it's become regular here.  I will always do my best not to take that for granted.  

coloring

legos

one of the many dance parties

What I colored for Zoe



swimming in clothes just for fun!