Passin Time in Fiji

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty crappy day.    I am so glad I had this little nugget of happiness to not make it a total crap day. When I checked Facebook yesterday morning I saw this. This is my old downstairs neighbor from my Peace Corps days in St.Vincent from 2000 to 2002.   She is now in her 20's and we are "friends" on Facebook.   I love getting a glimpse into her adult life.  She and her 4 brothers and her mother lived downstairs from me, but basically they were my roommates for 2 years.  I LOVED those kids and their mama too.   They slept at my house, used my bathroom, ate meals with me.  Wilda, their mom, adopted me into their family like I was one of them. They truly made my Peace Corps experience everything that it was - an experience where I grew into who I am today.  In case you cannot read what she wrote it says, "This lady right here gave me some of the best memories of my childhood life."    Her mom agre...

Saturday night we decided to try out a close, cheapish resort which is new to us, Tambua Sands .  It was very basic bures, right on the beach.  The weather was perfect!   We will definitely go back there! It was so nice to fall asleep to the ocean breeze and the sound of the waves. I didn't even have to use my sound spa to fall asleep!  The bures are not air conditioned, but have a huge fan and the breeze from the ocean was totally enough.  We also had one of the best meals I've had so far in Fiji at a lovely beach side bungalow with 6 tables,  Beach Cocomo Cafe .  It was lovely!  The chef makes one three course meal a night for the guests....and it was soooo delicious!!!  The atmosphere is perfect too.   We came back to the hotel afterwards and happened to be just in time for the meke/cultural presentation for the hotel guests, which the kids always love.   Overall, it was really nice to have family time, good food, and...

I've been helping out a bit at the orphanage since we've moved here.  One of the girls recently told me she wants to be a singer.  I asked if Mr. Tim (the incredible ISS music teacher) could visit the home to do a lesson with the kids and the idea went over really well.  Mr. Tim is awesome so of course he wanted to come along.   We finally worked out the date and made our way over there today. It was so so good!  Talk about such an uplifting, fun hour of music, singing, and dancing!   I brought along Andie and Zoë and a friend of theirs that all know Mr. Tim from ISS.  They were the perfect help to Mr. Tim to teach the songs.  They proudly sang out (sometimes in front of the group) showing off all that they had learned.  The kids at the home LOVED the music.  It was really so much fun!   I hope that not only did my girls have fun...but that they also realized they were a part of something bigger...bringing joy to those who need it...

It's the school holidays for us right now.  Two weeks out of school means a lot of play dates, sleepovers, and LOTS of lego time.   We jumped the gun a bit and pulled out Santa's workshop a little early this year!  (Pulling it out early gave me a lot of nice quiet time while girls put it together!)  We got this set last year from the United States.  Check out Santa's hat!!!   LOVE it!!! Yes!!! Santa's hat says Fiji!   Santa's workshop and reindeer mermaid play date Oh, also did this again this week!  Took nearly 10 minutes off my bike time just by raising my seat a few inches!   Loved the race again!

Our dreamers Andie has a best friend here in Fiji.  She has a few best friends in life,....all of them back in the States, except for this one, Lainie, here in Fiji.   Andie adores Lainie.   Lainie shares the same adoration for Andie.  These two.  I don't even know if I have words for these two.  They are so connected.  They practically speak their own language, so much so that when they are together I cannot follow along with their creative spiraling minds....but they don't miss a beat with one another.  They live in their own world together.  They seldom argue, but when they do, one of them always cries...feeling badly that they hurt the other's feelings.  Sometimes I worry that Andie is so connected to Lainie that she doesn't have any other friends.  When Lainie is absent from school, Andie wonders around....lost.    Their friendship is beautiful, and amazing, and I'm so so grateful that Andie...

This weekend we got away to a resort, Wananavu, that we haven't been to before.  It was a much needed getaway as Warren has been working SOOO much lately.   He's been pretty much non-stop (weekends, evenings, nights, holidays) so we were all grateful to get in some family time together.   We took the kids out of school a few hours early on Friday and made the trek up towards Raki Raki, where the resort is.   The drive was insanely beautiful.  None of us had been that far up that side of the island before so it was very cool to see some new things.   While beautiful, it was also very evident that so much of the island has not yet recovered from Cyclone Winston.  There were countless tents along the way and even more roofs ripped off buildings.   Thank goodness for aid organizations providing those tents as housing was clearly affected.   After a few hours we arrived. Wananavu (meaning wonderful in Fijian) was truly wonderful!  It was ...