January 2016.
As Lucy and Will now love to say, “Bula Vinaka!”.
Leleuvai. I won’t even try to describe you.
On the dock, ready for a 45 min boat ride to Leleuvia
A 45 minute drive to the boat ramp and then 45 minutes out to sea sits Leleuvia…an island…a resort…..and she is about as lovely of a place as either of us have ever seen. On one side, a beach that is perfectly protected from the wind and chop with the coral reef starting 15 feet out. Paddleboarding, kite/windsurfing, scuba, hammocks, beer, a Nespresso machine (they definitely thought that Abby’ and I overreacted at the site of this little beauty) bure’s (cabin’s) on the windward side that sit on the beach and have a nonstop breeze…..for those of you interested in visiting, we will visit here and it will amaze. Here are some pics of our trip:
Our Bure:
On one of the rare moments where both kids were both wearing clothes:
The rest of the visit…
Another quick demographic note: Fiji is 58 % Christian, 34 % Hindu, 7 % Muslim…and of course was colonized by the Brits. The result is the wonderfully inclusive and long Official UN Fiji Holiday Calendar. For the record, we are very much looking forward to celebrating the Prophet Muhammed’s B-day…..probably not a holiday we will get to celebrate in the States anytime soon.
Our neighbors and Abby’s boss Aleta have a huge sloping backyard with some big tree’s on the top and bottom. What does Paul (Aleta’s husband) do? You got it, he installs the perfect Zip Line. Checkmate.
This is the extent of the toys that our kids have had to play with the past two months. It obviously makes the hours between 6am-8am incredibly challenging, but the towers that were built and smashed were really getting quite big…….and I’ll be honest, there were a few times where I was totally bummed when they got smashed into pieces.
Our container arrived at the port in Suva on Friday, December 18th and we decided it was going to be our singular goal to get it delivered to our house by the 24th even though 2 weeks is a more typical turnaround. The week was filled with amazing accounts of incompetence followed by ridiculous acts of kindness and perseverance by everyone from the shipper in the US, Fiji and everyone at UN Women and the Foreign Affairs office….and the result was that at 10am on December 24th, we received our container….furniture, bikes, clothes, toys…..the kids were sent away for the day and we busted our asses to recreate the kids bedrooms and playrooms and when Lucy came home, she about lost her mind. It was f—kin’ Amazing!
Kid’s room before…and after:
New back deck and oh yeah, that is a trampoline.
Surf update: When I was 12 (keep in mind this is 1982), we moved out to San Mateo for the summer. I rocked an OP painters hat, Van’s and used $$ from a paper route to buy a sweet Santa Cruz skateboard. More importantly, I put a Mr. Zog’s sex wax sticker on the backside of the board.…not a clue or care to the meaning but I knew it was cool….and a little inappropriate, but not enough to get me in trouble. With immense and unexplainable satisfaction, 30+ years later I now have my first bar of Mr. Zogs…for my surfboard that I am too scared to pull out of the bag. 🙂
As Cyclone Ula (Category 3) passed over the Solomon Islands, Fiji was next in her path and we were immediately confronted with the question: What is the difference between a cyclone, a hurricane and a typhoon? Yes, the answer is location, but did you know that the name hurricane is derived from ‘Hurican’, the Caribbean god of evil? Lucky for us after 2 days being drenched by the TD117 (tropical depression), Ula decided to head south and bring us nothing but blue skies and some whitecaps.
“….just waiting on my pedi….”
Why I thought it was a good idea to go on this Ferris Wheel that resembled decaying scaffolding and being spun by a rope connected to a turn of the century motor? Because she would not have left this spot without a fight and I wasn’t ready for battle. Plus, what could go wrong?
It was awful.
In case our Holiday Greetings got lost in the mail:
That is all for this time…..love to you all!!
Abby, Clancey, Lucy and William!!!!