Fiji!

In September, Scott and I had the opportunity to travel to Fiji to pick up Alice from her mission. After a really long flight and a really happy reunion we headed to the Mission Office where Alice had worked for the last 18 months. While we were waiting for Alice to finish some things up, a bunch of the missionaries came into the office and it was so fun watching them interact with Alice.

At one point during our visit with the missionaries, a missionary from New Zealand came in and told Alice that she had been gone one day-and "disaster." It was great seeing how loved Alice was and how much they appreciated her.

After Alice was finished up at the mission office we drove to The Pearl in Pacific Harbor.

We had never traveled anywhere tropical- and I have to say I think I could get used to it.

In the mornings Scott and I would either run, or go on a walk with Alice. Our schedules were all messed up after our flight, and so we got to see a lot of beautiful sunrises during our time in Fiji.

We loved shopping at the Pacific Harbor shops. And we loved just being with Alice.

One of our favorite things we did while in Fiji was we got to scuba dive in the ocean at "The best shark dive in the world." The only place where they hand feed the sharks. We swam with 14 ft. Tiger Sharks, tropical fish, bull sharks, black tip sharks.....Amazing!!

This is Joe our favorite dive instructor-who had to hold my hand and "buddy breath" with Scott. Joe was great. After we did our dive we were all pretty excited and Scott and John decided to go again the next day and while I loved it, I opted for a pedicure at the spa with Alice.

After staying at The Pearl for a couple of nights we headed back to Suva and stayed in mission housing. We got to have dinner with President and Sister Ostler and all of the Senior and Temple missionaries who were in Suva for a training.

While we were there all of the missionaries took turns telling Alice goodbye it was an experience I will always be grateful for.

This is the beautiful Suva, Fiji temple. It was being remodeled while we were there, so we weren't able to attend a session-next trip.

On Sunday, we were able to attend the ward Alice has served in while in Fiji. It is on a hill top overlooking the ocean with beautiful verandas.

This is one of the adorable kids in the Suva 1st Ward.

This little boy and his little brother (above) walk to church every Sunday by themselves. They leave their Primary class and head to nursery every week in time to have snack. Every time I look at these pictures I want to cry.

This little guy quickly became a friend of mine when we brought toys to give to the nursery donated by a good friend of mine. One of my favorite things about my whole trip to Fiji was after Sacrament the ward had us go up on the stand at church and sang the Fijian goodbye song-it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard.

After church Scott gained some friends by joining in a game of riding down the chuch ramp on a bike with no brakes.

After church we visited some of the people in the ward-people who loved Alice and treated us with such love-they were so giving and kind and we will remember and be grateful for their kindness forever.

This is the Hussein family. We had lunch with them after church and I think my "Aunty Hussein" and I will be friends forever.

Sonja and Nina were friends of Alice and quickly became friends of mine. I love this girl and how she makes everyone around her happy.

Alice, Nina, and Sonja.

As I mentioned before I had a very generous friend who sent many toys and things for the people in Fiji. We took coloring crayons and beanie babies to the Hilton House.

The Hilton House is a home for kids who have mental or physical disabilities. Some of the children are sent there by their families from other islands because they have better facilities than anywhere else in Fiji and other children have been abandoned, some at birth, by their families because of their disabilities. It was hard to leave these children-while their facilities are the best that there are in Fiji, they would be declared unlivable by U.S. standards.

We then had dinner with another wonderful family--we were fed a lot. It was so fun to be around the people, the culture and the friends Alice met while she was Fiji.

This is Alice saying goodbye to Talei- a girl she mentored and helped get ready for a mission. Talei got her mission call to New Zealand last week.

We stopped at a graveyard and these little boys were walking down the street, I couldn't resist taking a picture-it was just such a part of real Fiji.

As we were getting ready to go on the Navua River Trip-Scott went to give the keys to our rental car back to John and they got caught in his pocket. When he gave them a little pull the keys flew off of the key chain and landed in the river leaving Scott holding just the key chain. Luckily we found them-no amazingly, we found them.

The Navua River is where Anaconda was filmed and was very Amazon like. On the River Trip we traveled by boat up the Navua River to a tiny village. This is what greeted us when we arrived.

At the village they showed us what a traditional cava ceremony and explained the history of their once cannibal village. They also showed us the traditional way to hand weave their mats and this is a picture of how they open and hand squeeze coconut milk.

After a traditional Fijian meal they showed Fijian dances and then asked us to join in.

Here are Scott and John with their dance partner. At one point we were in a sort of conga line and it changed direction putting Scott at the front-he went all out including a pelvic thrust at the beginning.

After lunch and dancing in the village we went further up the village to a beautiful waterfall. Although we hadn't brought our swimming suits we decided to jump right in-I mean how many times are we going to have the opportunity to swim in a waterfall in Fiji.

This was are driver while on the river. He was maybe the most unfriendly Fijian we met. Maybe he was just angry because he kept having to bail water out of the boat.

I'm not sure this could be any more beautiful

After the river trip we traveled to have dinner with a former missionary. Vanessa Kant had served a mission in Suva and had become friends with Alice, when she heard we were traveling to her side of the island she asked that we come to dinner with her family-It was in the middle of no where and the direction were pictures of tiny homes and bus stops-but we made it. This is her mom rolling out rodi- an Indian bread that is delicious.

The kitchen was outside and all food was cooked by fire. There were bugs flying around everywhere and we were told just to eat them-they were boneless and nutritional. Let's just say that eating in Fiji was an adventure for me on many levels-but the people were just so generous we ate everything that was put in front of us.

After eating at the Kants we traveled from "real Fiji" to the Fiji we see on postcards. This is at the Intercontinental-an amazing resort right on the beach. This is a picture of their "Infinity Pool" the quiet pool at the resort. There was also a really fun family pool for kids and activities for kids all day-I wished for my girls many times while in Fiji, but it was while at this resort that I became more homesick for them than ever. It was such a family oriented place, Scott and I vowed that we would bring our girls back someday.

We did so many fun things while staying at the Intercontinenal. We snorkled, swam, found seashells in the wade pools, rode horseback on the beach.... This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip, our Fijian Alice.

These are the smallest horses I have ever ridden and John's looked half-dead, but he had some spunk in him yet. We had a great time...

Although there were some consequenses to all of our fun in the sun...John's poor lips were so sunburned and giant.

A trip and experience we will cherish forever!

When we got home we were greeted by all the families with signs and I didn't take pictures-I was to busy hugging my children.