Our FREE Fiji Holiday!

It's been a worthwhile stop over in Fiji. Apart from breaking up the long flight over, our stay has provided us with some much needed rest from the exhaustion that we left Melbourne with! I should also mention that Fiji has also been a great platform for adjusting the kids sleep cycles in preparation for L.A. time.

Some highlights or points of interest include:
• Our Mana Island Resort stay where the kids (more Nathan than Judah) were treated like royalty and became instant celebrities. It got to the point where many (if not most) of the resort staff knew them by name, and all the other guests knew of them. "Bula Judah, bula Nathan" was a phrase often heard. (Where 'bula' means hi or hello in Fijian.)
• The frangipani and hibiscuss flowers - They just fall off the trees here.
• A brief stint of snorkeling. Very hard to pull off with kids.
• Our last night at the resort when the boys hit the dance floor, stealing the show with their very funky dance moves. The other resort guests made comments like - "Who needs island dancers when we can watch these two?" My only regret was that we didn't manage to capture it on video, (I hadn't brought the charger with us) otherwise I'd show it here. It was truly priceless. I did however manage to get a short snipit of footage on our still camera back in the room. These moves were probably influenced by the island dance performance that we had just seen.
• Fresh, sweet pineapple.
• Lounging around in the pool everyday. The boys just loved it.
• Buffet breakfasts literally by the beach. We were able to let the boys play in the sand and paddle in the shallow waters while we finished our breakfast.
• Clayton taking the boys paddling in a kayak.
• The Fijian people - they are so friendly and love kids.
• The relief of the air-conditioning that greeted us each time we returned to our room.
• Clayton water skiing.
• Nathan's fascination with the frogs that we saw around the island when it was wet in the evenings. He chirped on an on about 'da fog' that was out 'da door'. By contrast, Judah was not at all impressed with the frogs. I suspect that his perception of frogs being inherently bad, was most likely influenced by a kids DVD that we have watched a lot of, where the a frog plays the role of a significant threat to the lives of the colony of bugs and ants. Judah proclaimed of our accommodation at Mana Island, "We can't live here in this home because there is frogs out there."
• Beach side massage treatment - it was nice to feel pampered.
• This one was not a highlight as such, but certainly a point of interest: Clayton managed to loose his rubber thongs at the marine activities center, so had to get around on the last day on Mana bare foot. This was fine until he had to walk along the hot wooden jetty to board our departing catamaran. While aboared and conpemplating the temperature of all the concrete jetty and paths that awaited us back at Nadi, his resourcefulness became known to all. He cut up an old T-shirt that he happened to be wearing, and grabbed a number of brouchres and made make-shift booties! Not exactly fashionable, but they certainly saved the skin on his feet from what would have been severe burns.
• The Mercure BBQ buffet dinner - Generally speaking, the food in Fiji is nothing to write home about, but on this occasion, I was suitably impressed. Simply select all the fresh vegies you like, choose the meat, and it is stir-fried just for you. Also, the banana cake was worth a mention - arguably one of the best we've ever had. While on the subject of food, the fish of the day on our final night at Mana (Trevally) was outstanding.
• Church at Nadi. Particularly sharing in worship and communion together.