FeeeJeee!

Oh my word, we had an amazingly brilliant, once in a lifetime trip to Fiji! I cannot even begin to tell you how wonderful it was... I was really anxious about leaving our children behind and traveling so far away without them, but, thanks to our lovely friends who stepped in to help, they did fine.

So, I'm going to try and squish some of our best experiences into this post... ready? Here we go! First picture at Albuquerque airport - I knew it was going to be a good trip when I discovered my bag was at exactly 50lbs!

Here's Marsh with his new best friend - Fiji Bitter - Bula!

 When we got to Nadi we met up with Marsh's sister Jill and her huband Mark who live in New Zealand and immediately transferred onto this tiny plane to Taveuni Island. The plane was so tiny they couldn't accommodate our luggage, that's why we're carrying our beach towels so we can go swimming while waiting!

Not much wiggle room on this flight!

 An hour and a bit later we landed at Taveuni Airport, hah! Bit different to LAX. We landed in the rain but that didn't last long...

From here we took a ride in a pick up truck and then a small boat out to Maqai beach on Qamea Island - we stayed in a tiny little backpacking place on the beach... here's the view from our "room"

 And here's our room! It was really just a tent on a platform...

 It was extremely basic but absolutely perfect, there was an outdoor shower and and outside toilet, a mosquito net over the bed and the ocean crashing outside. I took these pictures at low tide standing out in the sea!

The best thing about Fiji was how friendly all the people were - here Jill is learning how to weave a basket out of palm leaves...

We went for a jungle walk but couldn't quite find the path! So we ended up making our way back to the sea and walking around the shoreline, on the way we bumped into these fisherman with their collection of lobster and shellfish, yummy!

We went on a tour around Taveuni Island - here we are at the International Dateline we could jump over and be in yesterday or today, I didn't seem to look much younger though :-(

We swam in the pools below this amazing waterfall in Bouma National Heritage park - just beautiful, Marsh jumped off the ledge behind the waterfall but not me!

Also on Taveuni we went to the natural water slides - a TON of fun but I did get a massive bruise on my butt!

Kava ceremony on Maqai beach - it took Jill and I a couple of days to pluck up the courage to do this... not too bad but not something I'd particularly want to do again!

Leaving Maqai early in the morning... :-(

View of Maqai from the boat

 Back at Taveunu lodge, just time for a quick coffee before we head back to the airport, looks pretty different in the sunshine!

 This has to be one of the world's prettiest runways don't you think? Just a beautiful flight...

Well, I only managed to fit in the first few days of our trip! Haven't even got to the Stampin' Up! resort yet! I'm going to put the second half of our trip into a second post so please come back and check that out.  I hope you're having a wonderful week and please let me know if I can be of any help.

This is the FINAL week of our current annual catalog AND the Spring seasonal catalog so don't miss out if you still have things on your wish list. Click here to see list of retiring stamp sets.  Lots of accessories on SALE too! Click here to view sale accessories.  I have to tell you I have seen the upcoming book though and there is lots of fun stuff to look forward to :-)

Brenda