This year, we opted to stay in a resort rather than a camper van for Christmas….Our friends, the Kings (Mike, Amber, Claire and Caroline), met us in Fiji for 8 days, then returned with us to Melbourne and visited for another week or so, before traveling back to cold Philly weather.

We both had overnight flights and arrived early in the morning on the main island of Fiji in the town of Nadi. The guys had conjured up the idea that for “efficiency reasons”, we should take a small plane that morning rather than waiting around in the airport all day for the regular flight to get to the island that we were staying on… so we got talked into a small plane….

And yes, we landed on that runway. Not sure if you can see it or not, but while landing, it had a red warning light that was flashing “warning- terrain ahead!”

We traveled to the town of Savusavu and stayed in the resort owned by Jean-Michel Costeau, son of the famous explorer, Jacques Costeau. Thanks to Claire (7 year old), we learned from her school report that there are over 300 islands that make up Fiji.

We finally arrived to our bure and got this amazing view for the week.

After our first day of getting settled in, we quickly booked a snorkeling trip to Namena Barrier Reef the next day since the weather was to be very nice. (We went during rainy season and big surprise, Brent and I continued our streak of always getting rain during our vacation)… Anyhow, we did have a gorgeous day, and we were off early in the morning for a 45 minute ride to the very small, remote island’s reef. Here is a picture of it from the air plane.

Mike and Amber had stayed on the island about 10 years ago. There was only one resort on it and was owned by a man from Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, when the cyclone hit a few years ago, it completely destroyed the resort.

Our trip was with a group of scuba divers as well as the 4 of us that snorkeled. Needless to say, I should have tried out my gear or perhaps even snorkeled more than one time before I agreed to this trip! I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect to be snorkeling in the middle of the ocean with large waves, so I have to say, I panicked a bit once I first jumped in… after requesting a life jacket, the guide realized that I was completely uncomfortable with this… he quickly came to my rescue. Okay, so maybe he also never left my side for the 45 minutes of snorkeling which to me, felt like an eternity because it was such a struggle. Not only didn’t he leave my side, in fact, he never stop holding on to me for the entire time! The poor guide even let me wear his snorkeling gear because mine were leaking water. He wore my bright pink goggles- what a saint! For some reason, Mike, Amber and Brent just floated around and enjoyed watching the sea life…

After a break, we went to another part of the reef for another 45 minute snorkeling trip, and I decided that I had “been there, done that” and would hang on the boat with seasick, Amber. But, then at the last minute, I  decided that I should go again. I mean, how many times am I going to be in Fiji to snorkel. And, that time was so much better. I was relaxed and actually floated around rather than frantically swimming… the instructor didn’t have to be tethered to me… and the coolest part was that we got to see manta rays! The head diving guide had only ever seen manta rays for about 2 minutes before in this spot, but that day, they didn’t get frightened, and we watched them for the entire 45 minutes. (After I realized they weren’t interested in eating us!). They were huge- about 10-15 feet wide we think.

Photo credit: mantarayisland.com

Then things took a slight down turn for the next few days… 6 out of the 8 of us got some varying degree of the stomach bug… Brent and Caroline (4 year old) got hit the worst and were out of commission for a few days. Then, we had some days of rain, so that also put a damper on things. However, Mike and Amber got upgraded to the Presidential suite so we got to hang out at their amazing bure with a private pool. This was the hot tub in their room with the waterfall right outside.

Despite the rain, we did venture into town to see the market. It was very busy as it was just a few days before Christmas, so busloads of Fijians were there to stock up on their food supplies. .

This next picture is kava. The roots are used to produce a drink (which looks like muddy water). The Fijians sit around drinking it from a large cauldron. It’s meant to have numbing or even euphoric effects. I didn’t try any, but when they had the staff Christmas party while we were there, the men were huddled around drinking it.

Photo credit: whywaittoseetheworld.com

We finally got our appetites back and the sun came out, so we continued with our adventures. Just off the coast from the resort, there was a private island. On Christmas Eve day, we went for a picnic luncheon and to snorkel (which I was a professional at by this point! Ok- not really! But Isla was starting to get the hang of it.)

Here is my instagram worthy shot of Amber…

On Christmas Eve, the kids spent the evening in the pool, and Amber and I had a cocktail while watching the locals sing Christmas carols.

And the big day finally arrived! The kids were very worried that Santa wouldn’t find us… especially when they couldn’t find the presents in the morning. Isla spent quite a while looking for them, but here they were on the front porch.

The owner of the resort dressed up on Christmas morning, and he handed out presents to the children. 

We left the day after Christmas and flew back to Melbourne (after almost getting Greyson’s nerf gun and lightsaber confiscated from the carry on- oops!). But here a a few random other pics… Isla really enjoyed having her hair braided.

And the kids spent a lot of the week collecting hermit crabs both large and small…

And another instagram worthy pic! 🙂

So after a day of rest and lots of laundry, we set off for 3 days along the Great Ocean Road. This post is already getting ridiculously long enough, so if you want to see sights from GOR, then check out when we visited the first time…. July 2016 Trip to Great Ocean Road

Otherwise, the biggest excitement was to see a koala in the wild. Well, actually there were three of them. We had to drive two cars, and as we were nearing the town in which we stayed, we received a text from Mike and Brent that koalas were along the road. We figured they were joking, but sure enough, this time, we should have believed them. And even better, the koalas were actually awake, eating and climbing.

So, selfies were in order. Greyson wasn’t pleased because we had been walking around underneath the tree and here one of the branches (actually, more like a twig) that the koala was eating fell and hit Greyson. He wasn’t thrilled, but Amber and I thought it was very cool to be able to say that you got hit by a koala with a stick! 

Next up was New Year’s Eve. Rather than venturing into the city for fireworks as originally planned, we opted to head to the beach at the end of our street and watch the 9:30pm showing from a distance… after sipping on champagne and watching the kids play, we managed to miss the fireworks show. I believe we weren’t high enough to see it, but shortly after 9:30pm, people started packing up, so they must have seen something that we didn’t! We watched the midnight show from our sofa on tv once the kids were to bed!

On New Year’s Day, we traveled to a wildlife park and some wineries on the peninsula to the south of Melbourne. This was a special highlight for Claire. Claire has a pink koala stuff animal named Max that she’s carried around for nearly her entire life of 7 years… so seeing a real koala, let alone getting to cuddle with it, was a very big deal. Even Greyson went in for a cuddle, but Isla wasn’t as fond… though she did touch a snake…

On the final day of adventures, we traveled into the city to a place called Artvo which is where you can take your picture with 3-D paintings. We had a fun time there despite the crowds and some hungry children (namely Greyson!).

Afterwards, we rode the Melbourne Star Wheel. It had incredible views but I really, really disliked being “trapped” in a  glass container for 30 minutes. I think Caroline had the right idea and stayed on the ground… I wish I would have stayed with her. I was the only one bothered by it…

We had  such a great time and hated to see our company go- especially the kids because they didn’t know what to do with themselves (and I had the rest of the summer to entertain them!).

But the interesting thing that happened was that I never put out their Christmas presents once we arrived back from Fiji. They each got two small presents in Fiji and some more back home (plus some sent from Grandma and Pop Pop), but once we arrived home, we were so busy that they never realized that Santa didn’t come to Australia…. however, we had the gifts so we gave them to them once things calmed down… they were just as thrilled to get them late as on time… and were caught completely off-guard to get presents from Santa on a random morning in mid-January….

And there you go, it’s March and I’m finally posting about 2018!