Bula!

Bula is how they say hello in Fiji and that's where we spent 7 fabulous days. We got back home last Saturday and I'm just now getting around to posting our pictures. The weather was extremely hot and humid but it was paradise. We just kept thinking that it felt like we were living for a week in one of those postcards that you see.

The best thing to do while your in Fiji is what Ryan is doing in this picture below. Just relax, but make sure you are wearing sun screen before you fall asleep in the sun. Our first two hours there Ryan didn't put on any sunscreen and fell asleep, which he soon regretted when he turned the color of a lobster and itched all over. The pool at our resort was supposed to be one of the biggest pools in Fiji, we spent a lot of time there and it was fantastic.

One of the days we went on a day trip to one of the other islands within Fiji called Beachcomber. Fiji is actually made up of 300 islands but only 150 of them have people living on them. Beachcomber was an extremely small island that would only take about 20 minutes to walk all the way around. Our day trip was filled with relaxing of course, fish feeding, and snorkeling. I had only snorkeled once before in Hawaii and we just were up against the beach and Ryan had never been snorkeling. On this trip they took about 12 people out into the middle of the ocean by the reef and just told you to jump out. I was super scared because they didn't give us life jackets and then the boat just circled around about 50 yards away from us. I feel like I am a good swimmer but I was still really nervous. The water was crystal clear and as warm as bath water, it was so awesome and we saw some really cool fish, bright blue star fish, and even a small reef shark.
Another day of our trip we took a waterfall tour. When we booked the tour they didn't tell us that the bus ride that takes you to the village where you begin the hike was going to be 3 hours long! I didn't mind too much because there was great scenery to look at and it was very humbling to see how the people were living in the village. The hike to the waterfall was about a mile, once we got to the waterfall we spent about an hour just relaxing and swimming around underneath it. It was seriously like something you would see in a movie.

Throughout the week we notice that frogs were every where. One night we were even tip toeing around the sidewalk so we didn't step on them. Well one night we are walking back to the room and Ryan said, "I think this frog has pants on!" I almost fell over laughing, I thought Ryan had been in the sun way too long and it was getting to him. Well come to find out every Friday at the resort the staff puts on frog races. Yes, real live frogs that race and guess what they wear? Pants! Below is a picture of one of the guys putting pants on one of the frogs.

The frogs are then auctioned off right before the races. If your frog places in the top 3 you get part of the pot and then 30% of the money also goes to charity. People were really getting into it and we even bought two frogs but they didn't place high enough for us to win any money. I have a great video clip of a frog hopping so fast that he loses his pants but it's too big of a file to upload.

We left Fiji and flew to New Zealand where our next flight was delayed then spent 11 hours on a flight to L.A. where we missed our flight and finally after 30 hours made it back to Utah. Fiji was fabulous but there's nothing like coming home. We had such a great time and I've posted more pictures in the next post for you to enjoy.