Fiji Part 2 (River Tubing and lots more resort time)

We did one big excursion while in Fiji! We spent the day exploring the Navua River: first we rode in boats up in the river, we explored a village in the Namosi Highlands, we visited a waterfall, had lunch, and then finally rode in tubes down the river. We were nervous about it raining all day, but decided to just go for it! It definitely rained, but was totally still worth it. 

Two of our nannies, Kathy and Nathan, came with us. This is the only picture we have of Nathan. He wasn't exactly a stellar nanny to Andy and Max.

This is the village we visited! It was really cool and felt surprisingly authentic.

Cutest kids watching us from their house.

I think they said that they pay money to the village for allowing tour groups like us to come in and it's helped them get solar power.

Hiking up to the waterfall.

We were all too cold to get in the waterfall.

I think this picture is from lunch. We chatted with another family that was visiting their parents who were serving a mission in Fiji. Small world! Not pictured is the ride down the river. I think normally it's pretty mild and fun. But because of all the rainfall that week it was actually pretty terrifying, especially considering we had Davis and Violet with us. Davis was terrified the entire way down, as we traveled through some legitimately big rapids and he was almost thrown off his tube multiple times. Violet fell out of her tube. Luckily each kid had their own guide, but it ended up being a scary 45 minutes and I was very relieved when it was over and we'd all survived.

We loved riding through our resort on bikes.

The resort surprised us with yummy drinks on our back patio. 

We finally got to enjoy the beach for a couple of hours!

The back of our gorgeous villa.

The resort chef prepared the tuna that we caught for us for dinner. It was delicious. A plate of sashimi and then a plate with more traditional preparation.

The kids loved their morning hot chocolates with their name written on the top.

Violet loved her sweet nanny Kathy. She made her this cute coconut bowl.

We had such a fun time exploring the tide pools! The highlights were seeing a shrimp, an eel, and a big crab.

Our resort meals were so delicious and the atmosphere was top notch.

The one day we got to play in the ocean!

It was too cold to use our private pool we'd been so excited about, but we forced ourselves to take a quick plunge in it on our last full day.

Violet and Davis dressed up for the torch lighting ceremony on our last night.

Can you handle the cuteness? 

We had a big seafood dinner for two our final night. Max joined Cameron and me. Violet ate in the kids club most nights and Davis was invited to eat there every night. :) 

Andy could be found most of the time in the resort lounge watching whatever sport was on the TV, which was usually rugby or soccer. Apparently all the staff noticed and thought he must be a big rugby fan, but I think he was mostly just sick of his family ha ha. If you don't see him in some of the pictures above, this is where he was. 

I think this was our final morning. Cameron and I snuck away on a quick jet ski tour where we snorkeled too. We had been trying to go all week and the weather finally cleared up enough we got to go. We went to an area where we got to see huge nurse sharks swimming right under us. It was incredible. And then they took us to an incredible reef where we snorkeled. I think it was the coolest snorkeling I've ever done.

They surprised Davis and sang happy birthday to Davis on our last lunch. (His birthday was two days later.) Davis loved every second of it and had the biggest smile on his face.

We had to drive 3 hours to get to the airport and began our long journey home! Why does Violet look like a teenager here?

I was on Davis duty on the long flight home. I also came down with shingles on the flight home, which is apparently stress induced. Probably not a coincidence. :)