Wrap it up and put a flower on it.....

Once we got back from our South Sea Island weekend the crazy really began. We headed down to our favorite guy in the handicraft market - Max in Stall 4.

We have visited Max likely too many times (but we did come in underweight....). He always had the best quality carved items. Max is super fun too....he will demonstrate just how a neck breaker works!

 The kids waiting while Richard works on a deal.

Outside the market - I love the murals of Fiji painted on the walls there.

The kid's school celebrated their 45th anniversary with a number of events. My favorite was this photo ISS posted....the kids group together to make a 45. Can you find Mason and Clarissa in the photo?

The Former Ambassador to Fiji, Judith Cefkin, retired. The day before her departure, a traditional Fijian farewell ceremony was held. I got caught in the background of a photo of her cutting the cake. I'm in the white sula jaba!

The CLO (aka me!) planned and put on the Easter party (with a little help from AWA). The party was a couple weeks before Easter, since as soon as the term break starts everyone scatters. There was craft prepping I had to do that week (fingerprint animal bookmarks and decorate your own cookies...both wins!) as well as egg stuffing (luckily some others at the embassy volunteered their time to help). Of course there was the easter egg hunt and visit from the fuzzy bunny!

Girl on a mission! I love that I caught her mid-air in this shot!

Now, don't worry....Mason hasn't deemed himself too old for Easter parties (if so I would have recruited him to hide eggs or something). Nope - right before this, Mason had his Year Eight class trip. It was sort of bittersweet/symbolic that 2 weeks after our arrival into the country he went on the year 6 trip and now just a few weeks before our departure he took his year 8 trip. It almost made bookends of his time in Fiji. For years 6 & 7, they stayed on Viti Levu...but year 8 they ventured to a different island! They went to Ovalau Island in the Lomaiviti Group to the east of Viti Levu. They stayed in the town of Levuka, Fiji’s first capital (which just happens to be a Unesco World Heritage Site as of 2013). The class left on Wednesday and returned on Saturday (catching the 6am ferry back). So Mason wasn't back in time for the Easter party. Here are some photos his teacher had posted.

They stayed at a church and Mason said it was the nicest place of the three camps. Indoor bathrooms and hot water! It was also facing the ocean so it had amazing views and they went swimming.

Lest you think camp was all fun and games, they did have to split into groups and each group was assigned a meal to prepare for the rest of the class. Calculating amount of ingredients needed to feed 50 people is a good life skill! During the day, they were loaded up into local transportation and taken to help village schools.

Which I am amazed at how many students fit in there!!

They did have a bit of a history lesson while there. Levuka (the town) was once the capital of Fiji. Naturally they went to the monument honoring of the Deed of Cession. The deed was signed in 10 October 1874 and officially established the Colony of Fiji. For the next 96 years, British rule was followed (according to the Wiki).

Sacred Heart Catholic Church - in addition to being a church it is also a lighthouse for guiding ships into the port!

The Monday after the Easter party/Mason's camp our pack-out began. When the movers where at the house, we locked in IsaLei in a room with our suitcases and passports....don't want those on the slow boat!! In the evening, she would inspect the movers work.

Sadly, the day came to sell my our blue Prius. There is a car age import restriction for our next post and sadly, the 10 year old Prius is too old. It had been my car before we joined the Foreign Service, but then we became a one car family....so it was ours. It was paid off and already dinged so it was perfect for shipping around the world.

Just like that.....all the hard stuff was done. Now I just had to knock out all the to-do's at work before I was done. Sadly, my replacement was still waiting on her clearance....which meant I had to try and plan things out through the end of the summer.

The Friday after pack-out, we put together a chili cook off. It went really well and we were able to raise money from drinks for the Embassy Local Staff fund (it had gotten depleted as there was a number of deaths and the departure ceremony for Ambassador Cefkin). Luckily, it was typical rainy day - so perfect chili eating weather!

The winner above...she decorated their table with a Fijian theme. Another table (below) had Dr. Pepper!!

There were 13 entries....so that means lots of tasting and eating.

Kids even partook.....in the eating part.

One of the last foods left in the house (that we kept ordering....they deliver!!). Tasty Island Treats! So good! If you are in Fiji, you need to follow her - she typically posts what flavors will be available mid-week. You message your order and then they are delivered on Saturday. The flavors change week to week as it depends on what is in season. The main ingredient is coconut milk....soooo yummy, I'm craving one right now! Our two favorite flavors were

During the last week of classes, we held a farewell/goodbye party. The kids also had personalized invites for their classes......we had quite the gaggle of people show up.

Clarissa and her friends hung out at the pool (until sunset when it closed, then they just ran around....sigh I will miss free range parenting).

Clarissa's friends mom, got this awesome photo of the two of them! 

Mason had a huge group of friends. Sadly, I think they were expecting us to buy all the pizza's (like we did for Mason's bday), but they pooled their money and were able to get a few....oops....there's always that fine line......

Here's a group of us Embassy parents (who's kids are who know where...lol). As I write this, only five of those people are still posted in Fiji, with two more leaving in another month. As we say in the Foreign Service, it's not good bye, but see you later....you never know when paths will cross again!

That next day was Friday and the last primary assembly. Which was a moment Richard and I were dreading. The school sings a beautiful farewell song to the kids leaving within the next week, they get a shell necklace put on the student leaving by the 1 or 2 friends they bring down with them. When we first arrived at post - you think aww, that's sweet. Mid-way through your tour - oh wow, I know that kid can't believe they are leaving already. This last term, I couldn't go to any assemblies because just thinking about it got me teary-eyed.

Clarissa on the other hand....she was having her moment in the spotlight, her moment to shine and doesn't look sad at all!!! (And somehow her and the other girl leaving both brought down 3 friends).

Clarissa's class also made her a little farewell book. Each student wrote her a note and they bound it together. Her teacher posted this photo of her class farewell.

For his last week of school, Mason wore his PE shirt and had his friends all sign it with sharpie (that was fun to iron/wash EVERY night!). Mason's class had a little ceremony, but nobody let me know the when/where. His teacher sent pictures though.....

Sigh...of course he got this after packout....hopefully we can preserve it with out completely squishing it in our luggage.

I had my final book club (we'd always go out to eat when someone was leaving). At one point there were 12 of us.....slowly we are moving all away.

Richard's boss hosted a farewell for him too. His staff got him a Tanoa bowl and a Lali drum. The story behind the Lali drum was awesome. Within and between villages, Lali drums are used for communication. Since the IT department does communication, it seemed natural to get him a Lali drum!

The school term finished up and we had a couple days before our final getaway!

South Sea Island

So one benefit of the job I had in Suva, was looking for tips of places to go and things to do for the Embassy community. As luck would have it, South Sea Cruises was offering some specials for the month of March and they sent a representative to meet with the travel guy and me. One special was to their new private beach club (Malamala Beach Club) and the other was to South Sea Island. Between the yard sale and the Easter party, we had an empty weekend that would be much better spent sitting on a beach than preparing for packout.....So we headed up to Nadi after school/work on Friday. Stayed at a low cost hotel (as the point of our trip was a going to South Sea Island....no point on wasting money on a fancy resort we were just going to sleep at). Saturday morning, we caught the 9:00 boat out of Port Denarau. Sadly, it was a bit windy/rainy on the ride over (as you can see by Clarissa's hair and bright pink swimsuit).

Once we got there, we nabbed a table near the pool that was undercover....in case it rained some more (which it did). The kids immediately jumped in the pool (even before our welcome to the island talk by the staff). South Sea Island is part of the Mamanuca Islands and is one of the closer islands to Port Denarau (we were only on the boat for about 25-30 minutes before we were dropped off). The island is tiny and no villages inhabit it, but you could rent a room for the night if you so desired (this was more of a backpackers type resort).

The little divider between the shallow and deep ends of the pool had holes in it....as you can see by what appears to be Mason's detachable arm...lol. I guess it was to help with water circulation - the holes were pretty big as you can see by this peek-a-boo shot.

So we heard they offered guided snorkels as part of the day trip package, so I went to inquire about that....next thing I knew Richard and I were both going diving (yeah Mason being old enough to babysit his sister!) and they were able to look-up my PADI certification (Richard had his C-card on him).

It rained off and on all day long. Which was a bit of a bummer, but we still had fun napping in hammocks (Richard), walking around the island (Clarissa and me), and swimming in the pool as there wasn't any lightning.....wet is wet! During Clarissa's and my walk-about of the island, we decided to play with the GoPro and crashing waves on the windward side....because we could! It was great fun and we laughed very hard!

Richard did get a chance to fly the drone around between raindrops and when the windy wasn't too gusty.

The above was Richard's view from the hammock. Below...love Clarissa's facial expression....as if to say what is up with this nasty weather!

We also played an exciting game of hangman on the beach.....

Our goal that day was to visit another island, so our goal was technically met....just too bad it wasn't pretty sunny weather (but February/March on the Nadi side of the Viti Levu is the "rainy season"...hence the awesome deal we got. When we got back to Port Denarau that evening, we opted to eat dinner there before heading back to our hotel. Right outside where we ate, there just happened to be a fire dancing show as luck would have it. We've seen several before, but the choreography is always different (and you are always happy when no one gets hurt)! 

I was letting Clarissa record some (she had less heads blocking her view). She decided to get creative and shoot in time lapse mode. Of course, this is the super neat part where the guys are breathing 2+meter (6 foot) bursts of fire! So I slowed the video down a bit there....so I apologize for the odd jerkiness of the video....but it's still super cool!

Our plan for the next day was to go visit the Garden of the Sleeping Giant. It is property formerly owned by Raymond Burr (aka Perry Mason on TV) and is filled with gardens of orchids. So after we checked out of the hotel we headed that way. Everything was going fine until we came to a bridge crossing. We had to go down a steep muddy hill (it had been raining a lot in Nadi the past few days), then cross one of those guardrail-less low-lying 'bridges'....but given how much it had rained the water was at or nearly at the top of the bridge.....sadly we opted to not cross in the Prius.....hindsight we should of used a tour service and their 4-wheel drive trucks. So we headed on back to Suva, but we made a stop at the Kula Wild Adventure Park on our way. The kids and I had been when we first arrived to Fiji, Mason had come again with a field trip, but Richard still had not visited. We walked through and got the chance to hold the endangered Fijian banded iguana.

They also had Fijian crested iguanas, snakes, juvenile sea turtles, and lots of birds.

Still think this is the Fijian Burrowing Snake, Ogmodon vitianus, or bolo as the locals call it.

Clarissa was scared to hold a snake, until I held it. Then she not only held it, she wore it!

Juvenile Hawksbill Sea Turtle.

Mason and Richard opted to do the zipline through the jungle, they have since added a splash park for little kids which is free! So Clarissa and I went to get her swimsuit on. On the way back we went through the aviary. This bird was not intimidated by humans at all!

Clarissa reached out to touch it. I was all noooooo! Hence her look of apprehension. I think this was the Maroon Shining parrot (Prosopeia tabuensis) - native to outer Fijian Islands. Here's a close up of just the parrot.

I also got an awesome close up of a collared lory (Phigys solitarius). Fun fact, it is endemic to Fiji, a rainforest bird, but it has also adapted to urban living and can be spotted in Suva!

Here is the zipline video. Richard was able to attach the GoPro to his helmet. 

Clarissa about to have a bucket of water dumped on her (she's in purple).

We eventually made it back to Suva....of course hitting more rain on our drive. Oh Fiji!