Bora Bora 4

11.08.09 - Day 7 of our vacation

Here is a recap of our wonderful Sunday in Bora Bora. We asked the concierge if there was an LDS church on the island, she immediately contacted one of her good friends who is LDS and got everything taken care of for us. In the morning we caught a boat to the main island. When we pulled up to the mainland, there was a white van with a little deacon in a white shirt and tie holding the door open for us.

A sweet brother and his family picked us up and took us to church.

What an amazing experience!

Some of the speakers gave their talks in French, some in Tahitian. The Sunday school lessons and hymns were also split into either French or Tahitian. We met some wonderful people, enjoyed sitting through a sacrament meeting without kids crawling all over us, and loved seeing the gospel in action what seemed to be a world away. It was also exciting to hear about their preparations for President Uchtdorf who visited their ward that following Sunday... we were bummed that we missed that by only a week!

The rest of the day we spent relaxing... reading, napping, waking around the resort, watching movies, had room service for lunch and dinner on our dock, and got a couples massage at the spa. Heaven.

Bora Bora 3

11.07.09 - Day 6 of our vacation

I kept a small journal while on our trip filled with little notes of the things we did on each day. Here are some fond memories of what we did on this particular day:

-jet skiing around the island (and yes, I threw Pete off the back with my crazy turns!!). We got fried on our 3 hour adventure, but it was worth all of the pain!!

-snorkeling in the hotel lagoon and feeding the thousands of beautiful fish bread.

-sneaking over to the Four Seasons by kayak and swimming in their beautiful infinity pool.

-kayaking under the hotel huts to look up through their floor windows (hee hee).

-losing our beloved kayak that was supposed to be tied up to our dock ladder and Peter running up the dock stairs to catch it and snapping one of the wooden steps in half (it was already weak). We laughed so hard and blamed the break on too many buffet breakfasts :). The hotel upgraded us to a new room with an even better view (didn't know it was possible). BTW, Peter caught the kayak.

-relaxing under the waterfall of the oasis hotel pool.

-watching CNN way too much cause it was the only thing on and not in French.

-our amazing dinner at Le Villa Mahana.

It was a beautiful restaurant with only 7 tables and apparently a 2 month waiting list... luckily our hotel has dibs on one of the tables and we scored!! It was seriously the best food we have ever put a fork on.

Another full and wonderful day.

Bora Bora 2

11.06.09 - Day 5 of our vacation

We woke up, went to the gym, checked out the spa, had breakfast with an incredible view of the beautiful day and then visited the concierge to plan our day. She quickly informed us that a huge kayak race (the Hawaiki Nui Va 'a) was taking place that afternoon and it would be a shame to miss (she was super-bummed that she couldn't be there). She said it was Tahiti's equivalent of our World Series... most definitely the biggest event on the Polynesian sports calendar. We barely had a moment to go back to our room, change and run to the boat.

We arrived on the main island and took a taxi with a couple from Germany to the race.

There were SO many people there. Our entire trip we felt as though we were the only people on the island... not today.

We had about an hour before the teams would be approaching the finish line, so we found a hammock by the beach and took an amazing nap. I'm surprised we didn't completely sleep through the race! We woke up just in time to cross the street and find an open spot on a lifeguard tower to watch the race finish. Competing in the race were 80, 6-crew outrigger canoes who covered 78 miles!!! There were teams from all over the world... it was really cool. Most

definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
We saw the first 10 teams cross the finish line (the winners smoked the others), and then decided to forgo the last 70 teams and grab some lunch. We ate on a table right in the beautiful white sand of the beach. We grabbed our taxi and boat back to the hotel and decided to get a pair of bikes from the resort to travel around (the resort was quite large).

We walked through the hotel shops, fed some of the beautiful tropical fish in the ponds, went for a swim in the pool, and took a pair of kayaks over to another location the movie "Couples Retreat" was filmed,

We also continued what became a daily tradition on our trip which was to take photos of us jumping off of our dock in different ways (it was really a competition... Peter definitely won).

It was a great day to explore and enjoy both the main island and our hotel. At midnight, we decided to jump in the water from our dock and swim in the dark... it was seriously freaky, but we had to do it. Another great day.

Bora Bound

11.05.09 - Day 4 of our vacation

We began our last morning on the island of Moorea with a 3 mile run... nothing like running next to the beach (actually on the beach in the sand is a different story). It was fun to run with my hubby (and made me feel better about eating all of those Magnum Carmel bars). We had breakfast, packed up our stuff, said goodbye to our darling little beach bungalow and headed for the airport.

We flew from Moorea to the fabulous island of Bora Bora (40 minute flight). The Bora Bora airport is on an island, so everyone was taken by boat to their respective hotels. I have never seen anything as beautiful as the island of Bora Bora.

As we pulled up to the St. Regis*, we were blown away. There were 2 employees waiting for us on the dock with cool towels and juice. They quickly checked us in and showed us around the resort in a golf cart... the hotel was nothing short of incredible.

When we walked into our over-the-water hotel bungalow, we about died. This photo of Peter was taken right after our "butler" Richard left.

We literally could not contain ourselves.

We had our own dock in the back where we could jump into the ocean whenever we pleased and we did just that... hopped into our swimsuits and jumped in! Amazing.

After swimming, we freshened up and dined at one of the hotel restaurants, Jean George for dinner. Everything about this day was surprising, beautiful and beyond anything I have ever experienced.

*we found out when we arrived at the hotel that the recent movie "Couples Retreat" was filmed at the resort. The cast and crew rented the entire resort throughout the duration of filming. Kinda cool.

Moorea Motu 2

11/04/09 - Day 3 of our vacation

We woke up this morning super-excited for our day's adventures!! After a yummy breakfast (amazing, fresh fruit always starts the day right), we hopped in a van and headed for our ATV tour. A beautiful Tahitian lady and her darling 3 year old daughter drove us to the site. On the drive, the little girl was chit-chatting with Peter in French (thank heaven Peter speaks French). She had this stuffed turtle (tortue) that he would kiss and then have kiss her. She would pretend to give him something and then Pete would put "it" somewhere funny like up his nose, or in her ear. She was belly laughing the entire way... it was fun to watch.

We arrived and met our tour guide, Karl (who happened to be the dad of that cute little girl). We grabbed our helmets, hopped on and rode off.

It was just us, Karl and a great newlywed couple from Mexico (Raul and Saycee).

We had a blast!!!

We drove through huge pineapple fields,

rode up the lush green mountains,

saw roosters fighting, drove through rough terrain and water,

stopped to eat some delicious passion fruit sorbet, and saw some of the most breathtaking views.

It was visually amazing and also wonderful to learn about the island and it's rich history and traditions.

After our incredible morning adventure, we decided to keep it rolling and rented a scooter to go exploring around the island.

We stopped at little shops along the way and had lunch at a local restaurant right on the water.

We rode all over the island and it was fun to see the locals in their everyday lives, the large crabs scurrying across the street and all of the squished crabs on the road. We also found an LDS church and discovered the cheaper markets noticeably away from the tourist areas. It was fun to be free in such a beautiful place.

On a totally random note... we went to this tiny grocery store today to get a snack and I discovered one of the yummiest treats ever. It's called a Magnum Carmel bar and it is heaven on a stick. Paradise within paradise :).

The days keep getting better...

Moorea Motu

11.03.09 - Day 2 of our vacation
We arrived in Tahiti (the main island), waited for 2 hours for our short flight to the island of Moorea and quickly became very aware of the ridiculous American dollar to Polynesian Franc conversion rate. It was horrible. In the airport, I bought a People magazine for what turned out to be $15 US dollars!!!!!! I was hoping it would be the best magazine that I have ever read... it wasn't. We were learning quickly.
After waiting 2 hours to get to Moorea, the flight only ended up being 10 minutes long. We wished we would have just swam :).

Our hotel was beautiful,

we had a gorgeous bungalow right on the beach with a fresh pineapple waiting for us and a week of bliss ahead of us.

The rest of the day we spent relaxing, exploring the resort, kayaking across way too much coral and getting stuck (we even saw a shark swimming right next to our kayak at one point), we went snorkeling and finished off the night with a nice dinner. Good start to an amazing trip!

Tahiti Trip

I am officially 30. A new decade, a new perspective and a new opportunity to milk a big birthday :). For Peter's 30th, I threw him a surprise party with many family and friends who came long distances for the occasion. Since that big party, he has been stewing ideas in his head for my big 30th. His idea was stinking amazing...

For the past 3 months, I have known that Peter was whisking me away on a trip. The only catch is that I had no idea in the world where. As the weeks passed, I would receive little hints... I need my passport, buy another swimsuit, etc. I finally found out our destination as we were leaving for the airport... TAHITI!!! Out of control.

There is so much to write, tell, share, and post that I have decided to break each day of our trip into it's own blog entry. I will start with the night that we caught our red eye to Tahiti...

11.02.09
My parents flew in from Seattle on the 31st of October and we had a fun Halloween weekend being together.

We took the weekend to prep and prepare them for their 8 days with our kids. They were incredible!!!
Peter and I put the kids to bed, kissed them goodbye and drove to LAX for a midnight flight from LAX to Tahiti. It surprisingly only took 8 hours and we were only 2 hours behind California time... what seemed like a world away really wasn't. We slept a little (I was too excited about all of the movies that I have never seen right in front of my face) and before we knew it, we were there!