Day...What day is it again?

We got up insanely early and drove through traffic like I’ve never seen before to get us to the airport in time to make our 9:45 flight.  I really thought 9:45 would be late enough that we wouldn’t be putting anyone out—they could just drop us at the airport before work.  Hahaha little did I know what Melbourne traffic in the morning was like!  It took 2 hours to get to the airport and I am sure glad I wasn’t driving!  Since our group is so…substantially sized, it took 3 cars to take us in.  I’m amazed every day by how accommodating and generous my family here is!  All of my cousins and Aunt and Uncle are just so willing to help out and they're so patient with us.  It's really incredible.

What better way to express my gratitude then to include this lovely picture?!  Sorry Cath, I've already used the only other one I have of you!  Gotta fix that! :)

Since I’m on the subject, I’d like to take a minute and tell you all about my cousin, Cathy.  She’s been so excited for us to come that she has gone above and beyond in all areas to make sure that our every need is met.  You should see the tower of toilet paper she’s amassed with the help of my other cousins and Aunt and Uncle!  She actually purchased 20 pillows so we would each have two.  She set up two bunk beds in one room and a camper in the back yard so everyone would have a bed to sleep on.  She purchased more silverware to make sure there was enough for everyone.  She’s got enough oatmeal in her pantry to feed us all breakfast every day for the whole 2 months that we’re here.  It’s absolutely phenomenal!  That’s not even talking about how they’ve driven us everywhere, let us use their cars and fed our entire army the whole time we’ve been here!  Talk about feeling loved!  She’s made sure we feel like royalty.  I don't know if she's following this blog or not, but hopefully I've adequately expressed our gratitude in person that this will be redundant--if not perhaps this will convey our extreme thanks.

The kids loved that they got to walk on the tarmac and up the stairs to board the plane.

L was a bit excited to be on a plane again.

Ever wonder what 10 people's luggage looks like?  Well wonder no more!

So after she, her husband, her son, my Aunt and Uncle all drove us to the airport, we were left to our own devices.  We landed in Hobart, Tasmania around 11:00 and rented two cars.  For anyone wanting to know, it’s about three times less expensive to rent two cars than one vehicle that seats more than 8.  Crazy but true.  We started out towards our rental house, but I let é navigate so we ended up on 7 mile beach instead.  A fortuitous mistake as we all needed a minute to adjust to our new surroundings.  The beach was AMAZING!  Since it’s winter there was hardly anyone out, just a few crazies like this guy.  It wasn’t even that cold to us, a bit chilly—like spring time before it starts getting really warm.  We’d been warned about how freezing it was going to be yet most of us took off our jackets and sweaters after we started walking. 

The kids were having the time of their lives finding sea shells.  It never ceases to amaze me how many times 8 children can say, “Mama LOOK!” in a one minute span.  That said, the shells were pretty incredible.  The neatest find though was a clam.  X was over the moon about finding it.  Once settled in the cabin we ran water all through it to show him how it closes all by itself—then we pried it open and coaxed him into eating it.  What a riot!  He literally gagged it down then threw it right back up.  He said it tasted like the beach.  Maybe next time we’ll put it on a cracker.  Or in soup.  

We got the kids all settled then went on our first shopping excursion.  What would normally cost $75 for a week’s worth of groceries cost twice that and we may have to go back for more but this week especially is an experiment.  I’m amazed that they have just about everything we do—it’s just packaged a bit differently and usually called something else.  Like Jelly is actually Jell-O, ground beef—ground anything, is mince.  Things like that.  We still feel like we’re mocking them when we use their words for things but we’re hoping if we keep it up, by the end of our holiday, it’ll be second nature and we’ll sound funny when we get home.  Because, you know, it’s just boring to be normal! J

I’ve got to say a word about planning here quick before I close.  Every minute I spent on the computer researching, exploring, studying and floundering around was worth it’s weight in gold!  I mean, down to the suggestion, ‘stop on a beach or park somewhere to get your bearings’, we have followed exactly what I planned.  There are contingencies for tantrums, illness, weather—every hiccup I could think of.  Now when things happen, it’s like it was meant to happen because I’m prepared!  Ten days in and I’m entirely relaxed about the next 8 weeks because things are going exactly how they should.

This vacation is working out to be the once in a life time, amazing adventure that I’ve hoped and dreamed it would be.

Day 10: Sunday!

I love Sunday's!!  We woke up, went to church, came home and have written in journals, drawn, played games and just enjoyed ourselves.  Pretty straight forward.  Nice to just sit around and enjoy not running around.  Church is comforting--I love that no matter where you go in the world, the church is the same.  Of course it doesn't make for an exciting blog post, but not every day of vacation has to be a note worthy blog post, right?  Right!

Day 9: What a difference a few decades make!

Went for a walk with π this morning at dawn.  It was incredible.  There's nothing like going for an early morning walk to bring out the stark reality that you are in another country.  The lake is inhabited by Eurasian Coots.  They're really incredible! They literally run across the water--it was fascinating to watch!

We also went to Mireya's dance concert--K kept calling it a recital and the teen cousin contingent would giggle and ask her to say it again.  It was super fun.  They held it at an actual theater--it looked like a stadium seating movie theater that sat around 200.  It was neat.  They'd adapted the snow white story and added dances--we were hoping to hear a lot of native Aussie music but we recognized most of the songs.  Guess there's no escaping The Happy Song.

After, we convened at Mary's and Arthur's house for a BBQ.  It would have been nothing notable at home, just a family dinner.  But here, I was highly emotional several times.  This is my family.  It doesn't matter that we've been separated by an entire planet for most of our lives, the feeling is the same.  I don't understand how those family ties work, but I know they're real.  I mean, here I'm standing in a complete stranger's home talking to a group of complete strangers--and I'm completely at ease.  Everything was familiar and comfortable.  It was just...perfect.

My whole life growing up in Salt Lake I felt isolated--I knew I had a distant aunt in Texas with my Grandparents, another one in California and an Uncle in Australia--but I felt as though I had no family at all. Now I visit with my Texan Aunt several times a day, I associate with my Cali cousins via facebook and I'm sitting in the kitchen of my Aussie cousin's home.  What a difference a little technology makes!

We'll just blame these next few pics on jet lag :)

Day 8: Settling In

I'm becoming more and more confident in things going just as I've planned.  I knew we'd have some sleep issues and, right on schedule, we did.  From 3:00 in the morning we were dealing with sleepy kids waking up and struggling to get back to sleep.  I couldn't fall back to sleep so I caught up on adding pictures to the blog posts I'd written offline and let π get some more sleep.  π² woke up at 5 and took a shower so I enlisted him to read to the kids who were awake for 1 hour--in exchange for screen time of course.  Best currency EVER!  One text/min is the going rate at our house, or minute for minute electronic time.  It's brilliant really.

After an hour of story time and Skyping home, I traded places with π and got another couple of hours of sleep.  Not wanting to really do anything but let the kids get more acclimated to the time zone, we took them swimming.  Great exercise, great distraction, great way to wear the kids out and hey, we're really on vacation now because we went swimming!

Since not much else is going on, I thought I'd share a few of the novelties that we've noticed--and the neighbors who came over to meet us asked us all about these few things that we hadn't noticed so here are some fun quirky things that we're enjoying. 

So this is the water heater control.  You turn the water temperature to what you want it to be at, so you don't have to mix it yourself with the hot/cold combo.  The kids like the water at 42, my shower this morning at 46 was too hot (I added a little cold myself and it was fine) so tomorrow I'll try it down around 44 and see how that goes.  I haven't asked how it works yet, but there's always hot water--super nice!

This is the toilet.  Not the bathroom, restroom or loo, just the toilet.

This is the washroom.  So after you use the toilet, you use the washroom.  And very few people have a shower that sprays into the tub--only it's not called a tub, I can't remember what it's called right now. 

Unlocked.

Locked.

  Outlets!  You can turn off the power if you like.

$5.69 for a bottle of juice

$3.99 for 2 liters of Coke. 

 $6.39 for half of kg of roo

Anyone for some Pine Lime?  (Took us awhile to realize it's pineapple!)

Ew.

Thinking of splurging.

The food prices are unbelievable!  We were surprised at some of the same brands--Doritos is the one that's standing out in my mind right now.  Big fun!!

Day 7: And on the 7th day, they rested.

Our flight landed around 11:55 PM local time.  We were dirty from our day on Fiji, we were exhausted and we were so relieved to be done traveling!  Since our second flight didn't have the amenities of our first, none of our electronics got charged on the plane so when we disembarked we didn't have enough battery for pictures. Makes for a boring blog post but luckily we had just enough to contact Cathy--our flight was early!  Fortunately, so were they so we only had a short wait before they were there to pick us up.

It was quite a drive back to Cathy's place and a few things struck me about the city.  First, they have billboards that run the entire width of the freeway.  Electronic ones that change screens.  It's very distracting and I hope this practice never comes to the States.

Secondly, their toll system.  It was interesting, but I'm not sad we don't have something like it.  When they register their cars, they are given an electronic disc that gets placed above the handle connecting the rear-view mirror to the windshield.  This disc is scanned when you're driving on a toll road and your card is charged the amount of going through that toll spot.  Does that make sense?  At any rate, it costs about $8.00 to drive into town--I thought this was terrible!

Third, that city is Massive!  It just keeps going on and on and on and on.  There are tunnels that go under rivers and bridges that go over them...I've been looking at Google maps of this city for so long that shouldn't be surprising to me but I hadn't really thought about it, ya know?  

Anyway, our plan for today was to lounge around all day and acclimate and that's precisely what we've done.  We didn't get to sleep till around 5:30 in the morning so we slept until around 10:30-11:00.  The kids enjoyed exploring.  X and X² are stoked that BJ is as much as a Star Wars fan as they are.  They've been cataloging all of his memorabilia they're finding all over the house.  The storm trouper alarm clock similar to their Anakin one back home was a huge hit...but the tie fighter lego set that he's let them play with has won the big prize.  Mostly though, it's solidified in their minds that they aren't buying anything on this trip with their spending money until we get back to California and make a quick stop at Lego land to buy them a $200 star wars themed set with their combined 'allowance'.

Cathy surprised us all with gifts--Aussie flag towels and loofas!  All the kids, é included, tied them around their necks and became the Aussie Jedi's as they swooshed around in their capes.  ^ informed me that his is a blanket, not a towel, so I was not allowed to take it away when it was time for bed.

This evening Sean, Colleen and her family and Uncle Lyle and Aunt Bonnie came to dinner.  It was so bizarre to be standing in the kitchen and look to see who's coming in the front door and have it be your family that live on the other side of the world...and then you realize that YOU are on the other side of the world.  I wonder if this feeling will dim at all over the next two months?

Anyway, it was great fun spending the evening asking questions about what it was like for my Dad's family growing up and getting a different version of the same events you've heard about your whole life.  My Dad's German shepherd, Vicious, sounds like an animal befitting his name from the story Uncle Lyle told, not like the sweet little runt of the litter that Dad rescued and ironically named Vicious from the stories I heard growing up.  Then, of course, I started remembering the stories of how my Grandma wasn't able to wake up Dad for fear of being bitten and I realize that it was my interpretation of what was being told that had skewed my understanding of the events, not the actual story that I'd been told.

I'm grateful that I'm still a novelty to this side of the family--I'm sure my constant picture taking and video recording every story and event gets obnoxious the more you're around me.  For now though, Uncle Lyle and Aunt Bonnie were super sweet and told me story after story...I could've sat for hours and hours just asking enough questions to keep them talking.  But we are human and I was so tired and I'd filled up the pathetically small amount of memory on my phone by videoing the stories they were telling and I realized we'll be here for quite a long time and we'll be able to hear more stories tomorrow so we said goodnight and will hopefully pick it up again tomorrow.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, this is Heaven.

Day 5: The Plane

With Mary’s van in the shop, we decided to change our plans a bit.  We cancelled seeing Gordon, Krystal and Kylee (which I’m still bummed about, those guys are awesome!) so we could take Mary back down to pick up her van when it was ready.  As much as I wanted to spend the day with the Hunts, it’s probably a good thing we didn't.  Packing up at Mary’s after just 2 nights was a nightmare!  It took several hours and I melted down at one point.  So many kids with so much stuff!!  Several people expressed concern when I told them we were just taking a carry-on size suitcase a piece.  Oh how glad I stuck with what I originally thought!  It was insane how hard it was to corral and re-pack all of them!  We did finally get it done and the call finally came that Mary’s van was ready. 

It was going to be cutting it close, but it would have been fine—we totally would have made it.  But Mary sweetly opted to ask ward members for help.  I know that’s what they’re there for, but I don’t often have the chance to serve my little sister so I was a little sad—she’d been so sweet to let us come and stay and to take a few days to play with us!  I know she’s fine with how things turned out, and I know she knows how much I love her…I guess I’ll just have to find another way to show it J

Instead, we picked up a great friend, Tonya, who is going to park our van at her place for the summer and headed out.  Rush hour in LA is iconic so we were glad that we had so much extra time.  Visiting with Tonya on the drive was fantastic.  I love catching up with friends in real life!   Thanks again, Tonya, for helping us out!

At the airport we learned the one thing we hadn't thought about…weight!  We’d packed everything sparsely but most of our bags were dense!  With a 7 kg weight limit for carry on items, we had to alter our plan.  We checked all the bags but the two lightest and headed to the gate only to realize that Cody’s medicine was still in his bag and he desperately needed to take it .  Luckily we were 4 hours early so we had them bring back just Cody’s bag so he could get it.  We got to our gate with 2 hours to wait.  Really, the hardest part was the first two hours, waiting for Cody’s bag to come back up.  Once the kids were all sitting, ensconced in their various electronic entertainments, it was smooth sailing.

They had us board first as we would “need a little extra time to get situated” hahahaha that’s an understatement.  At least I thought it would be.  It was weird.  I’ve been planning and planning and planning this.  We walked on the plane and everything went exactly how I’ve visualized it every single time.  Oh how I hope this is how the whole trip goes!

Since getting on the plane, things have been incredible.  The buddy system we’ve set up has worked like a charm.  The older kid has taken care of whatever the younger kid needed.  Cody and I fell asleep and both slept for a good 6 hours! Most of the kids slept for quite some time too and when they woke up, just started watching movies or playing games that are provided at each seat.  K commented that she feels like we’re flying first class because they keep bringing her drinks and snacks—and with dinner there was shrimp cocktail! Each seat had a pillow and blanket AND a toothbrush and toothpaste so they’ve been traveling in complete comfort the whole way.  

We’ve only got 45 minutes left of this 11 hour flight and aside from tucking the kids in once and taking pictures twice, I haven’t even had to get out of my seat!  Singing the praises of Fiji Airways right now!  Good food, free entertainment, comfortable, roomy seats even for us fatties, in seat electronic charging (and 110 V plug under your seat).  I honestly can’t think of a single way this flight could have been improved.

Okay, gotta put the computer away so we can disembark and go explore Fiji!  Let’s go build some houses!

Day 6: Holy Freak Out Batman!

Our crazy luck is catching up with us…you know, the kind where crazy things happen but it all works out in the end?  Yup, that’s the story of my life.  

Getting off the plane in a new country is fun.  You've got no clue where to go or what to do or how to do it.  You just follow the crowd and hope you're in the right place.

Doing this with 8 children in tow is hilarious!  Luckily, people are friendly the world over (so far) and SUPER helpful--whether you want it or not.  We made it through customs no problem  (except when we took this picture and almost had our camera confiscated.  Apparently you're not supposed to take pictures in customs.  Who knew?!)  and decided we'd find the baggage locker and store our bags for the day instead of hauling them with us.  

That done, we found the Avis rental car place and got outfitted with our van.  Learning to drive on the left side of the road in Fiji was a good idea!  There's just one road that goes around the entire island so getting lost isn't too easy (we managed to do it more than once though).   The people drive crazy, but no crazier than in Utah if there's no cops around.  After an hour or two we realized that, if there were laws, they were more like suggestions than actual restrictions. 

We had a bit of an adventure finding the Koroipita community--there aren't really street signs so turning onto the designated road on the map is a bit difficult but we eventually got there.  The roads are so skinny that, in our big van, it was challenging to stay in our lane and yet stay on the road.  I never really realized what a 3rd world country Fiji really is.  I mean, you see the videos on youtube and wherever and it's all sandy white beaches and happy vacationing people.  

Not so when you're up close and personal.  Our first stop--we just pulled over on the side of the road to walk down to the beach and get out the initial excitement that we were in Fiji--was a big eye opener.  The first thing we noticed was all the garbage everywhere.  Like people just threw whatever straight into the ocean--which is pretty much what they do.  Their houses though, were what we'd call shanty town homes.  Basically it was corrugated metal held together in whatever way they could.  It was very eye opening.

At any rate, we finally found Koroipita and the group from Hobart, Tasmania that we were to be joining and helping out.  The lady that I'd been corresponding with was nowhere to be found, but the people there knew we were coming and were excited to see us.  But they had no idea what we were to help with/do.  There were some older guys building some beds, and some really older guys building a roof on a house--not really tasks 8 year olds can help with.  

Eventually they got the kids some hammers and set them to nailing the slats in the beds. 

 Another gentleman came up for a break and when he saw a bunch of us just standing around with nothing to do set us up planting some shrubs along the roads to stop the soil from eroding into the concrete gutters they'd poured.  It was a lot of fun but we didn't last too long, just an hour and a half or so.  It had been a long flight, a long drive, it was hot...and then one of the kids reminded me that it had been over ten hours since they'd last eaten.  It was time to find some food.

It took us about 2 hours--we kept taking fun windy roads that didn't lead us to where we thought they should!--but we finally found a restaurant.  We stopped and asked a lady walking down the road if we were headed in the right direction.  She confirmed that we were and I asked,

"Is there a restaurant there that we could try real Fijian food?"

She looked at me with an expression of consternation.  She paused for a really long time before she answered, "I've never eaten in a restaurant."

What a humbling experience!  

I didn't feel guilty that I was here on this extravagant vacation with 8 children--we worked and saved and sacrificed to be here.  But the reality of the 'luck of the draw' of where you're born struck so hard at that moment.  We didn't do anything special--we were just born in the US.  How does that entitle us to so much?  I mean, here I feel like we've done something extraordinary buy earning this money and being able to come on this trip when the reality is, all we did was walk the neighborhoods of Salt Lake.  These people have walked everywhere they've ever gone their whole lives.  They don't own cars.  They walk to survive.  The best way to describe the feelings raging inside is with the word humble...but it doesn't quite cut it.  Is there a word that's more fitting?  I don't know.  

The rest of the drive and all through dinner the conversation kept coming back to that woman.  Her simple admission carried so much weight, especially considering the audience observing the encounter.  What a lesson we all learned today!  As we ate our lamb fried rice, fish and chips and chicken stir fry--all names of foods we thought we knew but brought to life in a different way in a different country--we were further astounded that this bounteous fair was so inexpensive in our standards, yet is completely unattainably expensive to the local woman who kindly gave us directions.

Satisfied physically, we decided we should use the hour and a half of our remaining time on the island to go work out our mental and emotional obfuscation on the beach.  We meandered up the coast until we found a road that looked like it might lead to one of those iconic looking, white sandy beaches and followed it to a resort.  We drove along the access road running parallel to a golf course you'd expect to see Tiger Woods playing on until we came to a car park.  (I don't know why calling a parking lot a 'car park' makes the kids giggle so, but it does and I find that, as I wrote that, I chuckled a bit.  Good times!)

The pictures do a far better job describing what it looked like than I do so yeah, this is where we spent our last hour on the island.

 This is the path that leads to the beach.  Once we'd walked down it we thought, wow, that was really pretty we should probably take a picture! So that's our van in the distance.

Best swing set location EVER!!  Seriously, we each took a turn swinging and it was just so surreal!  We want to come back to this same spot when we fly home and spend a little more time, maybe have a picnic lunch.  It was the epitome of 'a day on the beach in Fiji'--well, the tourist division/story book version anyway.

We'd been told to be back at the airport 90 minutes before our flight--we choose to get there 3 hours early.  We returned the car (^ was so tired he fell asleep helping us unpack the van!), we picked up the bags from the 'left luggage' desk and we head over to check in and get our boarding passes. 

The guy starts scanning the passports after the almost obligatory, “Wow 8 kids?! You’ve got your hands full! How do you ever plan a trip like this with 8 kids?!” (I swear there’s a script somewhere that I haven’t been shown and I’m blowing my lines every time!)

Then he asks, “What is ∞’s birthday?” 

Rotely I respond with her birthday, only saying the wrong year.  I knew my mistake before he had a chance to respond.  I said, “2004, not 2006."  Immediately I knew what had happened.   "Did I put one date on the passport and one on the visa?!”  I knew I had.  He didn’t have to answer.  My fingers just want to make her two years younger every time I type her birthday, it happens all the time.  My head knows when she was born but my fingers refuse to accept it.  I’d made the mistake MANY times, but caught it almost immediately every time, I thought.

Clearly I missed it this one time.  This one CRUCIAL time.  I went to one of their internet access terminals and quickly filed for a new visa for ∞.  Done I went back over to the desk only to find that I hadn’t included her middle name on the visa, yet it was on the passport!  If the names don't match exactly, it's invalid.  I was about ready to break down.  Time was steadily ticking on and each new mistake I was making was costing more than money, it was costing time.

Seeing that I was at the end of my rope, he phoned the Australia consulate and got her cleared--even with the mistake.  We walked onto the plane as they were finishing boarding.  Three hours early for a flight, ridiculously early you say?  Just right I say.

The kids were sad to see this was a 'normal' flight without any of the neat amenities of the international flight that had brought us this far.  Bored before we'd even taken off, most of them fell almost instantly asleep.  I think only 2 of them were still awake when the plane took off, and they didn't last much longer than that.  All 10 of us were still asleep when the lights came up and the announcement came on that there was just 10 minutes left of the flight and we should prepare for landing.  

I love it when a plan comes together!