Every adventure spawns a thousand stories. Every story is unique to the perspective of the individual. I see things much differently through the eyes of a father and decades of life experience behind me than I did when I was a child. There is so much beauty in the world. Even in the most unexpected places, if you look for it.
As this was my second trip to Fiji, I knew what to expect. In many ways, my expectations were greatly exceeded. We went to Fiji without much of an agenda. We had things that we wanted to do, but most of our trip was without a schedule. This worked out very well for us. Some of the best memories for me were spurred by moments of spontaneity. I am not sure that I can pinpoint one specific moment from Fiji as my favorite. I could probably pick a favorite for each day, but even that would be a daunting task to narrow it down to just one moment.
I can list all the things that I loved; the humidity, warmth, flora and fauna, the fruit, the ocean, reefs, fish, anemones...I could go on for hours and really break it down to types of flowers, birds, fish, locations. You get the idea.
For Apollo and Orion, however, they both have their favorite moments from the trip.
Apollo loved the boat. Everything about it: Being out on the water, snorkeling, the fish, feeding the fish, and seeing the different islands and boats.
He liked that all of us were packed on the boat together because that gave him an opportunity to spend time with everyone. Apollo likes being surrounded by people that he knows, and feels comfortable with. It is the one thing that he will gleam to if all the plans fall apart. He always points out that his favorite thing is that we were altogether.
Orion loved the plane. To be more specific, he loved flying the plane. When your brother is a pilot, you get those little extra perks. We were fortunate enough that my brother was able to get us on one of his flights to a private island. On a float plane no less. The boys were each able to take a turn sitting in the co-pilot seat.
As this was my second trip to Fiji, I knew what to expect. In many ways, my expectations were greatly exceeded. We went to Fiji without much of an agenda. We had things that we wanted to do, but most of our trip was without a schedule. This worked out very well for us. Some of the best memories for me were spurred by moments of spontaneity. I am not sure that I can pinpoint one specific moment from Fiji as my favorite. I could probably pick a favorite for each day, but even that would be a daunting task to narrow it down to just one moment.
I can list all the things that I loved; the humidity, warmth, flora and fauna, the fruit, the ocean, reefs, fish, anemones...I could go on for hours and really break it down to types of flowers, birds, fish, locations. You get the idea.
For Apollo and Orion, however, they both have their favorite moments from the trip.
He liked that all of us were packed on the boat together because that gave him an opportunity to spend time with everyone. Apollo likes being surrounded by people that he knows, and feels comfortable with. It is the one thing that he will gleam to if all the plans fall apart. He always points out that his favorite thing is that we were altogether.
Orion loved the plane. To be more specific, he loved flying the plane. When your brother is a pilot, you get those little extra perks. We were fortunate enough that my brother was able to get us on one of his flights to a private island. On a float plane no less. The boys were each able to take a turn sitting in the co-pilot seat.
It was a bit of luck that Melanie, Apollo, Orion, Spyros and myself, were able to get on a flight with Greg. There was just enough room for us, and when we arrived on the amazing private little island, we had enough time to take a quick tour, have a small snack, and then board the plane to fly back. On a side note, a month would be too short of a visit to to a little island like the one we visited.
The plane we were on is a Twin Otter on floats, a very nice Twin Otter I might add. I have been on dozens of Otters back in my skydiving days, and this was by far the nicest and most modern.
Next to handling the controls, Orion was thrilled that the plane landed and took off on the water. We were all excited and impressed by this. Melanie and I also were able to do this with Greg in Greece on the island of Corfu, a year before Apollo was born. Seeing the boys reaction to taking off and landing on the water was awesome. Orion was as exited as our dog Remi gets right after he has a bath.
The boys are old enough that they take most things in stride. They love the adventures especially once they are in the midst of them. I think at this age though, they don't realize that many of the things that we do are not necessarily the norm.
We try to explain to them that most people don't have huge bonfires on the beach in Fiji, or have private beaches to themselves to watch the sunset and play in the water at, get to fly a seaplane, but I'm not sure that they have a grasp on how special those things were. They loved every minute of those moments and adventures and they continue to talk about them, but I think that they assume that's what vacations are all going to be like.
The funny thing about that, is that when Greg & Kim come to visit, we usually have pretty epic adventures here too. Our camping trips are always an event unto themselves, so maybe we are setting a precedence.
I have put pictures in this post that Apollo and Orion selected as some of their favorite memories from Fiji. They picked way too many to post at one time so we had to whittle them down to just these few.
To go with the pictures (and in addition to the plane and the boat), here is a list of their favorite memories: Playing in the tide pools. Giant Chess at the Marriott resort. Hiking to a remote village in the shadow of the sleeping giant and visiting a kindergarten class. Hiking in the jungle with our whole group (10 of us). Drinking fresh young coconuts. Fijian bananas. Pineapple.
Melanie and I could enjoy ourselves anywhere. We could have spent all day, every day in Fiji in the water snorkeling and exploring the reefs. We could have spent days and nights exploring the jungles and not been bored. We would have been happy foraging for fruit to eat as our only food every day. We really dont need much to be happy. But to spend time with three of our four boys, plus Kim, Greg, Spyros, and Zosi, in Fiji, just letting the chips fall were they may, made this vacation extra memorable for us while finding the adventures in the unexpected.
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