Together In Paradise

Get ready for photo overload! Finally I've got some time to post about our trip to French Polynesia. What a great trip! It's sure nice to spend so much time with my family on these trips that my mother so willingly and lovingly provides us with.
It's gonna take awhile to get through all this, so we best get started...


This is the family checking in at the Delta counter in Salt Lake (except for Brandon, who left from Phoenix so he could work right up to the last minute). We departed on the 4th of July. We met up with Brandon in the LA airport (which was dirty and stinky, by the way) and got on the plane to Papeete, Tahiti. Our flight there was not very full, but unfortunately Brandon and I did not take advantage of it. I had to get up and potty about every 2 hours (thanks to my "condition"), so I saw Chris curled up on two seats, and my mom leaned over her tray with her head on her arms. I don't think Cole slept at all, and I know Brandon didn't. When we got off the plane Jessie said I got the award for being the most pathetic. Apparently she got up to potty during the twenty minutes I slept and saw me with my head on my tray. Let's face it, there is no graceful way to sleep on an airplane.



Just arrived! This is Cole (my brother, who also has a hard time making a normal face in a picture) and Brandon. We were given those gardenia flowers everywhere we went. They smelled so good. It made me want to go buy more of the Crabtree and Evelyn Gardenia body cream I used to have (Daxton dropped it and broke the jar a couple years ago).


Waiting for our bus in Papeete. We arrived around midnight their time (3am ours). Brandon is the only one without luggage. Unfortunately the lady in Phoenix who checked his bags couldn't get the tags to print, so she HAND WROTE them. I couldn't believe he let her get away with that. I would have stood at that counter until she fixed the problem. It was definitely no surprise he didn't get his bags. However, in true Brandon fashion, he didn't let it bother him. The rest of us would have been SO grumpy. By the time we got his bags reported lost it was close to 1:30am.

Our first morning in Tahiti we went to the temple. Since Brandon had no church clothes to wear he showed up in his t-shirt and cargo shorts. I would have just said, "oh well, I'm not going to the temple", but not my Brandon. When he walked in the front door the temple president asked him immediately to wait in a side closet area. The president asked his pants size and went off to find him some appropriate clothes. Once Brandon was "legal" he got through. We did an endowment session in french ( I had the english translation on headphones). I have to admit I did fall asleep, but what do you expect from 4 hours sleep. It was still an experience.


In the lobby of our Papeete hotel. Steve and Chris were playing Chess. I was surprised, and a little impressed, that Chris knew how to play.
Notice the background of the picture. Despite French Polynesia being tropical and getting frequent rain, not a single one of our hotel lobbies were enclosed. They were all open to the elements. Probably wouldn't be good during a hurricane, but I guess they don't get them that often or they'd make a change. We spent a day and a half in Tahiti, and then took a ferry over to Moorea.

This is Brandon after our arrival on Moorea. Again, more beautiful flowers to wear. Notice Brandon is finally wearing different clothes. His luggage arrived at our Tahiti hotel, just before we left. I was relieved, for more reasons than one.

Cole looks so pretty.

In Moorea we stayed in Garden Bungalows that were SO PRETTY! Each bungalow had teak floors, and teak woodwork everywhere. They also each had their own backyard pool. The water was freezing, but it was nice to have anyway. This is a picture of us waiting in mom's "backyard" for the rest of our rooms to be ready.

Pretty Mom.

Pretty Cole again.


A small portion of our room in Moorea. They had tons of those red hibiscus flowers laying around, and it was so nice and paradise like.



The dancers that our hotel provided for "Cultural Night".


There was one day in Moorea that it rained most of the day. We walked about 1/4 mile from our hotel, in the rain, to have lunch at a patisserie. It was worth it.


This is Jessie and Steve walking to the first of many little planes that we took to various islands.

We're headed to Bora Bora! Some other tourists told us it's not the best island, but we were excited anyway.


The Bora Bora airport is on a long skinny island that doesn't have anything else on it. So we had to get on a boat that took us to our hotel, which was on another little slice of land, just off the main island of Bora Bora.


Our favorite place EVER! This was our overwater bungalow in Bora Bora. I swear to you that this place was nicer than our house!



Of course the pictures don't do it justice, but this is the bedroom section of our bungalow. That is a big window that our bed looks out of. We had a great view, and were able to lay in bed and watch boats and snorkelers. It was a good thing we had something to watch out our window because the only english station we got on TV was CNN, and even that would repeat every couple of hours.

The view from our pillows.


A bad picture of Brandon and I, but unfortunately the best one I have. My darn adapter wouldn't heat up my flat iron, so I was resigned to frizzy, curly hair during the whole trip. Anyway, this picture was taken during a Jeep Safari tour that took us up to the top of the main island of Bora Bora. There were some beautiful views.


One of the beautiful views. Check out that water!


Jessie and Steve- ah, they're "livin' on love".

Our tour guide, and driver prepared a lovely snack of pineapple and grapefruit for us halfway through our tour of the island. It was great to have so much fresh pineapple on the trip. The best part was that I didn't have to cut it up.


Another view from the top of Bora Bora. It was kind of green there.


This was the view down through the coffee table in our overwater bungalow.


On the bus from the Rangiroa airport to our hotel. Rangiroa is a place that most people don't go unless they are scuba divers. There isn't much there. We were joking that it was kind of like glorified camping while we were there. We probably felt that way because there were a lot of mosquitos, and we'd just come from true luxury. Here's a picture of what Rangiroa looks like from the air:

That is literally a ring of an island. It has two inlet/outlets to the center. You can see why it's such a big dive spot. I should take a moment and explain that for most of our family the whole French Polynesia trip was for diving. I didn't dive because of my "condition", and neither did my mom or Cole. My dad was a scuba diver through most of his life and Jessie, Chris, and I were certified many years ago. Mom certified too, but it isn't her favorite pastime since she is very claustrophobic. At the time the rest of us kids certified Cole was too young, and he just hasn't done it yet. I'm not sure why, but he didn't go diving this trip. Apparently Rangiroa is one of the top 10 dive spots in the world because of "the pass". It's one of the inlets where the current is strong enough to push a diver through at about 30 mph. The divers said it was a mixture of fun and panic, all at the same time.

Brandon snorkeling in Rangiroa.


During a dolphin watch that mom, Brandon and I went on in Rangiroa. We went through the pass, on a boat, to find the dolphins. The waves were BIG. I was really worried about seasickness because of the weakened condition of my stomach. The captain did a really good job of keeping the boat with the waves instead of against them... until we started seeing dolphins. Then he was just chasing them wherever. My mom and I were half watching the dolphins, and half watching a girl in our boat look sicker and sicker. If you look closely in the picure above you can see her first hurl over the side. This picture was obviously taken by Brandon because at that exact same moment, I took it upon myself to hurl over the other side of the boat. It was so embarassing. There were three of us who couldn't keep our breakfast down. YUCK!

This is me doing what I did pretty much the whole trip. Sit in the shade, read a book, and eat (you can't see the can of pringles). I had gotten a lot of sun before the trip thanks to the boys swimming lessons, so I didn't want to spend too much time "tanning". I read 6 books on the trip, and was desperate to find something to read by the time I got to LA. Our Rangiroa beach bungalow had a deck that we could see the beach from. It also had a jacuzzi on the deck, but the water was freezing there too. We spent a lot of time on our deck.


I guess it's become a tradition to have Chris take some boudoir shots during our tropical vacations. My family are big people watchers, and we spent a lot of time watching, and making fun of, the TONS of couples who would take boudoir shots at the pool, or on the beach, or ANYWHERE! We were so embarassed for them!


Ah, the sun sets on our French Polynesian vacation. This is the final sunset of the trip.



And the final meal. Not a mahi mahi to be found. Everyone got either pizza or hamburgers. I know we were all looking forward to our precious american food. We made a beeline for the mcdonalds once we got to LA. It was heavenly, especially for this pregnant momma who craved a cheeseburger since the first mention of mcdonalds on the trip. Unfortunately the mcdonalds there only had paninis! It was a TRAVESTY!

I don't have any of the underwater dive pictures to post just yet, but I'll post them as soon as I do. Hope you enjoyed our trip to Paradise!