Day: February 11, 2020

When Told Lily about how much I loved my workout, she had the vision for us to wake up early and exercise today. It’s so fun because we can really feel like we are catching the day when we are working out at 7:00 AM, but the honest truth is that it was 10:00 Utah time. Still, I’ll take those positive feelings of accomplishment!

We were stopped in our tracks right as we left our room to work out because there was a massive downpour of rain. Amazingly, it only lasted 5 minutes and then we got to see a glorious double rainbow. Yes, “Welcome to magical Bora Bora” the sky seemed to say to us.

Also, here is a picture of the hotel room where we stayed. Yes, it is actually on-top of poles that are holding it over the water.

As if that wasn’t amazing enough of a water effect, we have a window in our floor so that we can gaze at the beautiful ocean water while comfortably sitting in our room.

It’s hard to describe the healing, relaxing and awe-inspiring feeling I get when I get out of bed and look at the ocean through my floor. I feel engulfed in paradisaical beauty.

After working out, Lily and I cooled off with a good swim with our goggles right off of our back porch. Our back porch actually has a ladder down into the water for swimming! We noticed irritation marks on our skin afterwords and feared they were from bed-bugs, but we were assured by hotel staff that there is a type of microscopic algae in the water that commonly causes skin to react in that way, so we were much relieved.

After swimming and having breakfast, Lily and I chilled on the beach. I felt like the wheels were falling off the cart physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally as I headed into this vacation so I was looking forward to relaxing hard. And so I did:

Thank you Lord for this healing.

Lily also was so ready for some relaxation after all of her work and toil at home and life with 4 beautiful active children. Except unlike me, Lily finds reading relaxing, so that is how she spent most of her time. Right now she is reading a book talking about all the books in the Old and New Testament that were forged and/or not by the authors that they are claiming to have. She’s so smart!

Here are some additional scenes from the beach we relaxed at:

Also, while lounging we kept having magical white birds flying around us. The whole scene was so pretty. The mountain, the water, the birds. It just was so beautiful.

After lunch, we returned to our favorite spot, that platform out in the water. This time, we planned to stay for two full hours so that we could see the sunset. I have beautiful memories of being in that paradisaical spot with my gorgeous sweetheart. The sunset and cloud-scape was wonderful. It was all so delicious.

The other day Lily and I were talking with the family about quirky habits or obsessions. Things we are strangely obsessed with, things that really make us tick in unusual ways. For example. Lily is completely obsessed, not only with ear wax, but the removal of said wax. She has this primal, passionate instinct that will compel her to have children lie on her lap while she scoops the turds out of their ears and marvels at the sizes and shapes of things she extracts (occasionally interrupted by yelps of agony). I felt perplexed in this conversation as my mind scanned myself and couldn’t think of anything I’m unusually obsessed with….except for Lily. I concluded that she is my bizarre obsession. 🙂 On that note, apologies to anyone who is not quite as obsessed with Lily as I am for all of the repetitive pictures of her below. I could not pick a favorite!

After watching the sunset, we went to a wonderful health restaurant with a delightful waitress named Elia who was new, and tried so hard to be a great waitress and really did a good job. We loved talking to her and learning about life in Bora Bora for the natives.

After the restaurant, we walked home and got a good chuckle out of Lily’s activity monitor. We hit it very hard in the morning, and then definitely took it quite easy the rest of the day 🙂

I’m happy to report that the long flight from L.A. to Tahiti was much smoother of a ride and Lily didn’t even get sick. Once arriving in Tahiti, we quickly transferred to another equally smooth flight on which Lily did not get sick. Yay!

We arrived in Bora Bora around 8:30 AM Bora Bora time (3 hours behind Utah). I have to say that everything from top to bottom was magical upon arrival.

The airport is on an island, so we took a five minute boat ride to the resort. Once arriving at the resort, Lily changed into her swimwear and we lounged by the pool until our room was ready. This is a view near the reception desk and the pool where we lounged.

Once our room was ready, we showered and then grabbed some lunch. Below is our view from our lunch spot. That mountain in the background is the island of Bora Bora where the locals live (about 1,000 people). Many of them work at the Le Meridian resort and take a boat to and from work every day. There is almost always a cloud dancing on our around that mountain. You will also notice the unbelievable color of greenish light-blue that the water is here. More of those pictures to come!

Lily absolutely loved her fish and kept talking about it.

I also absolutely loved my Nicoise salad with fresh tuna in it.

After lunch we spent time at a beautiful platform in the water. Lily had a theory that she could use the sun’s rays to burn out her sinus infection. We think it worked, and she also got a ton of sun. Luckily her burn turns to tan quite quickly. I stayed fairly covered and didn’t burn much and enjoyed lounging in such a beautiful environment.

All in all the whole first day felt so magical. Lily and I have never been anywhere so beautiful or so remote. Everywhere we look is an explosion of beauty and serenity. We agreed at the end of the day that if we had to fly home even just after then ten hours of being in Bora Bora, all the travel would have been worth it. We felt so thrilled and delighted that we had seven days to look forward to ahead of us.

I then went to exercise to get out my tension after all the sitting in planes and Lily relaxed back at the place. It was a glorious start to a much needed vacation, and I felt and continue to feel so grateful to come and heal from my stresses in this way with my favorite person.