I have been so blessed since departing on Wednesday evening with my friend Laura on our journey towards Fiji. We left around 9PM heading to the Syracuse airport arriving at 1:30am.. although we tried to get some sleep we were unsuccessful and jumped on our flight at 6:10am. 2 hours later we arrived into Chicago and transfered (smoothly)  for our 4 hour flight to Los Angeles where we arrived to sun and palm trees! We were so exhausted though and made our way to the hotel and fell into a restful 2 hour nap.

Upon waking, we checked in with our concierge Raul and Noe and with their help we jumped on a trolley that took us to the Manhattan Pier… we were giddy with excitement and met some really nice people on the trolley who enlightened us on how “Canada” was spelt; yup they were American! LOL… so they told us that you spell Canada as so: C-eh-N-eh-D-eh.. They thought we were joking when we told them we had never heard the joke before. Funny enough our friend that we met the next day was surprised that Laura and I didn’t use the word “eh” at all! LOL! Oh well… but I do know that I LOVE BEING CANADIAN!

At the Pier we met an amazing man (Don) with his three children who were adorable and so hospitable. Laura and i dipped our feet into the Pacific Ocean and played around for a bit, then settled down to listen to some cool stories about the area from Don. It was refreshing to hear a man in love and tell us about how he met his wife on Catalina Island… you could just tell how much love he still had for her which truly warmed my heart. They took along the pier to show us the aquarium and when we got to the end, the local fisherman were pulling in a huge catch… we watched with excitement and I watched a HUGE stingray come splashing to the surface; who at the last minute broke free of the line. They tried to catch another stingray and again, at the last minute as they were trying to bring him up, he broke free… it was fun to watch and pretty exciting and even Don, our new friend and fisherman helped out trying to bring up the stingrays. I have to admit that I am pretty happy both broke free and remain in the ocean

Don and his family were truly awesome and the kids were incredible and told many stories of their lives and tales of childhood- it was a fun night and Don arranged a friend of his (Brian) to give us a ride to Venice Beach the next day as he was heading out fishing.

Laura and I were so excited about meeting so many nice people and having the most amazing experiences that we went to bed pretty excited for the next day. We woke up and Brian picked us up and dropped us off at Venice Beach… we literally spent the next 7 hours strolling along the beach, meeting new people, checking out the ocean critters on land and water and then explored the boardwalk from Venice Beach to Santa Monica Pier. Just around Muscle Beach we saw a TV show being filmed and decided to get a closer view and sat down to watch… we were excited when David Duchovny sat 5 meters away from us, shooting a scene for Californication. It turns out where we sat was part of the extras section and we were in a place that we weren’t supposed to be, but pretty excited nonetheless when the producer told us we could stay if we just sat and didn’t move while shooting- we even took an undercover video and some pics and later found out when we tried to get a closer pic that the security was there to stop people from taking photos. Oh well.. we didn’t know! LOL!

Well, in all our walking and the with the wind playing tricks on us as we kept having to put a sweater on and off, we got very burnt by the end of our 7 hour trek in the sun… Laura looks like a lobster and has the cutest sunglasses tan. I am pretty red along the shoulders and legs but funny enough my face didn’t get burn at all (yahoo). Today we are going to head into Hollywood and Melrose to explore and see what we can. Our flight departs at 11:30PM so we have a wee bit of time to see more sites today before we depart.

My angels have been keeping me safe and guiding us in the greatest ways and I its so exciting to see everything happen as it comes along- only the best experiences so far, meeting the nicest people and feel only blessings around us! As we went to bed tonight, we both laughed as we realized this is ONLY the beginning. In the next 24 hours I will be getting off a plane in Fiji and starting the most amazing job of my life… rebuilding these schoolhouses and building the fresh water reserves truly warms my heart and fills me with such excitement for the adventure ahead! Giving is the most incredible feeling in the world… I received an email from my 15 year old son last night where he reminded me how proud he was of me and that we wanted to remind me “to make a difference”. I thanked God last night for having such incredible children… I am so blessed and so excited for this next leg of my adventure to begin and see how it will unfold!

Bula (Cheers in Fijian)

Tasha
XoXo

This evening around 9PM, Laura and I are driving to Syracuse to catch our plane to LA May 6th at 6am. We’ll be in LA until May 8th where we catch our flight to Fiji arriving around 5am local time on May 10th.

I learnt this morning that I will be working in the village called Savu (it means waterfall in Fijian and I am excited to see why). I have been working a lot with my totem animals and learnt that “frog” is one of my little buddies along my life journey. Simply put, the frog means transformation and I am definately in a state of transformation.

The frog is the totem of metamorphosis. 
It symbolizes coming into your personal power.
It reminds us not to become bogged down with day-to-day living. It is the totem of water. 
Its voice calls forth the rains.
Emotions are associated with water and
a frog totem may be telling you to get in touch with your feelings. People with frog medicine give support and energy
where it is needed. 
They can cleanse the negativity from an environment.

Well my friends…. I am not sure when I will have the opportunity next to write but I am so excited about this adventurous and lifechanging journey ahead. I will be writing when I can but likely that I will write upon my return on the 23rd of May as there is no electricity or running water where I am heading.

God Bless and remember to live each day with purpose, passion and abundance.

All my Love,
Tasha
xxoo