Cooked'

I had never heard of the Cook Islands before planning this trip. All I knew was that it was located in the south pacific somewhere, and that's all I really needed to know. Well after spending a week there, I am trying to find a way to go back as soon as possible. It really was the most amazing place, a trip I will never forget.

Along with my Mom and Dad, Luke and Whitney, and Troy and Jemaica we soaked up as much sun as we could, got plenty plenty of R&R, and cruised around this little island all week. The Rarotanga Beach Bungalows, the place we stayed at was the coolest place. They only have 5 bungalows all together, and we rented 4 of them. So we really had our own little slice of the island all to our selves. We rented scooters, which for me was probably one of the funnest things we did there. You can drive around the whole island in about 40 minutes, so we often would jump on our scooters, wind in our hair, and cruise around and discover the island.

Our day would start out with the most delicious breakfast. We all so much looked forward to mornings just for fruit that they had at the breakfast. It was a first for me having passion fruit or papaya, and I cannot believe what I was missing out on.. oh how I will miss that fruit. You just can't get fruit like that here in Utah. After breakfast, we would usually get our suits on and some of us were off to snorkel, and some of us were off to read in the sun. Side note; I read two full books while I was there, and I am by no means a fast reader. That just tells you most of my time was spend lounging in the sun, sipping on a diet coke reading. After a couple hours, we would either go explore the island for a yummy local place to eat, or just break out some more fruit for lunch. I'm tellin ya the fruit.. wow.

After lunch, more lounging, or snorkeling, or scooting around, or napping. Nights usually consisted of dinner, something similar to a luau, but cook island style. A little show put on by the locals.. man they can really move those hips! After dinner we played some pretty intense, competitive card games, all while munching on some Tim-Tams (a really yummy chocolate cookie made in New Zealand) or coconut chocolate.

Our own little Bungalow

And in between all of this there was a lot of laughing and joking, deep conversations, and sun burns. Quiet front porch reading while listening to the tide coming in. Trying to figure out what we were going to do without our luggage for the first two day.. damn you delta.
Missing snuggling our kids, talking to the friendly locals, and realizing we may never see this place again so trying to remember every little thing.

While on the scooters, the boys got caught in a serious down pour. So they just took there shirts off and decided to embrace it!

No biggie, just drinking fresh coconut juice.

This picture is cute, and kind of creepy all at the same time.

A little bit of the gorgeous scenery

There is a mountain in the middle of the island that Mason, Troy and Luke hiked to the top of. They said you could see ocean surround the island on all sides from the top.