I’m reliving these precious moments and memories from my babymoon. Slowing down the pace, and breathing in, and out. Letting the warm sun shine on us like we were made to soak in the rays to grow — in the same way nature works it magic for flowers to bloom. It’s not that everything is perfect, it’s that I am allowing every imperfect thing to become part of my growing process.
Flashback to a few months ago… My life was looking and feeling way too busy that I wasn’t really able to enjoy even being pregnant throughout my second trimester. I had more energy and was feeling more “normal” — thankfully. But that actually made me work harder than I probably should have, and I hurried to get as much stuff done as I could do before the impending third trimester, because I heard it was a toughie… *IT IS!
*Me now in the third trimester
Towards the end of my second trimester, I finally booked our tickets and planned our baby moon trip. It was a sort of a combo between a girls trip to celebrate our gal pal, Sam, who was getting married soon, and then I double ended it with a baby moon for me and Ian to soak up our alone time with just us and the baby bump.
The borders were finally open — Let’s go to Samoa!
We all checked in to Taumeasina Island Resort to spend a few days in luxury with all our friends. We got together for fancy dinners out, and swam and hung out by the pool. Ian paid for a 90-minute prenatal massage at the Fofo Spa because I deserved it, he said! So sweet.
Waking up each morning felt romantic, with the light pouring in through the gauzy floor to ceiling curtains that lined the walls, and when drawn, we would take in the expansive ocean views from our Deluxe Oceanview Hotel Room. We were on the first floor, which I greatly preferred because: 1) I wouldn’t have to trudge up any stairs with my newest pregnancy symptom, pelvic girdle pain, and 2) we could walk right out to the lawn and enjoy coffee outside on our patio.
Our group got a rental van and took a road trip to the south of the island for a little adventure. Because of course, what’s a trip to Samoa without visiting the famous To Sua Ocean Trench?!
With tourism just ramping back up in Samoa, there was a small crowd already there, but we got to enjoy the saltwater trench all to ourselves for about an hour too before heading back to our hotel, and going out for pizzas at Giordanos that night.
For our last night of girls night, we went on a fancy dinner out to Paddles Italian Restaurant. We all got dolled up and toasted pretty beverages to a pink and orange setting sun and feasted on all the appetizers, literally. We ordered one of everything on the appetizer menu, and by the time our entrees came out, we were pretty full and most of us took leftovers back with us. The groom to be had won big at the casino so dinner was graciously covered by his good fortune!
When we got back to the hotel, some of the girls caught the second half of the Friday entertainment by the infamous Cindy of Samoa. Meanwhile some of us went back to one of the rooms and prepared some naughty decor and drinks to surprise the soon to be Mrs. with a girls night out on the town — Vegas bachelorette style — complete with a party bus, dedicated driver, all black sexy outfits, and sassy bachelorette sashes for us and the bride to be.
With me being at the cusp of my third trimester, I impressed myself by going out in heels (though they were moderate in height), dancing sober while managing my pelvic pain, and staying out till the club closed down just past midnight (thank God it wasn’t at 2am like back home in AS).
When we finally were done for the night, I jumped back into my cozy bed back at the hotel and by mid-morning, we were packed and checked out, and ready to officially hit the road to start our baby moon!
Ian and I got a car rental and roadtripped it to the south side of the island towards Maninoa Beach Fales. Nestled between two very posh resorts, Sinalei Reef Resort and Coconuts Resort, the spot we booked through AirBnb was the perfect vibe for us. The azure sea and sky welcomed us warmly and we settled in comfortably in our beach fale.
There was a small beach wedding party there when we arrived, but they were just there for the day, and Ian and I got the beach all to ourselves for the evening. Ian dug me up a belly hole so I could lay on my belly, FINALLY, and relax in the shade with a book.
After a big night out for me, I wanted to take it super easy, so I laid out on the beach all afternoon while Ian went and made friends with some of the guys who let him take out a paddle board out for a few hours of SUP surfing.
I felt blissed out and after a shower and a delicious dinner, we chatted in bed about baby and our future and cuddled until the stars came out.
More on the next blog!
xoxo,
Nerelle
Sharing another long forgotten photo journal recovered from my drafts folder.
I’m slowly clearing that out, and so please don’t mind me daydreaming about these travel throwbacks.
Oh, the wanderlust… I feel it coming.
This was from my late 2016, early 2017 trip to Aotearoa… New Zealand.
We had stayed in Auckland for the first few days, where we spent Christmas with Ian’s parents in this adorable AirBnB, and then the next few days in Queenstown to count down to the New Year with friends.
This photo journal chronicles a small part of the road trip that Ian and I took for the next week from the South Island up to the North Island.
Ian bumped us up to first class on the ferry over because he wanted to make sure I was comfortable since he knows I get seasick and it was stormy out on the water.
We had a blast driving all around the beautiful country side.
We had an epic car rental situation, which we basically got for FREE with the cost of our ferry free included too, as long as we got it up to their North Island branch within 5 days.
It was a lot of driving though, with so much to see! We mostly stopped at any lakes we could find, cute cafes, lavender fields, and even stopped at a glacial river next to a bridge.
On our way up to the surf town of Raglan, we visited Rotorua, which is a popular destination for the natural hot springs. I got in touch with a childhood friend who was living there and working at the Polynesian Spa. She was super kind to hook us up with a free visit to the hot springs! It smelled like farts because of all the sulfur in the natural springs, but it was a really cool experience!
We dropped off the rental car in Auckland and drove up the rest of the way to Raglan with Ian’s parents. I don’t think I posted those photos of Raglan either, so I’m gonna search through my photos on my drive and see if I can pull it up to share here.
Since the recent loss of my external hard drive (which contained all my photos and videos from the last few years), I’m more motivated to post what photos I do have on my blog, so I can always look back at some of my favorite memories.
xo, Nerelle
Living next to a beach is pretty freaking awesome. I can get in the water as often as I want, whenever I want… well, except on Sundays unfortunately, as is the current rule in my village peninsula. So on this particular Sunday, I needed some saltwater therapy after a long week and a longer week to come, and I ventured to Gataivai beach some 20 minutes away for an arvo snorkel with my Fish Man.
I love snorkeling at Gataivai. The beach is easy to access, right off the main road, it goes from shallow sand and reefs to deep vast nothingness in a matter of a few hundred yards, meaning it scares and excites me, and I just love that there’s a variety of fish and coral, and lots of it too! Only cons are really that it’s right by the Pago Harbor, where I’ve heard of and seen (photos of, only) bull sharks coming for a visit, which terrifies me out of my wits; also that there’s a sewage treatment plant literally across the road, and sometimes it’s stinky above water, and makes me feel icky sometimes when I’m in the water too, especially after a big rain.
This photo journal is neither here nor there though… this one is about the what we saw underwater. When we got in the water, we immediately came across a casual sea turtle. There were several others in the distance, but this one we came across was munching away at algae on the reef, ignoring us mostly, and showing off a little too. We hung out with this sea turtle for probably a good 20 minutes.
Just a mini highlight of some of what we saw… We saw several juvenile humphead wrasses, tons of butterflyfish, parrotfish (small), blue damselfish, pennant bannerfish, triggerfish, and even a scorpionfish! We initially thought it was a stonefish, but after a little checking, we now think it’s a scorpionfish. It was all around a lovely snorkel.
Reliving these seemingly insignificant vignettes from moments of my life at home through photos… I am reminded that there is beauty everywhere in everything… and that time spent on doing things that bring you joy is time well spent.
Sending warmth and love to wherever you are seeing this from!
xoxo,
Nerelle
Photos by Ian Moffitt and Nerelle Moffitt
Photo journal from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) with Ian, Polly, and Rick.
January 2020.
We flew in to Tahiti from Raiatea, and immediately checked in to our hotel, freshened up and basically speed-walked to Toata for the opening night of the Heiva i Tahiti. The annual competition is the nation’s largest celebration of the year, and I was in awe to experience the incredible mana that emanated from the songs, dances, drum beats, and even from what they wore. We weren’t allowed to take any photos during the Heiva i Tahiti, but it was definitely a highlight during our time in Tahiti.
This photo journal is from the following day in Tahiti, and then we took the ferry to Mo’orea.
We were walking to the market and I saw this truck on the side of the road. I saw it and immediately thought “whoa that’s my dream truck!” haha. I didn’t know I had a dream truck, but if I did, this truck would definitely be it! I feel like it’s the perfect mix of surf, vintage, island cruiser, farm truck. Like I can imagine coasting down the road and just having like, the time of my life in this truck. It was love at first sight hahaha.
Ian and went to the Pape’ete Marche (Tahiti’s popular market plaza) to grab a quick and cheap brunch, and bought souvenir gifts for friend and family back home. I love love love this market, so I’ll write up another post about it later!
Tahitian pearls are some of the most beautiful sought-after natural treasures in French Polynesia. And the cool thing about pearls in Tahiti is that they’re everywhere, and come at all price ranges.
I knew I wanted to get my mom a pair of Tahitian black pearl earrings, and was hoping to buy it at the pearl farm we visited off Raiatea, but I didn’t find any in particular that felt like the perfect pair. So I went back to the Tahiti Pearl Market again (we had come here to see the pearl market before our sailing trip) and decided to have her earrings custom made.
First, I had to choose two pearls that were similar-ish in color tone, nacre, and size. The woman behind the counter helped me narrow down my choices based on my price range, and I selected and laid out my favorite pearls to compare them. Then I got to choose the earring setting, for which they had yellow gold, white gold, and sterling silver options. I selected a simple yellow gold dangle setting that I thought would look good with my mom’s face shape. And lastly, I chose how I wanted the pearls to sit in the setting, and handed it over to their in-house jeweler to set the pearl into the earring.
It was a really cool experience and definitely gave the earrings a special customized touch that I knew my mom would appreciate.
As a treat to myself, I decided to get myself a nice pair of keshi pearl stud earrings. Keshi pearls are, I’ve learned, the “imperfect” pearls, where the oysters (the Tahitian oyster is the Pinctada margaritifera) reject the nucleus around which the nacre is formed. And because they don’t have the perfectly rounded nucleus, they come out in various baroque shapes and are much smaller. The keshi pearls are therefore 100% pure nacre, which is why I love them. They’re all unique in their own way. You can see my tiny keshi pearl by the jeweler’s hand compared to my mom’s pearls drying in the clasp.
Ian and I were running later than we expected, so we sped-walked to the hotel to meet with Polly and Rick. Ian snapped this photo of me looking stoked from our pearl shopping!
We walked with our bags and luggage from the hotel to the ferry terminal, and boarded the interisland ferry, which felt more like a mini-cruise ship because it was a lot fancier than I expected. Ian and I went to the open air top deck, but I was getting toasted by the mid-day sun so I got grumpy and went back inside to cool down. We ate a quick and easy baguette chicken sandwich and chips for lunch and arrived at Mo’orea about an hour later.
Taaaalofa!
Ian and I just got back from the long weekend in Apia. Why? Because we’re going to get married there next year! The thing about wedding planning for me is this: it sucked not knowing where we were going to have it. We knew we probably wouldn’t have our wedding here in American Samoa because we ultimately knew a destination wedding was what we wanted, but we also didn’t want to stress too much with planning a wedding from afar. And so we finally decided, like last month, that we would get married in Samoa.
Samoa is close enough to American Samoa that it feels like home, yet it always feels like a getaway since we have to hop on a plane and literally time travel over. We travel there at least once a year, but usually more often than that, and yet we still feel like we’re on vacation but with the comforts of home. Plus, for all our friends and family who will come, it will still be a full on destination wedding, and they can choose to come to American Samoa afterwards to adventure with me and Ian in our actual stomping grounds! And one other big aspect is the currency exchange between USD and WST means that we can stretch our money to get better value.
We booked appointments with venues to meet with their coordinators, and got to do a walk through of the venue and the packages. This has been an incredible experience of getting to see and feel what we envision our “big day” to be like. Now we’re down to our final two options, but since we haven’t made the final final decision yet. I’ll leave that a mystery and I’ll post some photos from the different venues we toured soon!
Did you read the title of this post?
You guessed it.
It’s another French Polynesia photo journal!
(soooo many good memories)
Spotted a huge stingray… there were actually a few of them!
Ian checking out possible anchorages for tomorrow
Just a little seasick.
But still so happy
and grateful.
More sailing / underwater / french polynesia photo blogs to come!
Three days of misadventures in Auckland, New Zealand.
Flying into New Zealand.
I forget it’s made up of a bunch of islands. And it’s so green.
Accidentally booked our AirBnB for next month instead of this month, so we first devoured a hot bowl of ramen from Tanpopo restaurant, where we got on the nearby McDonald’s free WiFi, and booked another last minute AirBnB.
This was in the elevator of the second AirBnB.
Walking around the harbor, and Ian of course headed straight for the sailboats.
We spent the rest of our first afternoon here coveting these sailboats.
And talked about how excited we were to be going on a sailing adventure in Tahiti next week.
The sun set early so we walked through the bustling city, ate sushi, bought some snacks, got back to our AirBnB, got cozy, and fell asleep while watching Isn’t It Romantic on Netflix.
Light and view outside the window the next morning.
Hey fiyonce. My bedder half. I love you a latte.
In bed pre-caffeine, and later coffee and brunch at Sierra Cafe.
Didn’t visit the Sky Tower this time around, even though the last time we went we had the best meal with Rick and Polly.
But it really gives the cityscape pizzazz, so I can’t not take a photo of it.
Freeze frame while at a red light, waiting to cross.
Taking the scenic route back to our place.
Where: Albert Park.
Why: These crazy tree trunks.
Met up with friends from back home who recently relocated to New Zealand.
Lauren and Gideon came over with their perfect little creation, baby Codie. It was my first time meeting her after her departure from the womb. And I must say, she’s one of the prettiest babies ever. Just look at her sweet face.
Lauren grew up in Auckland so she took us to see the sights. First off, Mt. Eden.
It was so cute seeing Ian walking baby Codie in her pram.
Ian and Gideon at the top.
The huge green crater.
Is it just me or are pigeons chubbier in New Zealand? They look so well-fed.
Aw, love this beautiful little family!
Next stop, Mission Bay beach.
Lauren convinced us to take this cute photo by the fountain.
It is really cute actually lol
Beautiful mother daughter moments. Lauren and Codie.
Our last day in NZ was mostly relaxing, walking around the city again, and packing up again for our flight to Tahiti the next morning.
Until next time!
xoxo
From my trip to Ofu in January.
Early morning boat ride from Ofu to Ta’u. Big thanks to Ben for helping set me up with getting across and getting from the wharf to the airport. It was an epic boat ride… the lightening of the sky, soft ripples on the water, dew on the boat’s windows, fleeting view of dolphins, birds soaring past us, and of course the mountains bidding tofā and talofa.
Welcome to Scenes around Vaoto Lodge – a photo journal that depicts my experience at Vaoto Lodge.
Vaoto Lodge was, up until recently, the only establishment that offered accommodations in the tiny island of Ofu, American Samoa. There is now one other spot, but we opted for Vaoto Lodge because of word of mouth and it’s ideal location right across the Ofu Airport runway, next to the NPS Ranger Station, and just a few minutes from (my favorite beach ever) the To’aga lagoon.
Left: Vaoto Lodge
The Ofu Airport runway is literally a stone throw’s away from the Lodge and within earshot of the NPS Ranger Station – not a bad thing at all because there’s only one flight a week and the hubbub lasts a total of half an hour (which is actually an exciting time for the otherwise quiet village).
One of my favorite visual aspects of Vaoto Lodge is the herbage that surrounds the property, especially after a bout of rain.
You can tell that lot of thought, diligence, and patience was involved in making the landscape what it is.
The rooms are simple but have everything you need and more (yesss to comfy beds and hot showers!). This was our room, and right across we had a garden vignette of the ocean.
This bookcase is filled with history, nature, and pieces of people who travel.
This particular evening was really cool. Deborah and Ben, who own and manage the Lodge, had some leftover fish and tied it to a rock to see what would eat it. Over the next couple of hours, we watched six black tip reef sharks swim into the shallows, but only two actually took a bite. It was interesting to observe their behavior.
Alice and Marley (Deb and Ben’s dog).
We sat in the little drifter’s fale, on the beachfront of Vaoto Lodge, and watched the sky desaturate and darken.
Here, another soft evening glow surrounds us at Vaoto Lodge. Ian biked around the runway, and I hung out by the beach to snap photos of Olosega and Ta’ū in the distance; the sun hiding behind the clouds not wanting to say goodnight.
There is so much more to Vaoto Lodge… I didn’t originally plan on blogging about the place so I didn’t get photos of the main house/interior rooms, the spacious utilitarian kitchen, and oh man the mozzies! This is just a compilation of bits and pieces from my two weeks at Vaoto Lodge.
Between family, friends, and strangers, Vaoto Lodge is a home away from home.
Check out their website here: http://www.vaotolodge.com/
With only one flight a week to and from Ofu, it can be a bit tricky when it comes to flight changes. After a sweet week ringing in the New Years and doing all the adventures, I wanted to stay longer and really relax. The original plan was that I would only stay one week, and Ian and his parents would stay two weeks since he’d get to work out of the NPS ranger station. But with the government shutdown still ongoing with no sure signs of ending, we all thought why not stay just a little bit longer? No work, no problem! (for now)
Ian tried to arrange my flight back for the next week but it was all booked out. So on Thursday morning, the flight I was supposed to head back on had arrived and after a busy 30 minutes, it was decided. I waved goodbye to the plane and would manage my flight back through Ta’ū next week. I head back to the lodge and unpacked my bag again, then head to the beach!
And that was my only ‘worry’ of the entire two weeks.
The end. xoxo
