We flew into Los Angeles from Rarotonga, and headed to Anaheim. Our hotel was just across the road from Disneyland, so we didn't really have much of an excuse for not spending a full (and very tiring) day there. We got back to the hotel after midnight soaked through from too many rides on Splash Mountain!

Our route took us on to San Diego. As well as walking around the city centre, we spent a morning at the zoo to see the pandas Bai Yun, Gao Gao, and six month old baby Mei Sheng. From San Diego we headed on through the Arizona desert to Phoenix, where we went hiking in the city hills, and learned about Native Americans and cacti at museums and the botanical garden.

On the way to the Grand Canyon we stopped at Sedona - which was an unexpected highlight! The town was surrounded by red rock cliffs, and we went for some walks with stunning scenery at every turn. The Grand Canyon was also pretty amazing, though we had a thoroughly miserable day on Monday when we spent the entire day on the South Rim unable to see the canyon itself because of cloud and falling snow. We were almost convinced we were going to leave without seeing anything, but on Tuesday morning the clouds had lifted, and we got a fabulous view of the canyon with snow settled on the peaks.

We're now in Las Vegas, enjoying the shows and lavish casino lobbies, while trying to work out what people find appealling in gambling! (We're currently ahead by 50 cents!)

We enjoyed our last week in Fiji exploring the capital and then going back to the Beachouse for some more relaxation. We then had one night near the beach in Nadi before flying on to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.

Rarotonga has been relaxing too. Chris has been doing his advanced diving course and I tried diving for a day, but didn't enjoy it. We've both been snorkelling as well and seen lots of colourful fish and some very long trumpetfish. The weather has been very changeable, but the rain is nice and cooling.

Here are some photos from Fiji and Rarotonga.