Valentine's Day dinner

Yesterday we hosted a day-before-Valentine's-Day dinner at our place... I had fun with it!

I was FLOORED when I saw that AAFES (our local Army store) had FLOWERS!!  I haven't seen fresh bouquets of flowers since we left the States.  I went home and immediately made sure Peter knew they were there.  :-) 

Ready for guests!

Chocolate!  This is one of the leaf-impression plates I made at our local Pottery Shop.

Our menu:

Appetizers: Fresh Strawberries, Crackers with Grandma's Blackberry Jam and Goat Cheese

Main Meal:  Bacon wrapped Filet Mignon, Quinoa Salad, Homemade Wheat Rolls, Potato Casserole

Dessert:

White Chocolate... 

Oreo Cookie Crust... 

Raspberry... 

...Swirled Cheesecake!  

 Whew!  That cheesecake was a bit of work, but SO worth it!  DELISH.  Our friends who came brought a Fruit Tart, Strawberry Napoleons and Cream Puffs, also all AMAZING!  We had a fun evening and enough food leftover for another dinner party!

The Dewaruci visits Kwaj: Operation Sail 2012

The KRI Dewaruci, the only Tall Mast Ship owned and operated by the Indonesian Navy spent two nights in port at Kwaj last week.  They are at the beginning of their 277 day circumnavigation of the world.  The Dewaruci set off from Surabaya, East Java on January 15th, and will call on a total of 21 ports before it finally returns to it's base on October 16th.  (Their ports-of-call are at the end of this post).  They are joining the United States in "Operation Sail 2012".  

We were allowed to tour the boat while they were in port, which was an added bonus!  Kwaj also sponsored a soccer tournament between the Dewaruci crew and USAKA (US Army Kwajalein Atoll) folks.  On their last night in port Kwaj residents hosted a potluck dinner for the crew at Emon Beach.  The crew total was 79 young, polite men who ended the evening by showing us a few traditional Indonesian dances.

This is the Dewaruci's last voyage - after this trip the ship will be decommissioned and a new Tall Ship will take it's place.  Now for some photos of their vessel!  

I wondered if they fly the pirate flag while they're under sail!  That seems a little risky to me! 

The amount of ropes on this sailing vessel was incredible...

The woodwork was beautiful, and in fairly good condition given the age of the ship and the elements that it is constantly exposed to! 

The big-wigs meeting room

Pretty incredible - this table was built specifically for this spot, in this room.  Notice the base of the left leg?   

Captain's Mess Hall 

It was a BIG boat, but still seemed like pretty small quarters for 79 men! 

Dewaruci Ports of Call:
Surabaya – Jayapura, Jayapura – Kwajalein (RMI), Kwajalein– Honolulu (USA), Honolulu – San Diego (USA), San Diego – Manzanillo (Mexico),Manzanilli – Panama, Panama – New Orleans (USA), New Orleans – Miami (USA),Miami – Charleston (USA), Charleston – New York (USA), New York – Norfolk(USA), Norfolk – Baltimore (USA), Baltimore – Boston (USA), Boston – St. John(Canada), St. John – Porto (Portugal), Porto – Cadiz (Spain), Cadiz – Malta, Malta –Port Said (Egypt), Port Said – Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Jeddah – Salalah (Oman), Salalah– Colombo (Srilanka), Colombo – Belawan (Indonesia), Belawan – Jakarta, Jakarta –Surabaya.

Pictures!

Hi friends!

I've been updating Facebook recently with our underwater (and a few above-water) photos.  I found a link that I can use to share these pictures with other folks and I don't THINK you have to be a FB member to see them...

If you don't have Facebook, click on this LINK and please let me know in a comment if you are able to view the photos.  If you do have Facebook, you can also click the link, however you should be able to view all the photos by simply going to my profile. :-)

Thanks!
~m