UsBrowns + Dozer...

Valentine's Day dinner

2012-02-14T14:07:00.000+12:00

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

2012-02-14T13:41:00.004+12:00

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!

2012-02-07T13:39:00.002+12:00

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

Photos from our quick trip home to Portland

2012-01-27T14:00:00.004+12:00

I didn't take too many photos on our trip to Portland... but here are a few of my favorites from our week.

Chantry & Amy

Silly niece!

Best of friends. So sweet of her to fly out.

:-)

Father and Son...

~Family~

Goofy nephew!

Oh Steve... :-)

Sisters

S & L

L & I had such a fun shopping day with these girls! I can't believe how grown-up they are now!

E & D

So nice of Daryl to come over also!

Saying goodbye. :-(

G & G came up also... sorry for the fuzzy photo, it's the only one I have! Didn't have much time together, but we snuck in a quick breakfast together on Saturday morning!

A special, unexpected surprise to get to give Mom and Dad a squeeze while we were there too!! They were in Boise for Christmas, and changed their plans to come over for the funeral. Mom's blog has more details on their trip.

And finally... we came home to a kitty cat who has a new favorite perch... :-)

Nice to be back home in Kwaj, but so glad we could go home to Portland for the week too.

A day in the life of...

2012-01-24T22:59:00.000+12:00

Good evenin' dear readers. A few of you suggested as a blog topic to describe what our typical schedules entail. As I lay here pondering how best to go about this post... "Do I write separate blogs for my schedule vs. Peter's? Should I post an hourly schedule?..." I'm realizing it's going to end up being a bit more obtuse than I originally planned. Ah, well. :-)

Peter's schedule is much easier to write about than mine. Not because his life is easier, it's just more structured! Tuesday through Saturday he works from 7:00 to 4:30 with a 1/2 hour lunch break around 11:30 that he usually pedals his long 2 minute commute home for. Our weekends on the island are Sunday and Monday. This causes the island "workweek" to coincide with the Monday-Friday workweek in the states. (Remember, we are a day ahead of most of you folks...)

My schedule however is quite variable. Oh, to be island fluff. :-) It's a rough life.

Tuesday is my BIG day. Some of us "fluff" ladies have a scheduled dive at 9am. We meet at Emon Beach, plunk in the water for awhile, and then I try to be home in time to whip up something fantastic for my hubby at 11:30. After he leaves to go back to work, I clean up and then head over to the Post Office around 12:30. I volunteer there on Tuesday and Thursday (when my schedule allows). ;-) I'll help sort mail and packages until 3:30 or thereabouts then head home to grab my grocery bags and book it to the grocery store. You see, the same plane that brings our mail on Tuesday, also brings our weekly fresh fruits and vegges. :-) The plane arrives at 10am, and usually the shelves are stocked by 3:30. So you see my logic here? If I time it just right, I can get my mail first and first pick of the fresh food! :-) After stocking up on the necessities, I'll head home and can typically make it back before Peter gets home. Then dinner (we eat pretty early) and a leisurely evening together. Tonight was a little different since some of our friends who are bowling on a league are out-of-town and their teammates asked us to fill in. It was good fun, but oooh boy do I stink at bowling!!

Wednesday is much less hectic. In fact, my schedule on Tuesday is as rough as it gets for me. :) The only thing actually booked for Wednesday is another fluff dive. We meet at 1:30pm at Emon Beach and spend a bit more quality time underwater in the lagoon. Peter and I also have our bible study on Wednesday nights around 7pm. However, often the IT group does their server updates on Wednesday night, so if Peter has to work late on Wednesday we will have our study on Thursday.

Thursday another plane arrives from Honolulu, but this one just brings people and mail. Thus I'm back at the P.O. after lunch sorting and sorting and sorting. No dives are scheduled for this day, however the end of P's pay-period is always on Thursday, so if he has hours to comp we will usually grab a late afternoon dive when he gets off work.

Friday is a completely boring day. I love it. :) Usually I try to catch up on laundry on Friday. Sometimes I'll even get a bee in my bonnet and actually clean the house.

Saturday is prep for the weekend. I try to bake on Saturday so when we are diving over the weekend we'll have delicious calories to keep us going. :-) Often we'll get a 5pm scooter dive in after Peter gets off work too.

Sunday we have our fellowship meeting in the morning at 10am. We typically spend the rest of the afternoon in the water. Sometimes we'll go out on a boat so we can dive either oceanside or at some of the wreck locations otherwise we'll just haul our gear out and get some shore diving in.

Monday is much of the same. We enjoy sleeping in (when possible... remember the cat?) and usually don't dive until 10am or so. This past Monday we were able to squeeze three shore dives in and even made it home in time to throw together some Turkey Pumpkin Chili for a birthday dinner for a friend of ours! :-)

Ok, 'nuf about us. How about you?! Send us a line (or leave a comment) and let us know what you're up to?

House Pictures

2012-01-20T22:58:00.000+12:00

Ooftah. It's been almost a month to-the-day since our last update! Much has happened... here's our life in bullet points for the past month:

- Dec. 19th - Fly to Portland/Vancouver for Peter's mother's funeral

- Dec. 25th - Begin the long flight home

- Dec. 27th - Arrive home on Kwaj

- Dec. 29th - Friends Ben and Anna Byrd arrive

- Jan. 3rd - Friends (and Ministers) Bob and Larry arrive

- Jan. 10th - Bob and Larry depart :-(

- Jan. 16th - Ben and Anna depart :-(

If you read between the lines you'll know there was MUCH activity accomplished during that timeframe. Suffice for now to say it involved: sweet fellowship, diving, bowling, eating, visiting Ebeye, sleeping in, diving, eating, boating, snorkeling, golf cart tours, beach bar-b-que, diving, pool, foosball, biking, diving... you get the idea, right?

Now I'll share some photos I took before we left of our humble abode. Hopefully it'll give you some sense of our space and where we spend our evenings! :-)

Dining room - The window looks out on our back patio. The kitchen is to the right in this photo and the living room is behind the picture-taker.

Shells. :)

Looking into the living room from the front door. We had JUST gotten all new furniture before we left; it's quite nice! (Thanks to the Army.) Oh, fiddlesticks (hah! my mom used to say that!) my photo is already out-dated... since this photo was taken I have some pictures hanging on the walls.

Bathroom

Master Bedroom

Back of the house - the door on the left enters into the laundry room and then kitchen. The lower level windows on the right look into the dining room. The upper level windows on the right are in the guest bedroom and the small window on the left is in the bathroom.

Peter's primary mode of transport. (Although currently not functional due to a broken pedal.)

Marissa's primary mode of transport... in desperate need of a new chain!

Kitchen space... with our luggage all packed and ready to go! Mind you, the large suitcase on the right was empty (with another empty suitcase inside of it). We managed to fill them both with Costco purchases to bring back with us... including 12 pounds of coffee! That should last us another 6 months. :-)

Now that I'm re-reading this post, I realize I'm missing a picture of the guest bedroom. Bah! Ok, picture a small room with laminate floor, one twin bed (with a yellow comforter), one (brand-new!) double bed (with a lime green comforter) and a desk. There you have it. :-) It's nothing lavish, but we'll do our best to make sure you're comfortable when you come!

Home in Portland/Vancouver...

2011-12-21T18:26:00.003+12:00

Peter's mother passed away on Sunday, so we have made a quick trip back to the states this week.

I will try - in some of my spare time - to upload some island photos for you all to enjoy at a later date. I'll likely upload them here (on the fast internet connection, woo-hoo!) and then publish the posts when we get back to Kwaj.

For now.... Us, 2011.

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Kwajalein Island 4-1-1

2011-11-30T10:21:00.001+12:00

One of our reader's requests for a blog topic was "more about the island itself"...

Kwajalein (locals call it Kwaj) is located about 8 degrees North of the Equator. A common misconception is that we are a "South Pacific" Island, when in reality we're still part of the Northern Pacific! :-) Kwajalein Island is part of the Kwajalein Atoll which is part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). An Atoll is "a coral reef or a string of closely spaced small coral islands, enclosing or nearly enclosing a shallow lagoon." Kwaj is the Southernmost and the largest of the islands in the Kwajalein Atoll. Kwaj is about 3.5 miles long and .50 miles wide. For the history of Kwaj and the Kwajalein Atoll, click here.

The primary mode of transportation for locals who live on Kwaj is by bike. For a cute write-up about Kwaj bikes, click here. My bike is only 4 months old and can already be considered in Kwaj-condition. My handlebars are rusty, my chain is rusty, 3 bolts are missing (that I know of), my basket is held on with zip ties, and I'm probably only a few weeks away from adding some duct-tape, somewhere. :-)

Our primary location for "shopping" is AAFES (I believe Army, Air-Force Exchange Store). There used to be three stores, but they recently (October) consolidated down to two. Over the years the stores have had different local names but I call them the PX and the PXtra. One of the stores is like a 7-11 in the states on light steroids. You can purchase snack foods, soda, alcohol, household goods such as toilet paper, toothpaste, OTC medicines, coffee, etc. We can also rent movies there. The other store carries electronics, bedding, kitchen supplies, bike parts, garden supplies, pet supplies a few pieces of clothing, and other miscellaneous living-ware. Neither store is very large, say about the size of a small 1-story house... Needless to say, if you need anything that the stores don't carry, you'll have to order it online and wait 2-3 weeks for delivery. I would venture to say amazon.com, drugstore.com and wal-mart.com are kept quite profitable by Kwaj residents!

There is one grocery store on island; it's called Surfway. They receive fresh fruits and vegetables once per week, on the Tuesday military flight from Hawaii. However, sometimes the plane doesn't come and we go a few weeks without fresh food. Really it's not that big of a deal. The best time to shop is Tuesday at 3:30pm as the fresh foods have usually just been placed out for sale and you have the best selection. Before we came to the island, the only information we could find online made it sound like grocery shopping would be very sparse, ie: one type of chip on the shelf, limited canned foods, etc. However we have found this to be quite untrue! While fresh foods can be limited, for the most part there is a large selection of chips, canned foods and dry boxed food. Certain things just aren't ever stocked, for example canned pumpkin, but we learn to get by with what we have! Sometimes you'll be shopping and you'll see something that hasn't been there before, so you buy 3 or 4 because you probably won't see it again for awhile! The price of groceries is comprable to prices in Hawaii. However, sometimes things go out-of-date before they are sold so you can get pretty good discounts. When we first came on island, the frozen butter was past it's sell-by-date, so it was 75% off! I stocked up! I'm fairly certain frozen butter is just fine even if you use it well past it's sell-by date!

For recreation, there is no lack of things to keep us busy! Diving obviously occupies a lot of our free time, but some of the other activities include: snorkeling, kayaking, rowing, fishing, sailing, volleyball, baseball, soccer, bowling, movies theaters, biking (!!), exercising (we have a nicely equipped gym)... and I'm sure I'm missing many others! The movies are free; there are two theaters. One is an outdoor theatre and the other is a partially indoor (it's an A-frame building, with exposed floors) theatre. Peter and I haven't been to see a movie yet as we are usually too tired from diving all day, :-) but maybe we'll make it down there sometime.

The work-week on island is Tuesday through Saturday. Since we are on the other side of the international date-line from the states, they work T-Sa to stay on the same schedule as ConUS (Continental U.S.).

If you want to leave the island, you have to plan ahead a bit since out-going flights (for non-military) are only 3 times per week. Continental is the only airline that flies to Kwaj. It's a 5 hour flight from Kwaj to Hawaii and another 5 hour flight from Hawaii to San Francisco, California. I'll let you make your own calculations from there. :-) Prices to fly here are pretty high... but we promise if you come we'll make sure you have a wonderful time, and your accommodations will be taken care of! That being said, we're limited to 90 days of visitors per calendar year, and half of those are already spoken for in 2012! We have to obtain clearance for anyone who comes to visit, which takes about 2 weeks to process, but is a pretty simple form to fill out and then they perform a background check.

Hopefully this covers some of the information you were interested in! If I missed something you're wanting to know about, please let me know. :-) Now I will get busy answering some of the other blog-topic ideas!

About Kwajalein...

2011-11-20T22:00:00.001+12:00

Here's a very recent article that explains one of the reasons the U.S. is leasing Kwajalein from the RMI.

(copied directly from the DOD website)

---------

U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)News Release

On the Web: http://www.defense.gov/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=14920

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 958-11
November 17, 2011
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Department of Defense Announces Successful Test of Army Advanced Hypersonic Weapon Concept

Today the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command conducted the first test flight of the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) concept. At 6:30 a.m. EST (1:30 a.m. Hawaii-Aleutian Time), a first-of-its-kind glide vehicle, designed to fly within the earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speed and long range, was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii to the Reagan Test Site, U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll.

The objective of the test is to collect data on hypersonic boost-glide technologies and test range performance for long-range atmospheric flight. Mission emphasis is aerodynamics; navigation, guidance, and control; and thermal protection technologies.

A three-stage booster system launched the AHW glide vehicle and successfully deployed it on the desired flight trajectory. The vehicle flew a non-ballistic glide trajectory at hypersonic speed to the planned impact location at the Reagan Test Site. Space, air, sea, and ground platforms collected vehicle performance data during all phases of flight. The data collected will be used by the Department of Defense to model and develop future hypersonic boost-glide capabilities.

The AHW program is managed and executed by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command program office in Huntsville, Ala. The booster system and glide vehicle were developed by Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M. and the thermal protection system by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center, Huntsville, Ala.

The Department of Defense is using AHW to develop and demonstrate technologies for Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS). As part of the CPGS effort, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency conducted boost-glide flight tests in April 2010 and August 2011, results from which were used in planning the AHW flight test.

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More to come soon on Kwaj and our daily living as requested by commentors!

Idea!

2011-11-17T10:28:00.001+12:00

My Aunt Sherlene, one of our faithful blog commenters, had a great suggestion to help with my blogger's block. :-)

What do YOU, dear reader, want to read about?

Do you have questions about the island?

Should I share more recipes?

Do you miss hearing about Dozer? ;-)

Are you curious about how to apply for a job here?

Do you need help planning your trip to come visit? :-)

...???

Let me know and I'll blog away!

My Tuesday morning

2011-11-15T19:56:00.001+12:00

Good evening readers. I seem to have hit a (blogger) writer's block... any suggestions on how to move past it?!

Peter and I don't have a boring schedule by any means; contrarily we're enjoying every day here! However I can't help but feel like my blog posts must lose some readability as they're constantly about sunshine, diving and sailing.

That being said, I had an amazing experience diving this morning that I must share as best as words can. A friend of mine and I were on our way back from what we call the "Pinnacle" dive. It's a beautiful 35 foot dive that takes us from coral mound to coral mound with breaks of open sand between each. We usually see eels, sometimes octopus, sting rays and turtles. This dive was no different with eels, puffers, and other various sea life gracing our presence. We were just about to finish up the dive when my friend stopped and motioned for me to come over. There was a beautiful, HUGE Manta ray - dancing right in front of us. If you can imagine the motion of a ferris wheel - that was what the Manta was doing. Flip, over flip, over flip, over flip. Smack in front of our eyes - he couldn't have been more than 10 feet away from us. After dancing for a bit, he gracefully floated off into the abyss. I looked at Heather. She looked at me. We both motioned to our hearts beating out of our chests - and our eyeballs looked as if they could have popped out of our masks... then she pointed behind me. He came back! And danced some more! He did this three times for us!! Absolutely amazing.

In other news, Thanksgiving is next week - can you believe it, already?! What are your plans?

Mini-update & Teriyaki Chicken Salad Recipe

2011-10-25T22:49:00.002+12:00

I was just re-reading some of my last posts and noticed the past few recipes I posted were quite well-received! I loved all your comments and that some of you tried the recipes and even reported back! Thanks for the motivation to keep blogging!

We've had a lovely past few weeks - sprinkled with a dab of stress. Since we spoke last some friends of ours from Saipan came to visit. Their 6 days here were absolutely wonderful for us. Of cours we have made friends on the island, but there just isn't anything like friendly faces who travel so many miles just to see US. We LOVED having T&S here and are hoping to head their way next year!!

Also since we spoke last, Dozer became a VERY sick little kitty and underwent quite a bit of testing as we tried to figure out what was wrong. The short version of a very long story - he quit eating & drinking completely for 4 days... he had absolutely no desire for ANY kind of food. After putting him under anesthetic, inserting an IV, multiple CT scans, a GI test, an ultrasound and lots of drugs he is better. :-) It seems something had been blocking food from getting from his stomach to his digestive tract. After day 8 of no eating or drinking, we had made the decision that it would have to be up to him whether he'd live or not. Since there is not a veterinarian on island (only a vet tech), our ONLY option was to put him on a plane to Hawaii to see a surgeon who could perform the endoscopic surgery needed to remove what was blocking his stomach... and mind you that was WAY more pennies than we have left in our wallet. So - we medicated him heavily with drugs that would give him the munchies... cleaned up lots of vomit, and on day 9 he started showing interest in food again. We're about 2 weeks into the entire ordeal now, and he's finally eating mostly normally again and drinking on his own. He lost about 25% of his body weight, but I have no doubts he'll find it again.

Tomorrow we're eagerly awaiting the arrival of another friend, one of our ministry workers who will spend a few nights with us!! P.C. arrives tomorrow night (our Wednesday) and catches a flight to Hawaii on Friday evening. So it's quick trip, but we're glad for any time we'll get to spend with her!!

Now, more food talk... :)

One of my very favorite recipes that I typically whip up once a week is a super EASY Teriyaki Chicken Salad. It's really not a recipe - rather, it's all in my head (the Dr. says this too!), but I'll try my best to get it down in writing and maybe you can replicate a tasty version also. :-)

Teriyaki Chicken Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (thawed)
1/4 Cup Teriyaki Marinade (or more if you prefer)

1 Package Coleslaw Mix Salad
1/2 Package Ramen Noodles, crushed (discard the seasoning)
1 Large Bunch of Grapes, washed and cut in 1/2's
1 Avocado, sliced

1 Package Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix
1/2 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream + 1/2 Cup Water (or 1 Cup Skim Milk if you're health-conscious, not taste-conscious)
1 Cup Best Foods (or Hellman's if you're on the EC) Mayonnaise

1. Cut the chicken breasts up into bite-size pieces.
2. Cook the chicken in the teriyaki marinade on your stove-top until chicken is fully cooked.
3. Toss coleslaw mix with crushed ramen noodles and grapes in a medium bowl.
4. Toss in cooked chicken and any extra marinade with coleslaw mixture.
5. Top with avocado slices and serve with ranch dressing on the side.

DELISH!

If you make more than enough for one meal, I'd recommend not mixing in the ramen noodles with the entire salad and instead adding them to your individual salad servings. That way, the noodles won't be soggy when you serve it again tomorrow... and believe me, you will DEFINITELY want some tomorrow... it's FANTASTIC as leftovers.

(please excuse my spelling errors - my eyeballs are fuzzy tonight!)

Octopus!

2011-10-08T20:34:00.000+12:00

Folks, I just cannot, NOT share this picture.

I didn't even cheat and compromise the photo quality (by compressing the photo size) so that it would upload faster. It took all of 2 1/2 hours last night on our dial-up connection to upload!! I took it on a shore dive yesterday; we were kicking out to a buoy which we would then descend along to our destination and Peter spotted this octopus. We followed him for a few minutes, mesmerized by his color-changing, texture-changing abilities, and snapped MANY photos. This one was my favorite!

Peter and I just found some statistics on our computer dive logs that made me smile. According to my computer I've sucked 91 thousand PSI of air since I started diving and Peter has sucked 86 thousand PSI.

We're sure breathing a lot of air!! Hope there's enough for the rest of you! :-)

Baking Diaries: Perfect Banana Bread

2011-10-05T20:33:00.002+12:00

Hi friends! I recently stumbled across a recipe at the blog (I am Baker) titled Perfect Banana Bread. I had my doubts. I had made some banana bread a few weeks ago that was pretty stinkin' good. However, I had two and 1/2 VERY ripe bananas that needed to be used and I figured I best prove whether this truly was the Perfect Banana Bread.

It WAS. It IS. Perfect.

You must try it. You won't believe it doesn't call for one lick of butter. You won't believe it has yogurt in it. You won't believe how unbelievably delicious it is.

I'm quickly learning that my oven does not bake at the temperature it SAYS it is baking at. This recipe requests a "325* preheated oven". Hah. I have a oven thermometer in mine right now and the hottest it's getting is 154*. However, I'll have you know, 154* will still bake banana bread, it just takes about 2 hours. :-)

Finally, the recipe. Full credit for this fantastic loaf of goodness goes to i.am.baker!

Perfect Banana Bread

2 eggs

1/3 cup vanilla yogurt

½ cup vegetable oil

1 cup ripe mashed bananas

1 ½ cups white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and prepare chosen pan. (I used a dark, non-stick large loaf pan)

Blend together the eggs, yogurt, oil, extract and bananas in mixer with low speed.

Add in sugars and fully incorporate. Then add flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until just combined.

Pour into prepared pan and bake 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

(I would start checking your banana bread at 45 minutes. The time to bake just depends on the accuracy of your oven. Like I mentioned before, mine took two hours... hmm, I wonder if that contributed to the moistness of the bread? I suppose that would be the equivalent of baking it in a slow cooker?!)

So, here are the ways I deviated from the recipe, for what it's worth:
- I used 2 1/2 bananas (1/2 of the 3rd was moldy...) which equated to more like a cup and 1/2. I didn't measure, but that's about what it looked like.
- I didn't have vanilla yogurt so instead I used fat free Oikos plain yogurt. Win-win - it's better for you and the bread still was delicious! Oh, I also guestimated on this measurement - I'm a fan of less is more in the dirty dishes department, and yogurt doesn't come in 1/3 cup sizes. At least not on Kwaj. :-)

I hope you try it, and if so, please let me know if you too agree it's the Perfect Banana Bread!

Another bonus: If you measure like I do, it only gets one bowl, one measuring cup, one measuring spoon and a bread pan dirty! My kind of baking!

Baking Diary

2011-09-28T10:47:00.000+12:00

Yesterday I made these Reese's Pieces Cookies and these Chewy Lemon Sugar Cookies to bring with us as we had been invited to dinner at some friends house. Both were delicious, and quite simple! The sugar cookies were the perfect balance of firm on the outside, but soft and chewy in the middle. The Reese's Pieces cookies... well, is there much better than chocolate and peanut butter together?! I can say "no thanks" to plain chocolate most any day, but mix it with PB, and I'm toast. I like that the chocolate flavor in these comes from cocoa powder - I don't often bake with it, but really enjoyed it in this recipe!

Let me know if you make them, what you think!

Do we look different?!

2011-09-23T20:21:00.001+12:00

I wish I had a photo I could share, but picture this:

Two goofy kids, cheesy grins, standing proudly at the boat marina holding our new shiny certificates...

We're officially licensed BOAT CAPTAINS!

Peter and I both passed what they call the "practical test" on Thursday, which was our final step. To obtain our license we had take a two-night class, pass a 100 question written knowledge test, a 25 question boat knowledge test, (Peter also passed the written portion of the sailing endorsement; I did not attempt this one yet), go on an orientation cruise and then pass the practical test. The practical consisted of knowing all the islands on the East and West side of the atoll, knowing all the buoys in the lagoon, navigating the boat using a GPS, driving the boat from the lagoon through one of the passes to the ocean side, performing a satisfactory "man-overboard" drill, knowing all of the radio channels and proper radio etiquette and finally, docking the boat at the marina parallel-parking style!

In reality, we don't have a pretty, shiny certificate to show off, but we do have another license number to memorize! :-)

Ahoy Matey! Come and cruise with us!

Weekend Recap

2011-09-19T22:56:00.000+12:00

Hi friends!!

Just wanted to drop a line on our little space in the World Wide Web to let you know we're still alive and enjoying ourselves! We had an awesome weekend. It's funny how our idea of a productive weekend has changed so drastically in just a few months!! It used to be that we didn't feel we had accomplished much if we hadn't torn down a wall or remodeled a room or laid some tile...? Now we feel it's been a great weekend if we've logged a few dives, had a smoothie (or two) and soaked in a few rays. :-) Such was our time this weekend. We logged four dives in the past two days and both logged our deepest dives to date! (P. at 124 feet and myself at 120 feet- Yeah!)

Yesterday afternoon we dove two shallow shore dives - the first off of Emon Beach and the second at a wreck off of the ski-boat area (my personal favorite dive site so far). This wreck is awesome! The life on it is absolutely breathtaking. We had quite a bit of air left on our way back to shore so we stopped at another wreck closer in (and much shallower) and were graced with the passing presence of a spotted eagle ray! So cool! We're both doing really well on air consumption - both of these dives we lasted over an hour on a 3000 PSI tank and surfaced with air to spare.

Today we dove two deep wreck dives - the first was Barracuda Junction (didn't see any barracuda, I'll have to find out where the name comes from!) and the second was K5 Upright (named after the buoy it rests under). Both were pretty awesome. Barracuda Junction is laying on it's side, and K5 upright, aptly named, is sitting perfectly upright in about 120 feet of water. I won't bore you with the dive details, but if you come visit and are AOW (Advanced Open Water) certified, we will definitely take you to these two! They're fairly easy to find with the GPS coordinates and easy to tie off to also.

In other news, Peter and I hope to be boat captain certified on Thursday! Note, this is different than the sailing certification which we also hope to get... just at a later date. We have our practical tests (meaning we have to take the boat out with an instructor, and perform all the required maneuvers and passes) on Thursday. We practiced docking the boats this a.m. and both did pretty well. Our captain on the dives we went on this afternoon let me drive the boat back in after our final dive, and I was able to dock it just fine again. This was a great test for me since the boat we practiced on this morning was a single hull - VERY maneuverable, and the boat we rented for the dives this afternoon was a dual hull - NOT very maneuverable So we're hoping we pass our tests on Thursday... at which point we can rent boats and take them diving whenever we want! :-)

Tonight we had the crew we dove with today come over for tacos. It was a nice, laid back evening with lots of laughs. Dozer even approved of them all and spent all evening laying in the middle of the conversation. :-) (He usually disappears when company arrives.)

Tomorrow morning is the "island fluff" weekly ladies dive. :) That being said, I best get some sleep so I can join them!

Hope you had a great weekend too! Aloha from the big blue Pacific Ocean!

Fried Crisp

2011-09-12T21:21:00.003+12:00

I got fried today for my first time since arriving on island. Complete accident. All it took was 10 minutes in the 2pm sun. Typically if we're outside we put on 30 SPF at least twice per day, more often if we're in the water. Today it just completely slipped my mind. 8 degrees off the equator makes for some seriously STRONG rays!

Word to the wise when you come visit... wear sunscreen! 70-100 SPF is not a laughable thing here.

Khao Pad Kra Prao Gai Recipe

2011-09-08T10:50:00.001+12:00

My dear friend Liesl made this dish for us (remember this post) back in April, and we loved it. She sent me the recipe a few weeks ago and although I had to wait an extra week to make it because our grocery store was out of Basil, it was well worth the wait! This will be a staple in our dinner rotation from now on (as long as the store has basil). :-) For us fresh vegges come once per week on a Tuesday flight from Honolulu.

Let me know what you think if you try it out!

(Photo courtesy of Liesl's kitchen)

Thai Basil Chicken Fried Rice
(Khao Pad Kra Prao Gai)

Ingredients for 4 servings

4 cups "already cooked" jasmine rice or long grain rice (let the rice cool before using it in the fried rice recipe)

6 big cloves garlic (crushed)

2 to 4 Thai red and green chili peppers or 1 to 2 Serrano peppers (crushed)

¼ cup cooking oil

1 to 1 ½ lbs chicken meat (cut into bite sizes)

3 tbs oyster sauce

2 tbs fish sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 medium size red bell pepper (julienne)

2 cups fresh sweet basil leaves

1 cucumber (cut into bite sizes) *optional (garnish)

½ cup cilantro sprigs *optional (garnish)

First, heat the oil in a deep pan or wok over high heat. Wait till the oil starts to smoke. Add crushed garlic and crushed chili peppers. Stir quickly (don’t let them burn). Then immediately add sliced chicken meat. Stir. Add oyster sauce, fish sauce and sugar. Stir until the chicken is cooked through. Add already cooked rice. Stir quickly until sauces are blended with rice (a couple of minutes). Stir in red bell peppers and keep stirring for few seconds then add basil leaves. Turn the heat off. Garnish with sliced cucumbers and cilantro sprigs. Serve Immediately.

Wordy Post...

2011-09-07T10:07:00.001+12:00

Hi y'all...

Just wanted to catch you up on our Island life. Our ability to upload photos has left the island, so I'm back to drawing you pictures with my words... sorry! We're keeping our fingers crossed for higher speed internet to make it out to the housing quarters before too long, so hopefully I can upload more photos in the future. Until then, it'll just be sporadic one or two photos, here and there as I find patience to upload.

Peter has spent the last month a very sick boy. It started with a sinus infection, which moved into his lungs and turned into Bronchitis. The Dr. on island put him on antibiotics for the sinus infection, but it was too far along and the meds didn't touch it, so after a week of sinus infection medications he had to switch to another 10 days of different meds to kick the Bronchitis. He finished those on Sunday and seems to be on the mend. We know how easily Bronchitis relapses though so he's taking it pretty easy.

Anyhow, that explains why I haven't been posting much! We haven't been doing a whole lot for the past month except sleeping whenever possible and trying to get Peter better. I've been diving mid-week, one or two times per week with a group of ladies who are also island fluff. It's a nice way to get to know some of the shore dives that we are able to do, and I'm excited for when Peter will be able to dive again so we can explore together. His Dr. told him no diving for the past three weeks... although he's hoping to be able to go this coming weekend. :-)

We snorkeled quite a bit last weekend and went kayaking yesterday. I'm continually amazed by the number of folks here that don't take advantage of the many things there are to do on the island!! Especially snorkeling. There's so much to see beneath the water surface, and it's practically free to do! Anyhow, off my soapbox. :-)

We're REALLY looking forward to our October company coming and are super excited because we just found out some more friends are coming in late-December/early-January!! Yahoo!

I best let this be and get my day started! Hope this finds you all doing splendidly!

Cravings

2011-08-27T22:03:00.000+12:00

I'll begin by reassuring you all that I'm not the big "P" word. These are just normal cravings by a gal who is limited to very little variety of foods these days. :-)

1. Indian Food, specifically Murgh Makhini - mmmm. Do try it someday! I practiced my hand at cooking it last night, and it actually didn't turn out too bad! The recipe will needs a few tweaks, but the end result should help to curb this craving. :-)
2. Short Smoked Salmon Filet. Peter and I would order this every.single.time we ate at our favorite American restaurant in Virginia, Sweetwater Tavern. Our order would go something like this; "Two Short Smoked Salmon Filets, extra mustard sauce on the side, Ozzie rolls only and extra poppyseed butter please." We could order the moment we sat down. It was always a quick meal! :-) This, I'm afraid, I won't be able to duplicate.
3. Thai food, specifically Chicken Red Curry. Again, I should be able to duplicate this, just haven't tried my hand at it yet.
4. Maple bars. Oh boy, I could devour a few of these right now!
5. Captain Neon Burger from McMinnimins - I (we actually!) have been craving this since we left Oregon: thick patty, extra thick drippy bacon, blue cheese, special sauce... mmm. If you eat it in just the right fashion, it'll drip all of the delicious sauce all over your fries. It's a party in your mouth. A heart attack waiting to happen, but SO worth it. :-)

That sums it up pretty well for now. If y'all have occasion to box some of those up and send them our way, we'd be much obliged. ;-)

(kidding)

Sailing to Bigej ~ Monday

2011-08-16T18:14:00.001+12:00

Over the past weekend we sailed up to Bigej (Bee-gee) and had a fantastic day of snorkeling and sailing! It was fairly overcast all day, with a few quick showers once we arrived at the island. What a pity... we got wet! :-)

We usually snorkel as soon as we arrive for 45 minutes or so, then board the boat, fix some lunch, eat and jump in the water again for some more snorkeling. We usually depart Kwaj around 9:30 arriving at Bigej close to noon. We anchor until 3:30 or so and then begin the trip back, arriving back in Kwaj around 6pm. However, yesterday's trip was extended a bit for two reasons:

1. There was NO wind! We motored the whole way and although we had the jib and mainsail up, they didn't do much work!

2. We met up with three power-boats which had 13 other folks at the island after they completed a dive on a wreck not far away. They were mainly from KPD (Kwaj Police Dept) as they were placing the ashes of one of their officers who just passed away.

Those two reasons meant we arrived back at Kwaj at 7pm... but we weren't complaining!

There's a country song that I kept singing (to myself!) yesterday. It goes something like this:

It's a great day to be alive

I know the sun's still shinin' when I close my eyes

There's some hard times in the neighborhood

But why can't every day be just this good?

Sometimes it's lonely

Sometimes it's only me

And the shadows that fill this room

Sometimes I'm fallin'

Desperately callin'

Howlin' at the moon...

Ahwoo!

That's how I feel about this adventure for us. Every day is a great day! Sometimes it's lonely, sometimes there's not-so-pleasant things to deal with, but overall, it's a great day to be alive!

Ok, enough with the blabbering, here's some photos from our trip! We got some pretty amazing ones, if I do say so myself! :-)

This one looked like a flower, blooming out of the coral below.

Do you see the grouchy fish?

These little (say 10 feet or so across?) coral pods are all over at Bigej... beautiful!

I love these little guys! They're so photogenic. :-)

CLAMS!!! These were one of the highlights of this snorkel trip... we saw SO many!! Big ones, small ones, and they're all different colors!

The sea anemone's are beautiful here... can you spot the clown fish?

Hubby!

Ok, here's a question for anyone who knows anything about water creatures... Do you know what this is?? It was about three inches in diameter, and the "legs" were wiggly. How's that for a scientific description?

Puffer fish!

Another big clam - about 3 feet across.

Another highlight! We saw this HUGE (to me!) ray!! She didn't have her stinger... but was still probably 5 feet in diameter!

My favorite clam from this trip. Isn't it beautiful!?!

Loved this little coral tree~

Doesn't this make you want to visit??!

Another clam! This little guy (about 12") was inside one of the purple coral heads in the above photos.

...And another one, not far away! While Peter was photographing this guy, I saw something right next to him change color. Upon further inspection...

...it was an OCTOPUS! How cool!!!! Can you see his eyes? They're the little red spots in the center of the photo.

Here's a farther-away shot which shows the proximity of the clam to the octopus. SO COOL! We backed away hoping the octopus would come out of his hiding spot, but he only popped his head up far enough to keep an eye on us. :-)

Amazing

Another clam! They close up if you cover the sunlight above them, so the trick is to sneak up from the side. :-) Peter's gotten pretty good at it!

A beautiful sunset on our way home.

I love the clouds in this one ~

And finally... our gracious captain, Rick. He and Peter work together... we're so fortunate he enjoys sharing his boat with others!

On a completely un-related note - they delivered our pack-out on Friday! This means that I no longer have a rotation of only four tops and three bottoms (YAY!), we have a fairly complete kitchen set, OUR BED IS HERE, and the guest bedroom is furnished!! So, please come see us!

Kwaj life!

2011-08-10T13:23:00.000+12:00

Finally I think we have a system figured out for uploading and posting photos!

So, without further a-do... (and in no particular order!)

The following five photos are from one of our weekend sailing trips to Bigej, and the underwater photos are from snorkeling off the boat.

Can you spot the turtle?

This clam was beautiful... it was about 12" across, and bright, bright purple on the inside! We've heard the clams up at Roi-Namur (one of the northern islands) are HUGE - over 5 feet!! We want to take a trip up there one of these weekends to see for ourselves... there are free, "space available" flights daily up to the island, so we'll try to take advantage of them soon!

The boat, named the Panacea that we've been sailing on - that's my hubby floating in the water. :-) Someone asked him on this trip if he was part fish; I think while we were anchored he spent more time in the water than he did on the boat!

The next two photos are from the dive we did two weekends ago on the South Kwajalein wall. This first one is just amazing to me - the beautiful reef and the abundance of life! This was just before we went over the wall... the diving here is beautiful!!

One of the white-tip sharks that Peter mentioned in his earlier account:

This little guy gets in on quite a bit of action over by where the fishermen feed the sharks the "leftovers" from cleaning their catches of the day. He nibbles right along with about 30+ nurse sharks and 5 or so white-tip sharks! I'm sure he's glad for his shell sometimes. :)

These nurse sharks were just hanging out, waiting for their free meal...

Usn's

The hermit crabs are EVERYWHERE here! They're so adorable; you pick them up and they squirm all around trying to find the ground beneath them. We eventually put them back down... :-)

Beautiful... we see rainbows 3-4 times/week.

This beach, (above and below) is one of my favorites for finding shells at. In fact, I just might bike over there when I finish this post to do some hunting!

Hermit crab pile - they're all fighting over one empty shell!

Just a neat photo~

This photo is taken just off the north tip of Kwajalein. We did our check-out dive from this location. The buoyed area is a swimming spot called Emon beach - you'll see it better in another photo below.

Here's a better shot of Emon beach.

Often after Peter gets home from work and we finish our dinner, we'll take a bike ride around the island... Yesterday we hopped on our bikes, rode about 1/2 way, went back home, changed into our swimsuits and biked back to Emon beach for an evening swim. It was beautiful.

Next up... hopefully delivery of our pack-out this week and then some photos of the house, inside!

Pack-Out Status!!

2011-08-09T15:29:00.000+12:00

We just got an update that our pack-out is on the barge that is scheduled to arrive....

TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!

Yahooooooooooo!

There's a process for offloading the barge and distributing the goods, but we should get our stuff delivered to the house within a week!!!

Can you tell I'm EXCITED?! It's going to be like Christmas... I can't even remember what is all coming!

A few pictures...

2011-07-30T10:28:00.000+12:00

WHEW! Uploading these was a labor of LOVE! :)

Our house is the unit on the left in this photo:

After diving one day...

Stroll on the ocean side of the island one afternoon:

Now you all have proof that we're alive!

I tried to upload some underwater shots but am getting an error... will see if hubby can help when he gets home. :)

SOLD!

2011-07-28T09:00:00.000+12:00

Signed, settled and SOLD!

We are officially, NOT homeowners as of 4am today! (our time)

To curb the curious minds, we put the house on the market on the 20th of June and had a ratified, full price contract on the 28th. We only had two different families look at the house during those 8 days and it was the first family who made the offer. They came back four times before submitting their offer - you can imagine we were on pins and needles!

So, although a move overseas could have been difficult and daunting, this transition to Kwajalein has been pretty seamless! For that we're very grateful and we're thoroughly enjoying our time on the island so far!

Please come visit!

Test photo

2011-07-26T20:40:00.000+12:00

This photo, compressed from 3.3MB to 594KB took 12.37 minutes to upload.

Please understand that until we get a faster internet connection, I won't be uploading too many pictures! :-(

Taken at a going-away potluck had for us by our Sunday meeting elders. We have a little better tan now. :)

Compliments of the hubby

2011-07-26T16:31:00.001+12:00

Every time I read something that Peter has drafted, I think that HE should be writing this blog! You all would certainly be more entertained than I keep you. :)

Anyhow - he wrote quite a novel to our family updating them on our life here on Kwaj. I just HAD to copy and paste the excerpt below where he describes the two boat dives we went on yesterday. It had me in stitches! Here you are:

"...Today (or yesterday - since I won't likely get this completed tonight), we went diving again. This time from a boat, so our first stop was the Prinz Eugen followed by a dive on the ocean side wall of South Kwajalein. Awesome dives in both places - and for the paranoid out there - yes, we saw numerous sharks on both dives. The ones on the ocean side actually made me a bit nervous (whitetip reef sharks) since one was more interested in what we were doing than I thought he should be. More on that later, though.

First, the Prinz Eugen. Possibly a 10 minute boat ride (depending on your captain) from Kwajalein on the west side of the atoll (lagoon side) lies the Prinz Eugen (pronounced something like "ouy-gen" with a soft "g"), upside down with its screws in the air and its bow sitting at about 110' of water. We had five divers on our boat, so Marissa, myself, and another diver were in the water waiting for our final two to get in before we went subsurface. Our other diver in the water (who had his head under the water watching fish below us) informed us we had a shark below us. Like ducks, we were immediately "bottoms-up" and watching a cute little whitetip wander by below us (between 2'-3' in length). Nice, great start to the dive.

At the edge of the Prinz Eugen, we dropped down to 30' and followed the hull down to around 107'. At that point, we crossed under the bow to the other side of the ship. Being polite, Marissa and I were taking up the tail of the dive while the other divers crossed under (the superstructure of the bow boat created a natural swim-thru that looks pretty cool in photographs). As the other divers passed under, Marissa tugs my arm and points to a lovely specimen of blacktip reef shark (about 5' in length) roughly 20' from us. He watched us for a moment and then turned his more pleasant side towards us and headed away. SWEET! And they had told us we would be unlikely to see any sharks on this dive! The rest of the dive was very relaxing with a HUGE puffer fish and some torpedoes - along with several other pretty underwater things.

Dive two. South Kwajalein wall - ocean side... It's interesting. Inside the lagoon, things are pretty protected and the critters that live there are pretty used to people being around. On the ocean side, things are a bit more wild and we are encouraged to use more caution as a rule. The wall? B E A U T I F U L. Tons of fish, tons (literally) of coral, great visibility and life everywhere. I can't begin to list all that we saw (including a turtle), but I'll add some details to what I know you all have been waiting for - sharks... Yes, more of them. I was at the front of our dive posse and we were pretty shallow ~55' and moving pretty slow since there was so much to look at, when I noticed four whitetip reef sharks circling very fast in a tight circle in front of us. They were quite a bit larger than the ones we had seen previously (between 4' and 5') and I was remembering their tight, fast circles from a few evenings back at the marlin based feeding frenzy. Hmmmm, going to put the brakes on a little and let the others know... Nobody was paying attention to my gestures (okay, frantic underwater waving - my specialty). About that time, one of the sharks peeled off and headed up the reef. Another one dropped out of the circle and headed towards me. Straight towards me... Marissa had the camera and I started wishing I had it to stick out in front of me as a bite offering - anything better than my hand... I quit my imitation of a seal flapping his flipper in the water at the other seals and tried to look as uninteresting as possible. No dice - still heading right at me... Did I mention he was headed right at me? 25'... 20'... I readied my hand on my safe-second (backup regulator) to give him a blast of O2 to the snoozle before he was within nipping distance. I want to take a moment to mention that never once did I think he wanted to eat me. I was pretty sure he was curious and possibly a little threatened by this strange sounding creature with the saucer-sized eyes. What I was worried about was the many times I've seen our cat be "curious" about something and then give it a little bite just to see how it responds. Not wanting to satisfy this shark's curiosity was primary on my agenda. 15' now... and he swerved away towards the ocean side. Good, take a breath, you earned it... Oops, he's coming back. Still directly at me. I tried to look tough. He didn't seem to care. I'm also trying to keep an eye on the other two that are now almost to my rear as I had rotated to keep my front towards my interested friend. Marissa and our other divers now seem to have taken notice of my distraction. 20' again... 15'... crap. 10'... and he swerved again. This time up the reef and he kept going. Fine with me. Marissa is hovering behind me now. Heh, heh - finally got her attention! :) With two sharks still in front of us, I started edging off the wall and up onto the reef with my wife to my rear. About that time, a pharmacist from FL who had a video camera came charging up on the unsuspecting sharks and they scattered. It was kind of funny to see them flee from him. Must have been camera shy...

On our way back to the boat - on top of the reef wall, we had another small whitetip reef shark cruise by in front of us. Like the first one we had seen that day, he seemed to have a destination in mind and hurried on his way. Like people, I prefer sharks who are dedicated to their own business and too busy to mess with mine..."

The curious case of the Can Opener

2011-07-25T22:33:00.002+12:00

Mom thought some of these stories should be documented… so here I am, fingertip to keyboard, attempting my best at providing you all with a laugh, or maybe at least a smirk to begin your day (at my expense!).

Last week, one day I casually mentioned to my dear husband that I'd make tuna melts for supper. See, it's interesting trying to come up with meals our here, at least right now since I am working out of a very limited pantry. Needless to day, tuna melts require VERY few ingredients, and very few prep tools/utensils, so I was golden. Or so I thought.

15 minutes pre-Peter's scheduled close of work day I started prepping things for supper. Plates, check. Forks, check. Tuna, check. Bread, check. Cheese, check. Baking pan, check. Envision all of these pieces laid out of my counter, ready to viola!, cook right up into delicious tuna melts. Except for one tiny, yet HUGE detail. The can opener. That one detail didn't have a check. So, being the master(ess?) of improv these days, I tried everything (I thought) that I had on hand. A knife… nope, just bent the tip. A bottle opener… nope, didn't budge. So, I bit my pride and knocked on the neighbors door to ask to borrow theirs. I had forgotten they are PCS'ing (permanent change of station - to Alaska!) and they had already shipped all of their belongings out the door. No can opener. Jeff (said neighbor) started knocking on other doors asking for a can opener, and he quickly found an obliging friend who lent their hand crank can opener to our household. Thanks Jeff, much obliged.

Now, fast forward twenty minutes. Peter is home, tuna melts are melting, and I am telling him the funny tale of how dinner actually will make it on the table that night. He says, but we DO have a can opener! No, no, no I reply - I've searched every cupboard and drawer - there is no can opener. He points to the counter top. There, sitting in plain view is a 12" high, Black and Decker electric can opener! What?! I hadn't seen an electric can opener in at least 5 years, let alone used one in maybe 10 years?? Mom had one, but it always sat in the back of the cupboard, and we always used the hand-crank unit! I had completely forgotten that's what they looked like. Duh.

To make the story just a tad bit more humorous, the neighbor that I borrower the hand-crank can opener from is the manager of the unit that is in charge of supplying the "hospitality kits" for those of us who are waiting for our things to arrive still. The next day her dear help stopped by our house with (another!) electric can opener! So now I have two. I feel like the Annie Oakley of can openers… I can double-fist 'em now. :)

So, if you need any cans opened, send them my way and I'll get them done in record time!

Baking Improv

2011-07-25T10:23:00.000+12:00

I'm quickly learning to be the master of improvisation. :) Our pack-out that we sent from Virginia may not join us for 2-4 months. That being said, we're living quite sparsely on a VERY limited "hospitality package" the army gave us to make it through these first few months before our stuff arrives. Think bed sheets, towels, plates, cups, knives, forks, spoons and a set of pots and pans.

Bread is one of the items on the island that is quite pricey to buy at the store. Thus, I decided to bake some of my own on Saturday. Brilliant, no? Yes! However, I didn't have a mixer, a mixing bowl, a whisk, measuring cups or measuring spoons. Even I was surprised that the bread actually tasted good!! I found a recipe online, guesstimated all my measurements (using one of our drinking glasses, and a dinner spoon) and mixed the dough in a stove-top pot with a fork.

Now please don't feel sorry for us, or send a care package with these items. I could quite easily run down to the store to buy them, but I KNOW they will come eventually when our pack-out arrives and I don't want to have two of everything on that day!

So until then, I will continue to improvise, and hopefully continue to be surprised at the edibility of my science projects! :)

The most important detail!

2011-07-20T13:57:00.000+12:00

We DO have a guest bedroom!!

However, we're limited to 90 days of guests on the island per year, so book your trip soon. We're down to 88 days already. :)

We made it!

2011-07-20T08:32:00.002+12:00

Hi readers!

Happy 400th post to the UsBrowns + Dozer blog!

We are finally a family of three again! Dozer and I made it on-island yesterday (Tuesday for us, Monday for most of you). The trip WAS eventful, but we both made it in one piece, so for that I'm glad. :) Mom put it well on her blog - I'll just quote her here:

"Ris should probably write a book, or at least a chapter on the ins and outs of traveling with a pet - it's been a roller coaster, and she carried more papers to get Doze into KW than she had for herself. Between so-called tranquilizers that had him bouncing off the walls (seriously) and then vomiting, to airlines that made you buy smaller pet carriers (from them of course), to airlines that made you get larger pet carriers, Doze is seriously loved but was probably yowling his head off from hunger by the time they landed. Not much different than flying with a 2 year old, except you can't put a 2 yr old in cargo."

A few of my first thoughts/impressions of the island:

1. Are we going to land in the water?! We were so close it seemed like the landing gear could have drug in the ocean before we touched down on land! However, somehow the pilot managed to land and get the plane stopped before we fell into the other side of the ocean. :)

2. Will Dozer ever forgive me for what he had to go through for the past two days? I think this is pretty well answered, as he's contently sleeping at the end of our bed, tail and feet twitching from his happy (hopefully) little kitty dreams. :)

3. Friendly folks - most everyone that you pedal past on the roads flashes a smile and a quiet hello.

4. Random downpours! Just as I expected. Peter came home for lunch yesterday and while he was here it went from beautiful and sunny, to a quick deluge to beautiful and sunny again in the span of about 15 minutes.

5. Heavy humidity; caused by #4. When you go outside from being in an air-conditioned room, your sunglasses immediately fog over. :) However, it's nothing a quick swipe of your t-shirt can't fix!

6. Love Peter's commute! He bikes to work and it takes about 1.5 minutes. :) This also means he gets to come home for lunch everyday! Woohoo!

7. We have a clean, simple house with central A/C. Laminate floors and wicker furniture. TONS of storage. I think the kitchen has more storage than our house in Virginia! HUGE windows, although no window coverings yet, so I tacked up blankets. :) Tacky, yes. They're functional though!

8. Ants are a part of life. Haven't seen a cockroach here yet, although I'm sure I will soon enough! :)

9. We bought two new vehicles yesterday! Put them on the credit card and will pay them off at the end of the month. Hah! Can you do that? Here's a link to a picture of mine. It's absolutely awesome, and totally functional! Look at the basket on the back! Perfect for groceries.

10. Speaking of groceries. We're about two blocks from SurfWay (local grocery store) and one block from the PX. Between the two, I don't think we'll starve. :) Funny story though - SurfWay delivers your groceries to you, since most bikes don't have enough space to haul everything home. However, after filling my cart and checking out yesterday, I had to carry my loot home (on foot as we didn't have our "cars" yet) because I couldn't remember our address for them to deliver to! Duh.

Another note - this blog is likely to become more wordy, and less pictury. (I know that's not a word, but it fits here). We are functioning on a dial-up internet connection so uploading pictures takes a LONG time. However, I will try my hardest to post photos every now and then.

Also, dialing out (for us) is quite spendy. However, we can receive incoming calls for free. That being said, my old cell number is set to forward to us here, so if you feel like chatting, feel free to call! It shouldn't cost you any differently than if you called us in the states. If the line is busy, we're probably on the internet! :)

Enough for now. I must get up and around so I can take care of some paperwork before hubby comes home for lunch. :)

Hubby made it to Kwajalein!

2011-07-12T13:51:00.002+12:00

Safe n' sound!

8 days!

2011-07-02T15:32:00.000+12:00

We had our house listed for 8 days and we received a contract that was ratified on Wednesday night!

I really want to be the glass is half-full type, but there's this part of me that can't help but think about all the contingencies that have to be satisfied before it's official. :) The inspection is scheduled for tomorrow, and for now, settlement is scheduled for the 27th of this month...

Yahoo!

By request - Before and After Photos

2011-06-24T13:48:00.000+12:00

Some have asked for before and after shots - so here you are! The slideshow is certainly not all-inclusive of every project we have done, but gives an idea of some of the big ones! :)

If you want to see the larger photos - I've uploaded them to Picasa for your viewing pleasure.

Master Bedroom and Bath Finale

2011-06-22T04:38:00.000+12:00

Tah-dah!

The bath transformation has turned out absolutely beautiful.

The toilet is behind that closed door... I decided you didn't need to see it. :)

LOVE, LOVE the way the shower turned out. Isn't that frameless door a beaut?

The skirt around the tub was quite the labor of love. Peter built it out of beautiful birch and poplar wood, and I planned to stain it to match the vanity. Hah. I guess I should have done a little research - come to find out, birch and poplar take stain very differently and the variation in the wood colors made for an awfully ugly and splotchy finish. So after two coats of ebony colored stain and two coats of polyurethane finish, I sanded it back down, and repainted with a dark brown, almost-black paint that ended up matching the vanity perfectly. :-)

We still need to clean the grout residue off of the tile, but you get the idea... :-)

So, that covers the whole house now! Keep your fingers crossed for us that the first buyer who looks at it will offer us a full-price, cash deal that closes in 10 days.

Hah.

I can dream, can't I?

Too tired for words...

2011-06-21T15:52:00.001+12:00

We're officially listed, on the market to sell our house. Please don't confuse that as meaning all the projects are done... In actuality there's quite a bit left to finish up, but it's mostly cosmetic, so we'll plug away at those items in between showings. :)

We've had some pretty late nights around these parts - Saturday was a 14 hour workday! Thanks to P's sis C. for coming up to help paint trim.

It seems all my creative writing juices have been zapped out of me... so I'll end the monologue here and hope you enjoy the photos. Master Bath pictures should be up tomorrow.

Living room

Living room, looking toward kitchen

Kitchen, dining room at the far end

I love how this space looks ~

Foyer

Main level 1/2 bath

Details... base trim isn't yet painted.

Just because he's so dern cute~

Yep, my favorite

A chandelier you don't have to dust!

New window treatments in the living room...

And also in the sitting area - these same ones will go in the dining room too. I love them! They're so happy... don't they make you smile?

A few exterior shots...

Guest bath

Details~

Guest bedroom #1

Guest bedroom #2

'Nother shot

Upstairs landing - this photo taken from the doorway of guest bedroom #1

... and looking toward the guest bedrooms. The doorway on the far right is guest bedroom #3 but it's empty. :-)

Hallway closet with sliding suede panels.

That wraps up the house tour for tonight... our realtor's website is here if you're interested in seeing what her camera photographed. :) G'night friends.

Wow!

2011-06-08T12:56:00.000+12:00

The amount of work that has been accomplished this last week is absolutely astounding! However, because I'm cruel, I'm just going to give you a sneak peak for now & will post photos of the full "reveal" later this week or maybe next. :)

Most importantly, Dozer fully approves of the new window trim. In fact, he's pretty sure we installed those wide window-sill's just for him. (We did, didn't we?)

HUGE, HUGE, HUGE thanks to D.N. who has put in HOURS of helping us with the tile in the master bath. He's visiting DC with his family for a six-week internship, working full days downtown DC, then driving out to our place to help tile, then back to his digs in Arlington to be dad to three little boys and husband to his sweet wife. We're really, really grateful for his help!!!

It looks AH-MAZING. I'm so glad we went with the vertical stripe instead of a horizontal one. I L.O.V.E. how it looks!!!

Tonight I baked some chocolate, peanut butter chip cookies... not because I have a lavish amount of time right now to be domestic with, but because baking is a stress reliever for me, and boy did I need it! Can you guess who the heart is for?

Yep, that guy I love. (smile)

The rest will be donated to the D.N. clan as a thanks for donating their dad/husband to us. :)

Our blog-readership count has drastically increased over the past few weeks, and it makes me wonder... who? We'd love to hear from you if you're keeping up with us via UsBrowns + Dozer! Please feel free to leave a comment; they keep me motivated to continue blogging!

Island (up)DATE!

2011-06-04T16:20:00.000+12:00

Peter will be on island...
July 12th!

I'll follow shortly thereafter but will spend a few weeks in San Diego first. :)

Anyone need a beautiful house in Herndon, VA?? We're aiming to be on the market in a week(ish) - fingers crossed!!!

Hard at work...

2011-05-31T09:34:00.000+12:00

My dear husband is hard at work doing window trim as I type this...

The drywallers took the holiday off, but have finished the main floor patches and have moved upstairs. When they finish with the upstairs patches they'll paint upstairs and the exterior trim.

I've been busy painting the main floor walls. It kind of makes me wish I would have done it sooner so we could enjoy it, but at least it will show well! I'll get some photos up of the painting once I finish up cutting in all the edges. After two days of primering and painting, I've lost my umph to get back at it (might have something to do with the cutting in being my least favorite part of painting?!).

Tomorrow we meet with a realtor to go over some listing/sale details. I'm probably being over-optimistic, but if the drywallers/painters finish this week, and we get the trim done, we could potentially get it on the market next week? The master bath tile wouldn't be done, but I have samples in case someone wanted to know what it'll look like... Anyhow, we'll see. The cup is half-full, right??

These days Craigslist is my best friend. :) We're not getting rid of everything, but definitely purging and trying to only keep what we use (which really isn't that much, but we sure have a LOT of stuff!).

Meanwhile, here's some pics of Peter's work ~

So, it's coming along! There's still quite a bit of work to do, but I'm pretty sure we'll feel that way until we board an airplane. We have a list compiled of the things we need to complete, and I was pleasantly surprised this morning to be able to cross a few things off! Baby steps!

For now, I'm off to work on some caulking. Happy Memorial Day to you and yours!

Blogworthy photos

2011-05-27T14:42:00.000+12:00

No new news to share today on the Kwaj-front... but we're still plugging along. They threw the "three-week" words out the other day, but I think that might be a leeeetle optimistic. :-) Will let you all know when we know!

** Note - I just can't get used to putting the photo captions below the photos, like blogger wants me to do. So, going forward, I'm switching back to my old style (can't teach this dog new tricks!) of captioning photos ABOVE the picture. **

Meanwhile... a quick update. Doz hasn't been featured on this blog for awhile, but rest assured, he is alive and quite well. He's recuperating very well from his surgery, thankyouverymuch. The other day he decided his blanket wasn't soft enough, so he came over and plopped down on the pile of laundry that I was putting away. How adorable is he?! :-)

Last night he and P. were quite tuckered out - they enjoyed a late night snooze before bed... t'was also extra adorable! You can see his shaved side is still a little sparse on fur!

In other news, P & I ran some errands today, returning house materials we won't use before we leave, grabbing some groceries, etc. The old foyer/stairway light we had was a hideous... It was like this one (link), except hanging from a chain. Needless to say, it was begging for a replacement. :-) Low and behold, we found this amazing drum shade pendant type light at Lowe's that I fell in love with.

I.had.to.have.

My dear hubby eventually agreed it would look SOOOOOO good as a replacement for that old nasty bronze piece (although he was pulling for this pendant, which was on sale for $10).

I LOVE it!!!

Closeup ~

We're tuckered out again tonight after another productive day. Soon-ish I'll show you what I've been working on to spruce up the front of the house, but that'll be a few more days. We've hired a drywall crew to come in and fix our hole-y house... and they're doing a fantastic job thus far. I believe we're only a day away from being ready for PAINT! Yahoo!

Clark Kid Reunion 2011!!

2011-05-20T06:33:00.000+12:00

My brothers and sis (in-law, but I'll claim her as a sister!) came to visit this week! D&J were here from the 12th-19th and W was here from 14th-19th. We had a blasty-blast! We did a lot of the touristy stuff, yakked, shopped, ate, ate, ate, etc! Here's a quick photo documentary of the trip.

These two are just so darn cute. I think I paired it down to 3 photos of them in this blog post, but suffice to say, there were plenty to choose from! :)

And these three... well, I'll let you decide! They're trouble, that's for sure!

Clark Kids! I miss these guys on a pretty regular basis! Looking at this photo, we really don't resemble each other much do we?!

J's mom recommended that we check out the view from the tower at the US Postal Office - it was a GREAT recommendation! I'm just sorry that we only found out about it as we are planning our departure from this area, but glad we got to do it before we left! Thanks B!

Some more views from the USPS building:

We stopped by the US Botanical Gardens, but they were closed so we just meandered through the outdoor gardens until they kicked us out. :)

This photo only made it on the blog because of D. :)

Tired feet.

Another of J's mom's recommendations - soooo delish! Fortunately we pre-ordered our cupcakes, as the line was around the block! For those who don't know, there is a famous TV show featuring this cupcakery.

This is one of the founding sisters, Katherine

We tried Hibiscus Mango, German Chocolate, Strawberry and Red Velvet. Their full menu is here.

Photo courtesy of my hubby. Wes is breaking in my new sunglasses. B-)

These helicopters buzz over all day long - transporting important people from the pentagon to the capitol, etc. Wes was tired of waiting for our ferry and thought he could hitch a ride on a heli instead. :)

Big dude, big heart.

Pentagon

Isn't this a particularly neat photo of the Lincoln Memorial? I thought so! :)

The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts

On our ferry ride back, these folks seemed to be having some issues with their kayaks. They had PFD's on, so we just waved and motored on by (and snapped a quick photo!).

Great Falls, VA - beautiful park.

Water snake - bleh!

True love. :-P Hah!

New blacksmith's shop at Mt. Vernon.

Color POP!

Last day together at Mt. Vernon!

Thanks you three for flying all the way out here to hang out with us!! We really had a stellar time - even with lots on all our minds (new jobs, moves, etc), we managed to have a great time amidst it all! And thanks J. for putting up with your new extended family ~ I sure love having another girl around!

We're MOVING!!!

2011-05-12T14:33:00.000+12:00

... To a tiny little island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean called Kwajalein! Who'd'a thunk?!

Peter accepted a position this week with Kwajalein Range Services. Given there aren't any hiccups with Peter's clearance/health checks and other details, we should be there in about 2 months or so. Below are some island specs, with more to come later. :-)

Here's the island from air - It's about 3 miles long and 3/4 of a mile wide

To give you an idea of where it is at in relation to the United States~

And to give you an idea of where it's at in relation to other places!! It's pretty safe to say it's a fairly long flight from most anywhere! That being said, planes do land on the island, and we will welcome any visitors who are able to make the trek!!! :)

Obviously, we will be working our tail ends off during the next month to get the house ready to put on the market. Oh, and pack... although that really does feel like a MINOR detail in the scheme of things right now! :)

Master Bath Update

2011-05-08T14:49:00.000+12:00

Remember that bathroom remodel we started awhile ago?? Well... we've picked up progress again on it, and I'm so excited to show you how the vanity (used to be bathtub) portion looks as of today!!

BEFORE!

Cabinet moved in; P. is working on the plumbing. The plumbing was a pretty major overhaul since this area used to house the bathtub... P. had to reroute water supply, drains, vent pipes, etc. He's pretty amazing! Also, the mirror is hung & new lighting fixtures added.

Countertop / Sinks, all molded from one THICK piece of frosted glass... I LOVE this!

To give you an idea of what the accent tiles and shower tiles will be. Also, paint colors. :)

Now here are closeups of some of my favorite touches:

:-) :-)

These are from West Elm. I think we'll get the two-light sconce which matches this set for above the new jacuzzi bathtub. Nevermind the unfinished drywall above. We'll get to that eventually!

We will add a 4-6" back-splash to the countertop, crafted from the mosaic tile in the fourth photo of this post. :-) I'm pretty sure this will look... amazing! :-)

I just love this countertop!

Cabinet and floor detail

In other news, we're SOOOO looking forward to my brothers and sis-in-law coming this week!! I'm sure plenty of photo-ops to blog about will come from their visit. :-) Hope you're having a lovely weekend!!

Cozumel, Mexico dive trip

2011-05-03T04:55:00.000+12:00

Last week, April 23rd - 30th, we spent some wonderful, warm days in Mexico. The primary purpose of the trip was to scuba dive; we had five days of two-tank boat dives scheduled (10 dives total) plus one night dive. The diving was phenomenal!! We ended up with four days of two-tank boat dives (my stomach didn't cooperate for one of the days) and two night dives. The reef and fish life on Cozumel is absolutely amazing. Ken documented the diving very well here (with great photos!) and I'm sure Ben & Anna will also when they have time. We forgot our underwater camera :-( however we had bought a great underwater video camera before the trip, so hopefully I can share some of that footage with you shortly. Peter is working on editing the many hours (seriously!) of underwater video he took. A quick list of some of the marine life we saw (all photo links courtesy of Ken & Liesl): Turtles (lots of them!!), Nurse Sharks, Octopus, HUGE lobsters, HUGE crabs, Lion Fish, Angel Fish (french and queen), Rays, HUGE Barracudas, HUGE Groupers, Eels, Porcupine Fish, Frog Fish, Scorpion Fish, Cow Fish, Trunk Fish, Jaw Fish, Sea Cucumbers, Parrot Fish... I could go on and on!
Of course, the trip was further supplemented with some quality time with Ken and Liesl (you oughta feel like you know then by now, as often as they are on this blog!) and Liesl's cousin and his wife, Ben and Anna. We made gingerbread houses with them two Christmas' ago - you remember, no? :-)
Ken and Liesl got their AOW (advanced open water) dive certification while we were there and Anna got her OW (open water) dive certification. They (K&L and B&A) arrived a bit before us, so they had pretty much finished their cert's by the time we arrived.
We stayed at a "dive hotel" called Casa Del Mar... which I wish I could recommend for others to stay at, but I think it would be best for you to expand your horizons should you make a trip to Cozumel, and lodge somewhere different! :-)
Editors note: I've upgraded the version of blogger I was using, so captions will be *below* the photos going forward instead of above.

On the plane... ready for some warm water, sandy beaches & SUN!

Arrived at the hotel!

L-R: Ken, Liesl, Felipe (their Dive Instructor for their certifications), Anna & Ben

Us'ns - Waiting for the others to arrive at supper one evening ~

Scooters! They are EVERYWHERE on the island. I'd venture to say they are the primary mode of transportation for locals.

Cousins!

I had to post this one ~ Anna says this is her 'Cheshire Cat' face! :-)

Hah. This is what I get when I ask for a pose!

On the boat, on our way to pick up the other divers.

Our boat captain - he's been motoring this boat for over 15 years!

One of the boat crew~

Typical morning at the dock. We didn't dive with our hotel's dive operation - so the company we did dive with (the Dive House) came and picked us up (via boat) at our hotel dock each morning and brought us back to their docks to gather the rest of the divers, their gear and our tanks.

On our surface interval - passing time until the next dive!

Love this one of L!

Towel Art!

One afternoon after diving some of us went to the "ruins" at El Cedral. It was less than exciting... underwhelming is the best way to describe it - especially after touring Tulum and Chichen Itza on previous Mexico trips! This ruin was no more than one tiny little cottage. But hey... at least it was FREE! :-)

:-)

Mmm... cold coconuts!

This little taco stand was just below our hotel. Talk about authentic!! There were two men that worked there... and they had a TINY little room behind the kitchen with a table that we took up residence at each afternoon for lunch. You can't beat $1 Sopes!

They cook on a Coleman stove! :)

Mmmm... this is making me hungry for them, just posting about it!

"Our table" in the back of the kitchen. We're sitting about 5 feet from where they are cooking our lunch. :-)

Ken & Liesl upgraded their room to a superior room, so they had a beautiful ocean view with a balcony. Needless to say - we spent most of our time together in their room! :-)

Beautiful Bougainvillaea everywhere!

Ken & Liesl's room was at the very beginning of the building (farthest away in this photo), on the second level.

Haha!

Waiting for the sunset ~

This was the day that we opted to not dive - I woke up not feeling so hot... so we just laid back and relaxed all day. Bummer, huh?!

Furthest to the right is our Dive Master, Jose.

Just picked up from our hotel - going back to their dock to get the rest of the tanks and divers. Our gear is all set up on the far right, ready to dive!

We saw some gorgeous sunsets... I couldn't pick my favorite photo, so excuse the multiple shots! :-)

I can't even count how many snaps of this photo it took to get it clean, without people or cars!

Dinner, our last night in Mexico. K&L had left for home, the day prior.

Avocado Pie. Interesting! Very creamy, very rich. I wonder how many avocados it took to make just this one slice?!

This wall was just BEGGING for us to take photos in front of it!

The Thursday prior to our leaving for Mexico, we had three brother workers stay with us for the night. When one of them realized we were going to Mexico, he gave the above folks (C&P) a call as they were to be in Playa Del Carmen (a separate island, just across from Cozumel) for part of the time that we were in Cozumel! Anyhow, they're from Norfolk, VA area - and we managed to schedule dinner with them! Imagine meeting people for the first time who typically live only 3 (or so) hours away from you, over 1000 miles away in Mexico! :) We had a lovely dinner and evening together, before they hopped on the ferry to go back to Playa Del Carmen.

Last sunset, final evening in Mexico ~

Needless to say, we had a wonderful trip! A special thanks to K&L and B&A for sharing the week with us!

Happiness is a Warm Kitteh Blanket

2011-04-05T07:16:00.007+12:00

So this is a bit of a departure from my tradition of (letting) Marissa do all the blog posts, but I couldn't resist posting these pictures of our surgically improved kitteh.

I say surgically improved because Dozer underwent his second FHO surgery (is that redundant?) this last week to remove the degraded (and broken) ball joint on his right hip. The Dr. said this is a hereditary condition that strikes (mostly) young male cats when the ball joint atrophies, becomes pitted and brittle, and then breaks. Once the FHO has been performed on both hips, the disease doesn't seem to affect other joints and the afflicted party is expected to live out the rest of their days normally.

Needless to say, with the femoral head and neck excised (leaving Dozer without a hip joint), walking can be pretty difficult for a while as he builds up the necessary muscle to replace the need of a joint. So, last night in a trip to the rest-box, Mr. Dozer had a little accident trying to make it in time. After Mommy cleaned the floor this morning, Daddy washed his favorite blanket and in the pictures below, you can see a VERY happy kitteh burying his nose into his favorite, warm-out-of-the-dryer blanket and giving it a gentle massage. As you look at the picture, try to imagine a very faint, stuttering purr coming from the poor little cat - maybe only his second purr since coming home in almost a week now (he did purr once last week very briefly when Mommy washed his blankie the first time). As I went upstairs to upload the pictures, it occurred to me that I could video his happy moment and post that. Too late, the moment had passed and all I received was a glare and the annoyed, cautious stare of a cat wondering what other horrible things I was planning on doing to him. Since that is his normal look, I decided not to take any further pictures or video...

HAPPY CAT!

He's getting further into it here with the nose pushed into the blanket and his little claws starting to work the material.

A closer look at the damage. He's also got a couple of shaved spots higher on his body where the IV and body systems monitors were attached.

The Patient's Recovery Room

The NON-Birthday Party!

2011-04-03T12:42:00.009+12:00

The K part of our friends K&L reached another one-year mark of living. However, he's not much into celebrating, so L had a NON-birthday party for him! Another friend of ours had also recently reached her one-year milestone so they (didn't) celebrate together! :)
Menu:
Kabobs~
Fruit! (S. made a delish taco dip too that I missed taking a photo of!)
Pinwheels~
Goat cheese, crackers n' craisins... MMM~
Amazing Thai dish~
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars~
And of course... a non-birthday cheesecake! :)
The evening non-celebrations:
We talked...
...and talked... (this is J., husband of S., the other non-birthday celebrator, whom I failed to photograph! Shame on me.)
Clearly the boys favorite past-time is talking! Non-birthday boy, K~
K., sweet son of J&S. I missed getting a photo of his sis tho! She had a beautiful skirt on that mama S. had made that day for her. Shame on me, twice!
Miss Lizzy even graced us with her presence. :)
Our hosts, K&L & Miss L~
We played Guesstures... always entertaining when Peter is acting!! :)
Floor? Carpet? Down?
Teacup?
We had a great time (not) celebrating! As always, the food was delish and the company was top-notch! Happy non-birthday K & S!

RE-POST: Vegas to Vancouver

2011-04-03T12:31:00.004+12:00

The last time I posted this blog, it messed with my HTML and made my sidebar appear at the bottom... so here I am trying it a second time!

My dear hubby came home with some photos to journal his travels!! He spent 4 days in Vegas at a COMSEC conference (and hanging out til' the wee hours with my brofus) and the remainder of his time with his family in Vancouver, WA.
I think his favorite part of Vegas was this:
(ohhh, how I miss In-N-Out!)
Sweet picture of his parents in their new home:
His room while he stayed with them:
I thought this one was especially a nice photo of Daniel. :)
Sisters! T~
P~
S~Nieces! L~
J~
A&C with E
Sweet one~
Something was funny! :)
Wish I could have been there with the family, but I'm glad at least Peter was able to go. I'm also SO glad that he's home! I missed that man!

:-)

2011-03-25T00:45:00.001+12:00

Hubby's home! I am complete again! :-)

Quinoa Salad Recipe

2011-03-22T13:28:00.006+12:00

I've had some requests for the Quinoa Salad that was photographed as part of the Baby Shower menu. 100% of the credit goes to my dear friend, L - it's her delicious creation! She puts a new spin on it every time, but here is her basic recipe:

Prep Time: 2.5 hours
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ready In: 3 hours

Servings: 20

Original Recipe Yield about 4 quarts

Ingredients

Salad:

2 1/2 cups Quinoa, rinsed
5 cups water
4 small Cucumbers, sliced and halved
1 pint Grape Tomatoes, halved
1 Red Bell Pepper, diced
1/2 Green bell Pepper, diced
1/2 Yellow Bell Pepper, diced
1 cup Kalamata Olives, quartered or halved
8 oz Feta cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup Fresh Parsley, chopped
3 green onions, sliced
1/8 cup Fresh Basil, chopped

Dressing:

3 Tbsp Lemon juice
7 Tbsp Olive oil
2 t. agave or honey
1 T. deli or regular mustard
2 t. dried oregano
2 t. dried basil
3 t. garlic powder
salt and pepper

Directions:

Boil water and add quinoa grains. Cook until germ on grains "pop" and water is all used. (Basically cook as directed on package.) Once grains are cooked, cool them to room temperature.
Add to the cooled grains the rest of the salad ingredients; vegetables, cheese, olives, and herbs. Chill for at least a couple of hours or overnight.
For the dressing, in a separate bowl or jar add lemon juice, oil, mustard, agave and spices. Stir or shake until well combined. Note that you can vary the dressing as you desire - more or less spices, sugar instead of honey or agave, red wine vinegar instead of lemon juice, more dressing if you like it more heavily dressed, etc.; ultimately taste test and make sure you like it!
Just before serving the salad pour on the dressing and stir.

Footnotes:

This salad is fairly versatile. If you have other veggies feel free to add them. I've made the dressing with vinegar and I've made it with lemon or lime juice. I've added other spices at times and every time it turns out great. Just use what you like!

While the cat is away, the mice will play!

2011-03-20T13:36:00.006+12:00

I'm sitting here this evening... missing my dear hubby. He's been on the left coast for the past week. So, I thought I'd post some VERY random photos and thoughts that have crossed my mind since I've had much time to do... nothing! :)
**Disclosure - P. took the camera to the left coast with him, so most of these photos are horrid quality as they are via my phone**
Firstly, serious business. Our favorite little kitty has to have hip surgery again. :( It is the same diagnosis as last time. The problem is officially called "Physeal Dysplasia" and in his case is bilateral, or affecting both sides. Photo below of the x-ray - if you click on it hopefully you can read my very scientific comments.
And, while we're on the topic of surgery (oh, P. is gonna kill me for this). :-D
This photo is actually over three months old - Peter had sinus surgery in December. As you may already know, he survived and is alive and well. He'd be glad to tell you details if you're into that kind of gory-ness. :) (Love you hon!) ;-)
In just over a month I'm going to be laying on a beach that I suspect will look something like this:
And definitely scuba-diving - hopefully with some of these:
And most certainly lots of these:
In other news, my car was finally delivered this week. I'm so glad they got the paint color right this time. I'd hate to have to order a third...
Some of our friends took pity on single-ole' me and invited me for supper on Sunday. Homemade, from scratch Mexican food. Amazing.
Mmm. Has me salivating just thinking about it again. When I called and told P. what he was missing out on (hoping it would make him miss me, or at least the food I was eating!), he just reminded me that he had In-N-Out for lunch. Hmph.
One of the more hilarious events of the week... It obviously doesn't take much to entertain me when I'm home alone! Kitty thought he was being pretty sneaky in investigating the empty bag of chips... until he got his head stuck! HA!
Today I went to a lovely wedding of two of our friends out here. In no particular order are some photos of the festivities (remember, from my phone - not quality photos, but you'll get the gist of the event).
Sisters of the groom:
Menu - please note it was on Saturday, March 18th... wait, when WAS that???
Bride and Groom!
Mushroom Veloute (with an accent on the last e) ;-)
Potato Crusted Wild Bass:
Amish Chicken: (it rode up to my plate on horse and buggy)
Almond Sponge Cake:
T'was a beautiful wedding - very elegant. The food was amazing. The weather was gorgeous. Couldn't have asked for a much better day! Congrats to the Bride and Groom!
I s'pose that'll conclude my random thoughts for this evening. I best get some sleep before I turn into a pumpkin! Adios amigos!

Baby Shower!

2011-03-13T11:16:00.010+12:00

Today my friend Liesl and I hostess-ed :-) a baby shower! We had it at our place, for a friend of ours, Carol who's having her baby boy in about a month. The preparation was so FUN - I loved thinking about details and how things would look, work, flow, etc! It turned out wonderful. Here's a quick journal of the afternoon:
Safety-pins decorated for the buzz-word game~
The "cake" table. :) A diaper cake on the right and cake pops on the left. Carol's nursery theme is safari, so we tried to stick with that a bit throughout the party~ (Never-mind the drywall mud and tape in the background!)
A side view of the cake table presentation~
Gifts for the game winners~
Cake Pops! By far these were the hardest, most time-consuming, but most FUN part of the preparation! Liesl came to our house Friday afternoon to start the rolling, balling, refrigerating and dipping. I joined her after work and we decorated together!
Lions, Tigers and Bears, OH MY! :)
Sunflowers to brighten the table~
...What's a party without food?! We had a lovely spread... once I got over my fears of not having enough food I was able to enjoy it a bit too. :-)
Liesl's ever-famous Quinoa salad... my favorite!
Meat, cheese & olive skewers ~
Veggies~
Fruit~ (A ripe watermelon in the winter...? YEP! Score!)
Sweet A.S. and her baby~
J.N.
S., R., and E.
J. & J.T
S.K & B.L.
M.D. and R.L. - sorry I caught you with your mouths full... it's the only photo I have tho!
A.V.
K.V.
The lady of the hour!! Carol playing the game "What's that smell?"
A.V. and Liesl. :)

Liesl and I~
Sweet little K.
L.L. and the momma-to-be~
H.R.
We had a lovely afternoon... fun games, friends and lots of presents for the new baby.
Congrats Carol and James ~ we wish you and baby boy F. all the best!

Dry suit scuba certification

2011-03-07T09:06:00.002+12:00

A few weeks ago we temporarily lost connection with our brain cells and thought jumping into 38* water (twice!) would be a fun idea. Actually we signed up and PAID someone to LET us do this! (Insert sarcastic, "boy, you really got taken" comment here). In all reality, we were training for our dry-suit scuba certification, which I can proudly say, two VERY frigid dives later we have! :-)
First, we had to don some extremely unflattering matrix/ninja type apparel which would keep us (mostly) dry. Because, you certainly won't get cold if you're dry, right? Not true. :-) I have at minimum, five layers of clothing underneath my dry-suit. My body temperature was bearable during the dives, although my hands and face were fuh-reeeee-zing (they have direct contact with the H20). This photo was pre-dive #1. I didn't take any photos after the first dive as my fingers were too frozen to push any type of button!
Our instructor, Martin.
Not to brag or anything, but we're now Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Nitrox and Dry Suit certified! Ok, that WAS pretty shameless but really, wanna come dive with us? Join us in Cozumel in April for some amazing drift diving!

Master Bath Progress

2011-03-07T08:58:00.002+12:00

Hi folks. Time for an update, eh?
The huge jacuzzi tub has been set and plumbed. I'm really not a big bath-taker ...rest assured I do shower periodically ;-)... however this tub makes me think a bath wouldn't be so bad! We could almost have a hot tub party in our bathroom! :-) Hmm, maybe not such a good idea.
Shower drain, pan and curb are prepped:
Hot and cold water to the vanity (or rather, where the vanity WILL be ) are pulled:
The toilet is installed & functional (Whee, something works!)
Shower supply lines are pulled and hooked up:
Concrete board for shower surround in installed:
And that brings you up to speed to within the last 24 hours!! :) Hope you have a lovely Sunday and a wonderful week ahead!

Cupcakes!!

2011-02-13T16:05:00.002+12:00

Let me just say, I LOVE to bake... it is so relaxing to me. Today was the perfect day to make some fun, Valentiney cupcakes. :) I love how they turned out!!

Aren't they fun?! Hope you have a LOVE-ly Valentines Day!!

Advanced Open Water Scuba Certification!

2011-02-13T15:28:00.005+12:00

Last weekend P&I spent a whirlwind weekend in Florida! It was a 12 hour drive one-way... Oofta. We left home on Thursday night and returned back home early Monday morning (3am!) in time for work at 7am! :) The weekend was packed full, but we had a great time, made some new friends, and best of all we completed our advanced open water scuba certification!! Our diving was all done in some of Florida's freshwater springs - so refreshing! 73 degrees, consistently!
Here we are before our first dive... still warm. :)
Ready to dive!

Most of our certification was done in caverns. It was quite an experience! We both enjoyed it immensely although I was a bit more timid than Peter. The following photo is borrowed from one of our dive mates, Jay. Thanks Jay!
After the first dive, feeling a little queasy and cold, but happy!
Ginnie Springs, FL was our first dive site; we completed five dives here. :)
Isn't it beautiful?!

After Ginnie Springs, we went to Blue Grotto, another neat dive site! We didn't take any photos there unfortunately, but we completed two dives and then hopped onto the road for the long drive home!
Some of the Brown's were asking about what our diving was like so Peter wrote an email that I thought I'd share:

"How does it look and feel to be that deep... Good question.

In the Caribbean, you might have 100+ feet of visibility, so you can see all the way to the surface and it's pretty bright down at depth. You'll notice the shorter wavelength colors start to quickly filter out as you go deeper (reds first, quickly followed by orange and yellows). Green, blue, indigo and violet remain the longest. Imagine looking through a big blue filter - that gets bigger as you go deeper. Cool little science project here about it. While the process is of colors interesting, it is all VERY pretty and you (or at least me) rarely notice the change.

In the caverns in Florida, we had very good visibility - probably almost as good as the Caribbean since it is fresh water and has less particulates (other than some silt divers had kicked up off the bottom). Colors get filtered out the same as salt water, but being in a cavern adds the element of darkness - somewhat mitigated by your flashlight (I have a good one). :-) Oddly enough, the darkness didn't bother me much (maybe Marissa a bit more than me). One of my favorite parts of the whole trip was being back in the Blue Grotto cavern and being slightly negatively buoyant as I descended the shaft just flicking a fin left and right occasionally to dodge the limestone boulders as I went deeper. VERY serene and exciting at the same time. While not as much plant and animal life to look at, the freshwater dives were still very interesting.

Back to the feeling... Once you are comfortable with your gear and have your buoyancy dialed in, you feel kind of like this weightless foreign observer looking into another planet's world (and you really are). I think it feels more like your own world too as you get more bottom time.

We aren't fast divers. We dive slowly and try to concentrate on the small things in front of us, the nooks and crannies, and the dark corners. Marissa is really good at noticing all the different sea life. A lot of the fun in diving is finding something neat and pointing it out to your dive buddies. (This almost never happens to me - the finding part - in fact, I think if I DID see something really cool I would keep it to myself and not tell anyone until we got back to the shore - 'cuz I'm kinda jealous of everyone else. It hasn't happened yet, so I'm not sure what I would do...) It doesn't take much skill to see a whale shark (although still very exciting), but to notice a little sea horse, frog fish, eel, or octopus takes good eyes and attention. You won't see them if you're moving very quickly. Even in fresh water, it is amazing how much there is to see if you are willing to pause and watch for a while. Night dives have even more activity! Float and watch - a LOT more fun than it may sound... Try a resort dive sometime and see for yourself. :-)"

I should have him write this blog!! He's far more entertaining than I am. :)

Master Bath Update

2011-02-13T15:16:00.005+12:00

Remember this post?? Well... despite my lack of blogging, progress still has been made!!! Fortunately things don't stop just because I fall behind on blogging. :-)
Here's a rundown of what has been accomplished:
A pocket door was installed~
The new bathtub area was framed in~
The exterior side of this wall got the drywall patched~
The floor started being laid~ (and it is breathtakingly beautiful!)
Plumbing was roughed in ~
Flooring was finished!

And the shower (to the left in this photo) was framed in.
Isn't it amazing!? :) Isn't my HUSBAND amazing?! That's ALL his handy-work!

Monster Jam!

2011-02-13T15:12:00.003+12:00

A few weeks ago P & I spent a fun evening at the Monster Truck Jam... I think it was therapeutic, although some earphones would have been a good idea! :)
Usn's
The all-famous "Grave-Digger"

T'was a fun, LOUD evening!

Master Bath DEMOLITION!

2011-01-10T14:37:00.006+12:00

(and a few other things)
P. rebuilt and replaced the crawlspace access door in my closet... no more drafty, cold, gappy sheet of drywall! Yahoo!
And finally... our last BIG project is underway!! Here are a few BEFORE pictures - please excuse the very messy counters. I promise when we have a nice, pretty, new bathroom I will keep it tidier. :)
View as you walk in the door from the bedroom:
Left side view from entry door: (WHY would you put shutters above the tub??)
View from the corner of the tub:
The privy:
View from the bedroom... again WHY shutters??
Shutters... GONE! The first big improvement! :) This will be a solid wall eventually and the vanity will be on this wall instead of the tub. Make sense?
Tub's out!
Inspector Dozer checkin' things out.
Another wall bites the dust! The shower will be extended into this wall space giving us about an extra 12" of shower space!
Shower's gone! Tile's gone!
Vanity's out!
Toilet's gone!
Linoleum (which was under the tile) is up~
New sliding door is installed! This will hugely help with space since we won't have to worry about the swing radius.
That brings you up to speed! We have a beautiful corner jacuzzi tub sitting in the garage right now and the AMAZING vanity is supposed to be delivered on Tuesday!!!!! :)

I know it's been too long since I've blogged, when...

2011-01-10T13:26:00.007+12:00

... the last time I uploaded photos from my camera was 3 weeks ago!! Sorry about that folks!

We spent Christmas this year with K&L at their place. I don't know what we'd do without them!
L's momma sent this cute little tree, and she scored quite a few other goodies from her family and friends back home. L & I exchanged stockings this year: t'was much fun!
Sweet Lizzy~
Opening our presents!
K's contribution to my stocking. :)
Mom sent me a cinnamon roll recipe, which I baked for dessert...
...as if we didn't already have enough food!! Can you believe there were only four of us?! Oink, Oink.
Okay, we just might have over-done it with the eats... but isn't that what the Holidays are for? :)
...Mmm... Certain to cause cavities AND clog your arteries. :)
Frostin' the cinnies!
Finished product. It took 5 days to polish off that pan, but we sure did it! :)
After meeting on Sunday we went down to some new friends, J&S and kiddos with K&L to play some games... and eat some more! Isn't it interesting (or maybe sad?) that all of our good memories revolve around food??!
L, S & I decorated gingerbread houses with the kiddos -
- While the boys played a board game called 'Epidemic'. -
All in all, it was a perfect Holiday weekend. Going back to the real world on Monday was a bit difficult, but now we're looking forward to family visits this year (hopefully, hint hint!) and another tropical scuba vacation with K&L mid-year. Happy 2011 to YOU!

Christmas 2010!

2010-12-26T02:14:00.002+12:00

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!
Sending hugs and holiday happiness to you!

5 Year Anniversary Weekend

2010-12-06T09:53:00.007+12:00

This weekend my dear hubby and I headed off to Annapolis, MD for a short jaunt away to celebrate our 5th wedding Anniversary! It was pretty cold and windy, but we had a nice time & enjoyed relaxing and catching up on some sleep! :)
Maryland Inn - the oldest Inn in Maryland... there's a shot further away, later.
There's a US Naval Academy in Annapolis which you can tour, but I forgot my ID so we couldn't go through it.
Water scene~
Someday maybe we'll have one of these for a vacation home... :)
The highlight of the trip was a Segway tour we took of the town. It was completely last minute, and unplanned, but they fit us into the 3:00 tour and we had a blast! It was neat to get the historical tour of the town. An added bonus was that we got it 1/2 price too!! The Segways are SO fun to ride!
John Paul Jones is buried here (these are US Navy grounds)
St. Johns College
Maryland State House
Maryland Inn - Again. :)
The smallest house in Annapolis - this used to be an alley-way. There was a dispute between the husband and wife who owned the house to the left, so while one of them was away the other had this "house" built. So the story goes anyway. :)
Sorry for some fuzzy photos - we were pretty shaky during our Segway tour as we were SOO cold! :)
Here's to 60 more happy years!

Project Staus(es)

2010-11-27T14:24:00.006+12:00

Exterior painting... Done! :) Well, 'cept trim. Minor detail, right?
We spent that last few weeks re-doing the guest bath. Remember this post? In less than 10 days it went from the following two pictures to what you will find further below. :):) We had a bit of a "must-be-done-by-date" as we have company all this week for the Thanksgiving holiday! Although we wouldn't mind sharing a bathroom, it is just so much more convenient for our guests to have their own. :)
Bathroom BEFORE...
20+ year-old cabinet, barely-flushable toilet with oak (NASTY) toilet seat, plastic towel bar, gross, bland tile with un-matching dark gray grout:
Moldy shower grout, scratched tub, old shower bar...
New tub walls braced. We bought a kit from Lowes... and now we have no more grout to scrub!!!! I love it!
Peter flew right through the flooring; it looks great too!
New toilet! (who knew this would be so exciting?!?)
Kitty inspects the new cherry cabinet...
And...
Dun
Dun
Dun
DUN...
The mostly done, fully functional but details-still-need-to-be-finished guest bathroom! We have lots of drywall patching to do, but for now it works for our company! :) And I LOVE the way it's all turned out. We flipped this project from functional to completely demo'd to functional again in less than 10 days... not bad! :)
As always, I still have plenty of painting to do, so a full reveal will come later, but this gives you an idea of how it has changed up til' now!

DC sunset

2010-11-27T13:51:00.002+12:00

Tonight we had a lovely stroll downtown with BB to see the sights.
~~We enjoyed a beautiful sunset~~

Come see?

Thanksgiving #24!

2010-11-27T03:47:00.006+12:00

This year was my 24th Thanksgiving... My sweet hubby brought these Happy Birthday flowers home with him on Wednesday. :)
We had dear friends K&L over for Thanksgiving and good buddy BB from the West Coast joined us too! It was a lovely day with wonderful friends!
Our tablescape:

BB makin' us Thanksgiving morning pancakes... From scratch. I think we'll invite him back! He seems to have made pretty good buddy's with Dozer too. He discovered that finger licks of butter will make friends pretty quick. :)
How the turkey started... the photo in the background was what our turkey was s'posed to look like. :)
Brined, buttered and basted. Stuffed with lemons, oranges, onions and LOTS of fresh herbs. The butter rub had crushed rosemary and sage with lemon zest mixed in too.
Mom sent me Grandma Ramey's potato roll recipe...
Our turkey turned out beautiful!! And delish!!! I will definitely use this recipe again!!
Sweet potato casserole in the back w/Gram's rolls in front.
My sweet hubby carving the turkey ~
Green bean casserole!! My MOST favorite dish!! :)
L. made creamy mashed potatoes and some seriously yummy gravy from the turkey drippin's. We wondered if the citrus in the turkey would make for some odd tasking gravy... but no! It was amazing!
Plate full of goodness! My eyes were a bit more zealous than my stomach tho. :)
L. also made homemade cranberry sauce which was awesome! I failed to photograph it though... :(
Stuff-t
L's Pecan Pie, my Blueberry Cheesecake and L's Pumpkin Pie! We had no shortage of sweets!
My first cheesecake ever that didn't crack! I used this recipe.
Hope you had a wonderful day too! We're so glad that although our family is so far away, we have such sweet friends close by to share these days with!!

Today's progress

2010-11-12T14:43:00.002+12:00

Guess what got painted today?!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know what that means??? The main color on the house is done! Time for me to get busy with the trim now!

Guest Bath re-do

2010-11-12T03:03:00.005+12:00

We (Peter mostly!) have been knee deep in the guest bathroom re-do! Last week he tore out all the existing stuff...
Under the tile was some delicious linoleum. We pondered keeping it for a half-second. Not.
The studs had a little bit of mold, but we were actually pleasantly surprised by how dry it all was!

Clean slate, with new PEX plumbed in! Now the master bath (next and last BIG project!) is the only room with the PB plumbing in it!
This picture is mostly for Wes' benefit. Peter had to work with some copper pipe for a bit, so he brought the bar-b-que propane tank up to use to solder. :) Hah.
Deep in plumbing thoughts... you know, drains, P-traps, hot and cold water connections, etc. The hot-water valve was faulty on this new piece we bought, (which we found out after it was all installed, bah!) so P. called the manufacturer and they over-nighted (!!) a new valve to us. Wasn't that nice of them? We'll be buying Moen products from now on, thankyouverymuch. :)
New tub in!!!
That catches me up on blogging, and you up on our house progress!! Happy Veteran's Day!

Paint preview

2010-11-12T02:58:00.003+12:00

The weather has cooled down a bit, so we've been delayed in finishing the paint on the back side of the house - but I thought I'd give you a preview of how it looks right now. The trim will eventually be all cream - that will bring a bit more contrast to the green once that's all done. We're debating whether to paint the vertical batten pieces cream also - what do you think? We'll probably do it on one side first to see how it looks...