Retirement

I don't suspect anybody checks this space any longer... but if so - I figured I better post so you can stop getting your hopes up, waiting for a new post!

UsBrowns + Dozer is entering into retirement (or maybe I should just acknowledge it's BEEN in retirement for about 7 months now!).  :-)

It's no secret that the internet connection on our tiny spot on the map is s.l.o.w..  I've found that uploading photos to Facebook is much easier and much faster, so that's the venue I've chosen, at least for our time on Kwaj.

SO........... if you'd like to keep up with our "goings on", find and friend me on Facebook!  If you don't have Facebook, you can easily create a profile that is hidden from everyone and use it just to view photos.  :-)

Cheerio, Ciao, Sayonara, 'til we meet again!
~p, m & doz

Valentine's Day dinner

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

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

Ready for guests!

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

Our menu:

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

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

Dessert:

White Chocolate... 

Oreo Cookie Crust... 

Raspberry... 

...Swirled Cheesecake!  

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

The Dewaruci visits Kwaj: Operation Sail 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

The big-wigs meeting room

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

Captain's Mess Hall 

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

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

Pictures!

Hi friends!

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

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

Thanks!
~m

Photos from our quick trip home to Portland

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...

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

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...

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.