Baking Diary

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?!

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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!

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!

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!!

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...

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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!

 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!

Safe n' sound! 

8 days!

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!