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.

Kwajalein Island 4-1-1

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...

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 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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!

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

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

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!

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! :-)