Our Lives in Pictures

We just wrapped up MAMAPALOOZA here on Kwaj, and I have to tell you....my mom wasn't even here and I'm still exhausted. With that said it was tons of fun and we did so much, I've decided to let the pics speak for themselves. Leanne's mom and Amy's mom came to visit and each brought their friends with them for double the fun. We had lots of happy hours on the beach, book club, and cookouts to celebrate the mom's arrival on Kwaj. We finished off MAMAPALOOZA this past weekend with Swashbuckler's Ball. It's an annual party here on island where everyone dresses up like pirates and parties at the "yacht club." Our whole group put on our pirate finest and partied like in was 1492. It was a great way to end MAMAPALOOZA!! Here are lots of pics of what we've been up to this last week!

Hermit crab up close...I may or may not be terrified of these guys (by may not be I mean that I'm VERY scared of them)

There is a whole on the golf course that at night gets COVERED in hermit crabs...you literally cannot walk without stepping on one of these suckers

This was the group that went to check it out...I was not a fan of crabs crawling on my so I was doing lots of high-stepping to keep them off my toes...please note everyone laughing at me

At the shrimp boil on the beach

The Spock's and the Page's created a beautiful shrimp boil on the beach for MAMAPALOOZA

We also had our ladies book club on the beach...we discussed House at Riverton...but mostly talked and drank wine...as we do :)

Our book club sunset

Our basket weaving class....lots of fun but I was very stressed most of the time...I'm not very "craftsy"-thats Jane next to me looking calm and like a basket weaving professional

Angela, Jane, Shelbi, and I with our finished baskets!

We had a great beach day at Coral Sands Beach

Paradise

Hard to tell, but this is an Eagle Ray with her babies just off shore...we saw her wings splashing around just off the beach

Our island family before Swashbuckler's Ball

So very classy pirate wenches :)

We have had so much fun these last 2 weeks, the mom's had a great time, and we did too! Now on to one of my favorite holidays...HALLOWEEN!

Anniversary dinner and other shenanigans

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a good weekend! We had a good weekend here, we got to see our new nephew and godson Matthew on FaceTime for the first time, as well as catch up with the whole McClellan clan and my family in Texas. Johnathon was also excited cause he got to go on another fishing trip and actually caught fish this time!

Johnathon holding one of their catches...Ohno tuna I think?! Either way it was sushi later

Nurse shark feeding frenzy...they wait at the marina for scraps from the fishermen that get discarded

Johnathon went out on our friends boat and they came back with some Ohno and Dogtooth tuna. Johanthon was pretty pumped because the last time he went fishing they got skunked :( Anyway while Johnathon and the boys were out fishing, Leanne and I were hard at work finding coconuts and playing practical jokes on Jerrod. Jerrod has been harassing me to take the position of Sportfishing club president. For the record, I went to 1 meeting for the sole purpose of free food, and to get my hands on some of the fishing club t-shirts. I have not actually gone fishing yet, and call me crazy but I think that is a necessary experience for the fishing club president to have under his/her belt. That has not deterred Jerrod in the slightest from trying to nominate me every chance he has. So while the boys were busy fishing, Leanne and I decided to play a harmless practical joke on Jerrod. We found a picture of Jerrod holding some fish and made a "VOTE FOR JERROD" flyer complete with angelfish borders, and put them on display all over Jerrod's back patio, and on all our friend's doors. Jerrod's wife Donna, caught us in the act, and was only too happy to suggest that we put flyers on all the guys bikes that were down at the marina, and to put a flyer at the help desk down at the fishing marina office. THANKS FOR THE TIPS DONNA!!! Not sure Jerrod found it as funny as we did, but the other guys enjoyed the flyers on there bikes, and informed me that they will be voting straight down the ticket...Jerrod English all the way for fishing club president. I think my work here is done. :)

After checking out the guys catch, Leanne and I capped off our afternoon by grabbing some coconuts that some of the island workers were cutting down from the trees. We were just gonna take some whole coconuts home to hack into with any old machete we had lying around, but the workers didn't seem to think we had it in us to break into one of those bad boys, so they sharpened a stick and opened them for us in about 5 seconds. I was impressed. I was just gonna bang mine on a rock 'till it opened. They seemed to have a better strategy, so who was I to stop them. Here is a picture of one of the workers breaking open a coconut:

The guy basically sharpened a stick and whacked the coconut on it till the outer peeling came off

Leanne gets all the credit for getting us the coconuts

Amy, Leanne, and I enjoying real coconut water

After our afternoon of practical jokes and coconut harvesting, Johnathon and I made some sushi and had a low-key movie night. Here are some pictures of our homemade sushi:

My roll

Johnathon's roll

Earlier in the week, Johnathon and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary...a little belated but still special. The island offers a dinner-on-the-beach night that you can reserve during the week. This was our first weekday night available so we reserved a surf and turf dinner on the beach. They set up a private area on the beach and wined and dined us while we enjoyed the beach at sunset. We were nervous our dinner might get rained out, but the rain held off and it was a perfect dinner, and perfect way to celebrate our first anniversary. We have had a very adventurous first year of marriage, from getting married in Michigan, to our honeymoon in Jamaica. We got a dog and moved to a small tropical island. We've done a lot, but we wouldn't have it any other way. Dinner on the beach was a great way to look back on our first year of marriage, and to look forward to all the good things to come. It was a great night.

View of Emon Beach from our dinner area

Sunset view

Me at dinner

surf and turf...yummy!

Happy 1st anniversary! xoxo

Spa day and a dinner party "sharing circle"

Hope everyone had a great weekend...Johnathon and I certainly did! Johnathon was feeling a little under the weather on Saturday so he took the day off work, which was a bonus for me cause I got to have my husband home for more than one day in a row. Johnathon hit the ground running at work and has only had one 2 day weekend since we got here, so I was ready for him to have some time off! We laid low all day, and I'd like to say that I nursed J back to health, but lets be honest...that man never lets me take care of him, or takes any of my healthcare advice. But what do I know...I'm only a nurse, right. Psh! Don't worry, I'm not bitter at all about this.

 Anyway, Johnathon was feeling better by the end of the day, so we went over to our friends Adam and Lindsey's house for their Oktoberfest/German party. Our friends Preston and Leanne came over too, and we were enjoying our German beers on the couch when Adam told us about their dinner party "ritual" they like to do. Now, Adam and Lindsey are quite the world travelers, so we really had no idea what kind of worldly party ritual they were about to throw our way, but we were down for it. Lindsey then asked us to sit on the floor in a circle and join hands. I stole a quick look at J who seemed as confused as I was, but everyone else was practically racing to get on the floor and join hands, so we went with it. Lindsey then asked us if we would like to share something about ourselves, but we were spared by Leanne spontaneously bursting into a sincere, and delightfully on key version of Kumbaya. It was at that moment that I was about to explain to our hosts that Johnathon's bought of Ebola was really coming back with a vengeance, but was cute short by everyone bursting out laughing and explaining that it was a big joke all along. Well played everyone... well played. The rest of the night was great, and thankfully less eventful. Lindsey made delicious German brats, cabbage, and German potato soup, and Leanne brought a German chocolate cake that I would like to say I resisted, but that would be a huge lie. It was amazing. Diet starts tomorrow. We finished out the evening with Yahtzee (i lost) and Cards Against Humanity (how can you lose when you play that game?).

 We had a very low key Sunday with some beach time logged. On Monday, J headed down to the boat yard to help the boys work on their boat, and I headed back over to Lindsey's house for a girls "spa day." There are no spa's on Kwaj so we pretty much have to improvise, but I have to say...our spa day was pretty legit. One of our friends Dawn is a masseuse and gave us all head and back massages that were to die for. We also set up pedicure/manicure and facial station downstairs. Of course I was so excited for spa day that I completely forgot my camera to document our day, but perhaps that's for the best. A room full of women three mimosa's in, wearing PJ's with facemasks on is probably best left undocumented. It was a great day with all the ladies and just what we needed.

Kwaj blog!

Hello all! So I completely dropped the ball this month as far as blogging goes. Once we finally got to Kwaj, I feel like we have been on the go non-stop and I haven't had a chance to blog. It also doesn't help that we have dial up internet in our houses, which means if you want any chance of being productive on the internet (read: stalking on facebook, online shopping) you have to "go into town" where there is wifi. My "in town" options for wifi are as follows:
THE BAKERY-this is nice because I can blog inside, but it also puts me within arms reach of pastries-not nice.
THE SNAKE PIT- It's as classy as it sounds. It's one of 2 bars on the island, and during the day it serves its dual purpose as internet cafe. downside-its outdoors, and I die of heat and humidity in the first 5 minutes.
THE ARC-This is a multipurpose classroom of sorts with a computer room and pool tables. Its indoors which is nice, and there is no real problem with it other than I tend to laugh out loud when I read emails and blogs, and its creepily quiet in there.

As you can see...my options are limited. Ah well, such is life. All in all, Kwaj has been great so far. Everyone here has been so welcoming, and have made sure we have everything we need. On our first night, some of our friends threw us a welcome party on the beach so we could meet everyone, and watch the famous Kwaj sunsets. It was a great way to start our adventure. Living on a tropical island definitely has its perks. I can walk out my front door, and be at the beach in 2 blocks. I am such a water baby, and I love that I can snorkel or hit the beach at a moments notice. Unfortunately, Sadie doesn't share our love for the beach. I put her paws in the water on one of our first nights here, and she froze and looked panicked until I physically had to move her out of the water. She does however like to investigate all the hermit crabs on the beach, and seems to have adjusted well to island life so far.

Kwaj really is a bit of a throw back to 50's style living. Residents don't drive, so we all commute on bicycles. My bike is bright yellow and has affectionately been dubbed "the big banana." The whole bike thing is great, minus the fact that it is the rainy season right now, and I have had many trips to the grocery store derailed by unexpected, typhoon-strength rainstorms that spring up from absolutely nowhere. The ladies here also entertain themselves with bingo nights every other Thursday. On my first trip to bingo, I had little expectations of the amount of fun I would have. I pictured a bunch of old ladies sitting around with their cards an inch from their faces trying to figure out if they, in fact, have a bingo. I was wildly off base. This is Kwaj bingo. First, its held at the Vet's Hall so you can drink while you play. Our bingo group also dresses for the occasion. I was gifted a subtle, classy silver chain with a $ sign on it, which apparently is our groups good luck necklace. So far I've been bingo-less wearing the necklace, but I look fly. There are also several Kwaj Bingo hats going around our table at any given moment. Turns out, our bingo table is "that table." While we have been known to get rowdy when anyone has 3 or more squares dotted out, the rest of the bingo crowd doesn't share our enthusiasm. We get "SSSHHHHHH'D!!!" quite often, but it doesn't keep us down long.

While I am busy with bingo, Johnathon got entered into a fishing tournament. All the ladies went down to the marina to see what the guys caught, and they came off the boat dragging there cooler, like it was sooooo heavy and filled with fish. Everyone gathered around for the big reveal AND.....goose egg. Nothing. Not even a minnow. I'm gonna go ahead and say it was a moral victory though, because nobody got seasick or sunburned. Success. Even though they didn't catch any fish, our friends Preston and Leanne had some left over from a previous catch and invited some of us over for a sushi party later in the week. After having fresh caught yellow-fin, I am completely ruined by any other kind of sushi, especially Dallas sushi. I have never had such fresh fish, and I'm sure will never be able to eat sushi state side again. We have done so much so far that I'm gonna have to split it up into many more blogs, but for now I will leave you with lots of pics of our adventure so far!

Us getting off the plane in Kwaj

First sunset on the beach

The Texas group enjoying the sunset

playing in the water

This doesn't even do it justice

View of the sunset from Emon Beach

Gorgeous

Home sweet home...we're the one with the broccoli spear in front of it :)

View down our street

View from Johnathon's commute to work

View of the neighborhood

Konichiwa Honolulu!

Hey everyone! So we finally made it to Kwajalein, and we are tired but so happy to be in our new home. We flew from Detroit to Dallas, then did an 8 hour flight from Dallas to Honolulu. We spent two and a half days in Honolulu then flew 5 hours to Majuro (the capital of the Marshall Islands), then another 1 hour flight to Kwajalein! Whew...I'm tired just recapping it all. Since we have done so much I'm gonna break up the blogs into a Hawaii blog and a Kwaj arrival blog.

We only had 2 and a half days to stay in Honolulu so we were determined to make the most of it! By the time we arrived in Honolulu we had been up for about 18 hours, and then had to deal with all of Sadie's quarantine paperwork at the airport before even getting to our hotel. In case anyone is thinking about shipping a dog internationally through Honolulu...don't. It was a huge pain, and when it came time to confirm that she was getting shipped to Kwajalein, the airline had her listed as going to HOUSTON in DECEMBER. No worries though, we finally got everything sorted out and I'm happy to report our dog made it safe and sound and didn't end up as someone's delicacy in Thailand, as were my fears.

We were also suprised at the number of Japanese tourists there. For being an American state we definitely felt like the minority. It definitely made people watching and walking anywhere interesting to say the least. There was all kinds of crazy outfits going on, and nobody walked on the right side of the street, so anytime you walked anywhere you had to dodge oncoming traffic or get knocked off the sidewalk. It made for interesting sightseeing, and we decided instead of saying Aloha to everyone you were better off saying Konichiwa!!

Anyway, we got to our hotel around 4 in the afternoon and desperately needed to eat, however, no restaurant was open in our hotel at the time (how is that possible?) so we ended up spending our first dinner in Honolulu at the famed local eatery...Panda Express. Depressing...yes. We did get to meet up with our friends Jon and Angela at their hotel for a free happy hour so all was not lost. We redeemed our second day by going to Waikiki Beach, then having the best dinner out at Roy's (Thanks Jones for the suggestions). Here are some pics of Waikiki and our dinner out.


Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head

More Waikiki Beach



Dinner at Roy's and our delicious drinks below

The next day we went and toured Pearl Harbor. That was the one stop I was determined to make while we were in Hawaii. We signed up for this all day tour because we heard it sells out quickly if you just show up the day of. Come to find out our tour left the hotel at 6am and spent the whole first half of the day picking up passengers from other hotels then driving around downtown Honolulu being shown historic sights, such as President Obama's elementary school and where our tour guide's daughter had her second marriage. It were these secret stops that were really hoping to see. Finally, we did get to Pearl Harbor, and the tour was very cool. We first rode over to Ford Island and saw the airstrip that Amelia Earhart crash landed on and were Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck took off from in Pearl Harbor the movie :) Then we got to tour the USS Missouri. That's the battleship where the Japanese surrendered in WWII and where Tomahawk missiles were fired during the first Gulf War. I have to say, I was suprised by how big battleships are. I thought because I'd seen so many pictures that I knew what to expect, but the battleship was bigger and cooler than anything I could have imagined. The Missouri was stationed on what was "battleship row" and right behind where the USS Arizona sunk, so you could really imagine what all the ships looked like moored there at the time, and how horrifying it must have looked when they were sinking. We got to board the Missouri and stand on the deck where the treaty with Japan was signed. We sat on the bridge and saw lots of seriously big guns. Very, very cool. After the battleship we toured the Pearl Harbor museum that had live footage from the day of the bombing and a real Japanese torpedo discovered in the harbor after the bombing. Our last stop was supposed to be taking a boat out to the USS Arizona memorial, but the winds picked up and the navy closed the tour out of safety concerns. We were pretty disappointed we didn't get to go to the memorial, but we got lots of good pictures, and we plan on going back when we pass through Hawaii again. Here are lots of pictures from the USS Missouri and of the Pearl Harbor memorial.

 Me with some very large guns!

 View of the USS Arizona memorial from the deck of the Missouri

 Me checking out Pearl Harbor

 Deck where the peace treaty with the Japanese was signed

 Actual spot of the signing...

 View from the Bridge of the USS Missouri

 Johnathon on the Bridge

 Me in the control seat :)

 Our attempt at recreating the "Wars End Kiss" the matching outfits was an added bonus!

 The USS Missouri and the USS Arizona memorial

 The USS Bowfin submarine

I found the Marshall Islands on the map!

For some reason the computer wouldn't let me enlarge the photos so I will have to add the bigger versions to Facebook! Sorry mom :) Next up...our first Kwaj Blog!