Merry Christmas

Our 1st Christmas in Kwajalein. The girls made out all right. Dwayne called and we opened presents while he was on the phone with us. It was really hard on him not to be here with us. He is normally a Christmas Freak. Loves Christmas and decorating but with us being gone he didn't get into the mood at all. It is kinda weird I normally don't get into Christmas but I let the girls go whole hog with the Christmas decorating I even did my office. Amazingly, I even won a $20 gift certificate for the best decorated office. We had decided early on that we wouldn't get a bunch of stuff for Christmas and would wait till we come back for the summer to celebrate all the holidays we missed. Dwayne sent the girls a $100 gift card each and an ITunes card, they got hoodies from all the animals, and I got them a shorts outfit which unfortunately will have to go back since the shorts are to small. Hopefully they have the next size up. :-) I made a honey ham, mac n'cheese, green beans & rolls. It turned out OK. Alyssa even got into the spirit and made an apple pie. It rained all day so we didn't get out of the house but it has turned off pretty today so we will go to the beach and lay out. Dwayne took his Mom to his brothers house for Christmas dinner. They said they had a good time. They had steak & shrimp which Dwayne said was OK cause it didn't really feel like Christmas without the girls. Well hope you all had a safe and merry Christmas no matter where you are.

Scuba Santa & Parade of Lights

Well Christmas is almost upon us. Having a hard time getting into the Christmas mood what with the weather a balmy 84 degrees everyday. Everyone calls it "Groundhog Day" everyday cause the days have a tendency to run together. A little rain in the morning and sunny 84 degrees everyday. Same day over and over.

Yesterday we had Santa come to the island again but this time he came as "Scuba Santa" everybody came out to watch for him. He came with his elves and a Christmas tree. It was a cool sight to watch him come up out of the water. I did not get the best picture as it was dark and everyone was trying to touch him. You should have seen the kids running out into the water to try and get to him. It was pretty cool. After Santa came then they had the Christmas Boat Parade of Lights. There were 7 boats with Christmas lights all over them and they went by out in the Lagoon. I am sorry that the pictures do not do them justice but so cool. It was a nice evening out by the water. It seemed everybody had come out and people were barbecuing and just having one big block party. If they don't do anything else they definitely know how to throw a party here.

Roi Namor Discovery Day

This is a yearly trek taken by the inhabitants of Kwaj. An opportunity to visit another place and for a charitable cause: The Enniburr Childrens Fund. Which supports the school on Enniburr which is a small poverty stricken island. The teachers sign a contract to come for one school year with only a small stippent to cover their expenses. Also as a way to collect money so the kids have Christmas they have the "Chili Cookoff". Contestants pay $20 to enter and the Judges pay $25 to judge the contest. I elected to be a judge for a good cause. Next year I think I will be a contestant cause I definitely make better Chili than I tasted at this cookoff. I even got the opportunity to taste Chili made with fish (YUCK). The day turned out to be beautiful but the ride over on the Catamaran was pretty rough and there was a bunch of sick folk on the way there and I am sure that after the amount of alcohol some put away while there it was rough on the way back. The trip took 3 hours each way so if you were having a rough time with the rocking and pitching of the boat it was a very long 3 hrs. I think next time I would rather go up the day before on the comuter plane. :-) Roi is the sister island to Kwajalein and is maintained by the US. As you can see it is very lovely!

Halloween & Monster Bash

Halloween is a big thing here and everyone seems to get into it. They even had to put a limitation on all the kids the come over from Ebeye (Island next to us) to participate. There were lots of cool costumes and plenty of kids and adults out on Halloween. Alyssa went as a vampire pirate, Beth went as a Rock'in Fairy and Nina was a Hobo. I was a Corpse/Bride. It started at 6:30 pm and was to end at 8:30 pm. I had bought 4 big bags and 3 smaller bags of candy which I thought would be enough but I was out of candy by 7:40 pm. Luckily I didn't have to turn away any small kids and only a few kids were left roaming the neighborhood by about 8 pm. Most of the kids I saw were the Marshallese kids with a few American mixed in there. Everyone had a good time and I saw plenty of bags heavy with candy. For the Adults there were two parties: (1) Swashbuckler Ball, where everyone dressed up as some kind of pirate (Ididn't go) or (2) the Monster Bash held at the Vets Club ( I did go). Had a good time (no one knew who I was till I talked to them). I didn't win any prizes but considering people had spent big money $200-$300 dollars I think mine was pretty good for $5.38. What do you think?

Shaving Cream Social

They have started the Halloween Celebration here. Last night they had the Teen Halloween Dance and the Shaving Cream Social. The girls did not want to go to the Dance but did participate in the Social. Here is a picture of all the kids and Beth with her friend Nina.

Manit Day

Here are pictures from last weekend. They had "Manit Day" to celebrate the Marshallese Heritage. It was pretty nice and the weather held out so there was a pretty nice turn out. I even got some cool shell earrings. This weekend there is suppose to be "Last Flight to Bali" which is were they get stuff in from Bali so I will definitely be going.

Alyssa's Sweet 16 Birthday Party

Alyssa got to celebrate her 16th birthday in Paradise. She decided to have her party at one of the beach pavillions at Emon Beach. She wanted just a few friends so we ordered the cake and had Subway make two of their family subs, cokes & chips. I believe they all had a good time especially the birthday girl and as you can see there was even a little dancing. :-)

My Turn!

HI! This is Alyssa and it's my turn to post some news on this thing! Ok first off I'm absolutely loving the fact I have my own room with my own stuff and posters and stuff! Even though I have the smaller room, it's okay because I don't have that much stuff yet! Anyways next week will be my "Sweet Sixteen" and I still crave a Mustang...oh well...I'll make do with my Hotwheels Mustang GTO in my room. I also have a group of friends now who like the same things I do. Even the whole Japan Anime and Manga! Plus to fix what my mother put on here, my schedule is as follows: US History I, French I, Art, Geometry, Lunch, Biology, Chemistry, and English 10. I now also have a life outside of school especially after school. I also volunteer at the Library here on Mondays! I'm also thinking about joining the community band and playing the Oboe again! Anyways that's it I think...if not oh well! Love ya'll! Talk to you later!

23 August 2008

I was invited to go on a fishing trip. One of the other ladies at work wanted to go but did not want to go alone (husband is not here yet) so she asked if I wanted to go. One of guys he supplies all the equipment and we just share the cost of the trip. We left about 1230 and got back around 1700. They were fishing by trolling. That's were they put out the lines and keep moving so we were able to see pretty much all of the Atoll. We even got classes on were the exits (passes) are to get from the lagoon to the ocean. Our 1st fish was a barracuda that was probably 10+ pounds but they released we of course don't eat but they said the Marshallese will eat anything if he had been a little bigger he would have ended up on some marshallese workers plate. The only other fish we caught was a 37 pound Wahoo or Ohno as they call them. We all got a hand at bringing him in and then the Captain of the trip took a bat and knocked him over the head till he was dead. After that he showed us his teeth and that pretty much covered why he used the bat. It was a beautiful day so we enjoyed the fresh sea air. After we returned the Captain fillet the fish and we all got us a gallon baggie of fish to take home and grill which the say is the best way to eat it. I am still waiting for my household goods so I will grill mine hopefully this weekend.

Start New School

The girls started at their new school on the 22nd of August. I received some positive feedback from both girls but in different ways. Beth was so excited at lunch that she said "She could not wait for the next day to begin." Alyssa was excited in a different way she said that she wanted to stay an extra year and graduate from here. They even have two classes together, Art and Biology. The Biology one is cause it seems that over here Biology is considered a 9th Grade Class but back in Wayne County it is a 10th. So Alyssa had to take the Biology either way but in order to catch up with the Students here she is also taking Chemistry. She does have a pretty serious load and Art is her only Elective by their standards. She ended up with World Geography, French I, Biology, Art, Chemistry, 10th Grade English, & Geometry. She should have been in AP English but since she is the only one they could not justify it but the teacher is suppose to give her additional stuff to keep her up so that when she comes back she'll be able to go back into AP English. The other nice thing about the High School is it is close enough for the girls to walk to and they are able to come home for lunch everyday. So I get to have lunch with them every day. P.S. Threw in a picture of the dome.

14 August 2008

Sorry about taking so long to put anything on our blog. We get free internet but it moves really, really slow so it is sometimes hard to get on the site. We are still waiting for our household goods to arrive they are saying with luck the barge will be here on the 27th. Everything is good at work. Everyone is basically new. The Sergeant Major and the Deputy Mission Commander have only been here about 2 months and the new Commander just got here on the 31st of July. I am suppose to be the Commander's Secretary but I end up taking care of the other two also since they have been unable to fill the Admin Asst job (GS-06).

The girls start school on August 22. I will be taking them to the school this afternoon to get them registered and find out what they will need to start out. Here is a picture of our dome home. :-)