Bird of Paradise

Look what I found growing along the cliff in my backyard!



This is where I go to a yoga class on Wed nights. Beautiful isn't it? Yes, it is December here.. sorry to everyone enduring the ice storms. We have yet to attempt the Bird of Paradise in this yoga class, but when I look at the one growing in the yard, I can see the resemblance to the pose.



Just for the record, my Bird of Paradise looks nothing like that link photo, but that photo is Anna Forrest, so it is not a fair comparison.

Tom in Pohnpei

Here are two pictures Tom sent from Pohnpei. Yes, that is him in the water in the second picture. I do not even want to know if he is as close to the edge of that waterfall as it looks!

Diving Picture

I just got this picture today from some friends we went diving with when Tom was home in October. That is me in the front, and Tommy swimming behind me. The picture is taken off Gab Gab Beach on the Navy Base. Pretty cool.



It is only a matter of days till he is home!!!

A Tropical Christmas Season

No pictures to share this week. I have been having some trouble with the SD card in my camera. Trouble, as in, my camera will not save pictures on it. I did go for a dive yesterday, a great easy dive near a tourist attraction where people go down with big bubble helmets on because they are not scuba divers. There were tons of fish!

I put up my Christmas tree today so that it will be up when Tom gets home next week. I discovered in doing so that I only brought my tree and the tree decorations and nothing else aside from some Christmas placemats. I suppose that in the rush of moving, it seemed silly to bring it all to Guam... Similarly, it appears that I also decided it was a better idea to store wrapping paper for two years rather than bring it to Guam. Honestly, I just do not want to see what comes out of that storage move when we get all of our stuff back. In any case, if you are wondering, Christmas in the tropics is just not Christmasy. This year should be better than the one I spend patroling outside Honolulu Harbor at least.

We had some difficult news this week. Tom's Grandmom is unwell and in the hospital. He is still underway, but has been able to talk to both his Mom and Grandmom, and she is doing better now. It is very hard to be many thousands of miles away when things like this happen, not to mention thousands of miles away and floating around the Pacific. She is in our thoughts and prayers, and ask my readers to keep her in theirs also.

I want to wish a very Happy First Birthday to one little Mister Robinson Meuse. I can not believe he is a year old already.

I will get some pictures up soon. I promise.

Oh, that Tommy...

I thought everyone would appreciate the following story, relayed to me this evening by Tom on the phone. The story will be particulary amusing to those of you who know his long history of losing wallets etc.

The ship is currently at a small atoll in the middle of the Pacific (I will not say which one, since I do not want to violate OPSEC, especially since Tom is the XO, and I can not even claim ignorance of such things). There is very little development except on the main island where the ship ties up. The locals live on neighboring islands and commute via ferry to work and shop for supplies on the main island. That should pretty much set the scene for you. I do realize that most people have not been to obscure atolls in the middle of the Pacific, and it is hard to picture if you have never been there, so here are pictures of two different atolls:




So, today, Tom went to the local "thrift shop" where they reportedly sell a variety of odd things. He bought several books for a fee ranging between $.25 and $1.00. As he returned to the ship, he realized that he had left his sunglasses on the counter, and turned around to go back. He returned to the store a few minutes later, and asked about his sunglasses. The two women at the counter seemed dismayed, and told him that they had just sold his sunglasses to a local woman on her way to the ferry. Now, Tom's sunglasses are prescription sunglasses, and were not exactly cheap. He informed the ladies of this, and they replied that the sold the glasses for $2.00, along with the very nice case he had them in for $1.00.

There is very little chance that the sunglasses will be returned since:
1. The woman does not live on the main island, and
2. The shop is only open when the volunteers work, and there are no posted or expected hours.

Tom's theory is that the woman stepped onto the ferry in the glaring late afternoon sun, pulled out her new sunglasses, put them on and decided that they made her head feel funny, so she threw them overboard.

So, that puts the thrift shop up $3.00 and us down $200.00 or so. C'est la vie.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I was in Hawaii this past week at another conference. I got back last night, Thanksgiving here. So, I spent my Thanksgiving crossing the International Dateline... However, my neighbors are celebrating Thanksgiving today because of some trouble which called for a hospital visit for their two year old yesterday, so I will be joining them for dinner later on today.

I had a nice time in Hawaii. I was there for four days, and spent the time I was not working revisiting some of my favorite places from when I lived there. The pictures are of Kailua beach (formerly known as Amy's beach) where I lived for two years and of the view of the Windward Side of Oahu from the Nu'uanu Pali Lookout. I had forgotten how breathtaking it really is there.





I wish I could be spending this holiday with family. I like Thanksgiving, because it is really all about being grateful for the people you love and being surrounded with family and friends. I have spent a lot of holidays away from family, some by choice and some not by choice. I was thinking today of all of my Thanksgivings since 1997. The first two (1998 and 1999), when I was on WIlLOW in RI, I took duty on the ship, so I could be sure of having Christmas off. My first Thanksgiving in Hawaii (2000), Tom flew out to visit me for the week.

Thanksgiving in 2001 was the first Holiday I spent with Tom's family. I flew in from Hawaii, we saw my family in PA for a few days, then went to NJ to have dinner at Tom's grandparents' house. Thanksgiving was their biggest holiday, Nanny and PopPop always threw a huge celebration for family and friends. It was not as big as when Tom was a kid, but the spirit was there. In 2002 and 2003 we drove from Seattle to Spokane to spend Thanksgiving with my brother Chris and his family.

Three years ago (2004) Tommy and I went on our honeymoon in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. In 2005 we had Thanksgiving with just the two of us at our house in New London, Carla came over for dessert. That was a nice, but I think we both missed being with more family and would have liked to be able to host our families at our house. We decided that we would spend either Christmas or Thanksgiving each year without traveling to see family, to establish our own traditions. Last year, we spent Thanksgiving at my sister Jennifer's house in PA. We traveled to Italy over Christmas, so Thanksgiving was for family.

That brings me to 2007. Thanksgiving was yesterday (or today, depending on your orientation to the Date Line). Thanksgiving 2007 was in an airplane, with my husband somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, my families in PA , NJ (or traveling for the holiday actually, I think), Chicago and Spokane, our friends spread all over the country and my heart with each and every one of you.

I believe it is important in life to be grateful for what you have and not long for what you don't have; to be in the moment and not live in the past or future; to be appreciative for the blessings of one's life. So, on this Thanksgiving, when I am far away from everyone I love, I want to say that what I am grateful for is that I know and love so many beautiful people, even if I can not be with you. My life is rich with friendship and love, and for that I thank you all.

Happy Thanksgiving.
love,
Amy

Snorkeling

I went snorkeling today at the Tumon Bay Preserve. I got some pictures to share. It is surprisingly difficult to take pictures underwater! I talked to Tom this weekend, the ship was in Kwajelein finishing up buoy work, and now they are back out in the middle of the Pacific somewhere. He did some diving on WWII wrecks while in Kwaj, so hopefully he will have some pictures too when he gets home.


This is the beach in Tumon, looking towards Two Lover's Point.



What kind of fish is THAT???


A sea urchin, this one came out sort of blurry, but I still like it. This makes a good arguement for why not to walk on the reef, not only does walking kill the coral, you could end up with this in your foot!


There is a really bright purple and yellow fish hiding in the coral here. He was hard to get a picture of, must be camera shy...



This shot gives you an idea of all the fishies under the water.



This guy looks like a painted clown. He was also elusive, but I got this one shot that came out pretty well.



People must feed these little blue guys, because they swam right up to me.



An action shot of Sylvester... he loves to play!


I went diving yesterday, but we were too deep for my camera. Hope you all enjoy the picutres!

Some more pictures

Some pictures that I had not gotten around to posting. The waterfall pics are from our hike to Tarzan Falls.




...and one of sunset from the pool at our house.

Travel

You may be saying to yourself..."I did not know there are giant redwoods in Guam!". Well, there are not redwoods in Guam. I spent last week in Alameda, CA. I flew in on Monday morning, and did not have an obligation until Tuesday, so I drove to Big Basin State Forest. Absolutely beautiful. It is healing to my soul to be among such old trees, ancient really. Here is a picture of the base of the treen known as the Mother of the Forest. It is the oldest and largest tree in the Basin. The second one is of two trees that are grown together, there were a lot of those in the forest.



I am back home in Guam, ready for more Guamanian adventures. Hopefully I will get out hiking or snorkeling or diving this weekend, and I will get some more pictures up for everyone. Tom is still gone, he will not be home until the middle of December. I am going to start going to a yoga studio tomorrow night. My goal is to have some new friends when Tom gets home.

I will get more pictures of Sylvester and put them up too. Everyone loves pictures of cats!

Gone Again...

I am back. Following a whirlwind almost three week stay at home for Tommy complete with diving, the new cat and the end of my big work project which honestly usurped every waking hour of last week (and most hours of the week before), I should be back to a more regular posting schedule. As I type, Sylvester has his nose between my hands, trying to figure out what I am doing on the keyboard. He is a very curious cat.

Tom's ship left today for a seven week trip. He is due back mid-December. We had a fun weekend before he left. We went diving again and also visited some tourist spots and new places on Guam. Unfortunately, my new camera decided to take a vacation and turn itself off every time I tried to take a picture... very disappointing! Don't worry though, I will figure out what is wrong with it, and be back in full picture posting force soon.

You know, it is amazing how there seem to be so many more hours in my day when Tommy is gone. It does not make sense, I am not sure where the time goes when he is home, but I do know that it becomes much harder to get online every day, and to do a lot of little things I am in the habit of doing when he is gone.

Anyway, I will be traveling to Alameda, CA next week for an After Action Report writing conference following TopOff4. Sounds exiting, doesn't it? Well, it is exciting to me because it means that TopOff is over!!! Hurray!

That is all for now, I will be back soon. I should send some more pictures of Sylvester. He actually carries his toy around the house lobbying to be played with.

Diving and Waterfalls

First, my apologies for not keeping up more with the blog this past week. Tom and I spent every evening last week at dive classes from 6pm until around 9:30 or so. It kept us busy, but we are now officially certified open water divers. We had our four open water dives in class on Friday and Sunday. It was amazing! I did not take my camera because we were learning skills, but we are diving next Sunday, and I promise to take pictures.

In other exciting news, we got a cat. His name is Sylvester. He is about a year and a half old, and he is very sweet. He is also very vocal, but hopefully he will stop that once he gets accustomed to his new home. Here is a picture of Tom and Sylvester. As you can see, he is very cuddly in the morning, before we are ready to get up.


In addition to the diving, we also went on a short hike to Tarzan Falls. The trailhead is just up the road from our house. It was a beautiful waterfall, but the trail was very muddy and somewhat steep.



I have more photos of the hike, but this is running really slow right now, so I am going to post these, and come back to it tomorrow.

Tommy's Home!

Hurray! Tom came home on Thursday night, a day earlier than expected. I had off on Friday, and we are enjoying our long weekend together. We start dive certification classes on Monday night, so soon we will be able to go out actually diving. Tom is pretty excited to get certified, because the ship will be going to some amazing dive sites during their next trip, and he will be able to dive and see things most people in the world never even dream of.

Anyway, I will post more soon, and get some pictures up, but I just wanted to let everyone know that Tom is home safe and sound. Oh, and we had some good news yesterday, we both were selected for Lieutenant Commander. So, in a little less than a year we will be promoted (one step closer to Forest City Distinguished Citizen for me!). Congrats to Joe Joe, Kelly in Va, Kelly in CT, Corinna and anyone else who might see this who I am not thinking of right now.

Snorkeling Adventure

This weekend, an area of the navy base which is not normally open for hiking was open. On Sunday, Tara, Liz & Roberto and I hiked down the ruins of the Spanish Steps to Orote Cove. The snorkeling was great. Here are a few pictures of the cove first.










Here are some underwater pictures from the snorkeling portion of the expedition. Some of them are little fuzzy, partly because I am still learning how to use the camera underwater, and partly because the tide was coming in pretty strong, making it hard to hold still and stirring up sand.

The pictures do give idea of the fish and corals under our tropical waters. The pictures of the orange and black clown fish peeking out of the sea anemone are pretty cute. Nemo, of "Finding Nemo" fame is a clown fish. The clown fish will actually come up to you if you hold still for long enough. They are curious little fishies! I also like the purple and green clams, I am not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the colors were almost psychadelic. The colors in general are very brilliant on the reef.

The brain coral were also amazing. There is a lot of life under the water, you would never even know about just from looking out at the view from above.































A picture of me snorkeling!


This last one is Liz and Roberto on the beach adjacent to the cove.



The trip today topped off an eventful weekend. I had hoped to have some pictures of my new cat to share on the blog... However, when I went to shelter to meet the cats and give one a home I got bitten on the hand. It was actually the one I was about to adopt. She was very friendly and came right up to me and rubbed against me. Then she bit me, hard enough to draw blood. Now, I am not a cat novice, I know when a cat is playing and accidentally plays to rough, and this cat intended to bite and hurt me.
So, needless to say, I came home without a furry companion. I have decided to wait until Tommy gets home and we can pick out a cat, or maybe even a kitten together. The experience has made me rethink my stance on getting a kitten. At least with a kitten, I can be pretty sure no one has mistreated it and made it mean. The whole ordeal made me sad and angry at cats in general... and really it just made me miss my sweet, loving Gizmo even more.

A little adventure

I got home from work today a little earlier than I have been, which meant that there was enough daylight left for me to go out for a walk. There is a water tank up the hill from our house, and a trail that leads into the hills from it. I went up there today, and took some pictures to share. The pictures probably would have come out better if it was sunny out, but at least is was fairly cool for my excursion up the hill due to the clouds.

Both of these pictures are the view to the southwest from the hill.



The view to the southeast.



As I was hiking, I noticed the breeze picking up, and looked over to the east to see the picture to the right coming my way. I think you can probably tell from the picture that a small rain storm was headed my way. I decided not to get caught in this one, and headed back down the hill home. The second photo is a cumulus cloud slightly seperate from the rain storm. One very cool thing out here is that at almost any time you can look at the sky and see all different cloud forms. I am going to keep my eye out for a nice big cumulonimbus cloud surrounded by blue sky out over the water to get a good shot of.


I got home just as the rain started, but had time to snap this shot of an unknown (to me at least) species of plant in my yard.

More to come soon.

Not so adventurous weekend

I am afraid that I am not living up to the blog title. I have not been so adventurous since I got back last week. That is partly due to the rainy season, I do not want to go out hiking, and get stuck at the bottom of a slippery, muddy mess, needing rescue. Now, that would be embarrassing.

So, I do not have much to report after the weekend. I went to a beach cleanup event on Saturday morning with some people from work. It was fun because they brought their puppy, and she was very cute playing with the kids at the beach. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I have no picture to share from that excursion.


I also went shopping and bought this very cool new chair. It is carved from a teak tree root. I think it is very unique, and it will be a surprise for Tommy when he gets home. I had to control myself and not buy two, although I still may go back and get another. The store also had a nice dining room table, made locally of monkey pod wood. I refrained from that one by reminding myself of the lovely oak dining room table we left in storage. I certainly do not need two of everything.

SEQUOIA will leave Honolulu tomorrow morning, and they should be home right at the end of September. We plan on getting certified to dive during that inport. Stand by for underwater pictures.

I also decided today that I am going to go the animal shelter and get a cat. I will get an adult cat, not a kitten. Kitten's are cute, but I am not home all day, and I would hate to leave the little thing alone all the time. Plus, as I learned from my neighbors in CT, sometimes, kittens are not all they are cracked up to be!

OK, I promise to have some more interesting adventures this week (and to take the camera along on the adventures). For now, I will leave you all with a picture of my kitchen. It is huge. I still miss the five burner gas range in CT, but this kitchen almost makes up for the electric stove top with all of the counter space. Honestly, 10 people could cook in this kitchen without bumping in to each other!

Home again

I am back home from my brief trip up to Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). It was a productive trip, but I am happy to be back. I have some pictures from the trip.
This is suicide cliff at the northern end of the island, so named because Japanese soldiers driven there by US forces jumped off the cliff rather than be captured.


Banzai Cliff. A similar story, but sadder. This was the sight of the deaths of many Japanese and Saipanese civilians who jumped to their deaths for fear of capture.


Saipan from the airplane.


Some clouds out over the ocean. This is the rainy season here, I will spare you all the meteorological lecture on why... at least for now.


Two pictures of Guam taken from the airplane as we approached.

And finally, a photo of the view from our balcony... lovely, isn't it?