Potluck

I have a huge kitchen which is underutilized about 90% of the time, especially since I generally cook for just the two of us, or often, just myself. I hosted a potluck dinner last night for wives from the ship and some other friends. It is nice to see the kitchen utilized to it's fullest potential.

Everyone always ends up in the kitchen anyway so it is nice to have a kitchen that accomodates lots of people.

The theme was to bring a dish from your heritage. I made hasluski (cabbage and noodles) which is from my ethnic and NEPA heritage and a yummy desert from a new recipe I found online (not actually my heritage, but amazing). All of the food was so good, we had Puerto Rican, Peruvian, Korean, Mexican, Italian, Southern, Mid-western, Polish and Slovak dishes.
Here is a shot of my cake:

This cake was very easy and so delicious. It actually tastes like Turkey Hill cookies and cream ice cream (tempting Jennifer?). It really does. It is a dangerous cake, thank goodness I waited until I had other people to share it with before trying the recipe, or I may have eaten the entire thing myself, and considering the ingredients it is a VERY good thing I could not eat the whole thing myself.

Mount LamLam

Hooray for hiking success!!!

I was able to convince Amy to hike with me again today. She is slightly distrustful of my hike-leading ability following a few stories of failed hikes. None of those are really my fault though, it is the trails in Guam.

Anyway, we hiked to Mount LamLam, the highest point on Guam, today. At first we had a hard time finding the supposed trail junction with the trail to another peak, but I found it, and we made it to the top!

It was a fun hike - and now, I may take a nap.

Cave and Kitchen Adventures

This was a fairly uneventful week and weekend. Today, I went hiking to the underground cave/swimming "pool" at Pagat Point with a friend. I don't have picutures because of the water, but maybe I will work something out the next time I go there.

Yesterday there was a sizable fire across the island which filled the air at my house with smoke and floating ash. Today, the fire seemed smaller but closer. For anyone who did not know already, not only does Guam suffer from occasional typhoons, regular earthquakes and persistant hot hot hot weather, we also have grass fires in the dry season. Fun.

I did not really want to spend time outside yesterday with the smoke, so I embarked on an adventure in the kitchen. I decided to make pierogis. The inspiration for this adventure was a combination of reading too much of a food blog online and an honest craving for homemade pierogis, like we have in back home in NEPA.

Some of them looked decent, and some of them didn't. I will only show you a good looking one. However, they tasted fine, but just not right. Not the exact taste I was hoping for. Ah, well, it was my first try at homemade pierogis, and now I have many of them in my freezer. Who knows, maybe they taste better when I have not spent almost two hours making them... even though the recipe said 45min.

In other news, I have started training for the 2.5 mile ocean swim from a small island off Guam, back to Guam. The race is at the end of May, and I think it will be fun. My training parter and I swam for an hour on Friday, and that was probably the longest I have swum (swam?) continuously in a long time. I will keep you posted on my progress!

Just for good measure, and especially for Katie, who likes to see picture with me actually in them (as opposed to behind the camera), here is a picture from our accidental overnight hike a couple months ago. There are several more over on Flicker, including a few shots of the luxury accomodations we stayed in.

The short version of the story is this: We (Tom, Steve and I) shuttled cars to achieve a one way full-day hike, the book got dropped off the side of the mountain, the trails in Guam are notoriously poorly marked, we hiked in what now seems like the wrong direction for hours, most likely on a pig trail (yes, I said pig trail), it got late, we decided to sleep in an abandoned old radio tower shack (to avoid getting more lost), at first light we found a trail and it took us roughly 20 min to hike out - to a road that was many many miles from where we parked a car, a friend picked us up, end of short version.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. Today is Easter here, although not for most of you yet. I have to say, one thing I am looking forward to about moving to DC is being in a resonable time zone!

I am having a few people over for brunch this morning, and going to a potluck this evening with other wives from SEQUOIA. Hopefully my brunch dishes will come out well, and if they don't look great, at least taste good!

I made some muffins last night and am making french toast baked in honey pecan sauce, and baked eggs in tomato sauce with multi-grain toast to please both sweet and savory breakfast eaters. I resisted the temptation to make potatoes and other sides.

Here is a picture of the muffins - I am experimenting with taking photos of food!



I adapted a recipe for basic wheat muffins, and did some with blueberries on top and some with blackberries. I am pretty happy with how they came out. They are somewhat dense and not too sweet. I like them, I hope my guests do too!

Manta Rays from Pohnpei

I finally located the photos another diver sent me from when we dove with the Mantas in Pohnpei.

It looks like I am touching them, but I am not!

Ski Japan!

A few weeks ago we took a trip to Japan to go skiing. The scenery was beautiful, the snow was fantastic, the mountain was not crowded, and the runs were long and fun. We had a great time Our hotel was right next to one of the gondola lifts. All we had to do was wake up, eat a huge buffet breakfast and stroll out the door and onto the gondola. As far as easy goes, it really does not get any better.





As you can tell, we had a great time. I have come to really like Japan. I recommend visiting there if you ever have the chance.

Washington D.C. Here We Come!

Tom and I both have our orders for our transfer this season. We are officially moving to Washington DC. Tom will be working at the Coast Guard Headquarters Command Center, and I will be working with the Department of Homeland Security. We are excited about moving closer to family and friends, and also a little apprehensive about trading the laid back island life for hectic DC. I am not sure if you can get any bigger of a change.

We will most likely be leaving Guam sometime in June and hopefully having the time to head to Australia and New Zealand on our way east.

I have a lot of pictures to update with from our adventures in the past couple of months. We spent a few days in Japan skiing, and the snow was fantastic. I never thought of Japan as a ski destination, but we had some of the best snow, shortest lines and most fun runs of anyplace we have skied before. We really enjoyed it. Actually, I just really like Japan. Even though a few months ago I would not have had Japan on my travel list, we have had such a nice time each time we have been there, that I would encourage anyone to go to Japan if you have the chance.

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know the news, and let you know I am still here, just been dormant for a while.

Home Again

A gorgeous waterfall from our many hour journey deep into the jungle of Pohnpei:

This was the third of six waterfalls on the hike.

Tom and I have been home for a few days now, most of which have been spent doing a lot of nothing.  I suppose that is what happens when you spend every day of vacation diving, hiking and kayaking all day.  We did host a New Year's Eve party for about 20 people or so and we hiked to a place called Lost Pond yesterday.  

I put pictures from the trip on Flickr.  We really did have a wonderful time.  It was relaxing even though we did not take any days off from activities.  Here are a few highlights from the trip:

A much easier to access waterall - it entailed only about a five minute walk on a manicured path.


This rainbow greeted us when we walked to breakfast on Christmas morning.


A view of the Temple at Nan Madol from the canal.

Enjoy the pictures!