Some of the greatest perks of living overseas (aside from the insane amount of frequent flier miles and great stories) are the eclectic items that lovingly find their way into your home. There are the giant fan and wall hangings we picked up in Singapore, the beautiful tapestries and dishes from Japan, the cool boomerang and wine holder from Australia, and now today, the awesome elephant lamp from Thailand. In all fairness, we haven't been to Thailand (yet), but I stumbled upon the coolest "Thai gift shop" in a little corner of Guam today. And there I found this guy:
I love him! I think he is so cool. And, he totally goes with our gorgeous tapestry our good friends Mark & Misa recently brought us from their trip to Thailand:
I love the detail on it -- truly amazing!
And, even the tapestry hanger is from Thailand - something I picked up at the AOSC gift shop last week. Thailand is on our short list of places to visit. Chris and I will hopefully be able to swing one more quick vacation before he leaves. I have a ridiculous amount of frequent flier miles, so we'll get to fly free to one of these spots. Cast your ballots!
Option a: Explore Thailand
Option B: Take in the history of some combination of Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos (which could involve this cruise ship!!!)
Yesterday's wine and cheese party was a hit. I made several cheesy appetizers and then cut (okay, Chris did most of the cutting - he rocks) another dozen types of cheeses. I found a great website for wine pairing and bought about 15 bottles of wine (and one box! Yes, cream cheese should be paired with White Zin. Classy!). 10 1/2 bottles and quite a bit of the box were gone by the end of the afternoon... the true sign of a good party!!
For appetizers, I made a wonderful (and EASY!) baked brie,
Photo from Simply Recipes
blue cheese stuffed mushrooms, my friend Marianne's cheeseball, Green Apple and Smoked Gouda Crustinis, and my personal fave, caprese salad. It was a blast! And, since I put on the evite to wear a fancy hat, I also got another excuseopportunity to wear my all-time favorite lid. Chris and I were in Annapolis for a wedding in 2007, and we walked by Hats in the Belfry on Main street and I fell in love. The Queen of England was coming to DC, and knowing that I was going to go, I felt like I really REALLY needed a hat for the occassion. He made me promise I would wear it more than once, and I have!! At least three times:
My good friend, AE, and I in our fabulous hats waving the flags on the White House South Lawn
And of course we sported pink shoes to match our pink hats:
Her Majesty rocked a pretty sweet hat herself:
And then the pink hat made another appearance to celebrate Chris' birthday in 2008 at Opening Day at the Del Mar Races in California: Yep, same great pink shoes to match!
And then again yesterday:
Uh yeah, that's the same dress as Del Mar races too. I'm a total outfit repeater and I love it.
My grandmother used to have boxes of old hats that we would play dress-up in. Of all the styles that have been recycled, why haven't hats? How fabulous are these women?
Okay, it wasn't just a moment. And it wasn't just weakness.
It was a mess.
The weekend started off normal enough. Had a great "blind date" with two of my fave Guam bloggers from The Bean and Act 2. We have been following eachothers' blogs for quite some time and never met. The Bean lives about 5 doors down from me. Who knew? It was a blast. Following coffee, I went to lunch with 10 of the wives from the spouse club for our weekly "Lunch Bunch." We hit up Sugar + Spice this week which is one of my fave restaurants on island. Post lunch, I went to the Navy base with Andrea and Lisa to hit up their amazing, wide-aisled commissary and Exchange for copious amounts of wine and cheese for my party today (the CO's wife traditionally hosts a welcome for the new XO's wife. Our CO's wife is off island growing two sets of infant parts - sidenote: Guam can't handle twins so they ship you off at 26ish weeks - therefore she asked me to host the party since I'm the spouse club president), and then went home, cleaned the house, whipped up a couple easy appetizers, and had about 30 people over to Greenlight the CO (you call the Commanding Officer, everyone yells "GREENLIGHT" and then he has about 10 minutes to get ready for a party for everyone). It was a blast! Chris even brought 151 so we could re-create the fire breathing from Saipan. We did and didn't even burn any houses down.
But then came Saturday.
It started off great - slept in a little bit, chatted with some friends about the night before, cleaned up the house, all normal. Lisa picked us up about 10:30 to head down to Navy to go kayaking. We went two weeks ago and LOVED it, and figured we would love it again. Here's where things started to go wrong.
We rented two kayaks (Lisa had her own) and put in about noon. The water was beautiful - perfect teal, so serene, just incredible. It was pretty windy and we'd had some rain that morning, but the water seemed to be fairly calm.
And then, just as we were getting out of the bay into the open ocean, some fairly ominous clouds started rolling in....
Which quickly turned into...
Not safe.
The winds were pretty bad, it started to rain, and once we got out of the bay, all hell broke loose. I don't have pictures of it, since my camera is not waterproof and I was literally clutching my oar for dear life, but I think this picture best represents what it looked like:
Photo from www.sciencefuse.org
Now dear readers, you might remember from my very first blog post, that I am absolutely terrified of the ocean (and let's be honest, lakes). I love boats, I love jet skis, I love to go tubing, I love kayaking. I don't even mind scuba diving because I can see what is going on around me. It is the being in the water and not being able to see below me that makes me FREAK. And this is where the day went downhill. About 30 minutes into our little Perfect Storm type adventure, my kayak capsized, i.e. turned over, plunging me into the shark-infested water (okay, in all fairness, I think there have maybe been 3 shark sightings ever in Guam, and they were nice little reef sharks... but my mind doesn't work like that). Anyway, I'm thrown into the shark infested water, legs dangling for them to eat while I'm clutching to my overturned kayak. I'm trying to turn my kayak over, but am pushing it into the mammoth waves thus not making any progress (now to the untrained eye, i.e. my husband, it looks as though I'm not even trying). He yells, slightly unaware that I am panicking, "babe, flip it over!" and rather than calmly replying, "I am unable to do so, and could use a little assistance," I yell (over the winds, waves, rain, and now sobs escaping from my body) "I CAN'T!!!!!! COME %&#! HELP ME! I'M GOING TO DIE!"
I realize now it's kind of funny. Okay, a lot funny. But at the time, you have to realize I thought I was going to get eaten. Or drowned in what was probably 7 feet of water.
Chris being the hero he is, selflessly jumped in the shark infested water to help, turned my kayak over, and then had to feverishly swim after his boat. Lisa got stuck on some rocks and ended up pulling her boat out of the water and going back to the pier. It was a mess. Chris finally got back to his kayak and we paddled against the wind and waves until we got back to the dock. I bawled the entire way back, but beers at the Clippers Landing restaurant seemed to ease the pain. And really... can you beat the view there?
Hope your weekend is adventure-packed, and safe. Very, very safe.
Great day at the beach, post-legs workout. I've lost 6 pounds, hurt everywhere, and made the most disgusting cauliflower imitation potatoes last night that even a homeless guy would have turned them down. So bad!! The stuffed flank steak turned out pretty well, although I also decided (in addition to the fact I don't like eating anything the consistency of baby-food) that I don't really like cooked spinach. I like spin dip when it's super cheesy, but not spinach leaves rolled up in a steak. A+ for presentation. I've also been making Americanized caprese salad, just about every night. SO easy, SO good:
Slice tomato. Top with sliced buffalo mozzarella. Top with fresh basil. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Finish with fresh ground black pepper.
Voila! Easy appetizer, looks fairly impressive (to my very untrained eye -- the only "formal" cooking experience I've had was at a Denver McDonald's when I was 15), pretty healthy, and tastes delicious!!
Pre-olive oil, balsamic and black pepper toppings... SO good!
Big weekend planned - - with an ambitious kick-off tomorrow morning at 6:00am sunrise yoga on the beach, followed by 9am coffee with two of my favorite Guam bloggers!!! It will be our first meeting, and I am OH so EXCITED! Sunday I'm hosting a "wine and cheese welcome" for the new XO's wife, and tomorrow following awesome coffee and fantastic lunch at Sugar + Spice with the wives' club, I will be shopping for said wine and cheese welcome. Have any fabulous cheese appetizers I MUST include?
Clearly the tsunami avoided us, sparing the lives of your favorite Guamanians! In fact, we went golfing while the tsunami was supposed to "hit." In fact, it was some of the nicest weather we've ever had golfing.
So, despite rumors of a tsunami, we had a great weekend, my hair has faded from strawberry-orange to a sort of "lion's gold" and I spent today at the beach.
Have you booked your tickets yet?
Right before heading to the beach, I picked up some new nail color... Freud might say this was in attempt to distract from my hair color? What follows is, to my knowledge, the first picture of my hand that has ever been taken. You know the cheesy ring picture that I bet you all took at your weddings with your hands touching and your rings showing? I made our photographer skip that one. I usually try to hide mine in pictures at all costs, because unlike my sister who has long beautiful fingers, I have cabbage patch kid hands. Add to that the fact that I have one of my mother's squatty carnival thumbs and one of my dad's "regular" thumbs (which, actually came in handy as my only evidentiary support that I am indeed, not adopted, as my entire family told me for YEARS - as in my parents - only 2 years ago - finally admitted that I am actually theirs). The women in my family all have two "party thumbs" as we call them, but I (and sister Sophie) got one of each. Turns out our friend Misa has one of each too. I knew I liked her. Anyhow, I am, for the good of the blog, putting away my self-consciousness of hand picturing in order to show off my fab-bright-cheery "Blue You Away" nail color. Since my time of not working in an office with real people is rapidly coming to a close, I guess these are the days to dye my hair pink (again, accidentally) and paint my nails blue.
Love the nail polish. And I think Mom's thumb definitely gives it character.
Off to the Spouses' Club to nominate new girls to take over the board! My "reign" as President is ALMOST OVER!!!!!
Dear L'Oreal, Shade LB02: I trusted you *not* to turn my hair strawberry-orange.
Dear 3:59am caller: Guam is 15 hours ahead of the East Coast. Should you choose to ignore the time frame, at least have the decency *not* to hang up after I sprint to the kitchen to answer you, and remain awake the rest of the night.
Alright friends.... While the States are still buried in snowfall, our little island of Guam is under a TSUNAMI warning until tomorrow afternoon!!! Prayers PLEASE!
We went to high school together, re-met in a bar 9 years later and figured fate got it right. I quit my DC government job, married my "Naval Aviator" in December 07, and moved with him to Guam 9 months later. He deployed weeks after we moved here, and returned home 2 days before Thanksgiving 2009. This is the story of our crazy adventures.
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