Boonie Stomping

With both our husbands gone, my neighbor/friend and I have been keeping each other company and exploring Guam to boot! The very top picture was taken on Mt Lam Lam-the highest point on Guam. The pictures below were taken at Fonte's Dam which we discovered by accident as we were looking for an old radio station site (we never did find it)The very bottom picture is taken at the "top" of the dam. We were both very surprised and impressed by Fonte's Dam and we are taking our husbands to see it once they return.

Bell Peppers!

I love bell peppers. I think I might love them because they are so expensive. Today I was pleasantly surprised to find some produce mark downs at the commissary. Usually if the produce is mark downed it is rotten and moldy but I must have been the first person to eye the peppers. They were all in decent shape (perhaps a bit past their prime but still very edible)For $1.25 I got 4 large green peppers and 3 large orange peppers, WOOT! orange peppers costs nearly $5 a pound, green are a little cheaper at $3 a pound. There were a couple bags marked down but it's just little ol me eating so I only picked up the one bag. Tonight it's roasted pepper and tomato soup and tomorrow night I'm calling my neighbors up and trying my hand at stuffed bell peppers.

I love a bargain and I love food!

Marriage via e-mail

Greg has not been receiving e-mails from me -making him very sad and concerned. I just received an e-mail from him letting me know that he has finally received an e-mail from me (it was sent it ages ago but at least he got it)

His short note made my heart so glad that I had to share it with you all. His "voice" may seem a little strange but keep in mind his e-mails are reviewed by others and have a size limit for security reasons.

Rachel,
I have gotten your #1 and #2 emails. I'm glad you are not dead/in the hospital/left me. I am glad you got your bind it all. I know you will make nice things with it. Plus, you don't have to say in your email you'll clean it up. Your very responsible and you don't have to convince me you are. I am also glad you have it to be creative with and have an outlet to work. I can't wait to see the things you made with it.

What hyundai parts came in?

I miss you and we are almost done here.

I love you.
Greg

Ahhhhh (my heart flutters) he wants to see what I've made! I didn't think he cared about my crafting hobby. In my prior e-mails I told him the house was a disaster and you could hardly see the dining table amongst my craft supplies, it's nice to know he's not concerned about the mess I've made either.

Crafting....

I have gone off the deep end and have become an addict to paper crafting. It could be that my hubby's gone, hopefully I'll still know how to cook a decent meal and the house won't be a complete disaster when Greg returns. My latest project (among many) is a calendar with all the family birthdays marked inside. I've made it into a little book using my newest toy the bind-it-all (which I LOVE) I'm going to give it to my new sister-in-law (actually have two new sisters-in-law.) This is going to the one who has a birthday this month.

Menu Plan Monday Feb. 16 - 21

Monday- BBQ leftovers (we had a big BBQ birthday party on Sunday and ended up with plenty of leftovers, I'll be eating baked beans and potato salad for lunch this week-no complaints though)

Tuesday Fish Tacos

Wednesday Sesame Chicken

Thursday Leftovers

Friday Pizza

Saturday Greg has to work on his birthday so we'll make some kind of special pre-birthday dinner, I'm not sure what it is yet but it will yummy

In the kitchen

Greg and I enjoyed a sweetheart valentine's dinner last night at home with grilled steak and veggie kabobs ending with pineapple and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert (yummy!)Today My hubby's working so later tonight I'm joining my neighbor who's husband is deployed. We are babysitting our other neighbor's kids so that they can go out tonight.

With the house to myself I'm in the kitchen and busy today.
For tonight's valentine's day with the neighbor kids I'm making:
crust and sauce for pizza
heart shaped sugar cookies and frosting for decorating

Tomorrow we are having a big birthday BBQ with our small group bible study friends I'm coordinating the food. To prep for the BBQ I'm making:
hamburger buns
cheese cake
ice cream and toppings
potato salad
coleslaw (I'm just chopping the cabbage today, I'll dress it tomorrow)

I'll finish up the rest of the food after church tomorrow.

busy busy busy (but I totally love it)

Birthday Banner

Greg's birthday is this month! Next weekend we are having a big birthday BBQ bash to celebrate Greg and another friend's birthday with our small group bible study. I've made a banner to help decorate and celebrate the occasion. I think it is so cute. I used some patterned paper and borrowed the die cutting machine from work to make the letters.

Browsing Valentine's ideas online and found the cutest things:

Decorate a lotion/soap bottle a super cute and frugal gift

Valentine Pennie Pockets I wish I knew how to sew-because these are adorable! I might be able to make something less permanent out of paper


Felt Flowers These would be cute as pencil toppers

Adventures with snakes

About two weeks ago I was in the kitchen/laundry area throwing dirty clothes in the hamper when I felt something skim my foot, I thought it was a gecko (very common in our house) when I looked down I saw a long slithery object, I screamed bloody murder and ran to the other side of the house. Greg came to the rescue and spent the next 20 minutes looking for the snake and found nothing. I began to doubt myself, after all it was dark. Greg sincerely believed that I saw/felt a snake but for the sake of my sanity I really wished that he would have just called me a lunatic and let me think that it was all in my imagination.

Time passed by with out much more thought to my snake encounter. On Monday night about 10 (which is very late for us) I was reading in bed when Greg whispers to me Rachel...Rachel... still whispering There's a snake in the bathroom...Rachel In disbelief I get up out of bed and sure enough there was a snake coiled up right on the bathroom floor by our vanity. My eyes got really big and Greg looks at me and says don't panic get me the flash light and broom. Greg than tries to stun the snake with the light and somehow catch it with the broom to take outside. (as was his previous method that last time we had a snake in the house) The snake was quicker than Greg and slithered behind the vanity and into the wall. I was scared silly and went in the other room to wallow in my fear. Greg continued to stake out the bathroom and would yell at me every time he would see the snake pop it's head out from the vanity/wall gap, asking me to help him catch the snake, I was pretty useless in the effort.

A few minutes pass by and I decided to call the Navy housing office. They sent someone over within 45 minutes. The housing tech and Greg spent the next 15 minutes trying to coax the snake out from behind the vanity. After awhile The housing tech guy told us there was nothing he could do about the snake because it was now somewhere in our walls and we should call back tomorrow. Greg and I than proceeded to duct tape the entire bathroom vanity, to keep the snake from returning or crawling out.

The next day USDA was at our house with a big truck and dogs to sniff out snakes-however I didn't know they were coming and no one was home, the housing office had called them. When I came home from work I called the housing office to talk about our snake situation (in my mind our walls were probably filled with snakes and we should be moving to another house) The USDA got involved because snakes are a danger to the local environment here on Guam and it was very important to catch the snake and make sure there aren't others. The USDA doesn't have a 24 hour service on our side of the island (the other side does) so they wouldn't come out in the afternoon only the morning. I asked for the day off from work and I made an appointment with USDA who came back to my house with their working dog. The USDA Man came to the bathroom where the snake was sighted, he saw the duct tape and pulled a piece off to find the snake's head stuck to the tape, it was super gross to watch him pull out the snake (which was now dead) The USDA guy said the duct tape was a good solution (Greg will be happy when I tell him that)The working dog than came into the house and sniffed the whole area, it was a really cute dog that looked like wishbone the dog from the PBS kids show (I forget the actual breed name)The dog didn't find anything, which in my mind is a good thing. The USDA Man said that the snake I saw a couple of weeks ago was probably the same snake and if there had been multiple snakes they would have tried to eat the dead snake and we would have seen evidence of that.
We walked around the house and talked about possible entry points for the snake, The most likely entry is our dyer vent. I'll be calling the housing office to request a screen be installed over the vent.

I wish I had taken pictures of the snake sniffing dog but I was to embarrassed to ask. I'm really glad the snake was found and is not wandering around anymore.

Sympathy card for Greg's Uncle

Sunday Happenings

Greg played a song for our church....and he was really good! (I shouldn't have been so surprised, but when I hear him play his guitar it's at home and he's in his underwear wandering around the house screaming out songs and strumming his guitar wildly to a CD)
He's been playing with the worship team for several months now, but not with them on Sundays, he simply goes to the week night practices to "jam" and play with a band. When Greg came back from from his deployment the praise team was happy to have him at their practices again and asked Greg if he had any good songs up his sleeve. More than happy to oblige Greg introduced the song Jesus Paid it All (he's a HUGE Passion Band fan) The team loved it and asked Greg to introduce it to the church when they had the next Communion Service.

So today he played for the Church and he was good, The pastor came up to Greg as we were leaving church and thanked him for ministering to him. I thought that was nice to say.

Also, today I taught Sunday school for the early service so that I could be in the regular service to see Greg play, I loved teaching for the earlier service instead of 22 3 and 4 year old I had 5! it was so easy and relaxing in comparison, It's not that I don't like teaching Sunday School it was just so nice to have a bit of a break with a smaller crowd.

It was a good Sunday!

Menu Plan Monday Jan. 26 - Feb. 1

Monday - We had tacos!
Tuesday - Enchiladas (I'm using the leftover taco meat for my filling)
Wednesday - Turkey wraps
Thursday - Leftovers
Friday - Pizza
Saturday - buttermilk baked chicken
Sunday - Baked pasta

moan...groan..ache

Yesterday I did a 3 hour aerobathon workout at the gym and later that day I went with a couple of friends to a New Year's Day 5k. I mostly walked the 5k, my time was right at 40 minutes.

Seriously now! what was I thinking!? Even a one hour workout class makes me sore the next day. I can't believe I did three hours and than a 5k on the same day. I was pretty pumped up from all the exercise but today my body is in protest to all movement.

Happy New Year!

We stayed up late last night to ring in the new year despite the fact that Greg had to work early this morning. We had a good time playing "Rock Band" on the Play Station 3 at the our neighbor's house. I sang Sting's Message in a Bottle which is harder than it seems. Greg rocked out on the plastic guitar and I tried my skill at the drums (76 percent accuracy WOOT!) It was good fun, good food, and good friends.

We started off the new year bright and early with a special breakfast of pumpkin spice pancakes with REAL maple syrup (I forked over the big bucks and spent $6 on a little bottle)We didn't have a long morning together as Greg had to leave at 7:30 am.

With Greg off at work I went with my friend to the gym's New Year's Day Aerobathon. I feel totally insane, I just got home from the 3 hour workout and my body will be feeling sore tomorrow. The workouts weren't so bad, but I was really having a hard time with the cycle class-one hour on a bike makes your bum sore and when you are finished it takes a few minutes for your legs to return to normal.

I think I'll take it easy the rest of today.

Happy New Year everyone! 2009 is here!

Tacky Christmas Sweater Party

My neighbors threw a Tacky Christmas Sweater Party on December 23, 2008. About half of us wore truly tacky sweaters, others wore some pretty goofy Christmas hats. My good friend Lacey planned out some great Christmas themed games including Christmas carol charades. Apparently someone recorded my attempt to play along.