Ongoings in Our Small Piece of the Pacific

I am so happy that the email feature is working again. Thanks for everyone's feedback letting me know that we are back in action! In an effort to maintain the (newly-acquired) regular routine of postings, and so that I don't fall behind and get overwhelmed by all that I need to catch up on, I feel like a quick update is necessary.  Over the past two weeks we have made a second wonderful trip out  to the sandbar on our friend's boat, spent a festive 4th of July at another friend's condo with a rooftop BBQ in Honolulu, and Jordan has been carrier qualified for landings on the boat!

While this isn't necessarily an exciting picture (unless you find filling up gas exciting), I just loved the boat with the American Flag and palm trees in the background on base.

It takes a team!

Another trip to the Sandbar!

Red, white and blue fruit salad for the 4th

What a Motley Crew! 

A beautiful 4th of July sunset in Honolulu

Jordan landing on the boat for the first time!

Here is a video compilation Jordan's friend made of their first trip out to the boat. There are a number of guys in the video and they all kind of look the same, so here's what to look for: Jordan is at the very beginning of the video holding the camera as they fly out to the USS Peleliu. However, his take off and landing practice section of the video starts at the 3:39 mark, and lasts for about 2 minutes. He is in the front seat of the Cobra. You can tell he is finished in the video around 5:45 because the front seat pilot's head is no longer touching the roof of the cockpit haha.


For the most part, I have been spending a lot of time with my girlfriend Ashley, who I have known since our time in Corpus, as well as a few other ladies who we have met already during our short time here in Hawaii. The guys have been very busy at work, so us girls have been sticking it out together and filling our days with indoor cycling classes, shopping in Honolulu, doggy play-dates at the beach, discovering fun "mom and pop"  restaurants around town, and finding unique, hawaiian gifts and staple items at the swap meet (I finally now own a sarong)!

Delish Japanese hot pot Nabe dinner with two girlfriends.

At Pyramid Rock beach on base, also known as Officer's Beach because it is walking distance from the Officer housing (which we are still waiting for). Can't wait to have this beautiful beach basically in our backyard!

Doggie beach date with Ashley and their Springer Spaniel Nelly.

Gunnar absolutely loves the beach, although to be honest, this didn't happen overnight. I think it's the lack of air conditioning in our current living situation and his developed phobia of grass (due to the spikey stickers in the grass of Corpus), that have made him appreciate the cool ocean breezes and the soft sand under his paws. He will chase a ball for hours, until his run slows from a run to a jog to a really mom, again? slow walk, and even then, will faithfully retrieve the ball before collapsing on the ground with a big sandy smile on his face. And while he doesn't enjoy swimming or getting his face wet, he will venture in the shallows. I am sure the cool water is a welcome reprieve from the constant weight and heat of a fur coat. Our favorite time to go is in the early evening, once Jordan has returned from work, and we can take in the beautiful, and ever-changing, water-colored sky.

The Marine Corps Base is located where those land masses are on the horizon

Although the sun sets on the other side of the island, we are still treated to beautiful evening skies

As I mentioned before, all the guys are extremely busy with work because RIMPAC is in full swing. RIMPAC stands for Rim of the Pacific, which is the largest international naval/maritime exercise in the world.  According to the Commander of the Pacific Fleet website, "Twenty-two nations, 49 surface ships, 6 submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel will participate. Units from Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the People’s Republic of China, Peru, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of the Philippines, Singapore, Tonga, the United Kingdom and the United States will participate. RIMPAC is a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world’s oceans." Because this exercise is only held every 2 years, and always in and around the Hawaiian Islands, Jordan is pretty excited to be participating in this exercise, which will no doubt be a valuable and unique experience in his career. And while I never know what I am technically allowed to be writing on here for all the world to see, nor can Jordan and the rest of the guys divulge all the details of their specific training exercises, the Commander of the Pacific Fleet public website provides news updates on some of the training being done, so I feel comfortable sharing the info I find there. According to their website, the exercises being conducted range from humanitarian relief and disaster preparedness to naval security and war fighting techniques, technologies, and strategies.

We recently went to Pearl Harbor and checked out the larger-than-normal fleet of ships in the harbor for RIMPAC,  as well as took a guided tour of the USS Peleliu. It is much larger in person than it appears floating out in the middle of the ocean from the above video (although the idea of Jordan landing on it's deck still makes me nervous)!  And while we have lived on or near military bases for the last 3 years and have become used to helicopters and planes regularly flying overhead, the sight of large battleships and aircraft carriers in the ocean off the beaches is still quite surreal! It's definitely a neat experience even for those of us civilians living here to witness!

The USS Peleliu

Off Kailua Beach, near our house

2 ships off the coast of Lanikai Beach

One last picture to conclude this post, just because it was so beautiful to wake up to this morning and I wanted to share...

Brilliant colors as the sun rose this morning, with the moon still hanging in the air! Yep, still pinching ourselves!

Follow By Email

For those of you that have faithfully subscribed by email for the past 3 years, I think I may have finally fixed the bug that prevented email updates from going out over the last few months (which just happen to be my most active months, with regular, almost-weekly, updates). Apparently the feed on this blog was becoming too large in size! However, one can never have too many memories, and we still have tons of adventures to come. So, fingers crossed I have fixed this bug!  You should get an email subscription update with this "Follow By Email" post. However, for those of you that are interested in what we have been up to, you may want to go to the blog website: http://www.meg-lifeofamarinewife.blogspot.com/ in order to catch up on all the posts that you may have missed. Shoot me an email or leave me a comment below if you have received this blog post update!

A Sandbar in the Sea

Well? Did you all do something new and exciting this weekend?  I would love to hear if anybody took on the challenge and became a tourist in their own hometown.

Despite living on a mass of land that is, at it's greatest dimension, only 44 miles long and 30 miles across, we continue to find new places to explore! Although technically this new place we discovered over the weekend isn't within the confines of the approximately 600 square miles of Oahu land, but nearly 5 miles off the coast. Thankfully, one of our good friends purchased a boat upon moving to Hawaii shortly after we arrived, otherwise this weekend's trip would not have been possible. 

On Saturday, we made the first of which I am sure will be many, trips to the Kaneohe Sandbar. During low tide in Kaneohe Bay, a beach in the middle of the ocean emerges known as Ahu O Laka. We arrived at the sandbar, a 10 minute boat ride from the small harbor on base, around 9:45. And like something out of a Corona beer commercial, we were pinching ourselves at the calm serenity of our panoramic surroundings. On multiple occasions, when the magnitude of our souroundings would randomly breakthrough the barrier of our present mindset/experience into that of a reflective, third person perspective, we would stop and ask one another, can you believe this? We live here? Is this real life? 

We arrived at the tail end of low tide, and the exposed beach that we pulled up to gradually receded back into the vast turquoise waters of the bay over the course of the early afternoon. By high tide, the water was now nearly waist high. However, the rising tide didn't impede on our beautiful Saturday. 

The guys, in true "boys will be boys" fashion, proceeded to have an informal, but very intensely competitive, whiffle ball game in the shallowest portion of water they could find. The phrase "work hard, play hard" perfectly encapsulates the personality of these guys and it was quite entertaining for us girls to watch. 

Supposedly Kaneohe Bay is the most active hammerhead shark breeding ground in the world. Although hammerheads themselves aren't a big threat to humans based on their temperament and their anatomy/location of their mouths, the months of May and June are when the sharks give birth and which therefore attract other predatory sharks that prey on the new pups. For this reason, only a few brave souls in our group (with spear guns in hand) decided to snorkel around the deep cavernous drop off surrounding the sandbar and the nearby Chinaman's Hat Island that we boated over to later in the afternoon.

Jordan and two others decided to hike to the top of Chinaman's as well, in order to take in the view. They proceeded to do this barefoot and paid for it in pain for the rest of the week. The pain afterall was temporary, and the picture of them with this view, is priceless.

Luckily, I did not read this article about the increased activity of those predatory sharks until we were safely back on shore: http://www.mcbhawaii.marines.mil/News/NewsArticleDisplay/tabid/6999/Article/165533/sharks-increase-presence-around-base.aspx. However, it's not like we were completely unaware, as multiple times over the last month and half, the beaches on base have been shut down because of shark sightings close to shore. I guess that's just one of the few problems that comes with living in paradise! See, I told you life here wasn't perfect!

Overall, it was a fantastic day. Lots of sunscreen and hats are recommended or you may end up looking like a tomato like a few people in the group that went. And falling asleep in the sun, is definitely not recommended hahaha...

Notice it's all the boys who are sunburnt. Not the mature ladies of the group, who responsibly protected their skin from sun damage and unnecessarily advancing the aging and wrinkling process. Silly boys!

Can't wait to hear how you all spent your weekend!