August Updates

We're still here in Florida. We had thought about heading west today, but it ended up not working out. I'm a little disappointed because if we could have made it, I could have gotten to see the Bertholf commissioning. I thought it would have been cool; dh thought it was "just another 45minute ship commissioning..." But we're here, and it'll be good to spend a few more days with dh's family before we're gone for such a long time.

In other CG-related news, dh made the next rank - woohoo!!!

Also, travel claims stink. I mean, talk about bureaucracy at its worst (hahaha no offense Jen, my bureaucratic friend). It seems that the CG doesn't know what to do with us - first by being in grad school. They had no idea what to do with dh for his internship this summer... it's been horrible trying to get all of our paperwork done to go abroad because he doesn't have access to CG computers and therefore the CG networks. Grrr... paperwork stinks, but we think we're finally working it all out.

It's hard to imagine that in less than a week, we'll be in Australia! I still feel very under-prepared for it, and perhaps that's best. And the parts that I'm thinking about are quite trivial. Current thought going through my mind "remember to get measuring cups and spoons from the exchange because you don't really want to deal with the whole metric conversion stuff." Yeah, moving to another country and I'm worried about having to convert 500 grams of flour into something I already know.

DH and I drove a few hours and went to visit his grandmother in her nursing home. She has a cool story - she is Australian and met dh's grandfather (a storekeeper in the Army) when he was stationed over there in WWII. They fell in love, married, and then he was transferred back to the states. She took a warship to the states (I think it was norwegian?) and set up her life here. It's really quite interesting, I think. These days she lives in a nursing home and has advanced Alzheimer's Disease. It was neat though that when we visited, she got very excited to have people there to visit her, and we actually saw little moments of the true Nana dh grew up with.

I'm going to add some more pictures to the days below. I like to look back and remember what happened.

Sorry for the rants...

Beach Day!

We really enjoyed spending time with dh's family. We went to the beach one day with dh's brother, sister-in-law, and their baby.

Typical pose - checking to see if it's surf-able ;)

Taking baby C swimming

Handsome fellow on the beach ;)

How could you not love this face??

Laughing

Beautiful Florida morning!

Last of Key West, I promise...

The beautiful Casa Marina, where we stayed

Front porch of the CasaMarina

back porch -
it made me want to do a house in ivory, white, and black

The church where dh's parents were married
(now closed, silly military)

It was a cute little base chapel, and cool to see

Bahia-Honda state park

Old bridge on left, new bridge on right

Cute little island (and smudges on my camera?)

Dh, his mom, his sister

Dh and his sister

* * * By the way, if you go to Key West, be sure to ask for military discounts! They had military discounts for our hotel, for entering the Hemingway house, and for other things... don't be afraid to ask, it saved us a lot of money :)

Searching for my lost shaker of salt

More pictures from Key West

Yay for tropical places!

DH, ever the cutterman, spotted a CG ship way offshore

We got to watch it come in
I had only watched smaller ships dock, so watching this was cool,
especially with dh providing commentary about their approach ;)

We got to do some touristy stuff too :)

Pretty church and poinciana trees

Key West Lighthouse :)

Dh's mom, sister, and I toured the Ernest Hemingway house

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law

A Hemingway cat (6 "toes") on Ernest's bed

Where the magic happened - Ernest's office

The first in-ground swimming pool in the Keys

Ernest went on a trip, and when he came back, his wife had put in the swimming pool where his boxing ring had been. (Bad move #1). She had wanted a swimming pool, and in order to move the limestone that was there, she had applied for a dynamite permit, but had been denied. Therefore, the builders had to dig out the huge pool BY HAND, at quite a large cost (Bad move #2). It couldn't be filled with fresh water (as it was pretty scarce at the time) so it could only last about 2 days with salt water in the summer before it turned disgusting (Bad move #3). They then had to empty out the pool, scrub down the sides, then refill it with salt water. This cleaning process took 5 days. So, out of a week, they could only use the pool for 2 days, and the ocean was only about 2 blocks away. I guess Ernest was not very happy.

Surfing, sharks, and other miscellaneous vacation happenings

DH's favorite town in Tennessee has got to be Murfreesboro. It's just so much fun to say.


Thank heaven for this sign outside Atlanta, GA.

Sunday dinner at the Sundy house with DH's family. Sister shown here.

DH and his sister trying to get the fish to nibble their fingers. The Sundy House has a bed and breakfast and a pool - you can swim with the fish.


Dh loves driving his parents' cars. We took his mom's convertible one evening to check out the waves. I think dh likes it.
Pretty lines. Dh told me that swells in Florida never last long, so he had to take advantage of good surf. I think he went surfing 3 times in the first 3 days we were there.

Dh checking out the surf.


Pretty moon.


More waves. Merry Christmas to Dh.

Dh's cousin, brother, and dh checking out waves like they have been for years.

They found an acceptable spot.


Surfing together. This was before they saw the 5-foot-long spinner shark jump out of the water, do a few 360's and dive back in. They left promptly after that.

I went with Kathryn to Blowing Rocks. Let's just say at low tide, it's less than spectacular. But we did rock our matching FL tees :)



BEFORE - Dh back in Hawaii when he had to report for duty. He's still in surfer clothes, but is clean-shaven, and with a military haircut.


NOW - look at this scruffy, long-haired student! Thank goodness that he doesn't have to report to anyone at school ;)

We went fishing with Dh's Uncle Roger and a few of his friends. I hadn't realized that I get seasick after a few hours of sitting in a rocking boat. Not cool. But we did have some fun out there before I got too green.

Austin reeled in our first catch of the day - a baby shark.



I reeled in our second catch of the day, another baby shark. We ended up catching another baby shark, and no fish. Sad to say, there are 3 more angry sharks out there in the water.

Neon Rainbow, Alan Jackson's boat. A little piece of country right there in South Florida.

Dh and his dad coming back from fishing.


One of the highlights of the trip was having dh's friend from school come down with his family to dh's parents' house. We went up to the top of the Jupiter Lighthouse and saw this beautiful view. Plus, look at the houses on the closest part of land - those are CG housing. Not bad a bad place to be stationed!


Dh and Wonyoung on the top of the Jupiter Lighthouse.

Wearing one of my favorite tshirts. Can you read what it says?


We went to the Oceanographic Institute? or something like that, and got to feed stingrays.


You hold the food like this... and then the rays come over your hand and suck it up. It's a weird feeling and took me a while to be brave enough to not move my hand away while feeding it.
Trying to sneak one of the snacks...

Dh and I on a manatee...

Another highlight was spending lots of time with our family - especially nephew Curren! He's at a fun age and is "talking" a lot.