A few sunsets over the weekend

There were some pretty awesome sunsets over the weekend we were able to see, so here are some pictures!

VACATION!

Hello everyone that we love back in the states!! We just thought we would make a quick post and let you know that we just booked our plane tickets home!! We will be arriving on June 8th and leaving on Aug 7th!!! You are going to be see a lot of us....get excited....CUS WE ARE!!!!!!!!

Trip to Roi

Hello Again!  Today we are posting some pictures from our vacation to Roi!  Roi is another island on the opposite side of our atoll.  It is 50 miles from Kwajalein and you get there by taking a 15 minute flight from Kwaj.  The plane ride was awesome because you are in a tiny plane, 1 seat on each side of the isle, and you fly right over the atoll giving you some cool views of the islands below.  We landed and they hadn't loaded our bags onto the flight, so we had to just drive around the island for about 4 hours waiting for the next flight with our bags!  We spent 3 nights up on Roi just relaxing and laying on the beaches.  There are only about 100 people living on Roi, so it is very, very remote.  

Along this beach some of the palm trees are falling into the lagoon and make for some great benches!

This was a shot of the sunset one of the nights we were here.  We would get up in the morning, walk over and rent a golf cart and then lay on the beach until the sunset, when we would go and eat.  Roi has a restaurant type place where you can order hamburgers and onion rings and they cook it up for you.  We ate our fill at the restaurant because we hadn't had food cooked to order in a long, long time!

Here is a view on one of the beaches we spent a lot of time at.  The weather was great while we were there and the water was awesome to swim in and look at.  We certainly enjoyed the relaxation that came from this trip and so many areas looked like they came off a screen saver!

Here is a view down the one of the main beaches.  We were the only people on the beach almost the entire time!!!  The beaches on Roi are much bigger than the ones on Kwaj and less busy.  Hard to beat a beach like this all to yourselves!

This dock made for a nice view so we tried to get some good pictures of it!  The scuba club uses this to get into and out of the water for diving.

This is a common view on Roi.  There are hammocks along the ocean front in several locations.  We definitely took advantage of the lounging space!  

Here is another view of the beaches and lagoon where we spent our time sunbathing, reading, swimming and taking pictures.  

This sunset was from our first night here.  It was truly an amazing sunset and the pictures don't quite do it justice!  We were hoping to see the green flash that we have heard about when the sun sets on a clear day, but it wasn't quite clear enough on this night.  

Here is another hammock that we spent quite a bit of time at reading and relaxing.  

This would be our first spot every morning.  At this spot we would lay on the hammock and read and hang out until lunch time.  Then we would go and eat and head to the beaches pictured above.  We would stay on one of the beaches until sunset, then we would go and eat supper and go for a walk.  This was a great way to start each day!

Here is a picture of us from the first night we were on Roi.  The sunset was awesome and this gave us a pretty neat view of the sunset and the water.  

Here we are with our beach chairs right on the edge of the water, so it would wash up on our feet when the waves crashed.  This is one of our favorite ways to pass an afternoon!

Hopefully this gives you a little picture of our vacation up to Roi.  

School has started up again and it is nice to get back into the routine.  Youth Fellowship starts up again this week, so we are excited about that and the second semester ends in 2 weeks, so we are getting ready for all of the end of the semester stuff.  Hard to believe Lynn and Sue were here only a few weeks ago and Sandy and Cal will be here in just over 2 months!  We are hoping to take them up to this island when they are here.

Christmas on Ebeye

We were able to go over to Ebeye and watch some of their Christmas celebrations.  Marshallese on Ebeye take Christmas very seriously and celebrate it for days.  People gather at the churches and spend the entire day watching different dance groups come and perform for the celebration.  The people celebrate from early in the morning until well after midnight for several days straight and the main form of celebration centers around the dance groups which practice for months leading up to Christmas and travel from church to church on the island performing.  We were able to go over with a group of people and watch one of the performances.  The choreographed dance lasted for nearly an hour and a half and included a group of around 100 people.  It was truly a sight to behold and a very unique cultural experience.  We were very thankful to be able to go and observe this Marshallese tradition.  Check out the video and pictures we captured below.

This is a one minute video from the nearly hour and a half of dancing.  The guy playing the piano hardly got a break from singing and playing the entire time!  It was very impressive.

Here is a picture of the singer and some of the dancers in the background.  This group was dressed in red.  After their performance we went outside and there was another group in blue ready to come in and perform. 

Here is a picture during one of the dances.  The dancers were very energetic and had spent months preparing for the celebrations.  Our seats were right up front and when we came into the church they gave us necklaces and fans and introduced us to the church.  We didn't need any special attention, but they gave us the best seats and treated us like important guests.  

Here is a picture down the sanctuary.  After the dancing was over the people threw candy out into the crowd.  There was more candy flying around that sanctuary than I could believe and we had to watch out because bags of suckers and things like that were raining down on us!  

It was really neat to be a part of this tradition.  We had never seen anything like this before as this was very unique to the Marshall Islands.