Holidays with the Pitkins

We were very happy to have Ryan and Leisha Pitkin visit us over our Christmas vacation.  They came from South Korea for 2 weeks and we had a ton of fun while they were here!  Here are some pictures highlighting the trip.  There will be another blog coming with pictures from our scuba dives.

Above is a picture of Ryan golfing at our little course.  This shot was only 30 yards from where he Tee'd off, but it didn't take many holes before he was back to his old form!  

The golf course had a Christmas putting green set up and Mindi and Leisha are laughing about the tags still being on the ornaments used for decorations.  

We had a themed Christmas Eve party at our friends, Mark and Tarah's home.  The theme was footed pajamas. Matt wasn't sure about posting this picture wearing that color, but it is going to be a gift for his dad, so the surprise is up.  Maybe Lynn will wear it to the next Husker party he goes to!  Also, you can see Ryan's excitement with wearing a mickey mouse onesie.  

On Christmas day we went over to Ebeye to watch the dancers.  This picture was taken of a group of our students who performed a dance.  This is a traditional Marshallese Christmas celebration and is truly a site to behold as different dance groups tour through the churches all day performing their choreographed dances.

Here is one of the sunsets we took in on Roi.

We all took pictures on the leaning tree up on Roi.  Here we are sitting on the tree.

We were able to take out a boat for a little while on Roi and here is Mindi and Leisha riding on the front as we troll up to one of the uninhabited islands.  It was a beautiful day for a boat ride!

Here is a picture of that little island with a rainstorm coming in the background

Here are Mindi, Leisha, and Ryan riding the front of the boat.

This is a picture of Ryan and Leisha in front of the sign showing how far it is from Kwaj to different places around the world.

Leisha wanted the perfect angle on this winding palm tree on Roi.  Hope the picture turned out!

We had a blast with the Pitkins!  There will be another post following soon showing our adventures scuba diving!  

We also just returned from Pohnpei, which is in Micronesia.  We will be posting some pictures from there in the next few days as well, but wanted to space out our blog posts a little bit!

Jerre's Diving

Here are some pictures of Jerre Bontrager scuba diving!  He was a great diver and did a good job getting his certification!  We had a lot of fun and saw some really neat stuff! 

 

This picture through the wreck in the ski boat is a bit blurry,  but it was neat to dive a wreck!

 

 

 The picture below is through a Coral Head.   Jerre swam to the other side so we could get a picture through it!

 

Jerre is doing a back roll into the water from the boat for our first boat dive!

 

Here is Jerre during his certification!  Way to go, Jerre!

Visitors for Thanksgiving

Hello!  Very fun update to the blog after Matt's Parents and Uncle Jerre were out to visit a week ago.  We had such a great time with them and really enjoyed the whole week so much.  It was very hard to see them go, but are so thankful we were able to share Thanksgiving with them and the week that we had.  The pictures below highlight some parts of the trip.  There will be another blog coming with pictures of Jerre scuba diving!

 

 

This is a picture from where we had lunch the first day they arrived!  We ate at the yacht club and enjoyed overlooking the blue water as we ate!  They were excited to be done traveling after the days they spent in planes and hotels!

 

 

At the time of this picture, these were the three best looking guys on the beach!

 

We had dinner on the beach one evening, and these pictures are from Mindi and Sue walking the beach before the sunset!  It was a very calm and pleasant evening!

 

Matt tried to grill our supper on the beach this night, but he didn't have quite enough charcoal so here he is trying to figure out how to get some more heat to finish cooking the burgers. 

 

 

Here is the sunset from the evening we grilled out on the beach

 

We got plenty of biking in!  Mindi and Sue are out in front biking along the ocean front at North Point! 

 

This week was also Turkey bowl, which is like homecoming week.  There is a lot things that go into it, but it culminates in a big program where students and teachers perform.  In the school there is a group of boys that have a dance group that is really popular and they did a performance for the school.  After they were done Mindi had organized a group of teachers to challenge them in a dance off and it was a huge hit as some of the teachers did a dance off with their group.  The whole school was screaming and it was awesome!

 

Here are Mom and Dad on the beach after their last snorkel

 

We got in a lot of snorkeling, and here is Mom swimming over the reef! 

 

Here is Matt and Mindi out snorkeling with Lynn and Sue.  We had a lot fun looking for interesting Sea Creatures!

 

What a great week we had and we are so thankful mom and dad and Jerre were able to come out!  Hope that everyone's thanksgiving was great!

 

Beach Time!

Hello everyone!  The week of Thanksgiving is upon us, which is exciting because that means Matt's parents and uncle Jerre will be here visiting!  We have been keeping pretty busy with Youth Fellowship, the start of volleyball season, work, and still trying to find some time for fun as well!  The weather lately has been a bit strange as it transitions from the rainy season into the windy season. We had a PCS (permanent change of station) party for some friends who were leaving and here some pictures from the event.

 

This is us with John and Kim Olson and their daughter Sophie.  Their son Gavin took the picture. 

 

Here we are just after sunset near Emon Beach.  Gavin had taken Matt's camera, and so we made him take a picture of us!

 

Here is a picture of Matt with Gavin

 

Sorry for the sideways picture we couldn't figure out how to rotate it! Sophie helped Mindi tye dye the shirts at the party!  The Olson's are leaving for a great opportunity back in Washington in December and we will greatly miss their friendship and learning from John every week!

 

 

Below are a few scuba diving pictures which we always have to include.

 

 

Next update should have pictures of our time with Lynn, Sue and Jerre!  Hope everyone is doing well and Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween Party!

Hello!  Our friends threw a big halloween party and here are some pictures of us in our costumes!  We went as Waldo and Wenda.  We thought it might be hard to pick us out of a crowd, so we took some pictures of just the two of us at home before the party.

 

 

 

Mindi made some really awesome treats for the party as well, a witch's broomstick and hat. They were a big hit and really cute!

 

Hope that everyone is doing great! 

Dinner Club and Dolphins

Hello Everyone!  Hope that things are going well as we have had a busy and exciting last few weeks! 

We are a part of a dinner club that meets once a month and a different couple puts on a themed four-course meal and provides entertainment.  We had dinner club this last month on the beach and had a really nice time watching the sunset and enjoying some great food!  Here is a picture of us from that night.

Here is a picture of the set up for dinner.  This was under a tent on Emon beach and was very nice.

We went up to Biji on Monday with the Olsons and enjoyed a huge blessing on the way!  We were going through the pass in between the Ocean and lagoon when Mindi spotted a dolphin jump out of the water.  We took our boat in that direction and found ourselves in a huge pod of spinner dolphins jumping and flipping out of the water.  They like to swim with boats for some reason and these stayed with us and jumped close enough to the boat a few times to splash Mindi!  That was awesome, and the Olsons hadn't seen dolphins up close before so this was a real treat.  My camera is slightly delayed from when I push the button, so I kept getting them going back into the water.

Here is a picture of some of the dolphins swimming in front of the boat

Here is another picture of some dolphins.  I had to dip my arm way into the water holding onto my camera to get the shot and I am just glad that I didn't drop the camera into the deep blue!  They were swimming back and forth right in front of the boat and it was really neat!

 One more shot of the dolphins in front of the boat.

 This was a lot fun, and getting pelted with rain the whole way back to Kwaj from Biji

 added to the experience.  Hope that the Birthday part was really good for Cami and that everyone had fun and is doing well!  We miss everyone and have you in our thoughts are prayers often.

Into September Already

Hello!  Hope that everyone is doing well!  We wanted to post a few pictures from the last few weeks and give some updates!  We are house sitting for the next 4 weeks so it has been really nice to move into the house this last weekend and have a kitchen, living room and everything!  We have enjoyed that a lot.  The house came with a dog that we have enjoyed walking and training to sleep on its pad on the floor, so that has been an adventure!  We have started a new couple's bible study and that has been great as well.  School is well underway at this point and our second year feels a lot smoother than our first year!

Below are some pictures from the last few weeks, one from a scuba dive and two from a day on the beach where we hung out and learned how to paddle a surfboard, which is more challenging than you might think but a lot of fun!