my cati garden

My succulent mini cacti garden. Lets hope they last but never-the-less pictures last longer.

pink/red anthuriums

cherry tomatoes

Not pictured: basil, oregano, cilantro, rosemary, mint, green onions and aloe.

Ardel's new place

We have so many friends moving. The Lee Kwai's are moving down stairs from us. That makes four witnesses families in our stairwell. 4 out of the 6.

Here is a picture of another friend in Makakilo that moved. I lived in Makakilo before I got married.

They threw us foreign-language helpers a good bye party.

Kelly & Bonnie (Spanish in Nicaragua), Elyse & Alison (Chinese), Ashley, Tania & Gary (Chuukese), Nolani and family (Iloko).
The food was soooo good! Ardel and I are sharing recipes.

This was my favorite! Stuffed crab mushrooms.


Happy grad from college Ashley!!!

Romy's shrimp

July 7, 2010

Driving to Romy's is like driving the whole Chuuk... TWICE!. But I wouldn't know. Actually it is not even an island, its an atoll. Anyhue..

Romy's!!! I love love love it!!!

People are willing to wait 45 minutes to an hour for it, plus pay $13.00 for a single plate with rice. It is so broke-da-mout. So ono-licious just thinking about it makes me drool.

When you take a wiff at the air... You'll wish you could bite the air.

My favorite is the butter-garlic plate.

Yumi is so hungry she got a headache. To relief she asked people to pull her hair. ...pull her hair... Is that how they do it in Chuuk?

Giddy loves ice. Ice is addicting.

Should we tell him that it opens on the other end.

Jong is showing us what happens when you eat too much shrimp.

say, "shrimp"

li hing pineapple


YEEEESSS! And only 45 minutes later. Chad gets the Lemon-Butter garlic and Diane gets the spicy shrimp plate.

OK lets get down to business. Wow... silence... Damien, Sam and Jeff are all eye-balling Marcus' food. Marcus just smiling. Oblivious.

Tania and Gary and...
...our garlic-butter shrimp plate!

CLL

My secular job is an ESL or ELL PTT ~English Second Language or English Language Learner as they call it now and I'm a Part-Time Teacher so now I am a CLL student! Here are some of our pictures from class.

I love our class, we have such a good rapport with one another and right from the start the instructor was humorous to keep us from stressing out. During break time we are always loaded with questions or thoughts.

There are a lot of techniques for teaching and here was one of them. Balloons!

For example, when trying to memorize something like, lets say, counting in your new language, just blow up a balloon or use a scarf and throw it up in the air. By the time it lands on your elbow, arm or hand whichever you choose, you must say the translated word out loud. The brain retains the information much quicker when it is physically, mentally and verbally challenged. Plus it was a lot of fun!

Here is Ofelia, Helen and Yumi, our native "Chon Chuuk" translators. They help us a lot with pronunciation.

Here is Gideon, our baby student of the group. He is 10 months old, at the moment we are at the same rate in our language learning as him. By the time he is talking, we should or could be at the same level in our Chuukese language. Hahaha but I can only hope...

After the first day of class, we went to the beach to relax our brains and catch some fish.

Gary and I with Diamond Head in the back ground and a pole sticking out of Gary's brain.

Hermalyn, Sunem, Debbie, Sarai and Joanne

Yumi said, Chon Chuuks love to braid each other's hair. The girls did a really good job!

And they love gold teeth, which you probably know already. What is funny is that on the contrary, Chon Chuuks generally have nice teeth, but they choose to have gold teeth for the style of it. Isn't that interesting.

finding kirby

So the other day I couldn't find our bottom feeder sucker fish, Kirby.

I looked all over. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him in a few days which makes me even more anxious. Anxious over a fish! How does a fish go missing?!

I looked into the lamp, I dunno why. But then I found him... Under the couch, dried and stiff with dust bunnies. Sad. He committed suicide. He went swimming with humans.

He was a good fish. He minded his own fish-business. He ignored all the bossy fishes that tested him. They end up leaving him alone because he doesn't bother any of them.



Gary wants another Kirby and he wants to name him, Hoover. But I was thinking of, K-2.

Chuukese and Marshallese get together

The Chuukese and the Marshallese congregation welcomed us with a gathering at the Kaka'ako waterfront park.
This was a nice introduction to their culture. It was also the first gathering the Chuukese and Marshallese had together since becoming a group/cong.

My biggest impression was the food!

They love their meats and sweets. Big plates are ok. Forks are optionals. Chopsticks? What chopsticks?

Does everything have coconut?

I liked this one a lot... coconut rice balls... yum! Gary ate this with beer-made chili.

coconut tapioka

fishy food...

women cook & BBQ.

The mamas were singing and dancing. They are so down, so hip, so game for anything. They show no shame, any shape, any size. It was really, really cool. I wish I had more pictures!

Starbucks or Bust

Ask my Mom to say Starbucks and she'll say everything but Starbucks.

For example, one day she asked me to go to Coffee bustah. When I ask her, where? She said, You know, star bustah.

Today she said Starback, then she corrected herself and said Starbuck. Without the S. She's getting closer.