Aaron's Special Day at Work

So Aaron has one of the coolest jobs ever.  It brought us out to the South Pacific. But the other day was a super special day at Aaron's work.  He got to ride in a privately chartered helicopter (sponsored by his job) around the Kwajalein Atoll.  They landed on any island that had equipment that his work uses and got to see the Atoll from a view that only a few get to see.  The new work schedule out here has afforded us much more family time together.  Aaron leaves for work around 7:30 am then returns home for lunch between 11:30 am and 12:30 pm.  Goes back to work until 4:30 pm then comes home.  We all get to see Aaron much more than we did in the states (where sometimes he would work beyond the boys' bed times).  And we get to do things as a family after dinner, like cruise around on the island on our bikes, or go swimming at the beach, or even go on a nature hike (this is surprisingly Oliver's favorite thing to do after dinner).  

Here are some pics from Aaron's best day ever at work:

Beginning of 4th Grade

Yet again I am playing catch-up.  We have all survived the Kwaj Crud and are feeling back to our normal selves again.  Right as we were recovering from the Crud, Carson started 4th Grade (that happened on August 27th).  He was very nervous but had a great 1st day.  He made us ride to school with him and pick him up for lunch and after school for a few days but the next week he became more confident and rode to and from school alone.  One of the unique things about school here (and Aaron's work) is that they get to come home for lunch.  Carson goes to school from 830 am to 1130 am, has lunch break from 1130 am to 1230 pm, then school again from 1230 pm to 330 pm.  It has been a great experience to prepare proper lunches at home for all of us! Here are few pictures from Carson's 1st day of 4th Grade!

Carson loves biking to and from school! One of the norms on island is rain.  It rained as we were biking to school then started pouring right as we arrived at the school.

Oliver and I escorting Carson to school.  Aaron was taking the photo from the back.

Carson with his teacher Mrs. Primo 

(there is usually only 1 class per grade, K-12.  Carson's school building is comprised of K-6th grade)

 

Even in 4th grade, Carson still enjoys a hug from his momma

Oliver and I picked Carson up after school.  As you can see it is still raining!

Oliver in his rain gear.  Riding behind my bike can be a wet affair especially when it is raining and there are puddles.  So Oliver has a full body rain suit, boots, and an umbrella to keep him dry.

The Kwaj Crud

Less than a week on the island and we have all been hit with the Kwaj crud.  It sounds like everyone experiences different symptoms (probably depending on what is going around) but for us we are experiencing cold like symptoms.  While the cold symptoms aren't too terrible, we are all really tired and feeling under the weather.  I knew we would come down with something as we just traveled half way around the world.  People come from all over and bring their little germs with them and sometimes your body just doesn't have the right memory cells to fight an illness off quickly.  On the bright side, we are all adding memory cells to our defense system which will help us fight off similar germs in the future!

(Photo Credit: http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/immunity/immune-detail.html)

Catching Up

As many of you probably know by now, we made it to our new home and are mostly settled.  Because we have been so busy setting up our new home, the blog has had to wait (although there has been plenty of ideas in my head that I could go into great detail about!).  But to keep this blog to a readable size, I'll try to keep my thoughts brief.  

Initial thoughts on the island: it is absolutely beautiful here!  It is unlike anything I have ever experienced and every day I am thankful to have this opportunity to travel.  So I will never use this blog to complain although I can see things that might bring some people down.  I'll get to those in a moment.  Everyone here is so nice! From the Marshallese people who come here to work to the American's that live here.  You cannot go anywhere without people waving or stopping to talk to you (whether it is someone you know or someone who knows you are new to the island).  

Some things I could see people could complain about (but I won't!): Rain! It rains at least once a day it seems and we are currently in transition of seasons...meaning we are not even into the rainy season.  But the rain here isn't what one would expect. It is really warm along with the air temperature being warm so even though it will rain buckets, getting wet isn't really a hardship unless being wet drives you nuts.  Bugs: roaches, ants, and geckos have all been in our house since we arrived although I am told they really prefer to not be in your house.  Roaches are bigger than what we had in Georgia which was surprising to me.  From my experience with big bugs in Georgia however I will not hesitate to squish a roach.  So it seems that their numbers in my house have decreased dramatically since we arrived.  Even the ants seemed to have tapered off as we have set up our house.  The geckos are really small (mostly around an inch long) and are a good 'bug' to have in your house.  They are cute and they eat other bugs! 

Food and Mail: I have been pleasantly surprised by the food selection here.  There is a decent supply of organic products and produce but there is also a huge supply of processed foods.  That is the case in most US grocery stores though too.  Items come and go here, for example: right now there is no yogurt on island because the shipment that came was not at the right temperature; I am assuming it was trashed because of safety reasons.  Mail is also sporadic.  I have only ordered things through Amazon at this point so it seems some things have come pretty quickly (within 6 or 7 days) and some of my other things took about 6 weeks to be delivered.  I'm not sure where mail/packages go or if they sit somewhere for a long time but there is no such thing as instant gratification here (which isn't a bad thing!).  Patience is key with all things here.  Enjoy some photos now!

This was in the plane as we were getting close to Kwaj so I am assuming this is part of the Kwajalein Atoll (atoll just means a group of islands that form a chain)

Our items from the states was delivered on the 3rd day were were here on island: which is apparently unusually fast! Another thing to be thankful for!

When I saw this massive pile of boxes...I just thought why did we bring so much stuff?! We were fast though and had almost all of the boxes unpacked the same day that our boxes arrived! 

Now we are getting to the point where we can enjoy everything the island has to offer us.  One of those things is snorkeling! I have yet to go out but Aaron and Carson have already been out twice and are starting to grow fond of the fun activity.  

One of our goals here was to limit electronic time.  Since we just got our tv set up yesterday that hasn't been a hard thing to do but I don't think it will be a hard goal when this is your backyard.  Every night we go to the lagoon side of the island to swim and watch the sunset.  

This was the best sunset yet!

The Countdown Begins

We are 4 days out from leaving Idaho to start our new journey in the Marshall Islands.  We will spend a couple days in Hawaii before arriving at our new home.  So as an update...

Our shipment went out June 15th.  Moving things to the basement worked out great as it kept everything in one spot for the movers packing our stuff and kept the movers from walking all through our house.  This meant that we could go about our business on our top two floors while the movers were doing their thing in our walkout basement.  The only hard thing was that we went over our weight limit so we decided this 'pack out' would be our only shipment of things to go out (foregoing the air shipment).  That meant any items we wanted to bring out to the islands with us had to come on the plane with us.  So we bought 4 totes to count as baggage (we are allowed 8).

With our 8 pieces of luggage we made our way to the Oregon coast.  This was interesting to say the least but we took it easy and accepted it for what it was.  I am sure we got some looks from people but we were unphased by it.  Now the kids and I are in Idaho and Aaron is back in Boston wrapping things up but he will arrive here in Idaho tomorrow.  From there we will have a quick few days to enjoy family and friends before we head out.  So far things have been very laid back and easy going.  We have tried to prepare ourselves for this trip/move mentally so we have no expectations about how things will work out.  This makes any unexpected things a little less stressful.  And until we get to the islands and settled we will continue to be flexible and work with what this move has in store for us. I will try to get a post up while in Hawaii but as we will be busy there I make no promises! But pics will be coming soon! For now here are a couple...1st the boys in the Houston airport and 2nd a picture of the Oregon coast from the view of our condo.

Getting Our Stuff To Kwaj

As more people learn about our move to Kwaj Island, we are constantly bombarded by questions by the curious.  Getting things half way around the world is no easy feat after all.  So how do we get things to the Island?

Well first off, our Island house will come furnished.  So we won't have to worry about too many bulky items being sent over.  We do plan to take our comfy sleeper sofa however as the furniture on Island is a rattan style and not very comfortable. We figure the sleeper sofa could come in handy too if we have guests.  This leaves minor items that we need to worry about.  Mainly organizational things (to appease my type A organizing self), dishes and kitchen tools, towels, etc.

Items are sent in 2 shipments.  The first is a sea shipment, where our items are loaded here in Mass. and sent to California to be placed on a large container ship.  We are allowed 2200 pounds however we can always pay for more if needed.  We do not expect that to happen.  Our movers will be taking this shipment on June 15 which is just over a month away! The items are scheduled to arrive on Island on Aug 8th, however it is never on time so we expect a later arrival.  As we won't arrive on Island until later in Aug though it is almost guaranteed to be there before we arrive.

The 2nd shipment is sent by air.  This shipment usually only takes a couple weeks but again we are sending it early to guarantee its arrival before we get to the Island.  This shipment will be taken by our movers the 3rd week in July.

Luckily we have lots of things that are NOT going to the Island so although our house is going to progressively empty out throughout each shipment, the house will never fully be empty.  Anything left over from these 2 shipments will either go to a donation house (that gives items to homeless as they get back on their feet) or into storage which we won't have access until we move back.

Other items that we will need on Island but do not have here will be ordered and mailed online (more than likely through Amazon).  We have an APO on island so we can receive items from loved ones via the USPS or order things online from anyone who ships to an APO. So although we will be on a tiny island, we can get almost anything we want...it just takes time as airplanes and ships do not arrive daily on island.  But I will save that talk for another post down the road!

Those far away from Mass. who have questions about our move, feel free to comment below and I will address these in future posts.

Changes are coming.....

It has been a while since I have worked on our blog but big changes are coming for us so there will be more activity in the coming months and years.  The big news?  We are moving to a beautiful island in the South Pacific (see picture below)! It is a very small island (2 1/2 miles long by 1/2 mile wide) but full of opportunities and adventures.

We sent off passport applications for the boys yesterday and set a date for the 1st shipment of things that will go out (June 15th!).  I will write more about the process later but for now we are just trying to figure out which of our possessions will be traveling half way around the world with us and what won't!

This is a bittersweet move for us but we know we will be back in the Boston area after this adventure so this move will not mean a permanent goodbye to all our dear friends here in New England.