A Very Merry Unbirthday

Well yesterday we celebrated John's birthday. Part one of his birthday anyway, since he'll be busy on his actual birthday. I chose to do it this early because I already knew he would be available and didn't want to have to worry.


We woke up early to drive up to Haliewa (North Shore) to go on Hawaii Shark Encounters! It wasn't a surprise like I had hoped it would be. Last week we saw sharks while diving and he started talking about not wanting to go on this tour anymore so I told him that that's what I had planned but there was still time to cancel without having to pay for anything. After thinking about it and realizing we'd be able to see more and see them closer up without worrying about scaring them, he decided we'd still do it. So we drove up there yesterday for an 8:30am appointment. It was very cool. We got on the boat and went on a 20 min ride. This took us about 3 miles from coast where the water is 600 ft deep. There were 12 people total that had signed up to go on this trip so they had 6 people go in at a time. We were in the first group and it was very cool! Oh sidenote: they had masks and snorkels sanitized for those who didn't bring their own. But yes we went in first with 4 other people and saw a lot of sharks! More than 5, I'm certain of it but I never counted. We saw Sandbar and Galapagos sharks and even one Barracuda. The Barracuda was the only one that made me nervous. The sharks are sleek and beautiful while the Barracuda was pointy and you could see his teeth and he definitely could have fit into the cage if he wanted. Thankfully he stayed further away than the rest of the bunch. I know the boat has seen him before so they knew we weren't in any danger.

See him there? Creepy! Well you probably can't unless you click on it to see the larger size. Oh well.

Aren't they so neat? I enjoyed it a lot and John did too so it was a good start to the Unbirthday.

The next few hours we went to lunch, showered, and he played some video games while I napped. I was exhausted! I'm tired a lot lately- it's annoying.

At 5 we had reservations at Ruth's Chris, which is DELICIOUS. I've never been there before, but we'll definitely be going back. John thought it would just be the two of us going out to dinner until he saw Bryan Harris there, his friend and roommate from the Academy. John asked what he was doing down here (we were in Waikiki) and I turned and said "He's having dinner with us!" John was impressed, surprised, and glad to see his old friend. He was also glad to see the single malt scotch that Bryan brought for John haha. Ruth's Chris opens at 5 so we told them we were there for the Reservation but still were waiting a little while they opened. It was expected and perfectly fine since not everyone in the party was even there. While we put in our name I saw Stacy and Kyle Haubold coming up and told him to go greet them as well! Haha. They're also friends from the Academy, and Groton as well. John was very pleased to see his friends that he's been too busy to see. Shawn and Kris Kellogg also showed up as well as another Sub friend, Evan. It was a good party of 8 and I'm very glad everyone was around and able to make it. It made for a great night and a great birthday. It's good that John got to see them all again. They're all so busy!

Oh and Ruth's Chris is the best place to go for a special occasion! They're so nice and the food is amazing. They also gave john fancy bacardi 151 strawberries covered in chocolate and set on fire for his birthday! It was very tasty! I'm glad they did that, and they gave him a card with a gift certificate. That was unexpected. We'll definitely go back again for other special occasions. We saw a couple there for their anniversary and there were rose petals on their table for that. I definitely recommend this place, and it's a chain so you don't need to come to Hawaii to go!

The rest of the pictures are on Picasa :-)

Cake Decorating

Well, I've finally signed up for Wilton Cake Decorating classes at Ben Franklin Crafts. I wanted to do this when I lived at home, but I didn't find out about it until I was leaving a few weeks later. I only just discovered that the crafts stores here DO have it! I thought they didn't. I'm pretty excited. I'm doing course 1 (logically) which is on Sundays for 4 weeks. It should be fun.

Oh! Maybe if I get really into this I'll end up getting a caddy, like a decorating nerd. Isn't it neat though? John made fun of it... lol

SSN 773

Sooo I have a picture for you! It's from 1995 though, but you may still like it!

There you go, that's it for today. I lied. I found another.

Ok now I'm done.
Enjoy

Wedding Info

Since we're not sending out Save-The-Dates, I got the website up and running with info regarding the wedding to help you plan since it's long distance for most everyone. I do hope to send out invitations sometime within the next few months. They they definitely won't top the lovely birds on Michael's! Those were adorable!

But anyway
Link to wedding website : http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/MeredithDavies&JohnRussell

Pledge

So I officially love Pledge Multi-Surface. It is pretty nice to be able to clean the counters and then spray the mirrors and our coffee table and then the wooden dinner table and not have to keep switching bottles.

It's fantastic! AND no streaks on the glass. I enjoy useful cleaning products that make my life easier. Just felt like sharing.

Tonight a couple of the ladies from the boat are coming over to decide on my dress for the Submarine Ball which is April 3rd. I'll talk about it more after the fact :-) It'll be more interesting then and will even contain pictures!

Veggie Burgers!

For whomever wants to know about good healthy delicious frozen veggie burgers, I found you some! I'm trying to eat healthier and whatnot.

See: http://www.morningstarfarms.com/

I've had the Grillers burgers, Chix Patties, and the sausage patties and they've all been delicious. Usually I pair the burgers with honey and oat buns, spinach, and a little cheese. They're tasty!

Giant tasty food

So this is random, but I'm playing with stuff right now.

But isn't that adorable? John wouldn't let me add it to our registry since it's silly and we'd never use it. BUT what he doesn't know is I added....

Wilton Giant Cupcake Pan and Sandwich Cookie-Shaped Baking Pans Set and a few other silly things because I think it would be amusing to have a large food party.

I should probably take them off though. They are rather silly...
But it would be amusing!

I found the cupcake pan, the cookie pan, the sandwich cookie pan, and a giant donut cake pan. It would be funny.
Very impractical though.

Pictures

Hey all

The woman I met on the boat dive just sent me her album of pictures. I saved a few that were from when we were diving at the same place. This way you can see some of the things I saw, even if they weren't taken with my camera. It's still very cool. Here are a couple, I'll upload the rest to Picasa. There aren't took many and she didn't have her strobe so the colors weren't picked up. Still cool though.









The whales! Yay!

Picasa

P.S. If you click on the pics, it'll show you their real size. Unfortunately the only picture of the sharks is the one with all the writing on it.

Cake Balls

On Friday I made Cake Balls. This is horribly against my diet but I made sure to have many people eat them. They turned out delicious. I did learn that unless you add something to chocolate chips, they're not good for dipping in. They were last choice though.

Recipe from Bakerella:

"Red Velvet Cake Balls
1 box red velvet cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can cream cheese frosting (16 oz.)
1 package chocolate bark (regular or white chocolate)
wax paper

1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can cream cheese frosting. (It may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but be warned it will get messy.)
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50. You can get even more if you use a mini ice cream scooper, but I like to hand roll them.)
4. Chill for several hours. (You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.)
5. Melt chocolate in microwave per directions on package.
6. Roll balls in chocolate and lay on wax paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate and then tap off extra.)"

These are absolutely delicious. I used Pillsbury Devil's Food Cake Reduced Sugar Cake mix. The mix is made with half Splenda, basically. And, instead of the chocolate bark, I had leftover chocolate wafers from the craft store and they worked perfectly. I only didn't have enough and used chocolate chips for the last bunch and those were MESSY. The wafers also hardened much more quickly. The recipe and creation is easy, but it's timely. They're VERY delicious though.

Diving: Twin Caves and 29 Down

Hey there all.

Yesterday was a very good day. John was actually home for the weekend so that was pleasant. A few weeks ago we went to the Submarine Officer's Wive Charity Auction for the Dolphin Scholarship. It's a mouthful! We won one thing and that was a two person two-tank, two location dive during the silent auction. Basically we bought the dive we wanted for around half the price. This is a one day boat dive that takes you to two places.

Yesterday we cashed out on the dives and it was a great day. We went with Ocean Concepts on Sunday morning at 8am. Since we pay for the dive, they take our stuff to the boat and set up the BCDs, tanks, and regulators for us. The first location we went to is called Twin Caves and we had a guide to show us around since we're newbies and also don't know the dive site.

Twin Caves

It was a wonderful dive. I saw many fish, but unfortunately I can never remember which ones I saw by the time I get to my book! I've seen to many in different places. We definitely saw three 6-8ft long White Tipped Reef Sharks underneath a cave. It was very cool. I learned that when I see sharks I get excited instead of scared, so that's always good. Of course we must always exercise caution and not provoke them, but we're not stupid. When in doubt, just calmed swim away. They were neat. Someone took a picture of them using a flash and one got scared and swam away.

I also saw a Moray eel, I think it was the honeycomb eel but I'm not positive. Once I get to my book, I can't remember the specifics! He was white and brown spotty though and swimming around in circles through a coral.

After that dive we were given lunch and took the boat to the second location. On the way there we saw about our humpback whales swimming by! That was really exciting! They didn't do tricks but we saw their humps and there was a fin slap. They were pretty close. It was great getting more for our buck! Now we don't need to go on a whale watch! haha.

The second dive was 29 Down which (the link will explain better) is a man made wreck dive. However, contrary to the picture in that link, it's in many pieces. During one of the hurricanes it was torn to pieces so now they're scattered about the ocean floor. It was still neat to look inside various coves and swim about. We saw another Porcupine fish! They're so adorable.



Besides a large amount of fish, some not in either of my books, this dive didn't have anything too exciting but it was still a lot of fun and I loved being down there. I only wish it could have been longer, but because of the pressure, the deeper you go the more quickly you go through the air. We went about 85 ft down for the first dive/tank and about 70 the next one.

I love diving.

Unfortunately John got all excited about seeing the Sharks that he talked about no longer wanting to do cage diving. Well, it's simpler than that. It's a plexiglass surrounded cage that you go in to see sharks. See : www.hawaiisharkencounters.com : Well that is what I had planned for his birthday and to do next weekend. So I told him and thus the surprise is ruined but after feeling like a jerk and realizing that we could see more and see them closer, he still wants to do it.

So next week, we swim with sharks!

I love diving.

Oh, P.S.
Those pictures are not mine. Since we don't have a camera that can go that deep, I found these on Google to help portray what I saw. :-)

Loose Lips Sink Ships

Al Qaeda Targets Navy

This is a few months old, but I don't remember if I shared it or not. This is why I can't tell you whether or not John will be gone and when he'll be back. I can tell you THAT he's gone but not when he's going to leave.

And now for something completely different

Only you'll have to click to see it

Really Random Video
Cara, this is what Hannah sent you. I felt like sharing

Handsome Mens Club

Just double click to see the whole thing via youtube

Jillian Michaels

Well. I'm on track for losing weight, oh what fun! I've started Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. Well I have to admit, I started it about three times. Only this is the first time that I've made it to Day 7! And I'm now on Level 2, which logically is harder than 1. Haha. I also signed up for this body boot-camp that is 2 days a week for 4 weeks and we're expected to work out for 4 days when we're not there. The person who loses the most wins a massage.

I also have told myself I'm not allowed to buy clothes or underwear or bridal undergarments until I need to get them in a new size. Which would be awesome. However if I end up losing dress sizes, this could be an issue for my wedding dress. Is that an easy but probably expensive alteration fix or am I cursing my wedding dress?

In addition I'm off to the grocery store to get healthy foods and ingredients for recommended meals AND meals that are supposed to help lower blood pressure because apparently John is now on watch for High Blood Pressure.

Let's find out if I can handle cottage cheese. Last I knew, it was gross.

Rain Rain Rain

Well "Rainy-season" was supposedly Nov-Mar which was odd since it really didn't rain much. Apparently it just came late. I swear it's rained every day since the calendar switched to March. Maybe Mother Nature turned her calendar and thought "Oh wait! damn it... better late than never. Let it begin!" and now it's wet.

All the time.

Well not all, but a lot

Baking!

Hey there!

Today was a pretty good day. I did errands, oh what fun, that consisted of picking up swatches of Horizon from David's Bridal (yay wedding things!) and taking my new free dress to the Dry Cleaners. Ruby, the Engineer's Wife, recently lost a few hundred pounds and had dresses of all sizes that she wants to get rid of. Turns out I could only fit in last year's dress since the rest were huge, but it's very lovely! So I have a free fancy dress AND IT'S TEAL and therefore very pretty. It's a lot like my ring dance dress but no chiffon and no train. Basically the silhouette and neckline are the same. It's lovely though. I'm excited to only have to buy dry cleaning for this, especially with all the weddings coming up.

I spent the rest of the day baking. I made Dirt for tomorrow's Family Fun day for the boat. Oh what fun. The Dirt is DELICIOUS. I had some trouble with the recipe because it didn't specify which type of pudding. From my experiences with Banana Pudding, my first instinct was to buy non-instant pudding. Turns out that was the wrong thing to do. Dang. Oh well. It turned out alright. It's so good! I forgot how yummy it was.

After that I made Apple Banana Muffins! They have no butter and no eggs. They're made with mashed bananas, sliced apples, apple juice, 1/2 sugar, and some flour and cinnamon. (plus baking soda of course) Mind didn't turn out quite as fluffy as they should be, but they're still good! They're not too bad for me, and that's very exciting.

That's pretty much what I did today. I also figured out some Tux issues and talked it over with John. He wants a banded collar tux since it'll be similar to the Choker White's that he (and Austin if he can make it) will be wearing.

Also, I think I've decided to move the wedding toward a more peacock theme. I've been loving everything peacock lately and the colors work perfectly with everything I've already been thinking! Hooray!

Cardio Cardio Cardio!

Current Goal in life: to enjoy running...and be able to do so without feeling like my lungs have turned to ice.

Tsunami and Everyday life

Hey there!

For future reference about tsunami's you can go to this website. It wasn't working DURING the tsunami warnings, but now if you search my address you'll see I'm in a find area. Not only am I 300 ft above sea level and not too close the the water, but the water I am close to is the harbor which is also not a risky spot. So no worries. The only issues I may deal if, if we were to actually get one, is electricity and water shortages. At some point I'll buy a pack of bottled water, just in case. Other that that we're alright. We have batteries and the non-battery using flashlights that Tom and Cathy gave John for Christmas. Thanks!

Today was my first day as a house"wife". I have more plans on what to do with my time during this section of my life. I'm still applying to jobs whenever I see fit, so hopefully one bite. Until then I have more friends and a car here. I'm participating in a few of the boat things now. There's a charity auction being put on by the Submarine's Officer Wives Club for the Dolphin Scholarship (a scholarship for children of Submariners). I offered to donate some baked goods for their baked good section. John bought tickets on the board so it looks that that's where we'll be on the 6th of March. Anyone can go and donate, but only wives are in the actual club. I'll decide whether I want to actually join or not later on.

I'm also starting to go to FRG meetings. Any member of the family or girlfriend can go, if they want. This is the Family Readiness Group for the Cheyenne, so only people affiliated with our boat go to this one. We just got an Ombudsman so I think she and the Captain will decide if they want to change the rules about who can attend. The CO(captain) is in charge of our Command (the boat) so whatever he says about things like this, is word. It's nice to go though. I've met a few of the wives and we chat a little now. I feel like I fit into this life a little bit better than when I started, which is to be expected of course. There's some family fun day thing on the 5th at noon. That should be interesting. I get to bake for that as well! So I have lots of baking to do this weekend. Not sure if John can go. The boat should have the day off, or a short day, but John is going to JO2 school this week so I'm not sure how his schedule will fit. We shall see. I think I'll go anyway. Thus is Navy life! I gotta be the independent woman. I'll socialize and such, and eat free food. It'll also give me a nice little thing to do on Friday as well.

I'm excited about all this baking. I'll be doing the sub cupcakes for the Auction because I know they'll sell well. Our Captain LOVED them. He had the greatest reaction. They're made with Twinkies but I bought Swiss Rolls to try as well since those are already the right color. We shall see.

As for what I'm baking this Friday, well I have yet to decide! That's my next mission.

The house is pretty clean and the laundry is running so I think I'll do that now.

Love,
Meredith

P.S. I'll be home in Dallas, PA May 16th-June 13th. Hopefully I'll see many of you!