And....we have RUNNING water!!

Wow! I don't think Jason or I realized how MUCH we missed having running water until we actual got ours running a few days ago! It is a complete treat!

I can now turn our solar powered water pump on and turn on water in our "kitchen" sink ... so much nicer than taking two large pitchers outside and around the corner of the house to our water tank to fill up then return inside. And, one other completely AMAZING feature -- the shower on our awesome shower platform now works too! I WISH I could post a picture of it for you - it's beautiful (and also incredible to have a real shower after nearly 2 months of using a solar shower that we hang on a tree branch!).

You may wonder why we didn't have this until now ... for some reason the previous couple at the house didn't replace the water pump when it stopped working and they'd also accidentally broken the piping from the tank to the sink & shower. It took us quite a bit of work to get it fixed, but it was SOOO worth it! Running water is amazing!

An ambulance ride...

Jason & I both got the pleasure (?) of riding in our island's ambulance this past weekend. Thankfully, not because we were hurt! We'd been attending a celebration BBQ with the rest of our village -- can I tell you how GOOD BBQ chicken tastes? -- and it started completely pouring about the time we were wanting to head home. One of the shadier characters here waved Jason over and told him he'd have someone given us a ride ... of course we later find out, he really didn't have the authority to be offering us a ride, but since we were standing there, one of the State workers took pity on us and gave us a ride in the AMBULANCE all the way to our house. It was great to not get drenched on the 30 minute walk home, but a bit embarrassing to have everyone in the village watch us climb into the huge ambulance for a ride home!

Some waves...

For the past week, we've had pretty high winds out at our place which has brought in some very high waves! Of course, I haven't captured the biggest ones on film, but this one was pretty good! (Yes, that is our house in the background!)

One more photo...

This is in Koror ... some of our first Palau sites!

24 cans of green beans for $5.00

Sooo...our trip to Koror last weekend turned out very differently than we'd hoped, but that is sort of typical :). The boat goes to the capitol each week on Thursday & returns on Friday and then every other week it does an additional trip on Sunday with a return on Monday. We took the Sunday boat and had been told by ALL of the boat crew (including the captain) that the boat would actually be coming back to Angaur on Tuesday morning. So, when we arrived Sunday night around 6, we didn't rush around too much, deciding to take care of our grocery shopping, home repair shopping and internetting on Monday...bad choice.

We called the State office Monday morning around 10 to make sure all was still the same and were informed that the boat would be leaving at NOON! Not good. We got a ride to the grocery store and did a 40 minute power shop in which we spent more than I have EVER spent in one shop, buying several cases of different kinds of food. The green beans were my best find!

Sadly, we didn't get to the internet OR to the ACE store for house repair stuff...We'd hoped to be able to make it 2 months before returning back to the capitol (mostly due to the expense of going there & spending the night, etc) ... we'll see how we do :) We're just glad to have at least gotten our food as we were getting pretty low!

Thanks Marilyn!

We received our first package in the mail last week from Jason's Mom! What a wonderful treat! It was full of books & DVD's...which were very welcome! And, it only took about 10 days to get here to our island from when it was sent! Not too bad, especially since it took us nearly 5 days to get here ourselves! Thank you Marilyn for your thoughtfulness! It was such a treat!

A Commodity

Drinking water has become this incredible commodity to me since we started living here...not necessarily a bad thing, just interesting how something that I took mostly little notice of, has now become a big priority.

Our water comes from the rain gutter on our roof to fill a 1000 gallon tank next to our house. Due to the many pine trees around the house, the water has a decidely "earthy" flavor to it. In order to get rid of that flavor (and also ensure the water is safe to drink), it goes through quite a process. We filter it through a cloth into large pots which then get boiled over an outdoor fire for 10 minutes. After it has cooled enough, it gets filtered through a cloth again, then when it's completely cool, it goes through a Brita filter and into our water bottles. Quite a process just for a drink of water!

We are SO thankful though for our abundant water. It rains frequently and we have not had to worry about running out of water since we arrived.

One Photo...

The Rock Islands of Palau!

Wasp nests

Last week, Jason & I scraped 315 wasp nests off the boards underneath our house ... and that was only HALF of the house! We still have a long ways to go on this project. Thankfully, most of the nests were abandoned or their owners were out looking for food while we worked, so at least we didn't have angry wasps after us :) I have to admit that creeping around on the rocks while staying low enough to the ground to fit between the earth and the house worked muscles that I didn't even know I had anymore! Maybe this should be a daily exercise routine?? Anyone want to join us??