Ramsey!

This is our new dog Ramsey! He is a basset hound and he is about 4 months 0ld. We have had him for a few days. He is a lot of fun to be around. The potty training is frustrating, but he seems to be getting it. We love and miss you all!

Here are some pictures from the 4th of July. We rented a boat and went fishing with a few friends and watched the firework show. It was a really good show, but as you can imagine it is hard to take pictures of the fireworks, we did get one good one. I caught a fish and a crab. Yes a crab, he was eating the squid we were using to fish. I know they are kind of late (a month) but I though you all might like to see them! Love and miss you All!

Underwater Pictures!!

(if you click on the pictures they will show larger in another window and it is easier to see some of the fish!)

Hello Everyone! We went snorkeling last Sunday at Girl Scout Beach (there is a Girl Scout sign at the entrance). The water was a little murky but not too bad. There are a lot of great coral reefs at this beach! This is the first time we used our underwater camera so the pictures are not the greatest but you get the idea. We tried to get some with color and fish, there is even one with a jelly fish (we didn't get stung this time, but we have before, not fun)! There are also pictures of both Shawn and I. We hope you enjoy them!

We are doing well here. Shawn is just finishing up his Trainer Trainer course, he is going to teach the crewman and coxswain schools on base, he is teaching his first class right now! Work is going well for me, I might get to go to the Academic Advisor Conference in Columbia, MO. That would be fun, it is at the end of August for 2 days. This is the last week of classes for us and then we get a 2 week break, that should be nice.

We hope you are all doing well. We miss and love you all!

Conch Shells!

Here are some pictures of our conch shells. We go to at the beginning of June. Conch season had been closed so there were a lot of conchs and a lot of people looking for them. There is actually a snail like thing inside that some people eat (not us) but we had a guys Shawn works with clean and polish them for us! They are very big and pretty! The last picture is of our spear gun, it is just for decoration and has our names on it. The same guy made it for us that did the shells. We love and miss you all!

House Painting

They finished painting our house the other day. Here are so in progress pictures. We really like the color but they painted the inside and outside of our doors a deep brown/red color and it doesn't really match our furniture. Oh well we really like how nice the outside of the house looks!

MA2 Shawn Stuart

Here is Shawn getting frocked as a MA2! And him in his new uniform in front of our house!

Our Front Yard

We landscaped our yard and here are some pictures! We got some rubber bark and put up edging around all the flower beds. We had the greenest yard in the housing circle but then it rained for a few days so now most the yards are green, but ours is the fullest of all the yards. We use solar lights to light it up at night and it looks very nice. Most people around here don't do anything with their yard but we like ours. Now that it is getting warmer (well going from the winter of 80-90 degrees to 90-100 or more degrees) the flowers on the trees are really starting to bloom!

GREAT NEWS!!!!!

GREAT NEW!!! Shawn has been promoted to a Second Class Petty Officer in the Navy. He is now a MA2. He passed him promotion test the first time he took it which is not done very often. He has only been in the Navy for two years and most people who make Second Class have been in a lot longer than that. He was one of three people in the Security Department on base who made Second and one of only 6 people who made Second Class on the whole base in all jobs! I am very proud of him. He works hard and really deserved it. The picture below is in the new Navy uniform. I like them, not so camo green. There will be a ceremony where he is frocked a Second Class Petty Officer in a few weeks and I will take and post pictures of that.

More Pictures

Hello Everyone!
Here is a picture of our frog and lizard decorations on the wall. They seem just right for Cuba. We had a huge lightning storm the other night and we got a few pictures of it in the distance. It has been raining here a lot the past few days. We have lost power twice and a few places have flooded. When it rains a lot the big frogs and land crabs come out and get in the road, it is like an obstacle course trying to get around them. The weather should be nicer for the weekend, which is good because we have a huge Memorial Day celebration going on. On Monday there are 5 different bands performing and a BBQ and Chile Cook Off. It should be a fun weekend. The pictures at the bottom are of Glass Beach. The storm was on the other side of the bay and we were watching it move in. The Beach is called Glass Beach because there is sea glass all over the beach and it the water. There are a lot of greens and browns and some blues. People make jewelry out of it and use it to decorate. It is fun to go looking for it.

Flowers and things!

Hi there everyone. We are doing well. We have just been hanging out and working. It is starting to get really hot here everyday, usually in the high 90's. We are both going to school and really liking it, in fact we are both also liking work so that is nice. The first picture is of this really cool thing that is growing off one of our trees. We are not really sure what it is but we are hoping that more will grow. The second is of the back of my leg. There are noseeums bits. They are this tiny little bug that you cannot see, thus the name, and they are all over out side. I forgot the bug spray because they just starting coming back now that it is getting hotter and Shawn and I went for a walk around the new track (it is a very nice track by the way) on base. The bugs are so small that you don't feel them biting you , but about 4 hours later it starts to itch very badly. The itching is worse that any other bug bit I have ever had and you cannot start to itch because you will never stop. Also one itch and they pop open and turn into scars. Ya fun, always wear bug spray down here. The third picture is a plant in our front yard. It is called a plumeria. When we first got here we though we just had a big stick in the yard but it is starting to bloom and it is beautiful. We hope you are all doing well and we miss you all.

Fishing

Hey everyone. We went fishing a few weeks ago and had a blast. The first picture is one of the fish I caught, you cannot see it really well because it was splashing the camera. We were in the bay. I caught 3 fish and Shawn caught 2! Everything else is going well here. The weather is starting to heat up and we are both working a lot. We miss everyone and hope you are all doing well. Love you all.

I went to an animal show and these are all animals found in Guantanamo Bay. The Cuban Boa is ten feet long, and it is not the biggest one here. There are a lot of different frogs and lizards here as well. The show was really interesting, they went out and found all the animals in the wild a few days before the show!

So this is where I work. I know the sign on the door is not the best, but we live in GITMO. Our door actually broke the other day. The court yard is really nice. I eat lunch out there most days. Right outside the door is the bay!