1 Year, 2 Year

This Monday, September 2nd marks two important anniversaries for Abby and me.  Two years ago, we were married on September 2nd, 2011 at the fabulous Polk County Courthouse in Des Moines. If you can recall that far back, we pushed up our wedding date (we were planning on a Summer 2013 Wedding in Denver initially) and shotgunned the damn thing because we were tired of waiting to go into the Peace Corps, and married couples have to be wed for one year minimum before they are allowed to leave. That worked out pretty well, as one year ago, on September 2, 2012 we officially departed the good ol' USA en route to Peace Corps Tonga. Looking back on both of those dates, they both seem a little surreal.

In many ways Its hard to imagine we have lived abroad for an entire year, away from all of you. On the other hand, life in America seems so far removed from our worlds that its hard to believe it ever existed. There are just no words to explain what this experience has meant to us and how it has been.

In a word:                           hard

In another word:                 life-changing 

In a third word:                   tedious

And last but not least:         awe-inspiring
 
The good with the bad and the bad with the good. Such is the roller-coaster of Peace Corps. Thanks for sticking it out with us.

In other news:
It has been another slow week around these parts. The dog days of the school year have set in and we got to remember what debilitating humidity feels like with the return of the heat.

Mark and Alissa stayed one night with us and Mark, the incredible cook that he is, made a dead-on impression of tasty tacos. This elicited tears of joy on my behalf and even my wife admitted they were fantastic. For those keeping score at home Panchero's, Tasty Tacos and the Taco House in Boji (aka the Ted McCartan hat trick) are all on my first week eating itinerary upon our return to the states.

They slaughtered some cows in the village and Lucky got himself a steer's horn. (Did I mention its been a slow news week?)

Since I have done the lion's share of cooking lately (that's right folks, I can make hand rolled tortillas with my eyes closed now) I asked Abby if she could pickup the slack and take care of dinner Thursday night. She said absolutely and that she had a special surprise in mind. I hoped for more tasty tacos. What I got was Tongan rum and cokes with cereal and uncultured box milk for dinner. Yep. Two years of marital bliss...

That's all from here. Happy Labor Day!


....whoa, whoa whoa. Stop the train. I just realized that the Hawks are back in action this week. Wow, I feel so far removed. But have no fear Hawk fans, detailed schedule analysis, position-by-position breakdown and some reflective thoughts about the Ferentz era to come...

Some pictures:

Abby retro-fitted her infamous country reports to ocean animals. The kids loved them and the projects are setting the stage for some environmental projects I will be doing with the kids and our community in October.

See, no lies here, he really did get a steer's horn!

We went into our bathroom to find this little guy dead in our bath bucket. The rats are back. Maybe more depressing, we had to clean out our dead-rat infested bath bucket with my old e. coli bucket. Yikes.

P.S.~I asked Abby to contribute her words to sum up one year in Tonga. After viewing my blog she said: "kids, dog and rats, yup, that pretty much sums it up!"