Beautiful, wish you were here!!

The view of palm tree covered coral atolls never gets old. We recently looked through the PC desktop "wallpapers" to give our screen a new look. "Azul" so closely resembles our view, we decided we might mistake the laptop for a porthole. If you're curious about where we are, check it out. Pete decided on an underwater picture of our manta ray friend on the screen instead.

Every Wednesday an Air Tahiti plane stops here. They deliver supplies and people. The small store orders boxes of fresh baguettes and they are available at 10:00. Don't miss them because they are gone by Thurs. For $1.25, there can be crispy bread for lunch. There are 13 boats here now and we're all anchored about 7 miles from the village. One boat with a fast dinghy took orders and ran over there for us all. Several of us also had him bring eggs. I'm happy to say that all 12 eggs survived the ride. Never take grocery shopping for granted. It's been 12 weeks since I've been to a supermarket, but who's counting?

The kids are having a blast. There are 15 kids here now. THey have divided up into girls and boys for fort making. The forts are getting pretty elaborate, as they collect palm fronds and sticks to re-enforce them. Hermit crabs are the most entertaining thing on the beach. Small aquatic crabs cover the sand all day and at night large (golf ball sized) red ones come out to feed. Everyone swims and snorkels daily. We saw "Gill" from Finding Nemo yesterday. It's quite amazing to see a cartoon underwater. :) Apparently Nemo himself lives in Tahiti, so we are looking forward to that. We have discovered where the large spider conches live now, so the search is on for the perfect shell. The best one so far is bigger than my hand span, but quite sun bleached. The live ones are the best, but we haven't wanted to kill them.

We had a nice beach party/potluck the other night. The kids did great and the grown ups got some socializing time too. We all have different groceries left, so the variety of food is fun. It was such a huge success that even the rats came out to join us after dark. Today we're doing another, but starting much earlier.

It's been quite windy the last few days, but the rain has gone away. Wind is Ok, as we're in the lee of the motu and there is no swell. Rain really puts a damper on our fun and keeps us cooped up. The boats on their way to Tahiti are having a good fast ride. We're not sure when we'll leave. It's best to just stay put when there are kids and fun to be had. The anchorage is great, the people are fun and the view is spectacular. This is why we came, so here we stay. We are getting anxious for Tahiti though. A bit of action, some shopping and a friend to visit are all great things to look forward to.

Happy almost summer to ya all, kellie