Taste of the Marianas

The month of May is one of our favorite times of year in Saipan because The Taste of the Marianas is held every Saturday night!  Taste is a food festival with ethnic food from all around the world.  It is set up each weekend at American Memorial Park, and has live dance performances all night long.  

We love it because many of the resorts and restaurants of Saipan will offer special dishes only for Taste of the Marianas.  Our favorites?  The Capricciosa rice croquette and PIC's chicken curry!

 Me and Amy enjoying the island sunset

Beth and Jake at dinner

 yum PIC curry!

finger lickin good

talented Palauan dancers on stage

 Laura and Joe ate with us

 and so did Matt and Ame

 Brian and I :)

We can't wait for another Taste of the Marianas next weekend!

Obyan Beach

Brian and I on our front porch

 Getting ready to leave for church on Easter Sunday

 Below are some pictures of a Saturday afternoon in March spent at Obyan Beach.  Obyan is at the southern end of the island, near the Saipan Airport.  We had a little cookout and went swimming.

 Pathway leading down to beach.  Obyan is one of the easiest beaches to cross over the reef into the open ocean.  Before, we've used a rope that is permanently attached into the reef to lead ourselves out.  Once out in the open water, you are able to see sea creatures that you can't normally see inside the reef, such as sea turtles, eagle rays, and octopus.  This day, however, the water was too rough to try to go outside the reef.

Alison and Matt cooking hotdogs in the fire we made.

Brian climbing a palm tree to get some coconuts.

 Cuter than cute baby Caleb, my friend Kayla's baby.

Kara and I hanging out

Brian and Nate and the fire.

A great picture of the Woods family- Aaron, Kayla, and Caleb

Our friend Jake brought his two dogs to the beach, and Sam swam with them in the ocean.

The end!

Forbidden Island rocks

Forbidden Island is one of our very favorite hiking destinations in Saipan.  A couple of weekends ago, a group of us took a trip out there and spent the morning exploring and swimming.  Our friends Amy and Matt had family visiting and we all wanted to show them the gorgeous island.  

Here's some pics of our trip, although a lot of them were taken by our friends Kara and Grant, who have an awesome blog about life in Saipan here.  Check it out!

 The hiking trail down to Forbidden is pretty steep and can be really slippery if it has rained recently.  Taking it slow is best because then you can see the amazing view as you go down.

We always take lots of pictures on the hike down :)

At some points, ropes are in place to help you get down the tricky parts.

 Once you're down to the beach, there are tons of cool rock formations to climb and cliffs to explore.

 Love this picture of us girls even though i'm cheesing it.

 We found an "I Love You" shoe

birthday!

My man turned 30 this month!  Here's the whole day in pictures.

Brian's birthday started off at church on Sunday morning, when Bobby Winkfield, the principal of Saipan Community School, had the whole congregation sing happy birthday to Brian during the opening announcements!

Here's the cutest-baby-ever James Van Dam, with my friend Kara on the left and his momma Jackie on the right.

After church, hanging out with Nate, Will, and Jake, who just came back from an early morning spear-fishing trip.

... and onto birthday lunch!  Brian chose Spicy Thai, and we invited a bunch of our friends to come along.  Above is panang curry yum yum yum.

It was such a fun bday lunch- great food and great friends!

Next, I took Brian and Sam to Pau Pau beach for the afternoon.

Sammie's favorite thing in the entire world is her frisbee. Obsessed.

Cracking up from the large amount of sand Sam was shaking from her tongue.

These two love the beach!

Later we went home and I made Brian's favorite dinner: Chicken Parmesan Bundles from Kraft Foods.

I made this meal for him a looong time ago in Oklahoma City when we were engaged and it's been his very favorite ever since.

Sitting outside and enjoying the beautiful Saipan sunset.

I love keeping birthday secrets from Brian and surprising him and spoiling him.  I'm happy to be in Saipan with my love.