I suck-more updates.

At sitting down and doing this. Seriously. I apologize for it. I swear it's like "I'll continue tomorrow....." and the next thing I know it's almost the end of July.

Sorry

Onto more updates.


After Jay left, we tried to find a new routine in the new house...in between all my craziness with meetings and such. It took a bit, and the kids are almost done catching up on school work now (we took Dec and Jan off from homeschool. It was just too much). Between then and Holy week, we hit a few beaches with friends, played in pools, went to Tarza water park, played with our paddle board, watched sunsets.....our normal Guam fun things.

silly boys at the Hyatt pool

Tarza

Cheesin' in Tumon. The water is really
that beautiful.

sunsets never disappoint
(taken from our new porch)

We did do a few non standard things as well. We managed to visit a few units of the War in the Pacific National Park, some of which the kids and I had been to, some not, but Adam actually got to go with us so I don't mind! I learn something new there every time. They do presentations at the main museum all the time, so we also got to see one on propaganda from WWII, and they devoted a section of the presentation to Dr Seuss's contributions to the war.

Agat Beach Unit

Piti guns unit

Also hit that day......a Connex Box McDonalds. Just 'cause

We still have a few more, somewhat more difficult, sections of the Park to explore that include some hiking. It was just too much the day we hit all the above.

If you check the link above for the National Park, you'll see some bad news regarding the park and really our island. They've found more invasive species in the Asan Beach unit of the park. Work started earlier this year to try to remove trees impacted by the Coconut Rhinoceros beetle, and was then halted when they discovered fire ants. Now sections of the park are closed down while they try to figure out how to proceed. It's so sad to watch how much a few "small" non native species can become such a huge issue so quickly on a small island. A few months ago a ship from San Diego was discovered to have black widows (another non-native species) on board when it pulled in here. I'm glad that the inspectors discovered the spiders, sent the ship back out and had the ship treated before unloading her.....but with all the ships from CA that come in here I wonder if it's a matter of time before they infect the island as well.

Christmas and New Years

OK, it's taken me a bit longer than I had hoped, but as promised I'm writing again! WOOHOO! (ok, maybe it's not that exciting).

At the end of last/beginning of this year my brother came out to visit for a few weeks for the holidays. It was just after I had the baby, so things were a bit slower than they normally would have been, but he was still able to get dive certified and see quite a bit. Oh, he also got to help me move into my new house and replace the alternator in the car when it randomly died (thanks again!). He joked one night after the move that he felt like Billy Crystal in "City Slickers" getting dragged by the cow yelling "I'm on VACATION!". I do think he had fun though, because he keeps saying how much he loved it here.

What's interesting is before he visited he was really anti-Guam from his time in the Navy pulling in and out of here. I think the issue is that when boats pull in here the guys are limited in where they go, and the liberty buses typically run up to Tumon's downtown hotel district and skip the rest. Makes it hard to go hike or see any of the isolated, off the path, areas that make this island so great. The south island tour really changed his tone.....by the end he was pointing out places he wanted to live :)

As an inserted note....In the last year, at the encouragement of a Chaplain, we started attending the Lutheran Church of Guam and are no longer attending Catholic Mass on base. The Chaplain is LCMS and currently preaches at LCG on an every-other-week basis. That will probably end once the new pastor they called (who is not LCMS) arrives......not sure what we will do then.

Christmas here was fun and as tends to happen, marked by things that are distinctly Guam. Adam took the kids to a lights display at the Government House in Agana (I stayed home and rested with baby). The villages each had their own Nativity displays they designed, and at the end you got to vote for your favorite village display! (have I mentioned how much I love that religion and life is so intertwined here?) The kids did the standard Sunday School Christmas play with the church. The church did run something pretty cool they called "Christmas in a Cave" which was marked by hymns and readings outside the cave, and a live nativity inside. We did a feast of the 7 fish, Pacific island style on Christmas Eve (I think my brother may take that one on himself in the future with as much as he enjoyed it).

New Years was a quiet night spent home as a family. Keeping it low key was a good thing, as the above mentioned move took place the weekend following New Years.

Love you all! more updates soon! :)

Time flies.

Seriously

It's been a year since I last posted. I would say I don't believe it, but the dates on the postings don't lie. It's been a whirlwind of a year, that I'll try to hit the high points of.

In July we went on a week long trip to Taiwan. We loved it! Such an amazing experience, and I'm so glad that we got to go, and more that the kids got to see it. There are so many lessons learned in travelling that can never be learned from a textbook. We made it to the Shilin Market, Taipei Zoo, Taipei 101, the Ping Tsi  Railway, took the Maokong Gondola up to a tea village, the National Palace Museum......the list is long. As much as we are tourists, we try to make sure we find ways to interact and really see the locals by hitting public parks, using public transportation, visiting public markets asking where the best places are to eat, etc. As a bonus: a friend's father lives there as well, so we got to meet with him and he took us to a few of his favorite places too!

Fruit market down the street from our hotel.
We picked fruit up there daily.

Chiang Kai-shek memorial

hanging out in a small town outside Taipei

I think personally, my favorite part of Taipei was the food. Simply amazing. As a bonus, it's a real street food city so there was a bunch of yummy eats everywhere we went! The finger food aspect made it popular with the kids as well.

Oh, if you're wondering while I'm a bit larger in that picture above, we found out I was pregnant in the beginning of May. :)

GNOSC (the organization I was Treasurer of) has kept me quite busy over the last year. Since I last posted we've run 2 highly successful Asian Bazaars and another Craft Fair to benefit the Guam USO (have pictures of our joint events, and was just named best large USO in the Pacific for the 2nd year!) and other local charities. I've attended numerous social events, the USO Six Star Salute twice (an annual event honoring their top volunteers, and the top service member from each branch of service here on island), and learned so much both from my duties and from all the amazing members of our organization. It's time to step down though, and the volunteer for my replacement was voted in a few days ago. I have a few things left to close out before turnover, but seeing as the checks for our final fiscal year charitable distribution was done this morning, the hours are getting quite short.

Kids have been growing like weeds. The biggest is over 5 feet tall! Crazy. As I mentioned, we welcomed a new little one into our home this December. She brings us all such joy!!!

trip home

playing on mommy's bed

Easter best

I'll continue the updates soon! love you all!

Priest's Pools and Merizo Pier

These past few weeks have been packed with tons of fun in the sun.

For the middle child's birthday I and a few friends took the kids to Tarza Waterpark (same place we went for the oldest girls birthday).I'm beginning to think this will be a theme for all the birthdays here. That's fine though. Makes for a great day, and even the baby is a water slide junkie.

This past week was spring break, so it seemed as if all our friends wanted to go to the beaches. We didn't take the full week off from school, but we did manage to make it out to Gab Gab beach and Taga'achang beach during the week.

On Friday, we also managed to go on a short hike. This time we went to Priest's Pools, a series of cascading freshwater pools in a volcanic rock formation at the southern tip of the island. It acquired the name because priests used the pools to bathe in following their arrival with the Spaniards in the 1500s. I've wanted to do this hike for a while, and we managed to drag quite a few people along with us.

swimming in a pool

Following the hike and playing in the pools, we decided to head over to the Merizo Pier and jump off into the beautiful water overlooking Cocos Island. It was supposed to be a short stop, but we were having way too much fun and stayed for quite a while playing.

The oldest got this gem. I may have had some fun that day :)!

Such a great Guam day!

Holy week.

Before I start this post, I should probably clarify that while we are not Roman Catholic, but Lutheran, we have been attending Mass at the chapel pretty much since our arrival. We are not attending the only Lutheran church in Guam. Many things played into this decision (not really something I want to get into here) but this fact does play into my experiences over the last week.

Mass on Palm Sunday was wonderful, and served as my first glimpse into many traditions that while not key to salvation stand as beautiful symbols and reminders of our faith. The priest started the service walking around with baptismal water sprinkling the congregation as a reminder of our baptisms, a beautiful reminder that our baptism ties Christ to his death on the cross.

When we were at the service on Maunday Thursday, I was reminded about something our pastor said in Charleston. Maunday Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter vigil services traditionally were not three separate services, but one continuous service that carried over from one day to the next. This idea was made very clear that night, when the priest consecrated enough of the sacrament for both Maunday Thursday and Good Friday, and then at the end of the first night we took the sacraments back to another room to be held until the next evening. 

cars and people everywhere

Friday morning we took part in a local island custom. The tradition is that  early on Good Friday Catholics get up and hike to the top of MT Lamlam, the tallest peak on the island (which is not very far from the deepest point in the ocean, the Marianas trench). To be clear: EVERYONE does this, no matter what the age old or young. One of the churches (the Basilica I believe) starts the custom off by carrying a cross to the top just before sunrise that will remain up at the top. We went a bit later, starting at 9 with the chapel when most islanders were already done with the journey and heading out. Once I saw the line of cars parked in all directions really far away from the trail head, I was kind of grateful that we showed up later and I could slip into a closer spot as people left.

we're off!

I've never prayed the stations before, but I was highly impressed by the power fullness of the prayers and how they really forced me to focus on both the cross and the journey there. Of course, the views were amazing as well (unfortunately the overcast weather made it great for hiking, but not so great for picture taking. These in no way do the views justice).

Father Tom

Can't tell if he's having fun...

note the number of crosses
there are more behind me

baby with no shorts and no shoes
totally an island baby

we made it!

This tall one was put up in 1980. I can't figure out
how they got it up there

how he got up and back

kinda cool. They go up the day
before to clear the path. of the grasses
that are taller than I am

  That evening it was back to church for Good Friday and another dark and yet somehow beautiful service.

Unfortunately, between the 2 nights of late services, the hike Friday morning, and Adam being at work all night Saturday I had to miss the Vigil Service. It was just too much for the kids and they needed to go to bed early.

Thankfully, though, they let Adam out of work early and he was home before midnight and able to easily head with us to church the next morning (had he stayed the whole time he would have left work after mass started at 9am). As an added bonus: this year our anniversary fell on Easter Sunday and I got to spend it with him! We celebrated with a yummy rack of lamb dinner and quiet family time at home.

Happy Easter!

Love you all and hope you had a wonderful and blessed Easter. HE IS RISEN!

Scuba lessons

Not much going on here recently, just school, meetings, kids acting so rotten I can't take them in public......

Last weekend, though, was pretty neat. Our oldest was able to get his qualification dives for open water done with our great instructor (dad tagged along as well). He's very proud of himself, and put quite a bit of effort and hard work into it. We are very proud and impressed!

getting out of the water with dad after his final qual dive

Being 10, he's only able to dive to 40 feet, but there's still a ton to see at that level.

Why Scuba you ask? First off, this is a tropical island with crystal clear water. TONS can be seen while snorkeling, but Scuba lets you see more.Secondly, this is one of the cheapest places in the world to get dive certified. When we were in Charleston, we looked into courses and they were over $600 plus equipment. Here if you have a few evenings and a weekend to block off and do the classes it costs only $169 and includes equipment rental. Huge difference. Since we altered the schedule to slow it down and make sure he learned the base knowledge thoroughly, it cost us a bit more than that, but not much.

Downside is he's now constantly asking to go diving. :)!

Haputo beach

After a crazy week of saying goodbye to friends last week, Monday we went hiking to Haputo point again. This time, I arranged it as a FRG (family readiness group) event for the boat families. Ended up that only a few perople went, but since Adam had the morning off he got to come along!

The hike (like last time) was easy, but still fun. This time I remembered my camera and got some great pictures for you all!

Yup. I live here

"mushroom rock" so named because of how the waves
have carved out the limestone

baby backpack

playing and snorkeling

all the stairs look a lot different from the bottom....