A fun day in Guam

We are out of school today for President's Day (yay!) so since we had an extra day to get our weekend "stuff" done, we headed down to the Navy base to the beach yesterday. We haven't snorkeled in way too long, but the best beach for snorkeling was way too windy. There is another beach that we enjoy on the Navy base, so we went there and hung out for a while. It was a beautiful day!!!

After the huge task of gettig the sand off of everyone and getting into regular clothes, we headed out to a place called Jeff's Pirate Cove. It's an outdoor restaurant that has a lot of history - it's right on the water and is a fun place to go. We went once when we had just moved here, but it's on the other side of the island and we just haven't ventured over that way again. As we pulled up, we saw a jillion cars and learned that they were having a kite boarding contest that day!! So, we got to have lunch and watch which was fun! Of course, we missed Jason all day and wished he was with us!! Here are some pictures:

Just an update

Well, I don't have pictures today, but figured it was time to post an update. Jason left last weekend for the states and things have been REALLY weird around here since then!!! Saying goodbye was very hard for us - being apart is never something that we have enjoyed! And, since he has always been home for the last year and 1/2, it was SO strange being here without him!! But, after a day or 2, things began settling down for the girls and I and we think we can survive the next 4 months now.

Jason started his new job on Monday and is really enjoying it so far. EVERYthing is positive about this job situation and we truly believe that it's an opportunity straight from God, so this gives me peace when I feel sad to be 1/2 way across the world from my husband!! We are very thankful that this opportunity came along and know that in the long run, it will all be worth it.

The girls are all doing better than I had expected. Adysen shows her emotions more than the others and she has had a couple of meltdowns, but nothing major. Adysen and Allie are going to small groups once a week at school with the school counselor for kids who's parents have been deployed. They get to share about their Daddys there and talk about how they miss them and make special things for them. They just started, but it's been good for them so far. They have many friends who can relate to being without their Daddys around here. It is definitely giving us a greater appreciation for what these military families go through!!!

We closed on the sale of our house in Keller yesterday which was a huge blessing for us!! We are now going to look for something closer to where I want to work and the biggest advantage is that we are going to get a 4 bedroom house so each of the girls can have their own bedroom. The little girls have always shared and it's TIME for them to have their own space!! We are SOOOOOOOOO thankful for the way that the sale of our house worked out - it could not have gone any more smoothly!! We do want to stay in the Keller area and have a couple of neighborhoods picked out that we'd really like to live in. As God has been ahead of us in everything so far, I'm sure He knows exactly where we will end up and He'll show us when He's ready!!! :)

That's about all the news for now!!

The beach in January

We keep hearing about how COLD it is in the states, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to share some beach pictures that we took yesterday! :-) Just kidding... we miss winter like crazy, but we'll have enough of it next year, I am sure! For now, we'll just keep enjoying life on a tropical island!!

BIG Changes coming up....

Well, many of you know, but some of you may not know that a HUGE change is coming up for our family in the next couple of weeks. Jason has accepted a job offer in Texas and will be returning to work on or around Feb. 1st!!!!! We believe that this opportunity is a direct answer to many prayers, but... it is obvioiusly going to come with it's challenges. We will be apart for a little over 4 months which seems like a short time in a way and a long time in other ways!! Jason and I don't much like to be apart for any time at ALL and we have been together 24/7 for the majority of the time for the past year and 1/2. We will definitley miss each other and I know the girls will miss him as well.

We will also be sad to see the end of our time in Guam coming to a close. Although we are ready to get back, it has been a unique time for our family and we've gotten to spend a LOT of time together and have lots of great experiences. We had a trip to Tokyo tentatively planned for spring break (April) and the girls and I may even attempt that on our own if the finances come through!! If there was ever a place for me to be left with the girls, this is it... our neighbors do it all the time when their husbands are deployed. It's such a safe and simple place and I know we'll survive! :)

This is just hard to believe!

Kelsey got her learner's permit yesterday!! I seriously cannot believe that she is old enough!! As we will be back in Texas by the time she turns 16, we may have to do some of the process over again, but we wanted to go ahead and get started so she can get some practice in. The base is a great place to practice... not much traffic and everyone drives really slow. Add us to your prayer lists!!! :)

Merry Christmas!!!

Well, I have been under the weather this year and Jason is not feeling great, but we managed to have a special Christmas morning anyway thanks to all our wonderful family who loves us enough to ship us gifts all the way to Guam!! Thank you SO much for everything..... we love it all as you can see in these pictures!!! We are so very blessed to have such a loving family!!!

Santa was good to us this year too.... Kelsey got the iPOD that we convinced her that she was NOT going to get and I think I captured the suprprise on her face in the picture below. Adysen and Allie were excited about their new DS's too.

The Rota Walk

Last night we did the most festive thing we have found to do on Guam this time of the year. It's called the "Rota walk" because Rota is the name of the street where all the Officers live on the base. They go all out decorating and the entire base turns up for this deal. There are people passing out candy and cookies and lemonade and they had a couple of Sants's this year. The girls' favorite thing from last year was a little plane that "flies" over and dumps candy out on the kid's heads! One house has a "snow machine" that spits out a bunch of bubbles which are about as close as we can get to snow around here!!! Kelsey disappeared with a friend and we didn't find her until the end, so that is why she is only in a couple of the pictures. Anyway, here are some pictures of Christmas in Guam!!!!

Christmas programs

What can be sweeter than 1st and 2nd grade Christmas programs?? I just love to see the girls up on stage performing, but it reminds me how fast they are growing up and how fast these sweet times will be over. We are enjoying them for now, though!!

"Where the Wild Things Are"

The title of this children's book has taken on a whole new meaning for us this week.........We have a flowerbed beside our house that has these huge "Elephant Ear" plants. They grow fast and tend to get big and we have to pull them up sometimes. Yesterday, I left for work and saw the biggest bundle of them on the ground and the flowerbed was all torn up. I was surprised, but thought maybe Jason had done a little trimming and gotten carried away! When I asked him about it, he said he didn't do it and said that our neighbors had the SAME thing happen to them and they had come over and asked him if he'd dug their plant up! Come to find out, it was a WILD HOG that likes to eat the roots of those plants!! We knew those were a problem on the edges of the base, but I am amazed that one would get to our house as we are almost in the middle and our area is very populated. He must have been one strong hog to have dug up that huge plant along with the roots!!

We found "Santa"!!

Well, here is our annual Santa picture. Adysen was VERY suspicious of this Santa. She sat in his lap and talked to him and as we were waiting for the picture, she was studying him. Finally, she put her hand on her hip and announced "I don't think THAT'S the real Santa!" We asked why she would think that and she said "Because he has on tennis shoes and Santa doesn't wear tennis shoes!" We looked and sure enough... black Sketchers with those cheesy boot cover things over them!! Jason's take on him was "He doesn't look like he's been drinking...... much!" :) Oh well, he was good enough to serve our purpose of the yearly Santa picture!!

New School Pictures

Adysen - 2nd grade




Kelsey - 10th grade






Allie - 1st grade

Day 1

Day 1
We have always wanted to go to Thailand and knew we’d be sad if we didn’t get to go while we are in Guam. We began planning the trip several times, but stopped and decided not to spend the money. Finally, the week before Thanksgiving we decided to go ahead and spend our Thanksgiving in Thailand. Luckily, things came together and we were able to finalize our travel plans for Bangkok.

We started our trip very early in the morning. Our flight left at 6am, so we had to get up at 3:00am! We left Guam and flew about 3.5 hours to Manilla in the Philippines. We didn’t see much there other than the airport, but just being there was exciting as we know many people in Guam from the Philippines. We had about a 2 hour layover and then flew another 3 hours and arrived in Bangkok. After standing in a REALLY long customs line, we found the representative from our hotel and took a van to the hotel. The van driver was so cute – he was obviously still working on his English and he could communicate basically, but made us laugh with his pronunciations of some things.

After an interesting drive through downtown Bangok, we arrived at the Amari Watergate Hotel. We were amazed at the beauty of it. It’s in the midst of the busy, dirty city, but it feels like a fancy resort inside. The people who work here are just so nice and helpful – the service is amazing! Our room was beautiful and the pool was just gorgeous! It was on the 8th floor, so it felt like a roof top pool – they had tons of white lights on the trees and bushes which was really pretty.

There is a 3 hour time difference here, so at 5:00pm, we were all starving since it was 8:00pm our time. We went to the Promenade for our Thanksgiving dinner. There are several other specialty restaurants in the hotel, but they didn’t open until 6:00 and we didn’t want to wait! They do not celebrate Thanksgiving here – we have mentioned it to several people who have no idea what we are talking about. So…. there was no turkey and dressing for us! Kelsey and Jason had Asian dishes, I had a cheeseburger and Adysen and Allie had chicken strips and French fries…. Definitely not the usual Thanksgiving dinner!  We all did share things that we are thankful for, though!!

After dinner, Jason took the girls the pool while Kelsey and I used the internet connection in the lobby. We all were exhausted and were sound asleep in bed by 8:45. The bad news is that the girls got up at 5:30am, though, as it was 8:30am to them!! Hopefully we’ll get our selves more oriented to the time difference tomorrow.

Day 2

Day 2
Our activity of the day today was shopping!! After breakfast, we all headed out to the area outside of our hotel. We had no idea what to expect and were amazed by the tons and tons of shopping opportunities that are right outside our hotel! The area is called the Pratunum shopping district….. there are vendors and little markets set up all along the streets for miles and there are many malls and inside places to shop as well. We made a major dent in our Christmas shopping list today and also had fun doing a little shopping for ourselves. The prices are just incredible and the people are very respectful for the most part. We did encounter a few pushy ones, but most of them were very nice. After lunch, Jason, Adysen and Allie had reached their shopping limit and headed back to the hotel for a swim while Kelsey and I shopped some more. We found a Starbucks down the road and enjoyed some flavored coffees that we have missed so much since living in Guam where there is no Starbucks!

I had a sad moment when I dropped my camera on a bridge and the (brand new) rechargeable battery flew below into the street. Amazingly, Jason was able to retrieve it and it had not been run over, but it was damaged from the fall and wouldn’t work. I had hopes that some regular AA batteries would do the trick, but they didn’t either – apparently the camera was broken in the fall. Kelsey forgot her battery charger for her camera, so unless I bought a new one, we were facing some days of our trip with no pictures and that just wouldn’t be good!! We were able to locate a camera store with a decent price on a similar, but better model than the one I had, so hopefully that one will last a long time. We just bought a new camera in July while we were on our cruise and Jason dropped my other one. Hopefully this is the last of the camera accidents!!

Tonight we had dinner in the hotel at a wonderful Italian place. It was strange to eat great Italian food in Thailand, but it was very good!! Tomorrow we are hoping to see some more sights of the city.