I was so close...

Brianna told me she was never going to talk to me again. Not tomorrow, or the tomorrow after that, or the tomorrow after that, or the tomorrow after that, or the tomorrow after that, or the tomorrow after that. You get the idea. While she was telling me about the tomorrows I said too bad now she wouldn't be able to tell me what was on her Christmas list and suddenly she decided she WAS going to talk to me.

Boy I blew that one didn't I?

Funny picture

more animals

As if I didn't have a hard enough time getting places...

So we went this morning to go look at scooters as a possibility for Josh. He decided to look the dealership up on the internet to see what time they opened and how to get there. I kid you not this is what it had on there for directions:

From the South – Naval Station (Merizo, Umatac, Agat & Santa Rita)Head North on Route 1, pass the 1st Traffic Light Drive about a mile and then you will come up to the 2nd Traffic Light – Tri-Intersection (Polaris Point – Left) Continue on Route 1 heading North to the 3rd Traffic Light (Veterans Cemetery – Right) Continue on Route 1, pass the 4th Traffic Light (Power Plant, USO and the Port Authority will be on your left) Continue on Route 1 for about 4 miles and that will take you to the 5th Traffic Light – Tri – Intersection or the Adelup Intersection ( Governor’s Office – Left, Mobil Gas Station - Right) Continue on Route 1 through the village of Hagatna and you will approach the 6th Traffic Light ( The Hagatna Boat Basin – Left ) Continue on Route 1, you will pass the Chamorro Village, and the Paseo Ballpark on your left and then you will come to the 7th Traffic Light Continue on Route 1, you will merge to the right lane and take a right at the 8th Traffic Light heading North on to Route 8. Continue on Route 8 where you will approach the 9th Traffic light, you will pass the First Hawaiian Bank on your left and then about a ½ mile more, the Cars Plus dealership will be on your right side.

Am I the only one that thinks that's hilarious?

I'll be back later to tell you about our adventure yesterday on a tour around the island. Would you believe I forgot my camera, terrible I know.

Big Daddy

Please everyone say a prayer for Richard and his family. His dad passed away this morning. Richard was thankfully there with him when he passed peacefully away.

He will be missed.

I'm so sorry I'm not there to support him and my Mom. Richard has always been such a support to me during my life I wish I could be there for him now.

I love you Richard and am thankful to have you in my life.

Grace wants to be a hair dresser

and she already had her first client. Herself! I noticed a week or so ago that her hair looked strange on one side but just thought it was laying weird or something. I didn't really think much about it after that until tonight at dinner she was sitting across from me instead of where she usually sits and I could tell it really was shorter. Like a two inch section on her right side. So I asked her if she cut her hair and of course she said "No" to which I replied "you will always get in more trouble for lying then telling the truth" of course after that she confessed. She cut her hair at school. She pinky promised (this is her big thing lately) that she won't do it again so hopefully she will comply. Do you like the sad face? I told her she couldn't smile for the picture! :)

We wouldn't want to risk further headbands on bad haircuts, would we?

I'm not above bribery

Ok so you know the difficult week Grace had last week, right? Well I am happy to report a GREEN week!!! She did great! I spoke with her teacher and Grace and I talked every day about her behavior and why we wanted to make good choices and I even told her that we would go back to the mall and she could pick a headband from a store she had admired at the mall before. As you can tell it worked and here she is in her new headband!

Brianna deciding she didn't agree that she had to hold my hand if she didn't stop spinning in the mall and almost bumping into people.

Here is the sign in the food court I mentioned before. And the reason one would need a drink in the mall... As you can tell she recovered from having to hold my hand!

Ok I'm off, Josh took the girls to get booties to wear in the water so their feet don't get cut up by coral and I have to clean. Fun, fun!

Josh really is home

and saw the water buffalo for the THIRD time with no camera! Ugh!

MUST. GET. A. PICTURE.

Rumor has it...

That Josh is going to be off Friday, Saturday, Sunday AND Monday! This coming from a place where he has worked EVERY DAY except ONE since we arrived nearly five weeks ago!

I'll believe it when I see it!

Pictures!

There is an overlook at the top of the hill where we live but there is a gate that is usually closed and locked. Well we noticed this weekend it was open so we went up and took some pictures.


This is coming back down the hill from that over look, our houses are the ones with the red roofs right before the ones with the white roofs.
Remember I said how the people who win the election go back and put a thank you sign on their posters? I took a picture of one so you could see what I meant, and just because I thought it was neat!

This is driving back to the base from the village just south of us.

This is the front gate to the base!

Is there anything anyone would like to see pictures of? Let me know and I'll be on the lookout!

Weekend

So let's see what have we been up too since I posted!



Saturday- In the morning we got up and headed to the air force base. I had never been there and they opened a brand new exchange so we wanted to go check it out. It was nice, kinda of like a wal-mart but with a food court. After we got home Josh took the girls to the Kids Day that the MWR was doing at the movie theater. It was outside in the parking lot and they had games with prizes, food, and jolly jumpers. Everything was free but of course it was raining! Some of it was under tents but the jolly jump was totally outside. Of course that didn't faze the kids so they jumped and got soaking wet. Josh brought them home and then had to go into work for about an hour in a half. The movie theater was also having a free showing of Star Wars which I was going to take the kids to and thankfully Josh made it home just in the nick of time so we all got to go!



Sunday- Josh had to work (shocker I know) so the girls and I did stuff around the house then decided to go to the USO which they LOVE! It has a big screen tv, a Wii, and a playroom. There is a lot more but those are the big things they like. So we drive out there and it's closed! Brianna was way disappointed. So we just wondered around and drove down to the village just south of the base since we had never been there before. When Josh got home we ventured out again and went and found the outlet mall. It's just like an outlet mall in the states with one glaring exception (I didn't have my camera or I would have so taken a picture!) in the food court there is a sectioned off area and one would think oh it must be smoking. Well one would be wrong! It's the DRINKING area!!! Yes the mall food court has alcohol! CRAZY! They also have Chai tea! Yummy!

Phone service

Speaking of phone service so when I went to set up the phone service (I had to go there you can't do it on the phone) the girl tells me I need to draw a map of how to get to my house. I was like um I live on the Navy base you know the ONE on the entire island. Yes she is aware of that but I still need to draw a map. That's funny she obviously isn't familiar with my navigation skills or my drawing skills but I drew her a map anyways. I told her I don't even really know how to get to my house yet so not sure how much help my map will be. Of course they don't use street names for directions here either, makes it fun when you don't know where anything is to begin with. So anyways about my map I tell Josh later about having to draw a map and he laughs and says yeah he saw it in the paperwork (they made a copy) and he hopes they can still find our house. Nice husband! haha

They did find us since we have phone and DSL! :)

Villages

Did you know there are no cities in Guam? Neither did I! They have villages though and lots of them. Even the phone commercials talk about getting phone service in your village.

I wonder if the Village People are popular here? haha

It's fun to stay at the Y M C A, It's fun to stay at the Y M C A...

You know you're going to have that song in your head for the rest of the day now.

:)

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Well my CA drivers license only lasts 30 days then I am required to have a Guam one. Since we are at that point (can you believe it?) I had to go get one today. Ok so you know that I've lost weight but sometimes it's hard for me to see it, but when I look at the difference between the two photos even I am amazed! The CA one was taken 2/06 and the Guam one was taken today.

Josh is home!

Yay Josh is back!!!

Open House

We went to the open house for Grace's class the other night, it was good. Grace showed us (Brianna and I) her regular class, spanish class, culture class, music class, art class, library and the gym. It was quite impressive. Within her class they have several stations for different activities and it seems very well organized. Her teacher is very nice and seems to have lots of patience. I have a conference scheduled with her on Monday, at my request.

The school is newly built and is both the elementary and middle school and is quite large. It has the offices, cafeteria, gym and library in the middle section then the sides are each two stories. One side is the elementary and the other the middle school. It seems to work pretty well.

My sinus infection is much better but the antibiotics are giving me trouble. I went back today and she gave me something else so hopefully I will be back 100% ASAP!

Starbucks Green Tea

So did I mention I had to learn how to make my own iced tea? Yes I admit it I am 31 years old and I didn't make iced tea, why bother when my bff Starbucks did such a great job! haha

Anyways I am now an iced tea making professional. There is just one little problem! I don't have Starbucks Green Tea teabags. I'm happy with the plain ol' Lipton teabags for the black tea but I'm really missing the Starbucks Green Tea.

Anyone want to visit a Starbucks and send me some? I'll be your best friend! :)

When it rains it pours.

So after Grace decided she wanted to stick around and was tucked into bed Brianna decided to get up and have a meltdown over the fact that "her daddy left her alone" (um when did he leave her alone? I must have missed that one?) and "she didn't want him to leave" oh don't forget "I want him to come home right this instant"!



Oh Brianna so do I, trust me!



Good thing Big Brother is on an hour later tonight (who cares that I already watched it live online earlier today) or else I would have let them leave/cry since we don't have a DVR.



Just kidding, sort of...

Our new house doesn't have a backdoor

Well our new house doesn't have a backdoor which I find very odd. The other floor plan has backdoors and even a small patio but since we didn't get to pick here we are without. I hadn't thought much about it until tonight when I was preventing Grace from running away out the front door or the garage door that I was actually quite thankful that there wasn't yet another door I had to prevent her from escaping through.

Uh oh

Brianna just told me her tummy really hurts and she thinks it's full of lots of babies!

I'm not ready to be a grandma yet!

LOL

Brianna's card

So Harper sent the girls each a card and Brianna has been carrying hers around with her all the time and even taking it to bed and sleeping with it.

Think she misses California?

And we thought she was going to be the one with the smoother transition...

Is the honeymoon over?

Well Grace has been having a rough week at school and it's only Weds! Monday she was on red for walking backwards in line and crawling like a dog in class (but nobody told her she wasn't supposed too, uh yeah right) and Tuesday there was a small improvement in that she was only on yellow for jumping in class (of course it wasn't her it was someone else, yeah too bad you're a head taller then everyone else before you even jump blondie) so anyways we've talked about the correct way to behave in class to cross our fingers that today we will be back to green!

Josh is still gone and Brianna talks about him ALL the time! During the day when she wouldn't have even seen him anyways is a big time for her to ask where he is and what he is doing. They got to talk to him on the phone yesterday but it wasn't a very good connection and just for a couple minutes but I'm sure it still was nice for them to hear his voice.

Grace has gymnastics today and they are moving her up a group. I think it's a good idea, based on the last couple weeks. We'll see how it goes today.

My sinus infection is getting better but I think the antibiotics are making me sick. At least I'm only on them for a few more days.

Could they be any cuter?

All about Grace

So today I helped Grace make her "All about me" poster for school. It's missing any pictures of my beautiful girl since we don't have our printer yet and there isn't a Target to just run and print some out, anyways it turned out very Grace. She's a little too free with the glitter glue so I had to keep it down so it would be dry for school tomorrow. At least she made it herself!

I took a picture but I can't find the thingy to load them on the computer... FOUND IT!

Oh and did I mention...

I went to the doctor yesterday and I have another sinus infection?

Good times.

Old habits...

So I sent Amanda a text message with this little story but she didn't get it so I'll post it here.

I was driving into Josh's work and there was a potluck going on. When I got into the parking lot I saw a green pathfinder just like Adam and Amanda drive. My first that was "Oh good Amanda's here" then I realized oh maybe not...

Ugh I have a headache

Well Josh is at work and I have a killer headache. I can't even take my medicine because it makes me tired and he's not home! Ugh times like this makes it even more of a struggle being away from family.

If you are so inclined say a prayer for us, Josh will be leaving shortly and gone until the end of next week. Hopefully he doesn't get anymore injuries, he's been stung three times (at once) by bees and now has this weird bite near his dog bites. Also that the girls and I have a good week!

The original blogger

So my Father-In-Law used to send us emails about the goings on in their daily life. I got to thinking he was way ahead of his time and I wonder what he would think about blogs?

Random

So in Guam there are no laws about tinting your car windows, including the front windshield!!! Nothing like seeing a limo tint all around, strange!!

So you know how people running for office put up all the signs down the roads to vote for them for different elected offices, well in Guam after the elections the peopl who won go back and put a big "THANK YOU" on their signs. I thought that was pretty neat.

Update

Grace is doing good! She is adjusting much better then we had anticiapated! THANK GOODNESS! She likes her school and they do all kids of neat activities. I think as long as the academics pick up it will b a good fit for her. She is also doing gymnastics, if there is room in the next level up then she is going to move into that class, it's a better time also so I hope it work out. Next month would like to start Judo but we will have to see how this month goes first. We don't want to end up with too much at once.

Grace takes the bus too and from school, there isn't a pick up in our neighbor hood yet since our street is the only one thats opened so no room for it to turn around. We walk over to the next housing area though and she catches the bus there. They think they are going to open the street behind us later this month so hopefully soon it will come here.

Brianna is loving her pre-K class! She is in the afternoon class which I don't care for since she isn't getting a nap now so we will have to see how it goes! She is doing cheerleading and so far really likes it. She loves learning the different jumps and her coach is great with the kids.

B wants to take the bus too but she will have to wait until next year when she is in Kindy. I can't imagine both my babies getting on the bus and going off to school! Good thing it's only a couple minutes away!

I've met some spouses from Josh's work and joined the PTO so it's nice to be getting to know some people. One woman I met was also in Iceland! Small world! She left right before we got there though but we had fun talking about all the things we loved there.

Josh is doing good also. He likes his job but will be happy when they get back to a normal schedule (not as happy as me) and he can really settle in!

Our new street is great! There are a bunch of kids all in the same basic age group all around and they love to play outside. Afterschool kids can be find riding bikes, scooters, skating, playing, or looking for bugs! The half the street is still closed so for now there is almost no traffic.

Ok B is ready to read her I spy book (thanks Shannon!) so I better get going!

Mexican hat dance

This morning Grace was showing Brianna how to do the Mexican hat dance and I asked her if she learned it in her culture class. Well she looked at me as only Grace does and said "Uh no it's the MEXICAN hat dance, I learned it in my spanish class" LOL!

That did not just happen!!!

I just typed this HUGE post about what we have been doing and I lost it!!!!

Tomorrow I'll work on it again. Ugh!

Who knew there was so much to do?

Hey this is my lost post!!! I found it saved as a draft! Yipee! Most of it I already posted but here it is anyways! haha

So Monday I went by Josh's work and the wives club was having a lunch so I got to meet some of them and gave them my email address so I could find out when their meetings are then Tuesday I went to the PTO meeting and met some more people which was really nice. While I was talking to one of the Moms she mentioned something about having lived in Iceland! Well that's a topic I know about so we chatted for quite awhile about what we loved and miss from living there. They left right before we got there though so our paths have never crossed until now. I did sign up to be the room parent for Grace's class for the scholastic book club. It's not time consuming but it's a little something to do.



The girls are keeping busy also. Brianna is doing cheerleading and Grace is doing gymnastics. They both have the same coach and are really enjoying it. Today after class Grace's coach told me she thinks Grace is ready to move up already if there is enough room in the other class, we should find out next week if that will happen. I hope it does just for the fact the time of the second class will make after school a little less hectic.



Grace has been riding the bus and loves it! It's a great incentive for her to get ready in the mornings. I just tell her if she doesn't then she is going to miss the bus and I'll have to drive her! Who knew that was so terrible! :) She is also really enjoying school! She has been on green everyday so that is a great start!! We get a daily progress report from the teacher and that is so nice! Nothing worse then hearing about a problem after it's been going on for a while!



Brianna is doing well in her class also! At first she didn't want to go, she just wanted to be with me all the time, but now she is much more into it. She will still say in the morning that she doesn't want to go but when it comes time to drop her off she does great! My only issue is she is in the afternoon class which leaves no time for a nap, it's been a bit of a issue because she still NEEDS the nap but we will see how it goes.



The girls still talk about wanting to go back to California and they miss everyone but I can see that they are getting more adjusted here and making new friends. Our new street is great! On any given day there are plenty of kids outside to play with or ride bikes and they are loving that! I did end up getting Brianna and new bike and Grace a scooter so have something to keep them busy also. It wasn't too bad since they were both on sale and Brianna had never gotten a new bike before, she always had Grace's old one. Grace's scooter was getting to the point where it needed to be replaced anyways since we found it left at our house when we first moved back to CA three and a half years ago!

I must be getting used to it

So today I was driving and thought wow I'm going way too fast so I looked down and sure enough I was flying down the road at 40mph... crazy!

I have my van!

Ok so I know you all have been waiting with baited breath for us to be able to pick up our van and you will be excited to know that today it happened!!! Yay!!! I was very excited if you didn't notice. It's nice to have something familiar and a way to entertain and keep the girls apart in the car! Now I am ready to get out and do some more exploring.

On Sunday we (the girls and I) went on a mini adventure. We found a beautiful overlook a little off base. Of course right after we got there and started looking around a potty break was needed. Since there are no bathrooms anywhere we headed back to the base.

Here is one of the pictures I took before we headed back:

and another of my silly girls:

Pictures!

Our new house, we are the one on the left that you can see! If you didn't guess! hehe


What happened to paradise???? This was driving back from the mall, there was a point we thought we might have to pull over because we almost couldn't even see in front of us!! Notice how dark it looks, this was taken about noon!

Brianna's first day of pre-K!! She said she had fun and can't wait to go back! Yipee!!

Add insult to injury

So if you noticed Josh mentioned traveling for a school. So I had to move here to Guam so he can get to go back to the states and leave me here alone with the kids!

What's up with that???

(Tammy I will be so ready to meet in Hawaii for a girls trip! hehe)

Hey on another note I saw the space a flights and they had a bunch to HI and one to CA, not sure if they were ones we could really fly on but it's encouraging!

Excercise

From Josh...

So, maybe we should have waited to transfer for a month or two. I haven't completed checking into the command yet and already I'm involved in an excercise that happens ever couple of years.

Anyway, in preparation for all this, my shop is tasked with setting up tents this weekend. I guess I'm not quite acclimated yet as I was sent home early yesterday due to dehydration. If I had stayed much longer, I might have suffered from heat exhaustion, which is not good. We'll be doing this working hard in the heat thing for a while, so I think this is my baptism by fire.

I have been assured that this will all be done by October and things will slow down to a crawl and we can actually travel the island and see the sights. Then it will be time for me to travel elsewhere for equipment turnovers and a school. All will be short and spread out. Wish me luck for today!

Grace

Today Grace told me that she must be getting used to Guam because she doesn't notice that it smells like sweat anymore...

We have internet!

Yesterday we got cable and today we got phone and internet! Yay! We still don't have our van though! It's on the island but there was a problem with the shipments customs paperwork so they wouldn't release it until that was fixed. Of course that didn't happen until late friday which didn't give the company enough time to process it for us to pick up. We should get it Monday and for now have just driven by and looked at it parked in the lot!

Josh is working late nights and seven days a week and Grace has a cold. Other then that things are going good! Brianna started pre-K on Friday and had a good time so that was nice!

Lots of things to post about but I'm tired so I'll work on it tomorrow!

Here is a quick list of things I've learned:

1. You can't just take a picture of a Korean sub, the police told me that! :)
2. They have frogs the size of the palm of my hand here!
3. It can be clear at my house but be pouring at my neighbors.
4. Giant crabs live on my street! I saw one when I was driving home tonight!
5. Guam has jumping spiders, even worse they have been in my house! YIKES!
6. There is a man who walks his water buffalo on the side of the "highway" I didn't get a picture when we saw him but rumor has it that he does it often!
7. There's more but I can't think of them right now!