Guam

Guam....what can I say? My brother's father in law calls it a "big rock in the middle of the ocean". So true, but it had great beaches, beautiful weather, and American shopping. What more can a girl ask for? We enjoyed our time there immensely.

Our first day actually ended up being a day earlier than we thought. Thur. December 17th, I woke up feeling that I needed to call the hotel to reconfirm our reservations. We were supposed to arrive on that Saturday and stay until Christmas day...or so I thought. After calling, we found out that I had reserved the room from Friday until Friday. Upon checking into our flight itinerary, apparently I got my dates wrong. We didn't leave on Saturday, we were leaving on Friday...EARLY that morning. Which meant that I had less than 24 hours to pack us completely, etc. I called Bryce at work and needless to say, he wasn't very pleased that I had made this mistake but relieved that I caught it a day before our flight left instead of the day after. (Honestly, I think I would have been needing to find another place to live if I had made that mistake) :0)

Sooo.....we arrived on Friday afternoon. Upon deplaning, the kids immediately began taking off their layers of clothing (it was frigid when we left Japan that morning). We arrived to 86 degree sunny weather. We got to our hotel, checked in and couldn't get down to our pool quick enough.



Friday and Saturday, we spent all day swimming in both the pool and ocean. The hotel was a Marriott and it had its own pool and then private beach off the back. The cove/inlet had a break out quite a ways so while there was a current, there were no waves at all. This made for calm swimming and great snorkeling!

I ADORE THIS PICTURE OF HER! And truly wish that even though it said NOT to take any coral, that we would have taken that piece. I so wanted it for my mantel :0)

Sunday, we headed to church and after driving around for a VERY LONG TIME, Bryce finally agreed to stop and let me ask someone for directions. I have to say this because it happens so rarely, but I WAS RIGHT!!! I had told Bryce that I thought it was back on the main street but he disagreed. After stopping at a liquor store and asking directions, we found out that yes indeedy, it was back on the main street. We made it in time to see and hear their Christmas program and the kids enjoyed being in a larger Primary. That afternoon, we headed to Lover's Pointe. Kind of a sad legend but a great view of Guam.

Monday, again was spent swimming and snorkeling. We even got Isaac and Brynn to go out with Bryce and I separately. Brynnie freaked at first but as I got her to stop panicking and start looking, she loved seeing the fish. That was until we saw a puffer fish. Then, she dug her claws into me and I thought she was going to perch on my head back in to shore.

Tuesday we did MORE swimming and beaching. That evening, after having another YUMMY American dinner (Outback Steakhouse that night) we went to a Las Vegas meets David Copperfield type show. While the dancers were a little questionable, the illusionist was quite good. ..cannot for the life of me remember his name but he is fairly famous in the U.S., too. We were able to meet him after the show and get his autograph and picture. Nice guy and neat show!

Wednesday and Thursday we had a bit of a rain day so we did a lot of our shopping. They had a Macy's there and boy, we did some damage. Bryce was needing quite a bit of work clothes...it is amazing how tough all this walking to and from the train station in the rain, heat, etc. is on clothing. We can't find clothing to fit him or I in Japan so this was our chance. Even the kids hung in there for us! We also rented a movie in the room...G-Force and played several games that we had brought along with us in our suitcases. Add in a bit of Lego building and we had a blast in spite of the rain. Thursday night for Christmas Eve, we went to the mall for their lights display. Go to this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7evqUu5Ibggww.youtube.com/watch?v=7evqUu5Ibgg

We rode the train, saw the show and enjoyed our Christmas Eve evening.

Funny thing about the middle picture above...Tanner LOVED watching the balls drop. Very similar to the thing in the Indpls. Children's Museum but in the mall. We couldn't pull him away from the thing!

Finally, Friday morning came. It was raining fairly hard but since it was our last morning before we had to board the plane, we decided that we were going to swim come....well, you know the rest :0) So we did. The lifeguard told us to remember that rain is just melted snow so technically, we were playing in the snow. Didn't help any, but we still had fun. It did clear up and we had sunny skies for about the last hour of our beach time where we met up with some friends that we had met and saw several times during our stay. We then packed up and headed to the airport where we did this:

Yes, that is my FOUR children wrestling in the middle of the airport. And we also did this:

But we made it home and headed straight to bed so that visions of sugarplums could dance in our heads. See, Santa had been so kind to agree to make our house in Japan be his VERY last stop after Hawaii before he headed home to Mrs. Claus. So he actually came on Christmas night while we slept. Yea, Santa! He is such a good guy!