Deployment

For those of you that don't know, Chris received orders Thursday to deploy to Iraq in December for 7 months. This came as a complete shock to us as well as his superiors at the hospital. The orders came through specifically for him which usually doesn't happen. For instance, orders will come out for a job title such as a logistics officer or hospital corpsman. His came through with his name and social. Chris did some searching around and found out that each person has a number attached to them for accounting purposes. His number was actually for a civil engineer and he is a logistics officer. So it was a mistake or so we've been told. If anything changes we'll keep you posted but as of now he's not going. Praise the Lord!!!

Sunday/Bum Day

Sunday was a bum around day. We made origami as you can see here. I found a japanese dollar store that sells all kinds of cool things from japan. It's actually NOT a dollar store it's a $1.50 store! The japanese are experts at making things miniature. I found tiny tongs that are probably about 4 inches long and little bitty bottles that they use in the kids school lunches for soy sauce. I found a origami instruction book there as well as the paper. It's pretty difficult to do though because I can't read japanese so we just did the easy ones. I made a rabbit (the one near Logan's face) and he made the fish and boat.
Another thing we did was the slip n slide. The pool was closed because it did not have enough chlorine in it so we decided to pull this out of storage. The boys had a great time especially when Chris started throwing them down it! Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of that.

Here's the Statue of Liberty "Guam style". A couple of the pointy things are broken off of her crown. This is in a park here at the most western point of the island. It's the furthest part west of America. Guamanians pride themselves on being the island where "America's Day begins". See more pics of our day in the album.

Josiah's Party

Today Logan enjoyed a party at his friend, Josiah's house. It was a "get to know you" party with all of his friends from school. He had a blast! He enjoyed hot dogs, chips, a movie on their projector screen and a balloon fight. Thanks for a great time Josiah!

Two Lovers' Point

Today is our anniversary but we actually celebrated it yesterday. Our thinking was that both boys would be in school and we would just have the baby. Well Logan did not have school so he was forced to be our camera man for the picture below.

We went to Two Lover's Point which is a tourist attraction here on Guam. According to legend, a wealthy chamorran/spanish young woman fell in love with a poor chamorran young man. The father of the young woman had betrothed his daughter to a selfish Spanish captain against her will. She ran away to be with her true love and was pursued by the father, the captain and the spanish guard. They eventually caught up with the doomed lovers on the very cliff you see below. Knowing that if they were captured, the young lovers would be forever separated, the woman married off and the young man killed. They tied their hair together into a knot, kissed one last time and jumped from the cliff. Pretty romantic or tragic..depends on who you ask. To me, it sounds like the perfect story to get people out to look at the gorgeous view! See more pics in the photo album.

Ryland at 5 weeks

I just wanted to show you all the head control that Ryland has at such a young age. It's actually more impressive than this! He had been holding his head up for awhile before I did this so I'm sure he was tired.

On the hunt for a mermaid

Sunday we took the boys on an "adventure". Since I'm able to get around easier now that I'm healing from the pregnancy I've been itching to see some more of Guam. I told the boys that there was a mermaid that we had to find and they were all into it...or at least Logan was. In the downtown area of Hagatna, the capitol of Guam, is a little park. There is an old spanish bridge that was built in 1800 and next to it is a statue of a mermaid. Now this is sort of below street level so it's not easy to spot. We began the hunt at the top of the bridge (see second picture) on the left hand side. Logan was the first to spot it. He was very excited. They both ran down to get their picture taken with the mermaid but once they got to it they were pretty hesitant to get on it. Thankfully our friends, Theresa, Darron, Katie and Hannah were there. Hannah saved the day and jumped in the pic with them.

This is the bridge and water used to run through downtown Hagatna but they have redirected it after the WWII.

I really like this stained glass window. Logan was sick of having his pic taken by this point, can you tell?

Micronesia Islands Fair

On saturday we went to the Micronesia Islands Fair. There was a booths representing each of the islands on this side of the world such as Kosrae, Pohnpei, Palau, Saipan, etc. It wasn't very big but you can't expect anything on Guam to be the size of fairs in the states. There was vendors selling food indigenous to the area and local crafters with items specifically from the islands such as jewelry made from shells. It was neat to experience the culture that we are currently apart of. There was a few huts set up to demonstrate how the tao tao mona (ancient ones) used to live. I'm really getting into learning the chamorran language, can you tell??

This is a boat called the outrigger. If you look closely on the left hand side you'll see a large carving that they are working on out of a huge tree trunk. They were giving demonstrations on how to make this boat. It was very cool. They happened to be rotating it when we were watching and Logan wanted to help. My little muscle man!

You see this kind of island dancing a lot here, for obvious reasons, but we sat down for the show because I thought the boys would enjoy it. Unfortunately, they were more into their sno-cones than the dancing. Guess they've seen it already and it's not as exciting! There's a few more pics in the photo album of the fair.

Napu's Christening

Hafa Adai! On friday afternoon we had a fiesta for Ryland's christening and also for the end of the fiscal year for Chris's department. It was a fun celebration complete with a whole pig...yes I said that right a WHOLE pig, lots of food, coconut husking, grating and candy making. The boys enjoyed swimming, sand, dancing and of course as many popsicles that they could eat. Tyler was especially good at this...he'd get one out of the cooler and look to whoever was standing there with his big blue eyes to open it for him. I told him no after two but I think he had closer to five! Logan had fun husking the coconuts but I was a nervous wreck watching him because he really put his body into it. See the pictures in the photo album so you'll get my meaning. When it actually came to eating the coconut he was less enthused. Ryland was enjoying being passed around to all of his tihas (aunties) and nanan bihas (grandmothers).

For those of you that don't know, this is Napu (aka Ryland). It is chamorran for ocean wave. It was a name given to him by Tess, a lady that works with Chris. All the babies that are born in the department get a local name as well as their birth name. I asked Tess if we could temporarily call him "ripple" since he's so little!

See what I mean with the popsicles?? If you look at the pics in the photo album Tyler has a different color in each one!

Here's a great picture of some of the gang on the beautiful beach we were at. It rained when we got there but like Guam's unpredictable weather, you just sit and wait...the weather will eventually change!
We would like to send out a great big Si Yu'us Ma'ase to all of Chris's department. We had a blast and look forward to our next fiesta with you! I would also like to send out a big thank you to Theresa Patton for taking pictures. (160 pictures!?!? WOW!).

Happy 5th Birthday Logan!

We celebrated Logan's 5th birthday today at his school. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast. I brought in our Ipod and we played Logan's favorite music. That was a big hit. See the video below. Check out more pics in the photo album of the party.

Navy Numa Numa

This another of the boy's fav videos. Logan can pretty much do the whole dance that these guys are doing.

Freaky Lizard

Currently this is Logan's favorite video. He just laughs and laughs then tries to mimic the lizard's run.

Meet Mini Michelin Man and Sickboy

Logan stayed home from school the last two days with a fever and vomiting. As you can see here, he's not too happy. I took some pics today of Ryland in nothing but a diaper because I had to show off his rolls. Tyler spent the day in daycare which he loves. He's the popular kid in there. He learned a cadence yesterday and we videotaped him saying it. I'll try to put it on here if I can ever figure it out. Here's the words to it... Everywhere we go, people wanna know, who we are, so we tell them, we're the toddlers, mighty might toddlers, OOO AAW TODDLERS! It's so funny to here him say it.