Watch out, she's walking!!

After 4 months of crawling Jaycee has finally taken her first steps! We are very excited for Jaycee's accomplishment, and guarded as we know this means she only becomes more capable of wreaking havoc. Of course it took some motivation to get her to let go and start walking. Jaycee lives to eat. She does not lack for an appetite. Teddy grahams provided just enough motivation to get her to let go and take those steps.



Morgan was a late walker and it took chocolate chip cookies to motivate her to walk. Bribery, one of parents greatest tools....

Paij was invited out with some girls that are in an organization for the doctor's wives at the hospital. That meant I got to have time with the girls without having to compete with Paij as the favorite parent. It was really a fun evening. We played at the park. Morgan and Jaycee both let me push them on the swings for almost half an hour. I remember the joy and sense of contentment of swinging on the swings as a kid. It is fun to see my kids experiencing that same simple pleasure.

After the park we went for a bike ride around part of the base. The girls rode in the bike trailer as we explored trails lined with beautiful flowering vines and the old runway. Jaycee tucked her arm in Morgan's and snuggled right up to her and fell asleep. I wished I had the camera to catch that moment. I imagine it would be a handy reminder of more peaceful days when they are someday teenagers. Morgan loved all the wildflowers and kept asking me "Daddy, are we lost yet?" I really appreciated that vote of confidence from my child.

After the bike ride we came home and made dinner. Morgan is the opposite of Jaycee in the appetite department. Morgan would be perfectly content if her diet consisted entirely of milk, cereal, mac n cheese, and pancakes. When I asked her what she wanted for dinner she stated "a volcano." We watched Alvin and the Chipmunks at the theater today and there is a volcano in the movie. I got an idea and so Morgan ate a volcano for dinner.

I guess it would be more accurate to state that Morgan ate half a volcano for dinner. Either way it was fun to make it together and provided a little more motivation for her to eat a hearty meal consisting of a flour tortilla, cheese, and peas (green trees on the volcano of course).


Morgan wanted to take a picture of Jaycee and I and she did a pretty good job. This photo barely catches another milestone of Jaycee's. Her hair is now long enough to make two piggy tales! Her hair is crazy and it is cute to see it a little more under control with the pig tails.

Guam's Natural Beauty

This post is written by Brent. We headed out to explore the island a little yesterday. I love to hike; Paij tolerates hiking for my sake. Here on Guam hiking is called boonie stomping. Many of the trails are in the jungle, so traditional hiking trails don't really exist. It is more navigation by landmarks and makeshift trails. We headed out on our first boonie stomp yesterday. It was rated as moderate in difficulty and provided access to 5 different waterfalls in only 0.8 miles. Well we quickly learned that moderate difficulty is not conducive to bringing little kids along, at least not in the jungle. It rains almost daily here and the jungles have a red pasty clay that becomes very slick. We all hiked to the top of the first waterfall. Due to safety concerns with scrambling down the waterfall Paij and the girls stayed at the top while I went down and explored a couple of the waterfalls.

While I was exploring Paij and the girls got swarmed by mosquitos (Morgan has bites all over her face and arms and looks terrible!) Although we probably won't be doing much boonie stomping as a family over the next 3 years, this little sneak peak made me even more excited to be here in Guam.

After the hike we decided to continue along the coast to explore the island further. We came across this awesome lagoon with a swimming hole. There were small tropical fish in the lagoon that were just the right size to interest Morgan without scaring her about getting in the water with them. There were these beautiful flowering vines growing around the lagoon. Morgan loves picking flowers, and surprisingly obliged to getting her picture taken with them.


A diving board has been built next to the lagoon. It was fun to jump from, however, I wasn't completely thrilled to have such an eyesore in a place of such natural beauty.

Paij and I took turns enjoying the lagoon. The water temp is perfect and a huge improvement from the cold waters of California's coast.


A reef protects the entrance of the lagoon so the water remains fairly calm. We each took turns swimming across the lagoon to go stand on the reef and watch the waves coming crashing in. I don't think we will ever tire of admiring the unharnessed power of the the sea. It is the perfect blend of fear, respect, and admiration.


It was an awesome day. We are loving Guam already and looking forward to the many adventures and that lie ahead for us on this little island.

Let Island Life Begin

Let's hope our flight and first couple days on the Island of Guam are not any indication of how our three years here will be. I was terribly sick the whole flight over and had to go to the hospital for an IV upon landing. The next day Brent got what I had and neither of us could hardly move let alone care for the girls. Luckily some wonderful people helped us get to our hotel and got us some food. We will forever be thankful for their generosity. By day three we were both doing much better and began to eat solid foods again.
We have been house hunting and did find a home on base. We move in on Tuesday the 7th at which point we will receive all of our household goods that have been shipped over. Yeah!
We have been to two small beaches. There are very few waves because there is a reef that surrounds most of the island so the waves break farther out. Morgan likes that because big waves scare her. It has been really windy and we've gone in the evening so haven't really swam yet but it is a very comfortable temp and pretty clear. We hope to venture out more tomorrow.
We had our first hard rain today. It came on pretty strong and Morgan looked at me and said, "Mom, who is taking a shower?" It was loud against the house but only lasted 15 min or so. This afternoon, Brent went to get something from the car and saw a crab crossing the street. You know you live on an island when...Also about the snakes. The rumors seem to maybe be true. There are snake traps set up about every 15 ft. along the cyclone fences of the base that back up to a lot of trees. There is a live mouse inside a cage inside of the trap. We have already seen several snakes stuck in the traps so I guess it works and hopefully that keeps them out of our neighborhood. We'll have to get a picture of those.
Other than that, the weather has been pretty good so far. Warm and humid but nothing like Mississippi. Maybe we were prepared for this. The base is great. It has everything we need. We'll post more on the house once we're in and more on the island once we've begun exploring. But just wanted to give an update.


We don't have new cell numbers yet but hopefully soon. Email is the best way to reach us for now. Sorry I haven't posted in three months. I should be better now. I did post 10 new posts today, Enjoy!

Family Vacation in Hawaii

On our way to Guam, we decided to make an extended stop on Oahu while we already had the flight paid for. We were there for three days. It was super low-key but beautiful and perfect. We stayed on the South East side at Bellow's Air Force base in some little cottages on the beach. It was so nice to hear the waves crashing at night and step out our door to watch the sunrise. On Friday, we watched the sunrise, played in the water, and went mini-golfing.









Saturday, we drove around the island and stopped where ever we wanted. This Buddhist temple was first on the list. Then we ran across this shallow area and had to get in it.


Then we drove up to the temple and hung out on the grounds for a while. They are so beautiful.





Then we went up to the Pipeline where they were having a surfing competition in the 20ish foot waves. It was so cool to watch. I felt like I was watching a surfing video. We were super lucky to catch it at the right time of year. Then we got snow cones and watched the sunset. It was fabulous. (Click to enlarge. There on people riding these waves)

Brent got up one morning and went snorkeling with his new underwater camera. He thought it was pretty awesome and we hope to be able to capture more of that underwater life over the next three years.

Las Vegas Rendez-Vous

Once my mom found out we were going to be up in Nor Cal for so long, she said she would like to take the kids so we could go on a trip for our 6th anniversary. We took her up on it. We went to Vegas for four days and had a blast. I flew down from Nor Cal and Brent flew up from San Diego. We hadn't seen each other for two weeks so it was perfect. Thanks mom, Kalli, Sarah and Judy for babysitting.







Le Reve Stage
The hotels were fun to see but not the highlight of the trip. I, of course loved the Paris hotel and the Volcano show at the Mirage was really cool. We were able to go see Le Reve. It's a Cirque du Soliel type show with a mostly water stage. The talent was super impressive and we both really enjoyed it.

We headed down to the hoover dam. Neither of us had been so we thought we'd check it out. It was cool but way smaller in person than it looks on TV.



We also had to fit in a 6 mile hike to the Arizona hot springs. This tarantula was on the trail and Brent had to take several pictures.





Other than a few people in the buff, it was pretty fun.



We met up with Katie and Katie, Brent's friends from High School who live in Vegas.
We also went to Brent's bother Mike's softball tournament. He is from LA and happened to be playing in Vegas that weekend.


We were also grateful to be able to do some work in the temple since there is no temple on Guam
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