Crab Festival in Merizo

I guess you could call it a crab festival.  They had a few flyers up and one live crab.  A few stuffed crabs to eat, but not really fresh.  Sunday was the day they were going to have the crab catch.  I guess that would have been the better day to get to see the crabs.  The pictures are of a coconut husking and cleaning. 

 

We met up with a friend from my work and hung out for a little while.  The real entertainment started when they had an adult sack race.  Unfortunately, I was laughing so hard I forgot to take any pictures of this.  Once the entertainment was over we left and headed back up north. 

The festival was the whole way down south.  For those of you who don't live here understand that when you first arrive on Guam it seems like you are near everything.  As you stay here the bigger the Island gets and the less far you want to travel.  When we go down south we usually plan to stop at one of our favorite places, McKrauts.  They consider it German fast food.  We had not been there in a while, but they have a large variety of everything.  The owner is German and he had a beer wagon brought in from Germany.  When we arrived he was just opening it and we stood outside at the wagon and talked to him about the Wagon and Germany.  Eventually we ordered some food and had it brought outside along with some stools to sit on.  We ended up talking to another military couple who was just finishing their time up here in Guam.  When we were about ready to leave a few more friends showed up.  We ended up spending about 4 hours there.  Meeting so many people and talking about such a variety of different places is fun. 

A Job

As some of you know I was offered a part time job as the sports coordinator at the youth center on base.  I accepted and have been doing paperwork and being poked and prodded for about 2 weeks now.  I am just going to let you all know how I feel about paperwork.  Gross it should not be a real thing you have to do.  I had to fill out a form that wanted the last 5 years of employment history (not so bad), then the last 5 years of places that I have lived, along with a person who knew me at each of those places and their address.  Along with another 3 references, I suppose those are for character.  Anyway I am just not sure how they think I am going to remember the last 5 years of places I lived.  I am pretty sure I am not the only person who came out of college and moved into an apartment.  Which we all know usually is only for a few years at a time.  So how am I supposed to remember all of those addresses!?  I turned all of the papers in today.  That part is finally done, but that was after spending 3 hours at the naval hospital getting my physical.  Mind you I also need a health card.  This means I got checked all over.  I needed some bloodwork and some immunizations.  I don't usually mind this, but I have to go back Thursday to get the TB test checked, which still does not complete the physical.  I have to return the have the second half of my physical on the 4th.  I have worked with more challenging children for longer days and have never had to do so much.  As I sit here writing this my shoulder that they gave me 2 shots in is sore.  Mind you one of those shots is the flu shot.  For those of you who know my family we get sick every time we get the flu shot.  I know it is a dead virus, but we must get the other strain of the virus or something.  I am, however, hoping that I will not get sick this time. 

Moving on to other things that are going on.  Greg is away until Saturday.  He and one of his airmen went to do some work in Diego Garcia.  He has already seen and touched a sea turtle, won a volleyball tournament, and tried paddle boarding.  That is just with his free time.  On Monday they got a lot of work done and they are thinking they may be done sooner than planned.  This will allow them time to go try other cool things.  He did take the video camera so hopefully we will have some pics and videos to share later. 

While Greg was away I am supposed to practice driving manual.  I took his car for a ride and something just didn't seem right under the hood (the dash and horn haven't worked for a while).  I looked under and his battery wasn't actually strapped in so I got a kit and fixed it.  Then decided I wanted the horn to work, because that has to work for inspection.  They don't worry about much during inspection, but that is one of the things.  I looked around at the wiring (which I don't know a whole lot about, but I can follow a line to see where it leads).  I found 2 wires hanging one that went to the horn.  I tried looking for a manual for the horn and couldn't find anything.  If you remember his horn is a musical horn that plays la cucaracha.  I then talked to my Dad about trouble shooting the wiring with me by skype.  Over skype and with Dad's explanation I was able to get everything I needed to fix the horn and we found out that the other loose wire was jerry rigged (spelling) into the fuse box behind the glove box.  It had blown the fuse.  By removing that wire that did nothing, except short the fuse, and putting a new fuse in the dashboard started working again.  So now we have a working horn and dashboard.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=664159876423

I have been trying to keep busy while Greg is away.  Lucky for me there are a great group of ladies who are always doing things.  Fridays are usually hiking and this past Monday I did an aerobic swim workout, and will do that again tomorrow.  It is also cleaning day and the dog gets a bath.  She needs it she is some sort of smelly. 

I think that wraps it up for now.  I hope you all are doing well and hope to hear some things about what is going on with you. 

Prayer/Praise Requests

• Travel safety
• I got a job!

Right Before Christmas

It has been a really long time since the last blog.  Plenty has happened and I will do my best to remember it.  It may not be in order.  Please just go with the flow.

First thing is Greg was just promoted to Captain!  I am very proud of him!  Although he says anyone can make Captain (I think he is more excited about it than he lets on).  I will put some pictures up with captions.  There is a video, but it is hard to hear because it was windy and I cannot get it to upload from my computer.

Me learning that I have to pin Greg's rank on and when I have to go up.

Group that came to the ceremony

Trying to pin Greg's rank on (didn't have a clue what I was doing)

Greg reading his post ceremony card from his flight

I have been becoming more and more active with the spouses club.  I have been helping with the gift shop that the AOSC runs (Andersen Officers Spouses Club).  We just got a shipment in from the Philippines and we open 2 to 3 days a week for people on base to come in and pick up some of those cool things you would get if you could travel there.  The funds that we make go to support scholarships and non-profit organizations.  We also did what we call the Cookie Caper.  We baked cookies and had a turn in so that we could collect at least 800 dozen for all the single and deployed airmen here at Andersen. We ended up doing 880 dozen and we were able to give some to the Marines here on base as well as the USO.  It is cool to be making more friends and finding things to do.  However, I would still really like a job and it seems that everything I apply for gets cancelled.  I guess the government has even less money than I thought.  Some of the other things I do to fill my day are cleaning, teaching the dog to be good, hiking with friends, on occasion bowling/golfing.  Also note to anyone who cleans and listens to their computer.  Don't let your lysol wipes to close.  I did that and accidentally spilled the leftovers all over my computer, it got mad and then it died.  On top of that windows 8 is a pain to learn.

A picture from Mango's first hike and she had some friends along too. 

We were smart about sending Christmas presents this year and sent them at the beginning of the month, before the rush and so they would get there early/on time.  It is very different here, because it is the same temperature it was when we first got here.  We are used to the cold winters we get at home.  I will not complain though, because I would rather be warm than cold.  We are only a few days out and Greg just got home to start his 4 day weekend.  He has to go back to work next week after Christmas, but has the following week off.  We decided since we have that week off that our Christmas presents to one another would coincide and we are learning to scuba dive.  I am sure there are a bunch more things to write to you about, but this seems good for now.  We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!  Remember to play for those military members who are deployed and cannot be with family at this time of year.  Thank you all for being such a wonderful and caring part of our lives.

ps we have been getting some Christmas cards in the mail from friends and family. THANKS!

Mango

Let me tell you about our new little puppy Mango.  She is a lab mix of some kind.  We got her from G.A.I.N. (Guam Animals in Need) it is the only shelter on the Island and they have a lot of animals come in.  I have been volunteering there since about the first week we were on the Island.  It has been interesting and fun.  I have not trained a puppy on my own before.  Greg got her for me for my birthday, but made sure that I knew it was my dog and I was in charge of training and such.  Which was okay with me.  I love dogs!  She does all of the puppy stuff like chewing and playing.  I can't wait to take her along to the beach with us.  She needs one more shot before she is allowed to play with other dogs and go to public places.  Parvo is problem on the Island so they suggest these things to help keep your animal healthy.  We have been working hard on no biting and no jumping.  These are challenging when you are a puppy.  It is fun to watch her run around the yard and chase bugs, her tail or anything else that may move.  It has been way fun having her and I can't wait to train her to walk on a leash and play with other dogs. 

Greg has been doing lots of updates to his Jeep.  His first update was to put rhino lining all through the Jeep and take the carpet out.  It is much easier to clean and wash out this way.  It was also fairly in expensive to do, because he did it on his own.  It looks really good.

Yesterday he received the spacers he ordered for the wheels.  He noticed he couldn't turn the wheel the whole way with out it rubbing on the body.  So he looked up some information and ordered the part.  He put them on and it seems to drive smoother now.  We are still waiting for the dealership to set up an appointment to get the car realigned.  This is not an easy task and you have to have someone special do it, because it is lifted and the specs you use to align it are different than the factory specs. 

On Sunday we had our first church picnic.  It was awesome we had all sorts of different culture foods and normal picnic foods.  The best part of the entire picnic was the baptisms.  We were at Ypao beach and several people gave their testimonies and were baptized in the ocean.  My favorite testimony was that of an older lady who gave her testimony in Korean and had it translated.  I couldn't understand what she was saying until it was translated, but I could tell how excited and thankful she was to have God in her life. 

We finally got our homegoods on my birthday.  What a way to spend your birthday and the days following.  There was so much to unpack.  We had a whole bunch of lamps, but that is something that we don't need here at our house.  So we have sold some of them and others are on the facebook garage sale pages.  Here everyday is a garage sale.  People really enjoy swapping things or finding them for cheap.  We found a new table on craigslist.  It was a nice rectangular table with 6 chairs and a leaf to make it bigger in the middle.  It has been a fantastic addition and I feel like we are ready to have people over now.  We are selling the old table and someone is supposed to come get it today at 11am. 

We are still having loads of fun here on the Island.  There is so much to do, see, and taste here I don't know if it will ever get old.   I entered the Chili Cookoff on base.  That is today at 2pm.  It says the secret ingredient is spam.  I don't know if that means we are really supposed to use it or not, but I have managed to make a chili with spam that tastes good.  So here is hoping the judges like it too.  It is in the crockpot as I write becoming it's delicious self. 

I am still on the hunt for a job.  I have not found anything, but applied for many things.  I can't even seem to find a part time job.  If you could pray for that, it would be much appreciated. 

Prayer requests:

• patience (everything takes a longer here)
• that our marriage continues to grow
• that we might find other couples in similar situations as us to befriend

The Horn as promised

We have been doing lots of different things, but I will update that later when I am not watching the puppy run around the yard.  I promised you the horn and here it is.

Vehicles

Where to start...  As you probably already know my car turned out to be quite the lemon.  We decided the best option was to go to a dealership even though it was going to cost more and there would be no way to get all of our money back on it.  So as a run down on the montero sport.  We fixed the following: inner and outer tie rods on the drivers side, radiator, and EGR(did I say that right this time Dad?) valve (which was supposed to fix the check engine light and that didn't happen).  After all that was fixed we noticed some other stuff so we took it in and had them look it over.  They said there was a swaybar link problem and and oil leak (the oil leak I noticed before that's why we had it checked).  I asked about transmission and it still looked good.  I put a box under the car to catch the drippings since we are renting.  A few days later I noticed that it was not just brown like oil.  So I climbed under to check and sure enough it was red fluid, which is transmission fluid.  At that point we took the other parts back and cancelled the appointment and decided to get another car. 

The thing about driving around here is when it rains it doesn't always drain and there are lots of holes in the road (a bit like Burkina but not quite that bad), plus our driveway is very steep.  Greg had talked about how he would like to have a jeep and I told him if he really wants want he should get it.  I always liked that type of car too.  So he began a hunt for a jeep.

I went to the dealership and talked to Renee about trading in the cars and what we might or might not be doing.  She was very helpful.  The second time I saw her we did an appraisal on my montero.  They were gonna give me $2300.  A loss but much better than I thought it would be.  Renee took me around the lot and I found a Jeep that I thought Greg might like.  We set up an appointment to meet with Renee on Saturday.  We had several days in between to think about what we wanted to do and what we could afford.  When we arrived on Saturday at 9:30am and started with a ride in the Jeep.  The funniest thing about the Jeep is the horn.  It is what I would call the mexican car horn.  Here is a link to what it sounds like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAo4lE3dPD8 I will try to record the Jeep doing it and put it up later.  He really liked it, it was a manual, which he wanted, and it already had a lift sat nice and high.  It appeared to be in good condition it only has 54,000 miles on it.  It was a salvage at one point.  So we decided for sure we wanted the '99 Jeep Wrangler. 

The next task was to find a car that would work for me.  So we had them appraise Greg's Accord.  They did not give us nearly as much as we thought they should.  The manager came out and talked to us about it and explained it.  He did raise it some for us since we were going to purchase 2 vehicles.  I think they ended up only giving us like $6000 for the Accord.  I had seen a Tacoma on lot which was amazing, but too expensive.  Then we thought about another Jeep, but still too expensive.  My only requests in a car for here were SUV or truck and hopefully 4 wheel drive.  Well the Jeep had 4 wheel drive so we have at least 1 vehicle with that.  So the one in our price range was a Ford Escape.  For those of you who are in my family you know we always pick on each other for that, because I am on the Chevy side of that debate.  It was tough for me, but I did it.  It is pretty nice though.  I promise to leave it here on the Island and not bring it home.  And I feel much safer in it than the montero. I almost forgot to tell you the night before the transmission leak on the montero I had a dream about crashing the car, because I had no control.  The end result was 2 new cars on Saturday and we were there until like 5pm. 

To top things off for me yesterday I went in the game room to play some video games.  I went to sit on the chair and there was white mold all over it.  I tried sitting in there for a while I got red watery eyes so the chair made it's way to the porch.  We had talked about using air conditioning, and we didn't want to spend too much.  But today I found Greg's had totally coated in it.

So then I began to look around and there was a little on the couch and I can't tell for sure, but it may be in the tiles.  I have some serious scrubbing to do and Greg said to go ahead and turn the ac on.  If anyone knows anything about mold or anything or cleaning that stuff let me know.  I think we may have to keep the ac on at all times and just set it for like 83 degrees or something. 

There have been other things going on, but nothing quite as exciting. 

Frustrating day

We have been settling in to our new house.  We have gotten some new furniture and are waiting for the rest of our homegoods to get here.  Today we picked up a free grill and a free la-z-boy.  We also spent $10 to by a set of washers (the game).  Yesterday we got a great deal on a 42" tv full HD not to mention it was only $375, because we got the display model and that was 25% off.  So those are just some of the new/used things we have picked up.

I had a day earlier this week that was so frustrating to me.  Everything that could go wrong went wrong.  I tried to go on base to get Greg's car so that I could get the oil changed.  The guy at the gate said no and took my paper from my car.  So Greg had to come pick me up at the back gate.  I did get the oil changed quickly.  Then we went to the DMV to get the title and registration put into our names for my car.  While we waited I picked up and filled out a paper to get my Guam driver's license.  The line was super long for driver's license line.  So once we did get the title and registration in our names and left.  Then I went to get my stickers for my car to get on base and the guy had to check to make sure my window tint was too dark.  The guy who had the car before us said it was never in question.  He said it couldn't be more than .2 in darkness and it was .4. So I could only get a temporary pass.  The guys told me the pass was good for 2 weeks, but I had to get the tint fixed.  I left and went to put air in my tire after that it just barely registered it was so low on pressure.  Back to the DMV I went after this.  Only to get there and realize I did not have my social security card.  So I ran back home and grabbed it only to wait in line again.  I finally was called and I showed them everything including my endorsed motorcycle license.  In PA they only give you a stamp on the permit once you have passed the test.  The guys said they would not count that as a motorcycle license, because it has to be on the plastic card.  After and infuriating conversation with this guy he told me I could get the operator license and they could do the motorcycle later, but I would have to pay full price both times.  I have to have my license changed by 30 days after we arrived.  It was a super frustrating day.  When I got home I started working on the tint in my car.  It was some sort of adhesive contact sort of paper so I could peel it off on my own.  Once it was peeled off it smelled terrible and you couldn't see out of the window, because of the adhesive.   I then scrubbed the window with rubbing alcohol.  Fun times!

taking the contact paper stuff off

adhesive leftovers

that's better

Yesterday I joined the praise team for my first rehearsal here.  I had a good time.  These people know how to have a good time.  They would break into a different song when we finished a song.  They had so much fun.  You could see how excited they were to be there and that they meant what they were doing.  

Last night we went out with our friend, Bruce, to a karaoke bar.  That was so much fun!  I got a shout out when I sang "If you wanna be happy" and some cheers when I sang Cher's if I could turn back time.  (Michelle if you would have been there with me we could have done I got you babe.)  Greg even sang 2 different songs, one being "Don't stop believing."  It was a great time and I was so excited that Greg decided he would sing.  Bruce rocked out some of the good oldies and even played his harmonica with the songs.  Super cool!

I think that is all I have to report for now I will let you know when there is more.