Christmas Card 2008

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Instead of sending a big long summary letter/family report with our Christmas card, we thought we'd just use our blog...so here it is, the David family 2008 summary (for those who may be new to this blog, the best way to catch up is simply scroll down thru our past posts)...a few minutes into that and you'll feel like you're right here with us.......without the 15 hour flight! But for those that like the traditional end of year summary, here ya go:

Emma: Enjoying 1st grade, primary, losing her teeth, and especially gymnastics (click on video link for a demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPryG413OSk). Picked up roller blading recently. LOVES swimming, reading to Mom & Dad, and chocolate. She's our little daredevil. Jordan & Andie will ask her to try a scary thing out first (like jumping off a high waterfall, or even getting a shot at the doctor), and she almost always does.

Andie: Also enjoying 1st grade (in same class as Emma). There's no bad time to practice gymnastics for Andie. She'll do cartwheels EVERYWHERE. Click on this link for her gymnastics demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7kfY6PGk20 . She also loves singing, her and Emma break into spontaneous duets constantly. It's been a big year for loose teeth. She's probably missing half of them now. She loves to help cook dinner, and speaking of heat, she and Emma love it here because it's one place on earth actually hot enough for them. The school cranks the A/C so much at they wear sweatshirts in class, but outside is just right.

Jordan: He's got 4th grade all under control. When he's not in school, he's usually outside on his skateboard, bike, razor scooter, or in the water anytime he can. We're waitin for gills to sprout on this kid anyday. He loves swimming, snorkeling, and in July when he turns 10 he's really lookin forward to getting SCUBA certified so he can dive with Dad. He loves his guitar, drawing, and playing XBOX. The highlight of his year however, was his 2 minute stint as the lead singer of the rock band Smashmouth (scroll down this blog a couple entries for all the details) but here's the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKLjZKeIY9w

Michelle: She likes long walks on the beach looking for the kids, followed by cleaning a van full of sand. She also enjoys getting caught in the rain... which happens often here, usually in the grocery store parking lot or getting the mail. When not sipping pina coladas, she's busy working with special needs kids at the elementary school and doing the Mom thing. It hasn't all been work though; she had the vacation of her life in October when she spent a ladies only week in Bali with 2 of her friends here. Scroll down to the next entry for all those details. She and James also celebrated their 10th anniversary this last August.

James: Enjoying his work at the branch clinic here on base, which feels like a small town practice because everyone on base goes there. He also loves exploring the island with the family, including the waterfalls, hikes, and of course the ocean. He was thrilled to get SCUBA certified a few months back, and looks forward to going with Jordan this summer. He's also had fun working with the young men/scouts in his church...rock climbing isn't as easy as it used to be!
Coincidently, he also celebrated his 10th anniversary this year!

Before we conclude, here are a few recent pictures for your viewing enjoyment:

Taking "rockin around the Christmas tree" to a whole new level! The girls w/friend Tori.

Jordan got this cool remote control helicopet/hover thing. He loves it.....

Daisy doesn't. It freaked the cats out bigtime.

Shell with Santa's elf.

A couple days before Christmas we went to Inarajan pools, which are seperated by the

ocean by those rocks you can see in the distance. Here Andie's jumpin off the platform.

Emma takes a turn....

One of those perplexing perspective pics. Is Jodan diving off the platform or doing a handstand on the grass???? Quite a mystery......

Mystery solved

Jordan and Andie

Well, that's the scoop. We've had a great year and a wonderful Christmas. We are so grateful for all of you, our family & friends back home, and for our savior and his gospel. We truly feel blessed and look forward to all the adventures 2009 will bring. We'd love to hear from you too. Our email is jmdavidfamily@gmail.com Merry Christmas and happy 2009!

Love,

The Davids

The Ultimate Girls Vacation--Bali!

At the end of September I was able to go to Bali for 8 days with 2 of my best friends. Ladies you've gotta try this!! Its one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Let me paint a picture for you; 1000's of shops in a row (you barter for EVERYTHING), amazing 2-4 hour massage/spa treatments for 20$ and awesome activities like riverrafting and biking through the mountains and villages. The next few pictures will take you through my amazing trip.


We were on our way to go riverrafting when the road closed down to let this funeral processing through. This picture is of a hand made casket, when they get to the burial site it will be burned. At the head of this tower was 8 white oxen.

508 steps down to the river, so beautiful!

This picture was taken from our river raft. The entire mountain side was hand carved. It went on for miles!

This was taken while we were biking through the villages. The entire family/extended family lived together in compounds. They are so poor but happy. This was their school bus.

One of the many schools along our bike trip. They loved to see themselves on the screens of our digital cameras after taking their pictures.

This is Gabby and she is smiling for you. She is very talented; she played the harmonica and took a bow afterwards.

Elephants feel like a giant hairy pig. This is LaNita Copeland and Me on Gabby.

yep she stinks.

James bugging me about how much money I am going to spend at the shops just around the corner. No, actually this is at the monkey forest. 100's of nots so shy monkeys surrounded us. They can open your purse!

This woman was selling us peanuts to give the elephants. 1$ for 2 lbs of nuts. Isn't she beautiful!

Cooking School. So stinkin spicy gave us "Bali Belly" Good but holy moses.

One of the many dance shows we saw. Different

Did your heart beat just speed up? This is one of the millions of outdoor shops. The purses hanging there are hand woven and the vases are hand beaded. We watched as a 12 year old girl sat and made a beaded purse. Oh and those purses are 3$.

I had so much fun and am so thankful for a loving husband that took care of the kids for a very long 8 days (for him) The combination of the scenery,culture, and people was literally paradise.

Hey now, he's a rock star......

It's not too often that big name celebrities find their way over to Guam, but we were psyched to have Smashmouth here in concert this week. Jordan and his friends wanted to be right up front, while Dad stayed back. Near the end of the show we were shocked to see the lead singer of Smashmouth Steve Harwell reach down in the crowd, and pull Jordan up on stage! Yes, our very own son was a rock star for about 2 minutes. See the pictures and video below to see for yourself. His friends were almost as excited as he was. They were heard saying: "Dude, Jordan, you're island famous now." Jordan's shirt was drenched with both his and Steve's sweat, so Jordan refused to wash it.......but Mom vetoed that resolution. Needless to say Jordan said it was the "best night of his life". Here are 4 pictures of the event followed by a link to the video, so ROCK ON!!!!
He's a little freaked out when he's first pulled up on stage.

Startin to find his groove.....

Then Steve hands him the microphone...not quite sure how to take the reigns as the very temporary new lead singer of Smashmouth

Finally, they just decide to finish the song together. To see the video of this, just click the following link.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=GKLjZKeIY9w

PS. In case you're wondering what song you're listening to, Smashmouth broke from their own music for a couple Van Halen cover songs. This happens to be the end of Van Halen's "Aint talkin about love". This new version in no doubt now our favorite!

The kids rejoice that we FINALLY found the watering hole! We have this book on hiking in Guam, which gives directions/descriptions of the fun places sort of "off the beaten path". We found awesome waterfalls to jump off last year (see our Dec 07 blog) from this book, so we tried it again. It was 2 miles each way on a very hot day, so as you can see above the kids were psyched to finally make it.

Near the start of the hike when we were sort of.....lost you could say. Seriously, the book gives weird directions, like "turn left at the abandon dump truck" We thought the author might be joking.....

He wasn't. We finally knew we were on the right path in the maze of tracks and fields when we saw these trucks.

Anyway, when we finally made it, the kids were ready to play. It's a deep natural swimming hole, and it even had a rope tree swing. Here Andie is swingin away

And of course Emma had to give it a shot too.

Jordan's turn

We also went to Spanish steps again a few weeks ago, here we are hiking thru the jungle with the Bunches and Copelands to our favorite snorkeling site.

The girls prefer to play on the beach and look on as family snorkels in the background.

Halloween 2008: The girls w/ Tori Bunch as fairies ready to spread happiness and peace.

Jordan and the Copelands and Dillon Bunch.......not exactly spreading happiness and peace

Fairies and bad guys all came together in the end though to show off their sweet haul of Candy.

They still kept a fair amount even after the "parent tax".

Finally, we attended the Navy Ball a couple weeks ago. The girls were so excited to see Mom dressed up to go to a "real Ball" (they were thinking of the balls they've seen on the disney movies etc). They wanted to go so bad. Anyway it was fun to get dressed up and be with friends in a formal setting like that.....once in a while at least.

End of summer, start of school

Guam is known for it's water sports, and thankfully our friends share our commitment to make the most of our time here. Pictured above are the girls with their friend Tori Bunch and her mom Marilee. The Bunches and Copelands are almost always in our pictures cause they're great friends of ours. We all live in the same neighborhood, go to church together, and play together. For example James was getting SCUBA certified this weekend with the Copelands while Shell and our kids played with the Bunches on their waverunners. Marilee Bunch and Lanita Copeland are also going with Shell to Bali in a few days for a "girls week out". It's just one big party down here.

Jordan with Jacob Copeland being towed by a jetski. Another Utah family, the Langs, brought their waverunner too, so there was plenty of fun to go around.

The girls, again with Tori, on a Carabell, basically a water buffalo that has a strong history here on Guam. These animals were the backbone of farm labor etc for many years here.

Jordan with Dillon Bunch and Jacob Copeland on the same Carabell. The owner (in background) was really nice and loved taking the kids around for a ride.

After the animal ride, we went to Inarahan pools, which are seperated by the ocean by a few

large rocks. Here Jordan is coaxing Andie to take a leap off the 12 ft high platform

She didn't need much coaxing.

Joran & the Copeland boys. You can see the ocean in the background. These pools were alot of fun, but on the other side of the island so we've only been here once.

One of the many new events with the girls getting older is them wanting sleepovers. Lanita bought these for Tori and the girls for her birthday.

Slumber party mania

The big event of last week was Emma's first tooth coming loose. She was wiggling it constantly, so excited to finally lose the first tooth like her sister had before her. Well Andie was excited too, and 2 impatient girls aren't gonna wait for mother nature, so Andie went ahead and ripped it out for Emma.

Andie's "extraction" was successful. Emma was pretty excited (as you can obviously see) to finally join the lost tooth club.

But we can't forget the biggest event of all this month....the start of another school year! This was taken on the first day of school in our front yard. You can see by the picture that they don't have far to walk (school pictured in the background). It's not just the kids that enjoy the short commute, Shell works there too and walks to and from school with them each day.

That's it for now!