Friday, December 11, 2009

Another winter in Guam

We've been having a pretty good winter so far here. Actually we do miss the snow, the kids are so excited for next year, but no sense wasting our final months in the tropics, so here are some recent highlights of our little island life:


Jordan & his friends prepare for night spear fishing.....more on that later in the post, but first:

We're still not even close to exploring all the island, so we recently checked out this beach on the north tip of the island called Ritidian with our friends the Summers.

Guam may have warm water, but the coral shelfs mean no waves, or at least only rare, small ones. But there were this day and Emma bravely leads her friends to face the fierce wave action


Jordan: 5th grader, basketball junkie, and recently....Baywatch Jr lifeguard!!



Jordan and Emma hangin out w/ the Summers kids.




Andie soakin up the sun.





Recently we took the boy and cub scouts ocean kayaking. Jordan & Dad gear up.



More kayaking




We wrapped things up with a race. Jordan ready to take off.



Not exaclty a race for the speed junkie, but a good workout!


And just last nite Jord & Dad once again made it down the the Acfalle's, a family in our branch that live on the southern beaches of Guam, to go night spear fishing. It was awesome. Jordan and his friends were in pure heaven. Jordan caught 4 fish of his own this time, and ate twice that many!



Jordan & his friend David hold an eel his Dad speared. Bro Acfalle is on the right. He grew up doing this and is amazing at it. He caught the vast majority of the fish.



Jordan hold his very first spear-caught fish. Dad found the fish with the underwater flashlight (it's pitch black out there about 500 yards out to sea), while Jordan dove underwater with a sling style spear and got him about 6 feet down. He was so pumped.



The whole gang. It was basically a father & sons branch activity. Needless to say we at well that night.

Finally, we conclude our post with 3 "random" pics from our recent adventures.


Guam is known for it's large Rats. The kids were going nuts, so excited to discover and chase it...unlike our lazy cats. Twinkie (pictured here) and his Sis Daisy took a more....casual approach.


Better balance out the rat reputation with something positive, so Guam is also known for it's rainbows. We almost see these daily. Here is one in our housing unit as Shell was testing out her camera.


Finally, Andie & Emma sometimes struggle with the concept "go to bed". One night Mom & Dad heard them playing when they were supposed to be sleeping and caught them doing this, which apparently is "playing possum". I guess possums don't need as much sleep!

That's about it for now. We're looking forward to Christmas and will no doubt post holiday pics soon.