Stan's way of dealing with rowdy kids, can you find them all?

He enjoyed this moment of insight so much that he documented it with a picture!

p.s. please take note, Eli is wearing underwear and he keeps them clean.  Hooray for no more diaper changes!  For the time being that is...

My children have always talked of having pets and each time the discussion arises, I say no.  So, while in Utah the boys dubbed the snails outside as their pets, in Columbus it was the worms.  Well here in Guam, we have these. 

The best thing about these pets, they not only live outside, but inside too!  With the exception of the occassional tail loss as documented above, no lizards (perhaps geckos) are harmed in our home.

How does the lizard stay so still, please look closely

It's on a leash!  All thanks to a strand of hair from my head and Stan's creativity.

Please no worries, we take good care of our pets as they keep coming back for more quality time with us.  I think they may even share the word with their friends. 

Living on an Air Force base provides us many opportunities to see airplanes, but its not too often that you get to see the Thunderbirds!  We had an airshow out here, unfortunately while the rest of the base had the afternoon off, Stan had to work the medical tent so I got to sit in the sweltering heat for 5 hours with the boys by myself.  We did see Stan, he looked like this

All official don't you think, we see lots of green uniforms these days.  I guess its nice to just wake up and know what you are wearing everyday.

At church events start with a prayer, in the AF things start with a flag ceremony and National Anthem.

We had front row seats to the helicopter demonstration run by HSC-25 (its a naval group and the one that Stan actually works with and will fly with, these helicopters are considered his primary aircraft).  The redhorse squadron are the folks repelling out (all I know about them is they where red hats with their uniforms instead of the regular ones)

Some big plane flew over, perhaps a B-52 bomber, I really have no clue, but I know one B-52 did fly by that day, if this is it.....who knows

There was definitely some down time as they built up to the "main event" and once that time came there was even more down town as the pilot felt like the clouds were too low to fly.  We had to wait an extra hour for the Thunderbirds to perform.  After a lot of this

and this

we got this

Seriously an amazing performance, I'm sure hours of training goes into it. 

For awhile I wasn't sure how worth it it was as Eli was quite happy to be there

the above picture is exactly the reason why I make it a point to be home for nap time most days

But the moments of stillness and excitement definitely make up for it

and then we take a picture and pretend that Stan was with us all along, but don't be fooled.  He only joined us for the last 10 minutes of the Thunderbirds performance

Maybe next time he'll get the day off too, here's crossing our fingers!

While Guam has brought changes for all of us, perhaps the one feeling them the most is Garrett.  Since we've arrived on island this cute kid has started school and had a birthday.  Garrett has a true love for learning so starting school was no big deal for him, he was SOOOO excited.  In fact when I picked him up the first day he cried because he thought school would last longer.  He missed the cutoff date for Kindergarten by 12 days, but he attends Pre-K at the Elementary school every day for 2 1/2 hours.  Frankly, I don't think he minds being the oldest!

First Day of School

This is what all of my pictures looked like when I tried to take pictures before school.  Apparently you can't just walk out of your cool air conditioned home and expect your camera to be ready to go.  I thought the fog was on the screen so I kept snapping away, but unbeknownst to me it was really on the lens.  So after a little cleaning we got a few last minute pictures with the little poser himself

I'm sure the first 10 pictures were much cuter, but since I can't see them I'm not too disapointed.

Here they are lining up outside waiting to go to their classroom

School started on Wednesday and on Sunday we "celebrated" Garrett's birthday.  He chose to wait until dad was here to have his real party, but I at least wanted to acknowledge the day on his actual birthday.  Here he is with his birthday breakfast of peanut butter captain crunch and a poptart.

We sang happy birthday to him and made him pretend to blow out candles in his poptart b/c I had forgotten to buy matches.

He received many phone calls wishing him a happy day.  He loved hearing from everyone

Dad sent some gifts that he opened and we called it good for the day. 

Then the wait was on, the present sat on the cupboard in full view for 6 whole days while we waited for Stan to come join us in Guam.  Here we are waiting at the airport

My personal favorite moment was this:

and this when he has all 3, look closely Logan is there

I almost walked out of the airport then and there to listen to the silence in the car by myself for a minute!  I however did wait to enjoy the quiet until later in the week.

The real party can begin now

EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH DAD!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARRETT

We are here, been here for just over a month.  Well all except Stan, he didn't join us until just 2 weeks ago.  Where is here?  Let me give you a few hints: 

5 minutes of a drive gets us to places looking like this:

or perhaps you seek more adventure and are willing to drive 15 minutes with the last few minutes off roading in a minivan on a dirt road with lots of potholes and puddles

Or maybe you're patient, don't mind a 20 minute drive and just want to relax

If you're the type you could stay at a resort where they make you fancy things by weaving palm tree leaves together like this kind gentleman and his fish on a pole

Is it a western flare that you are seeking?

maybe you just want to walk on the wild side for a minute

We've done it all and more in just one short month on this tiny island of Guam folks.  When planning your next vacation or military hop you might just want to think a little more about the island "Where America's Day Begins"