We'll be back on Guam in about four days- and back to blogging soon after that! Stay tuned....

One more day...

Leaving to catch up with Sam and the girls in one more day (OK, one and a half days). Can't wait. Work has been all kinds of crazy leading up to the change of command, and one week after the CoC we had the Naval Inspector General on base looking into all our programs. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the next two weeks.

Thanks to Mike Thornton for watching Aggie while I'm gone (don't tell him this, but she shedding REALLLLY bad right now).

-Kevin

Video

I've owed this for a while now. Below is the video of one of the monitor lizards we saw during our hike last weekend. This guy happened to be one of four we saw milling around the campsite a Chamorro family had set up. No one seem bothered by the lizards -- except me!

This was a fairly busy week. It was short, with the 4th of July holiday on Monday, but Tuesday and Wednesday were filled up with preparing for the Change of Command ceremony and continuing to get all the turnover stuff done, Thursday was eaten up by the Change of Command, and Friday was "the new guy's" first day.

Next week will be busy as well. We are setting the CO up with meetings to meet with all his Program Directors (Department Head) and the Navy Inspector General team is here meeting with numerous focus groups on base to ask questions about housing, quality of life, MWR programs, counseling services, etc... Basically, they are asking all the commands on base how much they like Naval Base Guam and everything it provides - - great.

I'll be looking forward to next Saturday, when I leave to visit Samantha, Maddie and Ellie in Canada for two weeks! Can't wait.

Hike to Double Reef Beach

Hello! Mike, three others (Dave, Scott, and Ryan), and myself hiked down to Double Reef Beach today. It was about 2.4 miles one-way. I should have brought more water, but I survived. We must've seen 6 or 7 large monitor lizards along the way. Here's a photo of one of them down near the beach:

This guy was crashing a family's bar-b-que. They came into the beach on a boat, unloaded all their stuff, and had a cookout and swim. Three monitors came in to pick up the scraps. As we were leaving, they were eating meat off the grill (still hot).

As usual, the snorkeling was excellent and I took a couple photos underwater as well. Lot's of fish, and another crown of thorns starfish.

Check back tomorrow and I'll post a video of the monitor lizard that invaded the campsite.

-Kevin