sorry!!!!!!!!!

gotta ditch tonight- too much work to do for school :)

Happy Thursday to you guys!

Lots of nothing new....

Which I guess is a good thing- everyday normal stuff right now.

Kevin seems to be enjoying his time in Texas. Tomorrow he gets to visit College Station followed by an evening at an Aggie baseball game. I know he is excited. He has been trying for years to get back to Aggieland. Nice that his parents are there with him to enjoy.

This week has been braid week.
Maddy has a braid book that she likes to torture me with every once in a while. Whenever it resurfaces I know there will be days in a row when I am expected to braid the girls hair according to the picture they pick that day. Ug. Really its fun for them, but its the last thing I need to be doing when I am trying to get us all out of the house before school! Still, they enjoy it..... though I did "accidentally" put the book away in an unnamed cupboard today.......

Dress down day today to raise money for Japan.
The girls loved the opportunity to crack out their own clothes to wear to school. Ellie was REALLY excited to wear her latest "Alyssa" shirt.

Monday madness....

No real reason to call it "madness"- it just felt hectic today!

Kevin made it off the island without mishap. I heard from him earlier- he had made it to Hawaii. I'll keep you posted on his doings.

The girls and I went to pick up Kevin's car from the airport tonight (he left the house by 4am so he took himself to the airport). Huge thank you to Melda and the boys for driving us to get the car and then having a nice dinner out :)

Came home- hoping for early bed for the girls, ended up later than usual! There were projects to finish up, and frankly a lot of giddiness from having a weekday night that was different than the norm. I am not using the word "giddy" lightly.... crazy here tonight.

So on to random photos:

I had to take pictures in my classroom at lunchtime. (fyi, those are shrimp in the photo above)
Just so I can show you how they eat around here. (kim-chee noodles with the standard hot cheetos)
They all bring bunches of food- usually including rice and definitely some sort of meat- and share all of it in and amongst themselves. There are no packed-brown bag lunches here- random food, always shared. Different but I like that one person's food is everyone's food. Anyone who doesn't share food is said to be "stingy" with their food. Really love seeing their lunchtime ways.

And lastly:
Photos of my girls when I am picking them up from school.
My favorite time of day :)

Sunday

Aggie in her happy place- the only thing missing is her bed. No we aren't punishing her... the vet suggested we use hypoallergenic detergent to try to help her itching so we washed EVERYTHING in the house today that touches her..... thus the bed-free photo.

I am sure Aggie will be pouting in the next days as Kevin is leaving for a work trip for the week. Frankly, none of us are pleased with it. Again, something about being on an island that makes it so much more traumatic when someone leaves. A lot of my displeasure with Kevin's leaving has to do with pure jealousy- I am really looking to get off the island! We are going to miss him but we'll survive.

The good news is that while Kevin is stateside he will get to spend the time with his parents- so that worked out well. I know he is really excited to see them. The girls and I are sad to be missing out on that.

Maddy spent the afternoon (after the morning at church with the rest of us and some fun time playing on the playground with Ellie and the neighborhood boys) doing homework and her chore of cleaning the bathrooms.

The photo of Maddy doesn't capture the crankiness that she maintained- her math homework dragged on and on. Not because there was that much of it- more so because she was pushing procrastination to its fullest.

Ellie spent her afternoon crafting along with her weekly chore.
She made a dragon out of clay and painted it. She was rather proud of her efforts. Ellie loves creating.
Both girls were sad at bedtime to know Kevin will be gone tomorrow. Its been a while since he has gone anywhere- so I guess we should consider ourselves lucky he has been on island so much..... busy working till 7pm most nights but at least he has always been on island!

Saturday.

The girls had Leo Palace swim practice this morning, and the usual practice this evening. Their afternoon was all about playing!

Kevin finished his Exterra. His first triathlon ever-58 out of 71, and in the 40-44 age range he was 8 out of 11. So impressed that he finished- I mean 20 miles on a bike, 5 mile run and a 1000m swim..... in the ocean, through the jungle- crazy stuff.
All this done with a 41 year old body, on a 16 year old bike with no shocks and feet cages, and huge muscle cramps half way through.

Awesome Kevin! Way to go :)

Kevin's XTerra

He was up and ready and out the door by 5:30am......
Here is a link in case you want to check out what Kevin's first triathlon looks like: Xterra Guam I'll post later with how he did and hopefully more photos.

So proud of him!

Finally Friday

So tired tonight! Must be because it is Friday- ending a week that needed ending. Super busy, but I'm grateful to be busy with good things :)

The girls had dress down today for school- Maddy had to pay a dollar to dress down with all proceeds going to Japan (note Maddy is wearing her newest and favorite-est t-shirt from the Alyssa line of clothing). Ellie was to dress in "island wear" again this Friday to recognize Chamorro month. Both happy to be out of uniform. Its funny how the uniform gets on their nerves. I would love to know what I was going to be wearing everyday! When we talk about what school they will be going to next year- their biggest positive about potentially being home schooled is that they wouldn't have to wear a uniform...... maybe if it comes to that, I'll surprise them and make up a "Gillam School" uniform....

Kevin is gearing up for the big race tomorrow..... months of training has brought him to this- the Xterra!

I'll be putting up a few prayers tonight that he makes it through with no broken bones.....

Thursday

Finally Thursday! So close to Friday!
Tonight is a string of random pictures.... the only one that has a story is this one above- Aggie was at the vet tonight and soooo cute, at the end of her appointment when Kevin and I were standing talking to the vet tech- we turned around and there she was, had put herself on the scale and looking proud that she was ready.
Ellie's kick board that she bought with a birthday gift card- the drawing is courtesy of her friend Samantha's father. The chinese word says "dragon"
A bunch of Ellie photos left over from her play.
And a Chamorro hut for culture week..... they are all over the place- this one is actually in a McDonalds!
Happy Tuesday!

Ellie's Play

The third grade classes at Ellie's school did the play "Follow the Drinking Gourd". Tonight was the big performance. They did a great job! Ellie was in the choir.
Maddy was there to enjoy it too.

Nice low key night- especially since Wednesdays are usually crazy with Chamorro dance class, followed by swimming, followed by me volunteering at church, Kevin not getting home till late..... we were all together tonight :) Ellie should have plays more often!

Here is a snippet of one of the songs they sang:

It just gets better and better....

I'm sure I've mentioned before how much I love food showing up at my door. I'm just lazy like that :P

Well after a long day of school and grocery shopping after school- I came home to find three Yogurtland cups in my freezer! Even better than that- they had mine, Maddy and Ellie's favorite flavors in them! So its raised the bar regarding food showing up at my door- it now needs to find its way into the freezer to top today...... yes my friend Melda is the yogurt ninja. Thanks Melda! You made my day :)

Speaking of Melda being busy- she just happened to get a wild hair to walk a half marathon today! 13.1 miles. I have to add that she did that after spending time in the gym with me at 5:15 am! Her motivation behind it- a friend with leukemia who was also walking a half marathon. Gotta love her heart.

Nice family time tonight- Kevin was home at 6:30 (which is a minor miracle). Maddy's choice night included the standard- pizza hut- and the finishing of the Empire Strikes Back (which was started on Kevin's choice night).

I'm still in love with Monday nights- more so now that there was frozen yogurt :)

Happy Birthday Matthew!!!!!!

2 busy 2 blog

So busy that I'm not even done my work for school tomorrow...... ug

The girls had a great day- church followed by church barbecue ..... the afternoon at home was great for down time and some room cleaning. "Room cleaning" lately has taken up to 4 hours every weekend- they go down to their room and end up playing before any cleaning happens. I can honestly say I am not complaining. Love that they spend time together.

They've become quite good at completing their household chores. And their neatening is great too- found this tea table set up after they had straightened up the toy room- cute.

Didn't see much of Kevin today, he had meetings about Japan issues. He was home for a late supper and some quick quality time with Maddy and Ellie.

Sorry to say I will be at the gym tomorrow at 5:15 am- who does that? Really?

Camp Rock- the play!

Had a nice night at a play put on by public high school kids here on Guam. You can see a difference in budget alloted for this play as opposed to Beauty and the Beast (which was mostly private school kids)- but the talent was equal for both productions...... they did a great job.
Maddy and Ellie were excited to have an evening out.
Especially since Zion was with us! (oh and Mrs Thornton too :)
... the girls just love their time with Zion.
Great friends and and good entertainment- can't be beat.

Busy day, with surprisingly few photos....

This is Maddy on her way into swimming- alone!

Highly unusual- but Ellie was invited to a birthday party. So after school I drove all the way out to Barrigada Heights to drop Ellie off, then took Maddy to Pizza Hut as a consolation prize to not being invited to a birthday party- which in turn made her 1/2 hour late for swimming..... thus the smiling face in the picture.

Tomorrow- I'm helping at the Special Olympics all day- it should be hot!

The girls and Kevin get a day off of swimming and everything really..... tomorrow night the girls and I will be hanging with Melda and Zion at a play- looking forward to it!

Guest Blog Night Means No Pictures!

Hello Everyone. Samantha asked me to blog tonight, just briefly, to give an update on what is going on with our orders.

There are couple factors at play that are affecting the likely-hood that we get out of here on our rotation date (July 2011 by the way).

First, in order to get me out, we need to get someone in. Guam 'billets' are relatively hard to fill. Especially for the more senior positions since the person is typically older with a family with older kids (likely high schoolers). Up-rooting the family to come out to Guam is not high on many people's list. The EOD detailer was struggling to fill the job with another EOD guy, and was asking other 'community' detailers to fill it (in other words, he was asking the ship and submarine guys if they would like to fill it). He wasn't having much luck.

The good news is that as of this week, the billet has been officially converted from a discrete EOD billet to any unrestricted line officer can fill it. So now my detailer is no longer on the hook to find my replacement. That responsibility goes to the placement officer who can go to specific detailers and make them find a replacement (they'll still look for volunteers though).

What all this means to me is the my detailer can now simply write me my orders out of here in July without worrying about the replacement.

The other problem still out there is the budget. Congress has yet to pass a budget, so the government (and military) has been operating under a continuing resolution authorization (CRA). Unfortunately, the CRA doesn't fully fund everything the military needs to do, including move people around, so the Navy has prioritized the moves. People going to or coming from sea duty or other operational billets have priority. People (like me) trying to go from one shore duty assignment to another shore duty assignment are a lower priority. So, there is a chance the detailer will write and submit the orders but then they will sit in the queue and not be approved for funding. I've been seeing people detaching in April not getting their orders till this month. So I may not know my fate until mid-June whether we are moving in July! And if my relief is coming from sea duty, his orders may get funded while mine might not resulting in "double-stuffing" the billet.

From what I am reading, Congress will probably not get a budget passed, and will probably pass another CRA lasting until April 8th, when we can hope again for a final budget.

I think worst case, we'll be here until October or November, which puts us into the next fiscal year when hopefully we can get a budget passed for 2012.

BTW, no worries with respect to the events going on in Japan. Guam remains largely unaffected although we may see delays in some perishables as most air assets get diverted to help Japan (and rightly so). We won't starve - we have coconut trees right outside in our front yard.

Thanks for listening,

-Kevin

Wednesday....

First off, throwing in a photo of my second year nurses.... I usually try to not put up pictures of them on the web, but I can't help myself..... just so proud of them!

Tuesday, as some of already know from Melda's blog- Ellie had her first Chamorro dance "gig".
It went really well- besides her minor episode of heat stroke! Ellie tends to be prone to getting pale, dizzy and clammy when overheated. After a sit down, some water, and wolfing down a pizza slice she was back in for her last two dances.

Melda is sincerely the best..... I told her about Ellie's dancing that day, and mentioned that since she was already going to be at the school if she wouldn't mind checking that Ellie got her outfit and on the bus ok. Well Melda- so sweet- spent her morning, went over and watched her dance, took photos and video (which you can see if you click the link to the right "Melda's Blog")

Thanks Melda! Barb and Julie are grateful too since they didn't have to wait a day for my night off blogging to see it!

Here are some more photos from the day including a dog riding on a caribou?:
Great fun for Ellie.

Girls are midway through the Terra Nova testing this week and all is going well!