The kids with their favorite aunt before we left San Diego. Today Danica was pretending the iPod was a phone and was talking to someone. I asked who she was talking to and she said it was Aunt Marnie. She was walking around the house telling Marnie about things in our house like the bath tub. Too cute!





Our house with the cool looking tree in the back yard... looks like the set of LOST



Our first trip to the China Sea Beach

We have been here nearly 3 weeks and things are going well. I think things would be great if our express shipment had arrived but none the less we are surviving. We have been in our new house for 5 days now. We decided to paint the living room a light brown with a red accent wall. The red wall looks great but we didn’t like the brown so we are going to get some new paint to redo it. The self-help hardware store will mix paint for free but it’s been closed for the last several days. Hopefully it will reopen tomorrow so we can finish before our goods arrive. I can’t wait for our shipment to come because then we will have our nice air mattress with our memory foam and our own pillows and sheets! I currently sleep with Danica on her bottom bunk and we share a pillow. Tom uses a small camping air mattress...good times. I wouldn’t mind having a few more things in the kitchen as well. We borrowed a few dishes but it’s still pretty limited! However, in the meantime we have been having a good time.

Last Wednesday we went down to the beach and ending up snorkeling! I have never snorkeled before and it was awesome! The tide was out and there were so many fish in the remaining pools all you had to do was take one step on shore and go under water to see a huge variety of fish! We ended up buying our own gear and going out again yesterday. Hayden was willing to try it yesterday and we had a great time. It’s so easy since the girls can just swim by us or sit on the beach 3 feet away while we do it. Yesterday we ventured out in town to a furniture store and had some fun. The store was a lot like IKEA and had some great stuff. The kids were hyper and running everywhere so you can imagine the looks we received. I was pretty nervous trying to buy stuff and asking for help getting a carpet I wanted to buy but they were very understanding with language inabilities and it all worked well. We are hoping to learn Japanese but for now all I knew to say to them was thank you, over and over. I just handed them the money at the check out and smiled. I let Alyssa wave at them and that seemed to help. :) It was fun and I like the carpet we bought for the girls room.

We had some success this week buying stuff on a website like Craigslist. We got a nice playground with swings for the backyard and little picnic table with a sandbox/pool attached. Now we are trying to score a small cheap TV since ours won’t be here for another month and we’re trying to get some padding to under the carpet since we don’t have a couch and our getting tired of the hard wood floor.

Tom starts work tomorrow and is excited to get back to dentistry. The kids and I are excited to try to get back to our routine. We’ll see how it goes, I have on my list things like going to the commissary, the park, swimming, etc. They have been getting a little edgy lately because we have been spending so much time painting and running errands.

We got a new pet, his name is Harry and he is the banana spider that lives in our back yard. Look closely at the picture and you can tell how big he is based on the fact that his web is full of other spiders who are not tiny- yuck! We also continue to get gecko’s regularly in the house, but they aren’t nearly so menacing looking! We caught one in a clear box the other day and Danica wanted to hold it and show it to Alyssa and such.

Well, the girls are napping so I think I may go lay on the air mattress for a few minutes while I have the chance. We would love to hear from anyone. We have vonage for our phone so it’s easy to call. The easiest rule of thumb is to call us before you go to bed or when you get up in the morning. When it’s the afternoon for you we are likely sleeping here. Here is our contact info:

PSC 557 Box 976
FPO AP 96379

(801)994-2355

Take care!



Like I said, those little dots are other normal size large spiders, this things is huge and lives in the tree in our backyard. Tom and Hayden went exploring the neighborhood and said that every tree they looked in had at least one...


I went to order a snocone at a stand at a Japanese park and thought about changing my order to this.


We went to this great park on the beach with a remake of a ship wrecked pirate ship. The kids had a blast. Danica especially loved the zip line. She would zoom down it looking terrified and then jump off, laugh and want to go again!

Danica finally has enough hair for braids! The day after I did this Tom was brushing her hair and she said "Dad, will you do my pretty braids?" It's fun to have a girl!