I'm ready to go back... Luke thought being an only child was all right.

Adam and a banana tree.

Adam snorkeling...I took this pic through a window of an underwater observatory.

Tonight Emma and Sarah were complaining about having to take piano lessons, especially Sarah. I told them I didn't want to hear it, it wasn't up for debate until they could play the hymns for church. A light went on in Emma's head, and she immediately told Sarah, "Sarah, that's great, let's just go learn the hymns right now". It was like a light at the end of the tunnel for her. I had to laugh, they're nowhere even remotely ready start on them. But, I did appreciate the cheerful ambition.

Guam was WONDERFUL!! After being home only a few short hours, I was ready to go back. I thought I was all energized to combat life w/5 kids again, but apparently my batteries weren't charged high enough. It was so great. We stayed in a hotel right on the beach. We had brought the jogger, so we were able to go running a couple of times along the beach. There is a lot of war history in guam, even ran through a bunker on the beach on one run. The food was great. I have learned to love Japanese food while living here, but there's nothing in Iwakuni that compares to eating at the Outback or Hard Rock Cafe....mmm. Even Denny's for breakfast was a real treat. I did promise myself before I left that I wasn't going to step foot in K-mart , but Jacob's birthday is in a few weeks, and since I've bought everything decent at the Exchange, and it's getting a little late to shop online, we decided to go take a look. (It's the largest one in the world....it didn't seem any bigger than any other one though, maybe they just meant to say it's the last one left in the world.) We snorkeled our hearts out, and saw thousands of fish. That was the ONLY time I wished the kids had been with us, the girls would have LOVED it. We hiked to a waterfall, that ended up being more of a little water trickle than fall, but it was still fun to take a little hike through the jungle. Of all the good restaurant food we ate though, I'd have to say the best meal was a lunch when Adam I were driving through some villages after our hike and we stopped and bought a bag full of fruit right off the tree from an old lady selling in front of her house. It was my first time eating monkey bananas, guava, and star fruit. A lot of things about Guam reminded Adam of the D.R. We've always planned on going back to visit his mission, but now he's really planning it, hopefully this winter.

Oh, one last thing, Guam is a total Japanese vacation destination. When we first got there, and were checking into our hotel, this cute Japanese girl was going nuts over Luke. She said over and over, "he's such a door, he's such a door". I couldn't figure out what she was saying. Finally with a little charades on her part, I figured out she was saying he was such a doll! The say their l's like r's here.