Our First Christmas in Guam

A gift this big has gotta be good...

What could it possibly be?

       

Man's 2nd best friend, a hot fiery grill

  

I love watching him open gifts, he's like a little kid when he does

(I'm excited he gets to cook occasionally now... so it's kinda like a gift for the both of us!)

Christmas Dinner

   

We had a lovely Christmas this year. Aaron & I spent the morning eating a quiet breakfast exchanging gifts with one another.  I'm just thankful he made it home in time to spend the holiday with us. He had an unexpected overnight delay in Tokoyo.

Anyways, my sweet husband picked up bath items from Bath &  Body Works as my gift, before he left the states. Stress Relief,  (I'm not sure if he's trying to tell me something) but I love it! It makes my skin all tingly feeling & very relaxing. My mother had sent me a necklace that is too cute. We spent the evening with family and enjoyed our fabulous Christmas dinner of fondue & finger foods. I hope all of you had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas with your families.

Sending our love and best wishes for the New Year,

Aaron & Britney

Thanks Gran & Mom!

I don't have many Christmas decorations. I have this little 4 ft. tree & a few ornaments. We've lived in apartments and didn't have the room for anything bigger. I really wanted to decorate alot this year to make our first Christmas in Guam feel like home. However, I didn't have a few hundred dollars lying around to purchase a new tree & go all out with decor. So I decided this will do for now and after Christmas I will buy things when they go on sale (or whatever's left at the base exchange).  I made our little tree as beautiful as I could. I was happily content with our small quaint Christmas.

Then one day I received a rather large package in the mail.  Confused and excited I opened it  to find a surprise that made me tear up a little. I had a conversation with my mother a few weeks prior about Christmas and what I planned to do.  My grandmother and her decided to go in together and purchase a Christmas tree for us.  This meant so much to me! I love surprises and this one is definetly at the top of one of the best.  When I called to thank them for their generous and thoughtful gift they asked me not tell Aaron while he's away. Their hopes were for me to decorate  & let him enjoy the surprise  too. I can't wait for him to come home tonight and see what my family has done for us. I know he's going to love it too. I love them so much for this. It's really going to make our Christmas a little merrier. Thanks Gran & Mom!

(oh yeah, the side without ornaments is facing the wall...I still didn't have enough to cover the whole thing!ha!)

What do you think?

 Last week I had an appointment to have my hair trimmed & colored.  I thought I had explained well enough what I had wanted. I had the itch to do something a little different. This isn't exactly what I had in mind, but I thought it turned out o.k. I've never had my hair this dark;and it's growing on me. I know it sounds silly, but I am confused how to 'identify' myself! Am I a blonde? Brunette? In the sunlight you can see red? What am I now?! I did this while Aaron's gone. I'm anxious to hear what he thinks about his 'new' wife? I guess in my heart, I will always be blonde. Maybe I'm not as good with change as I once thought.

So, what do you think?

Then:

Now:

Thanksgiving 2009

So here we are celebrating our first Thanksgiving in Guam with the Greenwoods. It really was a lovely dinner. Plenty of delicious food and desserts. It was very special to be together as family so far away from all our loved ones back in the states. We made a Thanksgiving Box for Family Home Evening a few weeks before and then at dinner we opened it up and read what everyone said they were thankful for. It was a fun activity to do for Thanksgiving. Of course after stuffing ourselves the appropriate thing to do was lounge on the couch. Another special Thanksgiving Dinner.

Welcome to Guam!!

Last week, I took the opportunity to take an orientation class about our new home. The first day was a classroom setting. We learned various things about Guam, military life on Guam, some history & the culture of the Chamorros. I'm very happy I took the time to do this. I learned alot & became more comfortable with our new life here. The second day was an island tour. We drove around most of the island (and yes it did take all day, even though it's only 30 miles long). The bus made several stops along the way so we could take pictures and visit sites. It was incredibly breathtaking & I couldn't believe that I actually live here, not just vacationing. I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them

Make a Smilebox photobook

Chamorro Village

Every Wednesday night at Chamorro Village there are fiestas (i think that's what they call them).  It's set up like a marketplace with different shops full of clothing, home decor, jewelry, and other island stuff.  Food vendors are out selling some delicious bbq, desserts, & other foods. This is where we got our meat sticks...

Our Meat Stick...Sticky & Sweet!!

Aaron enjoying his coconut milk straight from the coconut

Mary & some of the kids (it's great having family here)

Aaron & his cousin Than chillin' at Chamorro Village.

Farrah tasting the meat from the coconut. Her face explains it all! (It cracked me up)

Ahhhhh...Enjoying a refreshing frozen pineapple & strawberry drink. (very hot & sweaty that night)

Also, we recently celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary on November 4th. It's hard to believe 3 years already flew by.  Actually, the night we went to Chamarro Village was our Anniversary. We loved being able to do something different we haven't before, tasting the local food, seeing the local entertainment, visiting local shops.  I knew marrying Aaron would lead me to new adventures I would have otherwise never done. I never imagined moving out of the country, but I am so grateful to be on this ride with him. I feel pretty dang lucky! (and of course a million times blessed!).

Talisay Branch

I have never seen a church building like ours before. So I wanted to post pictures because I love how unique it is. We have 3 branches on the island and our building is the only one built this way.  The picture below is our chapel (attached directly behind is the gymnasium). I love hearing the rain on the tin roof during sacrament. (It rains often on Guam)

The next two  pictures are of the baptismal font.

Yup, it is outside. I think it's pretty cool.

I know this isn't a very good picture, but it's of the classrooms. Everything is outside connect by breezeways.

Here is another picture of the front of the building.  If you can't tell this is directly off the side of the chapel, more classrooms & offices.

Notice the beautiful sunset sky in the background?  There is always a breathtaking sunset on Guam. It is my favorite part of the day. Usually, great big fluffy clouds are in the sky, shades of pinks, blues, oranges & yellows dazzle around. I will try to capture a picture of what I'm trying to describe, but it's obvious I'm no professional photographer. It's absolutely amazing though, take my word for it.

Halloween Festivities

The spooky dessert I made when we carved our pumpkins. Ghosts in the Graveyard.

Ooh, scary I know.

At our branch's Trunk or Treat, the youth put a little game of Fear Factor on for adults & kids.

We had to suck baby food out of these cups...

 

With a tiny straw, which made it hard to get everything in one shot...

I believe I heard the flavor was Roast Beef & Vegetables

It was NOT good, but at least my team WON!!

Then we had to fill a bowl up with dog food that had gross earthworms crawling around in it, using a spoon! (kidding, no earthworms were in there)

To end the activities, we finally had the Trunk-or-Treat.  It was a really fun night. We started off by having a chili dinner with the Branch, a costume contest, a cake walk, and so on.  I have never been in a branch before, but I am excited about this new experience.  There are alot of military families (which of course means constant transition) and several local families too. The Talisay Branch has a wonderful family spirit that is comforting to be around. We are happy to be apart of them & grateful we are able to have family in the branch as well.  I hope everyone else had a great Halloween night!!

The Curse of the Egyptian Tomb & More!

Last week we went to a Murder Mystery Dinner, The Curse of the Egyptian Tomb. It was alot fun and my first one. We really enjoyed it and the best part was watching Than & Mary participate in their roles of the play. The lady who put the dinner on did a fantastic job with all of her props!

I also included some pics of us carving pumpkins. Happy Halloween Everybody!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Guam so far...

Sorry I don't have more pictures of Guam. But hey, I've got 3 years here to take plenty of pics. I've just been trying to get settled and so we haven't made it a priority quite yet to venture out around the island. There's a lot of little things with moving, especially overseas. I also think I needed the last 3 weeks to be low key so that I could allow my sanity to return. ( Sadly, Aaron can vouch I haven't been myself lately). These few pictures here are from San Luis Beach on Naval Base Guam. Our family took us out snorkeling this day (I believe we had only been here 3 days at this point). The water is as clear as it looks. I was able to see some fish around the reef we were at. The water here is shallow several feet out because of the reef, & then it drops to deep water. I do plan on getting Scuba certified which I'm a little nervous about, but I don't want that to hold me back from doing it.

Local Cuisine

Pictured here is a local favorite, Red Rice. You can find it at almost any restaurant here (I've heard it's a long process, so I doubt I'll be giving this a whirl in the kitchen).  Simply, it's white rice cooked in water that has been soaked with Achote seeds.  I'm not sure how exactly it's done, but I believe it's somewhat labor intensive. These seeds turn the rice red (obviously) and makes it absolutely delicious! I really enjoyed my meal. We were out to dinner at Jamacain Grill. How Jamacain food ended all the way over here? I have no idea. Yummy, nonetheless! (Not to confuse anyone, everything on my plate is Jamacain, just not the red rice).

It's been way too long

But I've got really good excuses (like 50 of them!). We finally made our move to Guam and things are starting to fall back into place. It's been one heck of a ride getting out here. I only need a little more time to catch my breath, relax, and get back to normal myself (I'm sure I was pretty close to a nervous breakdown at one point!!) I will def post a more detailed blog soon including lots of pictures too! I've missed all of you guys & can't wait to get back into blogging!

XOXO,
Britney

My sweet friend has turned me on to ZUMBA! I went a couple of months ago to a big Zumba festival at the oceanfront & we all danced our little hearts out. I was hooked. It is such a fun aerobic exercise, I highly recommend it. By no means am I a fabulous dancer, but that doesn't even matter. It's about having a fun energetic workout, helping to break up the monotony of the treadmill or elliptical. My friend has worked hard to become certified as a Zumba instructor and her first class was a couple of nights ago! She was wonderful & I know things will only get better for her. Congratulations to her! (We just finished the workout when we took the picture, so please excuse the glistening sweat. Also, please excuse my paleness next to her gorgeous tan skin!)

Update

I figured I should post a quick update on the status of our move. I could go into a really l-o-n-g story about how things have been playing out, but like I said it's really l-o-n-g. So I'm gonna sum it up best I can. After the Navy decided they were going to change a few things in our orders, we finally received the correct revised orders about 2 1/2 weeks ago. We had already notified our apartment managers that we were expected to leave the area at the end of July. Once the new orders came through we saw that we needed to actually extend our lease through August. Well...(not to my surprise) they informed us they have already rented it out to a guy who will move in 15th of Aug. No worries, we scrambled around making quick plans to adjust to this new curve ball thrown at us. We were able to schedule the movers on short notice, decided I had to move down to Alabama 3 weeks early while Aaron finishes up work here, and now I'm in the process of going through our things & preparing for the movers to come next week! I'm excited about being back home to spend time with my family & friends down there before taking off half way across the world. I'm also sad to be leaving all the wonderful friends we have made here. It just doesn't seem real...this has been our home since Aaron & I got married. We have alot of sweet memories here. Virginia Beach will always have a special part of my heart. I feel like I've been in a whirlwind lately with all these little things on my mind. I know everything works out they way it's supposed to, I just can't believe we're already here at this moment. It really did come quick. So we're on to new things now, can't wait! ( I posted a picture of the island we are going to be living on)

And the Award Goes To....

A few weeks ago I hosted a get-together with some special friends. At our apartment complex they have a theater room you can rent. I decided to take advantage of this so we could all spend some time together. We brought yummy snacks, we even had our own "Non-alcoholic" bartender to whip us up some frozen "mock-tails" (thanks Tiffany!), and enjoyed watching Hairspray (I had never seen it before, fun movie!). I know I enjoyed myself hanging out with the girls. The night was a success!! We found this little golden statue & decided we all needed to pose our "movie-star" winning looks to remember the fabulous night! We all had a lot of fun being goofy & hangin' out with each other! Thanks Ladies!