I finally got to go diving again today! Andrew, Crystal, Chad, Luke, Lee (Lee has over 3000 dive hours!) and I went diving today. It was great! We did two dives. (Andrew & Luke didn't go on the second one, they kayaked instead.) Crystal's parents are here visiting and they walked the beach and collected shells.

We got to our destination and as we were unloading our gear, I dropped 6 pounds of weights on my toes. That HURT!!! We suited up & headed out. I scraped my knee on the coral a little in the shallow water. I had troubles going down and they added more weights. I ended up with a total of 12 extra pounds!

Once I got down and was able to stay there, I did well and had a great time. I did fall on the reef a few times and get scraped up. It stings!

Crystal's parents left early and went to our apartment and started dinner. We had ham, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, crescent rolls. Andrew, Matt & Megan came over for dinner as well. I told them if they keep cooking like this for us, they can stay longer than two weeks! :-)

I was so wiped that I took a 30 minute power nap after dinner while the others played games.

Click here for pictures of our dive. Click on each of the pictures for a larger view.

p.s. Mom, I didn't see any sharks. (But Lee said we might see some little black or white tipped reef sharks, but they're harmless.)

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A tan! :-) I spent Christmas Day on the beach with friends. We ate, talked & I played in the water with Brenna (she's 1 1/2). At first she didn't want to have anything to do with the water, but by the end of the day, she was putting her face in and having a great time! (you can see pictures of Christmas Eve & Christmas Day on Chad's photo page. In case you were going to ask, I can swim. The floaty I'm using in one of the pictures is to make it easier to just float around with Brenna!) At the end of the day, we watched the sun set over the ocean. Pictures do NOT do it justice! They are so much more beautiful in person.

On Christmas Eve, we went to the Collier's house for dinner & gift exchange. We played games and I even got to try out their Nintendo Wii. That was a lot of fun! The adults played baseball, bowling, and even tennis doubles. After that, I went to Filipiak's to see what was in our stockings and we exchanged our gifts for each other.

On Christmas Day, I slept in, packed my stuff for the beach and headed to Filipiak's. I hooked up my computer & webcammed with my family so we could see each other open gifts. After that we headed to the beach & spent the day there. I tried something new with my burger. It was good! I marinated it in a teriyaki type sauce and added grilled pineapple, cheese & mayo. MMmmmm...

Today I slept in again, webcammed with my family again since the extended family was over, went to work for awhile & now I'm just being a bum because it's Christmas break! :-)

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This post is for Jamie P. She was hollering at me today because I haven't updated my blog in quite awhile. True. I have been incredibly busy lately getting my Christmas shopping done, packages shipped out, working, Christmas cantata, Jeremy & Luke's Christmas concerts, Christmas parties...

We had an 4.5 earthquake yesterday afternoon. Just a baby one.

Speaking of baby, I saw Aayla on the webcam yesterday. She's getting big! And she smiled at Aunt Jenni! She's such a cutie! If you want to see recent pictures of her, check them out here: ertls.blogspot.com

It's Christmas break now - hooray!

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I got home this afternoon, did a little unpacking then headed to church. After church we had a pie & ice cream social. I came home and started laundry & worked on a couple other things. Now it's time to get the laundry out & head to bed. I'm beat.

Hard to believe that I was in Japan just this morning. Seems like forever ago already. HopefullyI can post some pictures soon.

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We headed out Saturday morning to try to get on the Navy base. (Ann has access.) Due to some paperwork problems we weren't able to. Oh well. We headed out for CostCo. I think we spent 3 hours there because Ethel only gets to go every few months.

After that we went to Queens Square in Yokohama and did a little shopping and had dinner. Around 9 pm, we headed back to Ethel's. It's a 4+ hour drive, so it was late by the time we got back. We unpacked the car then packed up our suitcases and headed to bed for a few hours shut-eye before heading out to the airport.

Ann has Elite status, so her ticket was automatically upgraded to Business Class. I wimped out & upgraded with miles. It will be worth it though! I'm pretty tired & it will be more comfortable for sleeping. Coach is pretty booked up for the return trip, so there probably wouldn't have been much chance of me snagging an extra seat for sleeping room.

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We drove about 4 hours to Yokohama today. We saw Mt Fuji on the drive. That was cool! We took lots of pictures in the car and stopped and took more at a rest area.

I learned a new word today - toilet. That's an important one to know! I also recognize the Kanji for Exit.

Dinner in Chinatown in Yokohama. We wandered around there for a little bit, then headed out to meet the missionaries in Yokosuka. We found out Mark & Stephanie are working with the church Leo & Rosie used to be at! It's a small world!

After dinner we went to the 100 Yen store. It's like an American dollar store. They have some really nice stuff there!

We're at Mark & Stephanie's house now. It's a traditional Japanese house. We're staying in their extra apartment off the back.

Tomorrow more shopping in Yokohama, then back to Ethel's. Sunday morning we head back.

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We SLEPT IN today! (Of course, we stayed up late, so I'm not sure I got a whole lot of extra sleep!) Ethel made waffles and bacon for breakfast. Mmm.... We stopped at the convenience store to grab lunch on the way to Ethel's community choir practice. I had a teriyaki burger and warm lemonade. (Sounds gross, but it's good!) The choir sang Strauss songs (originally in German) in Japanese. I recognized "The Laughing Song", but I know it in French. The choir members were very nice and many of them greeted us in English and we carried on some short conversations. One lady even gave us candy.

After practice, we hit the mall. I picked up a few gifts there and saw some cool stuff. (Especially in the Technology area! Japan is a great place for a geek like me!) After the mall, it was off to supper. We ate at a yakiniku restaurant (cook your own meat over a grill built into the table). I even tried cow tongue. It really wasn't bad!

I've learned a couple Japanese words - "yes" and "thank you"

I'll have to post pictures when I get back. The comptuer I'm using doesn't like my digital camera. :-(

Driving on the left hand side of the road of the road is messing with my head!

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We arrived in Japan last night about 7pm. Hwajeong and her mom were on the same flight as us. We were surprised to see each other! We're also flying back on the same flight on Sunday!

We went to Denny's for a late supper. Denny's in Japan is nothing like Denny's in the States. (Or even Guam) I didn't see any cheesburgers on the menu. (Come to think of it, the sign outside said they served them, but I missed that on the menu!) I wasn't very hungry, so I had a cup of corn soup and a roll. It was good!

Ethel lives in a little town outside Nagoya. Today I think we're going into Nagoya to see some sites and shop, go to choir practice with Ethel and whatever else we feel like doing! We'll eat Thanksgiving dinner out somewhere. (Dad- today is a Thanksgiving holiday here too! It's called Labor Thanksgiving Day. They give thanks for all the work done throughout the year.)

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I'm going to Japan for Thanksgiving! An opportunity came up for me to go to Japan with a friend & stay with a missionary in Nagoya. I was able to get a free ticket using airline miles, which made the trip affordable! (otherwise it would have been about $450) We're going to go to Tokyo for a couple days while we're there. I can't wait!

I checked weather.com and the average temperatures there are 60/42 during that time. Brrr...

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Today I took Bryn to lunch for her birthday (it was actually on Friday). We went to T.G.I.Friday's to eat (Chicken Strips with Honey Mustard and fries), then on to Cold Stone for ice cream! She got Italian Lemon Ice Sorbet with marshmallows!

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Yesterday I made it down to Tumon Bay in time to catch the last few heats of the Outrigger Canoe Tournament. On the way back to my car I stopped to watch a few people windsurfing. That looks like fun & I'd like to try it sometime!

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I can't wait to watch this next week! (Monday at 8pm here on Guam, though!) This house was built for the Kibe family and is in a town not too far from where my parents live. I went to school K-5th grade with Shawn Kibe and know at least one person who got to help with the house!

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Work keeps me busy! I'm back mostly working in Computers again. I've had a couple big projects to work on since coming back. Lots of thinking "outside the box", research, orders and other things. Thursday the power was down for 5 hours. No big deal, we have generators. Oh wait, our internet service provider doesn't have backup power. No internet for 5 hours! Aaaack!!! A lot of the work I needed to do that day required internet. Oh well...I just shifted and did everything I could without internet connection then when it came back up, did all my online research.

I helped Luke and Chad get their blogs started a couple weeks ago. They both picked it up quickly and set photo albums up as well.

I'm having Aayla withdrawls. :-(

Monday I went for a walk on the beach. Due to some storms out in the ocean, the water was high and a little rougher than usual. No big deal. So I thought. Heading back to my car, I was walking along a narrow strip between the ocean and a wall. A wave came from nowhere and was up to my knees. Still no big deal. For about 1 second! Then the water hit the wall and came up over me. My whole left side was soaked and my hair even got a little wet!

Tuesday we had a ladies' meeting. We had snacks, sang songs, heard a testimony and had a prayer time.

Wednesday night I had nursery at church. We had 5 babies and they were all quiet! Two of them even slept. It was an easy night!

Thursday night I watched Jeremy & Luke. Mostly to help Jeremy study for a test. I hope he did well! I even learned a few new things along the way.

I tried a new food - Nutella. I had seen it in grocery stores for years, but never tried it. A friend I eat lunch with kept bringing a Nutella and peanut butter sandwich in her lunch. I was intrigued and took the plunge. It is delicious! It's a hazelnut/chocolate combination. It reminds me of a Hazelnut Snickers bar. (I've only seen those in Japan.)

Today was Saturday, so I slept in! Hooray! I was a bum most of the day, then decided I needed to tackle my "to do" list. I've gotten quite a bit of it accomplished. That's a good feeling! Still more to do, but updating my blog is something I wanted to get done, so here I am...

Next week we are having a church summit with Jerry Sivnksty. He'll be doing meetings Sunday through Thursday, so it's going to be another busy week! But it will be good!

Oh, we had a couple days of sunshine this week! It's rainy season, so it's been quite cloudy/rainy since I've been back. I read today that Guam averages 80 inches of rainfall per year. Iowa average rainfall is 35". Guam average temperature is 81 degrees. Iowa average temperature is 48.5 degrees. (brrrr.....!)

Well...I need to get back to my "to do" list, so I'm signing off for now.

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When I booked my ticket using frequent flyer miles, the only seat I could get from Japan to Guam was a World Business Class seat. It was NICE! Larger seat, footrest, real blanket, my own video monitor with choices of what to watch, food on real plates with real silverware...this is the life! Oh yeah, I booked upper deck too, so there were only 12 seats in my section!

My seat was in the red section of this plane. First window above the last "T" in Northwest, but on the other side of the plane. See my photo album for more pictures.

Because I was on an international World Business Class ticket, I got to go in the World Business Club in Narita. That was nice too! US power outlets, so I could use my laptop. Cappuccino machine, pop machine, snacks, etc! All free! I only had about 20 minutes there. My plane was delayed, so I could have stayed longer, but I didn't know until I got to the gate. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted!

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I stayed at the Holiday Inn again in Narita. The hotel I had planned on staying at was $600/night when I went to book it! (If someone wants to donate to the cause, I'll stay there next time. Email me!)

This warning sticker was on the tub. It was so funny, I had to take a picture of it! I think most of the English meaning was lost in translation!

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To readjust myself back to Guam time, I tried to stay awake most of the flight to Japan. I napped for only a couple hours of the 12 hour flight. I read a book, listened to my ipod, watched a dumb movie. So dumb I don't remember the title was or what it was about! As we neared Japan, we hit some good turbulence! I had my seatbelt on, but came up out of my seat a little. It happened twice in a row and people started screaming. One of the stewardesses later said she had gone up about 3 feet! That was the extent of our turbulence other than just a little bumpiness here and there.

Oops! This somehow got stuck as a draft & didn't actually get posted!

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Early Friday morning we headed to Johnson's Bakery for doughnuts on our way out of town to Chicago. Heather & I slept part of the way. (I think my trip can be summed up by these three words: Eating, Sleeping & Shopping! If you want to alliterate it - Supping, Sleeping & Shopping!)

We really didn't go into downtown Chicago, but stayed in the Schaumburg/Wheaton area. Again, we shopped & ate! We went to Wheaton to visit Steve, Yoko & Aya. That was fun! My aunt and uncle stayed at their house, so we all went out to breakfast one morning. Ask mom about the bunny! ;-) We did more shopping at Woodfield Mall (and had to go to the basement at Macy's for awhile because of a tornado warning!), IKEA, Streets of Woodfield, Lands' End, the Container Store... Before we left, we ate at Macaroni Grill. Heather & I split a Tuscan Chicken Pizza. They accidentally made a different kind, so we got our pizza free! :-)

On the trip back, we wanted to eat at Fuddrucker's in Davenport, but it was closed by the time we got there. We ate at Red Robin.

Monday, Heather and I shopped more! Then we had to pack. :-(

Tuesday, my family all came to say goodbye to both of us at the airport. It was hard, as usual! Heather and I got on the plane and headed to Minneapolis again. We parted ways with tears in Minneapolis.

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I think Heather & I slept and talked on the trip back to Minneapolis. It was mostly uneventful until we got to MSP. I ran into a guy I knew at our gate. We caught up on life & what his family and some other mutual friends were up to. (BTW, his wife got to work on the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition house I wanted to go see!)

As we were waiting for our plane, they announced the flight was overbooked asked for 2 volunteers to wait for the next plane. Heather & I jumped at the chance! That is kind of a long, comical story, but they couldn't count and we were able to get on. As we get on, the stewardess said she miscounted again. Only one of us could get on. We opted to both stay, but one take the free ticket. So we got off. Again, they had miscounted and we both ended up with free tickets! Hooray! (BTW, they let 2 guys on that wanted to fly standby & gave us free tickets! We didn't care, but it did make us go "hmmm....") I had my laptop with me, so we rented a movie and headed to a gate that was closed for construction. (The construction was outside, so we could go sit in the empty gate.)

We made it home safe and sound a few hours later!

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Early Monday morning I headed out to Greenville, SC to stay with Heather and get some shopping done for Harvest while she was at work. I got on the plane & they told us we were overweight and 7 people had to get off. (Was that a FAT joke?) ;-) Turned out to be a paperwork error and we could all stay on. (I was hoping for a voucher for another flight!)

I arrived at the Minneapolis airport safe and sound. Just as we were about to pull up to the jetway, the plane stopped. We had a malfunction and had to be towed to the jetway. Better on the ground than in the air! (As one of my pilot friends says, "If you walked away from it, it was a good landing") I had some time to kill, so I wandered around the airport, then headed to my gate & took a nap!

I got on the plane to Memphis and slept most of the way. I'm pretty sure they pump sleeping gas into the cabin. I slept on just about every flight! I had an hour layover in Memphis. I checked the board to see if there was an earlier flight I could get standby to Greenville. There was one leaving in just a few minutes, so I headed to the gate. It was at the other end of the terminal, of course! I had an hour to kill, so I started walking anyway. As I got closer, I heard "Last call for Greenville!" I figured I'd never make it, but I kept going anyway. The next announcement, they were paging ME for the flight! That was my original flight. I never did figure out what happened. I guess my plane from Minneapolis got in late, but they didn't announce it when we got off. And when I checked the board & added up the time to Greenville, it was earlier. I forgot about the time change. But it still doesn't explain the hour layover that turned into just a few minutes! ;-)

The flight from Memphis to Greenville was uneventful. I slept again!

It was SO good to see Heather again. We're such good friends that we haven't seen each other in almost a year and half, but that doesn't matter...we just pick up and keep going as if we were never apart! We went to dinner that night with the Woods and Aunt Shirley. It was good to see them again and meet Aunt Shirley. I had talked to her on the phone several times, but never met her in person before.

While Heather was at work, I did some shopping for Harvest. Things we need, but _________ (can't get, don't have selection, too expensive...fill in the blank) At my first stop at Target, I filled 3 carts to overflowing! I also went to Wal-Mart and two other Targets! It was great fun! After Heather got off work, we did some more running and a quick sightseeing trip.

On Wednesday, I went to BJU to have lunch with Heather. She gave me a tour of the Dining Common where she works. It's huge! It's the 2nd largest in the United States. We had lunch & I ran into a few people that I knew. Later that day I went and saw Dan Wooster. He teaches computer classes at BJU. I met him & his family when we came to Guam at the same time for a missions trip.

Wednesday night we went to the brand new Red Robin. Long story short, it was training night, but they let us in anyway! We got $30 worth of food for free! I think dessert was included too, however, we were too stuffed to eat it, so we left! The only thing better than going to one of your favorite restaurants, is getting your meal free too!

We left early Thursday morning to head back to Iowa. The trip to Greenville was too short! I'll have to stay longer next time.

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Well, I've been back on island almost a week and a half. It's been busy & I haven't had a chance to update with much about my trip. So here's the start!

Thursday Mom, Dad, Mike, Kris, Aayla & I went to the local fair. I haven't done that in YEARS! Mom had entered a couple things she made for Aayla. She won a blue ribbon and a red ribbon! Go Mom! We went to the rodeo that night. Aayla slept through most of it.

It was a great trip! On Saturday we got together with both sides of the family at Doughy Joey's Peetza Joynt. (At least the ones that live in town or close enough to make the drive!) Then everyone came over to Mom & Dad's for dessert. We had some good laughs and it was nice to catch up with everyone, see how the kids have grown and meet some of them for the first time even!

Sunday we went to church, then went to Aunt Louise & Uncle Gary's for lunch. It was nice to relax and hang with the cousins.

Early Monday morning I headed out to Greenville, SC. Check the next post for that trip!

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