Family Guam trip July 2012

Last Friday evening, July 6th after the boys were out of school for the weekend, we headed directly to the airport for the evening flight to Guam. 3 hours later we were there. The rental car people picked us up from the airport, and after that we headed to the Hilton to check in. We brought our luggage to our room and went to sleep. I was the first one to wake up July 7th. As you can see everyone was still asleep in this picture. : )

I threw my swimsuit on and a dress on over. Put my hair in a pony tail, brushed my teeth and put on my sunscreen. And then I sat outside, enjoyed the quiet and the view. I then went in and woke up the family. This was Noah's birthday, which I already posted about.

Noboru, Branden and Noah got up, brushed teeth, went to the restroom and we left pretty much right away. We headed to breakfast. My dad had called ahead and ordered the cake for Noah, 2 days before. And they didn't open until 9am. So we had breakfast first. As the menu says it's the banana pecan pancake breakfast.

Crispy bacon, scrambled egg (it comes with egg whites but I ask for regular eggs and it comes with turkey bacon but I always ask for regular bacon) And then the banana pecan pancakes. Yummm.  We were at the shop by 9am to pick up the cake. We were back to the hotel by 9:15am, we were quick. We had the birthday cake and song and wishes upstairs. And then we quickly went downstairs for Noah's birthday day at the pools and beach.

Both Branden and Noah adore my dad, they can just talk to him for hours.

We had these 2 blue chairs. The Hilton has the green towels, and we get them near the pool area for free. Noboru in the pool in this pic.

My dad floating around. : ) And the boys chit chatting and Noah rubbing his eye.

My dad wanted to race the boys with swimming. My dad's a really good swimmer in fact my parents put me in swim classes when I was just a baby. A baby and mom class. @_@ Ha ha ha. And then as I got older, a kids swimming class. So swimming has always been just a thing to know in our family. As you can see from this picture, Branden on the left, beat grandpa on the far right. Sorry dad. : ) However grandpa beat Noah, who was the one in the middle. Noah, I think you can ask for a rematch next time you see grandpa. But quality time spent and definitely enjoyed. : )

A relaxing way to spend your birthday Noah. After we were done for the day we went upstairs and showered quickly and got ourselves ready for the movie and dinner. My dad meanwhile got into his SUV and headed to his condo which is close by.  He also showered and changed. And the 5 of us went and enjoyed the new "The Amazing Spiderman" movie.

Noah at the movies on his birthday with his brother. The boys loved this movie. We all did. : )

Birthday meals always seem to be Italian food for our family. So we all went to Vitale's. And enjoyed our quiet little family birthday dinner. Us adults all had lasagna. And the boys split a pizza. Oh, Mr. Vitale makes the BEST pizza.

Pepperoni pizza. I am so glad I had 1 slice. : )

Tanabata!!! For us Tanabata is very special, we love the story. How sad they can only meet once a year. But the wishes you can tie to a bamboo tree is something so special that kids really enjoy and look forward to. The boys made wishes July 6th when we arrived. They also made them July 7th and even the 8th. When I think you should probably not be wishing anymore, but....everyone was still doing it. So. : )  This was July 8th.

Noah writing his wish down.

What Noah wished for.

It basically says, I hope to be the best I can be at swimming.  Type of wish.

Branden's says, I hope to get a "hornet" radio control car.

This was not my wish, though I also made one. The thing I liked about this particular tanabata tree is that 60% of the messages were in Japanese but 40% of the messages were in English. I saw many Americans reading the story and ohhing and ahhing, and how cool is that! And yeah everyone enjoyed making a wish! Doesn't matter what language you speak or write...anyone can wish on Tanabata. : ) And I like that! A day we can all be wishers and dreamers. And I'm so glad that's also Noah's birthday day. : )

OMG! Can you see....look closer, yes Noah entered age 7 missing his 2 front teeth! : ) He lost them 2 weeks ago. And the tooth fairy came and visited Noah while he slept.

These pics were taken on Sunday the 8th.

Branden and Noah made a friend, his name is Luke.  Branden and Noah were playing with their ball. And then came Luke. He came to join them, "Hi my name is Luke and I'm 8 years old can I play?" ....The boys turned around and both said..."sure!!!", "I'm Branden and I'm 10" and Noah said..."I'm Noah and I'm 6....(pause) no I'm 7, sorry my birthday was yesterday" @_@ LOL! Luke said, well Happy Birthday. : ) And then they played for nearly an hour!

Luke and Noah. Also btw, Luke was wearing Spiderman swim trunks, needless to say Noah and Luke had a very good talk about how cool Spiderman is, and did you see the new Spiderman movie? Yes, did you see it too? Yes. And Noah said...did you notice Spiderman's webs on his hands come out different then the other Spiderman movies. Really Luke said? Yeah they came out on top in the other one and.....blah blah blah. Kids! They had the best time together. talking all that important boy stuff!

Branden and Noah and Luke went down the slides after they had enough of the beach ball.

Noah had a blast.

Then Luke had to go and have lunch and we waved him good bye. And the boys went to hang with grandpa for a bit. They told him all about Luke. And that Luke likes Spiderman, which already makes Luke super cool in their book. lol. : )

Still July 8th. We noticed it was a low tide and decided to go play some more along the beach. The boys were looking for crabs hiding near the rocks.

There's one, they do blend in well though. : )

My dad waving from the hot tub. His leg is getting better but it's still not 100% yet either.

Not sure if you can see them but the fish are blue! An amazing bright blue!

July 8th still. After all that swimming, we went and had lunch after showering first. And then after lunch we all had some Cold Stone ice cream. Noah had what was called 'birthday cake" it had brownie in it and sprinkles and stuff.

I had, "this is how I roll" A cinnamon roll icecream basically, it had yellow cake pieces, pecans, cinnamon and caramel. So good!

Branden had cookie dough and Noboru didn't want one this time. He had a huge lunch upstairs so maybe no room left in his tummy. : )

Monday morning we went to Mc D's for breakfast. And then we swam for 3 short hours and then we went and had lunch in the food court again. We had grilled marinated chicken on sticks, from this Korean restaurant, so good. We didn't leave until Tuesday at 4pm. So we had a whole other full day and night on Monday.  And most of Tuesday day also. After lunch Noboru wanted to head to Home Depot that Monday.

We went to Home Depot, Kmart, Payless grocery store ( we went only to 2 of them) and the 2 Cost U less stores.

English study materials and workbooks. And flash cards. We didn't buy any.

Noboru quizzing Branden. LOL. : )

Checked out all the Kumon America materials. Again we didn't buy any study materials. But it was nice to look. I already placed an order from Amazon.com before heading to Guam which had study stuff and some dvd's is why we didn't need any this time.

After all that we went to Yogurtland. You pay by the weight of what you get.

A bit blurry but you can see, pecan and prailine and then girlscout thin mint, they also had kona coffee, coconut, cheesecake and so many other flavors. Many! You can serve yourself and you can have any flavor as many as you like because again you pay by the weight.

Branden and Noah enjoying the creations they made.

This was mine, it was 90% coconut and 5% kona coffee and 5% pecan and prailine. The toppings are self serve also, I picked coconut topping, granola and fresh strawberries. I loved mine! Noboru picked mostly cheesecake. We all want to come back here real soon! Love this place.

I tried to get a better picture showing the yogurt soft serve area.

After yogurt and shopping, we went back to the hotel, and went to the restroom. Dropped off some stuff. And then met my dad at the movies.

We went to see Madagascar 3. This was totally hilarious. I had to laugh out loud a few times. Everyone was also laughing in the theater so I was in good company.

Monday night our last night. We went and had ribs at Tony Roma's.

My dad and Noboru talking nonstop. Here my dad was chatting with him, they sat right next to each other. My dad talks with his hands. As do I, when you get really excited about something. : ) Dinner was great and conversations were awesome.

My meal. All in all our trip was amazing. From Friday evening until Tuesday at 2pm when we headed to the airport. We just enjoyed the heck out of ourselves. Tuesday morning the day we left, the boys swam for 2 hours with Noboru that morning, I didn't swim the last day, I had my hair done and makeup on already and was just in a dress and flip flops waiting and enjoying watching them swim the last day. We went to lunch afterwards before heading to the airport. It was good for us to unwind and relax and have that family time together. Anyway...that was our trip in a nutshell. : )