Our Sunday drive around the island, site seeing! : )

We, first stopped here Sunday morning after stopping at Mc Donald's first for breakfast, anyway, this is supposed to be where Magellan landed. It was sorta nice to see it first hand. We all got out of the car and walked around and read the plaques. They had a nicer plaque which I didn't take a pic of, sorry. : )

There's my dad reading the nicer of the 2 plaques. It was nice imagining what all those big ships in those days looked like landing here. Meanwhile my dad read what it said to Branden and he listened. : )

Noah getting to get a good look around. : )

You know where we just were? The Magellan place? Well this is right above it. We stopped of since it said, point of interest. The view was nice.

Some old canons.

Taking a closer peek at the old canon. Ha ha ha! : )

Sitting on the old canon, ha ha ha! : )

This is "Bear rock" well because it's supposed to look like a bear. : )

And this is Telefofo fall's. Now I think I screwed up the name. Forgive me if I have to correct the name later. We'd never been here and wanted to come.

First was riding in the high cable car. The view was really nice from up there. : )

The fall's. Nice waterfall. : )

Some ducks. We fed them later when we bought some duck food for a dollar. Ha ha ha.

Oh, I have got to share this with you guys. They were giving small kids balloons. Anyway since we were walking in somewhat rough terrain, the balloon popped on something, coulda been a rock or some brush or whatever. But when it popped it scared the heck out of everyone around us, including us. All of a sudden this big, pop or blammo sound! OMG! So scary but sorta funny afterwards. Yup, that orange poodle was history!

My dad and Branden looking to see how many different country coins they saw. They also gave coins as well after they spotted a few different countries coins.

Has anybody ever heard of the story of the man. Japanese soldier rather who didn't know the war had ended and he was hiding in that cave for 28 years after the war ended? It is quite an amazing story. Very nice to be able to see this place. Poor guy.

Picture explaining how he lived in the cave all those years.

Pictures of the guy, after he was found.

His cave. Now I am not sure if this is a replica cave or if they are just doing upkeep on it or what.

The walk on this bridge was a bouncy one. Ha ha ha : )

It said that these shrines were put up around where many of the Japanese soldiers had killed themselves after the war. Sigh, it was all pretty sad. But also pretty informative to see it. It really made me think.

We all had bought some extremely overpriced water from the small store at the fall's. Cooled down since it was blazing hot. We chatted with some tourists a bit and then we hopped into the cable car to get back where we first started. And in this picture all the smiles from both the kids are because grandpa was fanning them with a fan. The fans were courtesy fans tied into the cable car. So the kids and grandpa were having some fanning fun! Just goofing around basically! : )

Still fanning! : )

After we exited the cable car we went into this "ghost house" thing. We didn't know what to expect.

So we gave it a go! : )

It wasn't scary at all. Sorta silly or dumb actually. We laughed through it actually. Good thing it was a walk through and nobody was working it. Stuff from the 60's or 70's. Very unbelievable stuff. Very corny. But fun. Branden wanted to walk through it again, but it was too long to go again. And Noah was unimpressed with it either way. That was it for Telefofo fall's. We popped back in the car and went to our next stop.

About here is when my battery was running low. So I left the camera in the car. We stopped at Fruit World. Man, we ate all sorts of fruit. Star fruit, pineapple, coconut, mango, just all sorts of stuff. It was an all you can eat fruit buffet. After that, we asked my dad if he wanted to swim with us, since it was still early. So we swung by my dad's place, he got his car and his swimming trunks and then we all went swimming for the rest of the day. For an early dinner we all went to the Food Court at the mall. I had a Korean plate lunch, chicken, rice kimchee and stuff. We all said our good-byes again for the night. And we again went back to the room, munched on some carrot cake and fruit cup. And watched TV, meanwhile the kids fell asleep and i had some free time. I decided I wanted to get a pedicure, so I called the Mandara spa downstairs. Made an appointment, got showered, kissed Noboru goodbye and told him I'd see him in an hour and took the elevator and went in for my treatment. : )

Saturday nights dinner at Tony Roma's. : )

The kids waiting for grandpa to arrive in his car at the Tony Roma's. : )

My meal, I had the shrimp dinner, but Noboru shared a few of his, original babyback ribs with me! My dad shared something with me too, but I forgot what it was. Sorry, dad! I also shared and gave them each some of my shrimp too. : )

My family at dinner! Ahhh, it was a very nice Saturday. We said our good-byes for the night. And we left back to the hotel. We watched TV and laid on the bed in our comfy clothes after our showers and got a good nights sleep. We had a plan to cruise the island on Sunday! : )

Saturday, our first full day in Guam.

We woke up really early. Had a breakfast buffet at the hotel. And we went swimming right after. We weren't too active, just mostly lazing by the pool really. So we didn't get any cramps from eating and swimming, ha ha ha. The boys made a friend right away of course. They're friendly boys both of them, so no wonder. Her name was Keeley (sp?), she was American and she and the boys played for a good long while. Off and on for most of the day. Here is Branden showing her he knows how to hold his breath underwater. Now, mind you, I don't find this all too fascinating too much. But apparently this sorta info, kids find it quite fascinating to each other, ha ha ha. She watched in amazement, lol. And I sat smiling and thinking. How cute and funny kids are in general. All kids. : ) The ol' "look what I can do" ha ha ha!

And here is where he submerged his face and showed her! LOL! My nerdy kids! The girls mom was really nice as well.

Noboru and I both took turns hanging near the kids to make sure Noah didn't take a tumble in the water. After a while, we 4 switched to the big pool and they said goodbye to Keeley for a bit.

Noah kept coming to my chair and checking in with me. Not sure why he did this but it was cute he did it.

Mr. Noah-chan! : )

Going down the slide with Noah.

And Branden quickly followed, ha ha ha. And then I shut off my camera and I followed them down too! I think, I went down about 15 times on Friday, 30 times on Saturday and gosh only knows how many times total, since we went swimming on Monday as well. This is a very mellow slide.

The ocean was very low in the background, we actually could see the fish swimming from the swimming pool. Noboru said he wanted to catch them, ha ha ha. I swam this pool back and forth underwater a few laps and then I hit the hot tub for a while.

We had a long day. Here we were getting ready to leave!

And down the stairs.

And around the pool and we were outta there! : )

We started swimming as soon as it opened. So we swam from like 8:00 am or whenever it opened, until 2:30 pm. Felt hungry and tired from swimming. We got quick showers and headed to the Micronesia Mall. And had lunch in the food court. We had Taco Bell. And then I went and got my eyebrows waxed and my hair cut real quick. This place accepts walk-ins and I've gotten 2 eyebrow waxes from them in the past when we've come to Guam. They gave me one heck of a nice eyebrow wax, and you wouldn't believe my haircut. It's so different. Remember how I had long choppy layers before? Well, not anymore. I now got a bob. Yup all one length mostly and just above my shoulders. With a few long layers around chin level. Remember how Rachel in Friends got her hair cut short towards the end of Friends? Like that basically. Hard to explain I know but it looks really different now. I like it a lot. Whatever compelled me to make such a big change? I don't know. I'm picky with my hair and always changing it every 5 month's or so. So this is my latest change. So Noboru took the boys to play and ride the kiddie rides at the mall, while I got my cut and wax. Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had plans to meet up with my dad for dinner that night at Tony Roma's.

Our first day and evening there! : )

Our first day, after 3 hours of swimming. And dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant with my dad around 7:00 pm. We went back to our hotel. Since we took showers before dinner, after our swim. We just switched into our comfy clothes and munched some Cool Ranch Doritos and a small bag of Frito's for Noah. And sat around kicking back and watching......

The Terminator 3. Ha ha ha! See the pic of that tough terminator chick on the TV? Ha ha ha! That was our first day there. Nothing major, just relaxing, and swimming, dinner with my dad and Terminator 3. Ha ha ha!

The car baby sitters. : )

We pulled into the car baby sitters place. Sorry, I don't know the proper name for it in Japanese. : )

We always park at places like this. Good thing we got there so early. The place was packed. Noboru went inside filled out all the paperwork, meanwhile I stayed outside with the boys and the luggage. And then we all filed into the courtesy bus that dropped us all off at the departure gate. The flight was so empty. It was a good flight. Branden was well behaved of course. I was worried about Noah, but he did fine. Phew! We arrived in Guam without a hitch. Got our rental car and checked into the hotel. I phoned my dad, we agreed to meet for dinner later. So Noboru and, the boys and I changed into our swimsuits and we hit the pool right away. The slide was fun as always. : )

Leaving tomorrow morning to Guam! : )

Well, we are leaving tomorrow morning. (Friday, May 18th) We arrive Guam around 2:00 pm (1:00 pm Japan time)

We were originally going to leave Saturday, but we figured what the heck, let's go a day early. We will be there for 3 nights. The entire weekend. We won't leave Guam (back to Japan) until the evening on Monday. And get back around 9:00 pm Japan time. So, I guess, I'll check in with all of you guys and check my email next Tuesday. I could check it in Guam, on my dad's computer, but when I am on vacation, I stay on vacation. Ha ha ha. So I won't be checking anything while I am away.

Beach, pool side and maybe a few frozen daiquiri's with umbrellas sound about in order. Ha ha ha. (dork, dork dork, that I am, lol) Alright, I'll miss you all! Be good and see you all when I get back! : )

Okay...I've got our main packing done. I better go tackle the carry-on right now. Bye everyone! : )

Sunday

My mother in law, didn't leave Osaka until 5:00 pm. Now we usually don't ummm, try to BBQ at the darkest of night, lol! We usually BBQ around 2:00 pm or 3:00 pm. But we waited and wanted things to be as freshest as possible for my mil. We started the BBQ around 6:00 pm. Things were completely ready by 7:00 pm. Some stuff just took mere minutes. But most took a bit of time. Noboru also purposely BBQ'ed as slowly as possible. The kids ate around 6:30 pm. We didn't want them eating any later then that. And actually that is a bit later then our usual dinner time. Noboru and I waited until about 7:45pm and we finally just decided to eat dinner ourselves first. She hadn't phoned us yet and we were sorta starving by that time. But rest assured we saved alot for her! : )

Noboru had one of the beers from the six pack he bought for his mom. Also, the potatoes got a bit too dark on the outside for my liking. Noboru didn't put the potatoes on the top rack of the BBQ, instead he put them on the bottom rack, no wonder they looked like that. Ha ha ha. But they were so yummy with butter and salt and pepper and the potato skin was crunchy. We had yakiniku (both beef, many kinds of beef actually and chicken, white breast meat for the kids and I and thigh meat for my mil and Noboru, since they prefer that). We wrapped up the yakiniku in lettuce leaves. I like doing that, a lot. Dipped our meat in the extra sauce. We also had roasted veggies, bell peppers and white button mushrooms. Dinner was actually pretty fantastic. If I don't say so myself ( and I didn't cook it, Noboru did, lol). We finished dinner and yet still no phone call from my mil. At this point, I went to wash the kids and throw them into the bath tub and shower to clean and suds up. Meanwhile Noboru loaded the dishwasher. While we were in the bath tub, she must have called because he went upstairs, knocked on the shower door and said he was leaving to pick up his mom from the train station down the hill. I got the boys quickly rinsed off and teeth brushed and we quickly got changed into our jammies and by the time we got dressed she was already downstairs. She was eating yakiniku downstairs. And funny because Noboru was teasing me all day about how I should *not* BBQ potatoes with mil coming. Because it was too western for her, yada yada yada. And you can't have baked potatoes with yakiniku, blah blah blah. And would you believe, what the most favorite part of her dinner was? It was the potato. She kept going on and on about how oishi (sp?) it was. How the BBQ flavor was all the way inside the potato itself. She ate it, with salt only, no butter. I sat and watched (I was happy actually). She loved it. Noboru was like, wow! She stuffed herself with chicken, beef and potatoes and rice and lettuce leaves and veggies. She played with Branden for about 20 minutes before she took herself a shower and bath. Noah saw her for about 5 minutes. But he fell asleep (as predicted) on my lap, while she was eating dinner.

She played with Branden after her bath too. They had a good time together. Then Branden fell asleep. After that Mitsuko and Noboru and I sat around the coffee table in the living room having apple pie and watching American Idol. It actually was a pretty good Sunday. : )

Lot's of boys came over to play, meanwhile I baked 2 pies! Ha ha ha! : )

A very lazy Saturday planned at home. Grandma Mitsuko is coming tomorrow night! And so both my boys and Noboru were out in the backyard to play, meanwhile I started with baking 2 homemade "from scratch" apple pies. Then next thing you know. One of Branden's friends from the neighborhood came over. And then next thing you know, a few more boys came peeking through our fence and asked if they could come in the backyard and play with Branden and Ryu. And we said, of course. Next thing you know, I had about 5 or 6 little boys bikes out in the front of my house! Ha ha ha. These were bigger boys. They were all in the 3rd grade. I don't mind them playing with Branden too much. Especially since it's under our watchful eye. Because next year, when Branden starts first grade and will be walking to school with the classmates of his. (still am deciding if he should walk or if I'll drive him btw) but just in case it will pay off for Branden to have at least 5 or 6 of the bigger kids, as his friends and buddy's that way, I know they will protect him when they walk to school together. Yup, I am thinking ahead a bit on that, ha ha ha. Always pays to have friends, never hurts!

I had to take a quick pic of them all playing through the upstairs window, that way they never knew I took their pic. And I know these boys from the neighborhood and believe me, they are such hams, they'd not mind it if I woulda walked outside and said..."cheese" but I just wanted one that was unposed and sorta playing in action. I am glad that I am always friendly with people in my neighborhood and town. That way parents don't mind in the least, when their kids come over and play with my kids and hang out in the backyard. We always have kids that wanna come over and play here, and I don't mind ha ha ha! Even if I just go for walks, with the boys, I always have people coming up to us and waving and saying "hello" to us. It's sorta nice. : )

With my boys and the neighborhood boys all playing in the backyard. It gave me time to bake my pies and get dinner prepared. You all know Saturday and Sunday are my American Idol nights. So I stick close to home those nights, ha ha ha. I baked 2 apple pies, because I wanted 1 pie for us to eat for dessert on Saturday. And the other pie was for my mother in law, to eat on Sunday and us of course as well. I made 4 balls of dough. Sorry in the pic I only showed 2 balls of dough. But actually 2 pies were made by me. Thus the 2 packs of apples. : )

Alright not exactly a beauty pageant winning pie. But one heck of a delicious pie. Even Noboru told me. This pie was better then any pie he's eaten at a restaurant. I was sorta shocked he said that. And surprised because, he had 2 slices of the pie one right after another. Because he usually doesn't care for sweets too much, especially western cakes etc. So for him to have 2 slices of pie, one right after another, I knew he meant it. One of the pies, didn't even survive until Sunday morning. Yup, Branden had 2 slices. Noah hates apple pie (lol, didn't know that) and I had 2 slices. Noboru went and got a 3rd slice during American Idol as well. The apple's and stuff. Man, I put cinnamon of course, flour for thickening, brown sugar, and lemon zest etc. And when all of it was mixed, I put a few small knobs of butter over the mixture for flavor. Plus the crust was so flaky and good. Darn it, that really was a good pie. Hmmm, I think this summer I will be making more pies, ha ha ha. Hopefully they will also get better looking as time rolls on as well. : )

I had 1KG, of chicken breast. About 2 pounds or so, I think...a good amount. I cut it up and put it in a gallon freezer bag and then poured this liquid karaage seasoning on it. Let it marinate for 2 hours in the fridge. And then right before I wanted to cook it. I just used plain flour over it. No spices were needed because it marinated in this liquid already. Oh man it's so good, and so marinated. Very great tasting karaage by the way. Lot's of flavor.

This was the first amount I cooked. I ended up with massive amounts of fried chicken.

And there you have it, fried chicken and apple pie on a Saturday night. Karaage was good and rice was pretty good, heck this is Japan still. LOL. And veggies, and Noboru and Noah had miso soup as well. Then we had some apple pie. And enjoyed the rest of our night. The boys from the block left right before supper. And then after dinner and dessert. We all got soaped up and clean. Noah, ha!!! So typically Noah! He fell right to sleep after his bath. Branden zonked out onto the couch and Noboru carried him upstairs. Meanwhile, we watched American Idol and Noboru had the last slice of pie. Hmm good thing I made that second pie! And yes, I made him give me a bite, ha ha ha!

Happy Mother's day ladies! A bit early I know! : )

TGIF! Yippy! Anyway, Branden brought home these 2 Mother's day gifts that he made for me at yochien! Art work from our children, is truly priceless isn't it? These are the best presents, I could ever ask for. And what are they? Well the painting is a painting of me. Hmmm, I really don't think I look like that at all. Figures my son used half of his white crayon to make my face with, ha ha ha! Poor kid, they should give Branden an extra white crayon! LOL. And he gave me, perfect circle eyes. How hilarious. And the artwork of flowers next to the painting. I told Branden, wow honey that looks exactly like me! Ha ha ha. He was so proud after I said that. He started rambling a million miles a minute after that pointing to how he made such and such. It gave me the biggest tickle seeing how proud he was. And the other one is a vase. Now, I'm not quite sure, if my son picked blue and orange as a combo. Or if the teachers are color blind or what! Sorry! But when he showed it to me, I said. "Oh Branden I have been wanting a vase *just* like this. How ever did you guess???" (no I haven't really been needing one, but heck I'd never say that) And I added....and rhinestones on there too? Wow, now that really is special and so beautiful. (I told him) I have been ooohing and ahhing about them, ever since he came home from school today. So anyway, I just thought I'd share with you all....what I got for Mother's day! : )

Not really having to do anything with Mother's day, really. But I made a big tray of lasagna last night. We will be having the last of it tonight for supper again. So, it's nice I don't have to make dinner tonight. Noboru is working the swing shift tonight and he gets off work at midnight and won't get home until 12:30 am. So it's just going to be the boys and I tonight. And leftover lasagna, garlic bread and salad. Quiet night here. Have a wonderful weekend everyone! : )

PS, our black *mini* minivan has been sold. We had set up for 2 companies to come see our car at our home this morning. The first guy agreed to pay $6,500 US (equivalent of course) right away and we said, "deal" and phoned the second company and said, we sold it already. We also told them, we need our car still, we can't be without any car. So they are delaying to pick it up for as late as possible. So they will pick up the black car on May 21st or 22nd, I think. We should hopefully have our new car by then (knock on wood). Also, Noboru went first thing this morning to do the paperwork on our parking space. In Japan, you can't buy a car without proving you have a place to park it. Which obviously we have 2 parking spaces, so Noboru just had to run down and show them the blueprints or whatever. We should get our parking sticker for the car, by May 16th. So things are happening with regards to the minivan.