A Day on the South End of Guam

Matt and his family went back to San Diego last weekend and both Joyce and I are back to work. I started back in the office at PIU on Monday, working on getting ready for the upcoming semester, and Joyce went back to work at the Guam Japanese School today (more on both of these in upcoming posts). However, I do have a few more pictures from our vacation time and thought I would post them today. A couple days after Christmas we headed down to the Southern end of Guam. Many of the most beautiful sites on the island are there. Everyone wanted to take a swim at the Inarajan pools and then stop for a bite to eat at Jeff's Pirate Cove. Here are a few pictures of a nice relaxing day on Guam.

One of our kids' favorite places to go on Guam is the Inarajan Pools. It has a nice shallow tide pool that is full of all kinds of fish and has a beautiful view of the reef. But I think this diving platform is the main reason they like it so much.

The Japanese tourists cheered when Michael jumped off the platform holding Titus and Courage. 

Matt and Milo enjoyed a swim in the pool

After an afternoon of swimming and diving we headed over to Jeff's Pirate Cove to eat. Jeff's has one of the best fresh fish sandwiches on the island. Milo enjoyed his soft-serve ice cream.

Matt, Kristin and Milo pose in front of the pirate mural. This is part of the museum at JPC. They also have a large gift shop and there is an ifil wood carver across the street. We spent a couple hours there and had plenty to do and see.

Happy New Year 2011!

Happy New Year from Joyce and I. We pray that you have a blessed 2011. We are looking forward to what God has in store for us in the coming year.

We did manage to stay awake until midnight to greet the New Year even though we had stayed up most of the night before and dropped off Matt, Kristin and Milo at the airport at 5 AM. We had some fun with Mike and family shooting off some small fireworks and watching the kids play with sparklers. After midnight we were treated to our neighborhood fireworks show which included professional-type fireworks that exploded 50-100 yards in the air and lit up the whole sky, explosions that set off car alarms and shook our solid concrete house, car horns, bells, revving engines and, of course the standard on Guam, automatic weapons firing. We stood on the porch for about 15 minutes, under the carport, watching, hearing and feeling the show before we headed to bed. Today is another beautiful sunny day on our tropical island home and we look forward to many more sunny days in 2011. Why don't you come and pay us a visit? 

Christmas Day at the Owen's

Here are a few pictures, out of many that were taken, of the Owen family Christmas celebration. Daisy Murdock joined us for the opening of the presents and for Christmas dinner. Cousin Ben was in Saipan with the PIU Christmas ministry team. After Kristin read the Christmas story from the Advent calendar we spent the morning opening presents and eating sweets. Christmas dinner was at two o'clock and then again at 4, 6 and 8. :) Christmas 2010 was another great one. And we get to stretch it out until mid-January when Missy and Cliff get here! (but back on low cholesterol diet on January 3rd - I want to make it through 2011).

Matt and Mike enjoyed their sparklers and the kids were pretty excited over every package.

The treats were tasty whether they were home baked or came in the packages

Serenity opens her presents. 

The turkey was perfect this year. We had about 3 days worth of food for Christmas dinner.

Joyce and Courage open a present.

One nice thing about living on Guam is that you can go swimming immediately before Christmas dinner. When we were in Texas we found a really good deal on a Christmas blow-up pool and it was a big hit with all 4 grandchildren

The aftermath of the Christmas celebration

Christmas Eve with the Owen's on Guam

As for most families, Christmas Eve is traditionally a family time for the Owen family. However, that doesn't always mean we do traditional Christmas activities. We have celebrated Christmas Eve living in a church when our house blew down in a typhoon in 1997, on the plane and in airports (two years ago we had two Christmas Eve's in Guam and Hawaii when we flew from Guam to California on Christmas Day and crossed the international date line) and in many other different ways. We don't always have all our family together since we are spread out all over the world, but this year we had all our kids except Missy with us and she will be coming in January. Here are some pictures of our Christmas Eve celebration starting with our traditional treats. 

Since we have been living on Guam, one of our traditional treats has been drinking coconut milk. Here Mike cuts the coconuts off the tree, Joyce prepares them, and Milo and Courage enjoy that fresh, sweet coconut milk. 

A more traditional treat is the caramel corn pictured above. Here the kids help grandma pop the popcorn to get it ready for the caramel covering.

Meanwhile, Serenity poses with the Christmas decorations....

When we are on Guam at Christmas Eve we enjoy going to the Guam Lutheran Church for the Christmas Eve service. In the past we enjoyed the traditional liturgical service but this year they had the service in one of Guam's many caves with a living Nativity scene in the cave. Though I don't agree with the scholars that think Jesus' birth took place in a cave, it was still a very cool approach to worship and we all enjoyed it very much. On the way to the service Milo fell asleep right in the middle of getting a drink of water. I guess he was tired. He still woke up in time to see the carabao in the cave. Our family posed next to the cave for a Christmas Eve photo.

After the service we headed over to Shirley's Restaurant for dinner. Matt had to get some of their famous spam fried rice before he went back to California. Students Scott Hubbard and Meluat Meluat (He took this picture and our family picture above) and Daisy Murdock, our PIU Dean of Women, joined us for dinner.

A very nice Chamorro lady was sitting at the table next to us in the restaurant. She made some traditional toys for the kids, birds and flowers, out of coconut palm leaves. Serenity preferred to eat my water glass.

After dinner we headed over to Tumon to tour the Underwater World Aquarium. We got there at 8 PM just as it was closing and were the last ones to go through that evening. It is an amazing experience to see the sharks, rays and other fish all around you as you walk through the underwater tubes. Courage was at full-volume excitement throughout the tour.

Milo's favorite part was the little pools at the end of the tour where the kids were encouraged to touch the animals and the shells.

Christmas at Chamorro Village

One of our favorite family traditions since we have been living on Guam is going to Chamorro Village in Agana on the Wednesday night before Christmas to celebrate Christmas Guam style. Yes and to eat barbecue with red rice! There are lots of things to buy, eat, see and ride there. It is only a bonus that every year we always seem to see some unexpected friends there.  This year I enjoyed the pork and chicken bbq on a stick with kelaguen and red rice.

One of our goals this year for the trip down to Chamorro Village was to get a picture of all the grand-kids on a carabao. The carabao is a domestic water buffalo that traditionally has been used much the same way that oxen were used in the West. All four grand-kids were excited to get on the carabao and we had a good opportunity to get several pictures. Titus and Courage also took the carabao around the parking lot for a ride.

The kids also enjoyed getting to touch a coconut crab. Courage was especially intrigued with it.

Across Marine Drive from Chamorro village, Skinner Plaza is also decorated for Christmas. There is always an elaborate light display combining the island and the traditional Christmas celebrations. Serenity loved the lights and carried on a conversation with them for about 45 minutes non-stop. Milo had a great time running from display to display.

All the kids enjoyed playing in the traditional Chamorro Christmas village.

Courage especially loved the wise men in the Nativity Scene

Christmas at the Micronesia Mall

After Thanksgiving I promised Titus that when Milo came we would go to the Micronesia Mall and see the big Christmas tree, enjoy the light and music show and, most important, ride the Dragon Roller Coaster with "just me and you!" So a couple days after Milo arrived we all headed over to the mall for an evening of mall-style Christmas celebration. I think a couple trips to the mall were made over the two weeks. A later trip produced this "grand-kids with Santa" photograph.

The kids really enjoyed the light show. Titus, Courage and Milo chased the light dots and spotlights around the floor, danced to the music and played in the fake snow that fell from the machines up in the ceiling. We had to drag them out of there at the end of the evening. 

 Kristin takes Titus, Courage and Milo on a ride on the Christmas Train.

I didn't get a picture of Titus and I on the Dragon Coaster, but I did get a couple of Courage and Joyce on the carousel.

The kids always enjoy watching the "ball machine." The sculpture moves billiard balls and basketballs on pulleys, chains and tracks etc and they go round and round. They all seem to be amazed by it.