It's Springtime, but been summer here all year!

AN UPDATE
It's been rocking and rolling here and we don't have the radio on!
Had an earthquake here on Monday night measuring at 5.2 and then again this morning. Here's the Pacific Daily News glip about it.

BREAKING NEWS: 7:15 a.m. -- Earthquake hits at 6:06 a.m.; preliminary measurement is 5.4 magnitude

7:15 a.m. — Guam experienced an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.4, according to preliminary reports, at 6:06 a.m.

U.S. Geological Survey geophysist Paul Hattori said the preliminary reports have the earthquake taking place about 15 miles northeast of Hagåtña, and at a depth of 39 miles.

When asked if the quake could cause any sort of tsunami, Hattori said it was too small.


SMALL!!!! It didn't feel that small. Big enough to wake me from a sound sleep at 6am! The house was rumbling and the bed was shaking. Freaky, I say!......
Bob better keep singing if he's going to convince me.


Well, my birthday came and went. It was nice, since it's the last one I'm ever having. We didn't do anything special really. Had a few friends over and grilled out. We just stayed close to home.
Easter Sunday was nice too. Praise God I'm saved! The girls hunted easter eggs on that we had made. That was fun to watch. They found them all of course and were looking so incredibly adorable in their dresses.
They've been stressing me with all the diaper removal at night. The duct tape isn't cutting it anymore, they've discovered how to shimmy outta their diapers instead of ripping them off. So I've caved and we're trying to potty train them. I spent most the day yesterday cleaning up after them....literally. I don't think they 'get it' quite yet. They get they're supposed to sit on the potty, but no one has acutally left a deposit yet! They end up making deposits in the middle of the living room floor instead on top my persian rug! I should have waited the get the fancy stuff after kids...oh well. They're painfully back in diapers today. I'll try again next week.....or the week after that possibly.
Love to you all. Gonna go get my turkies up and take them to the pool.

Make a Wish Kite Festival, Asan Beach

We took the girls to Asan Beach today for the 4th annual international kite festival for a make a wish foundation. It was a nice way to spend the morning. I posted the videos of a little of our time there. Below is some history of the beach and it's involvement in WWII. Interesting stuff.


Taken from one of the historical websites on Asan Beach,


In June of 1944, the United States Armed Forces were ready to retake the island of Guam. The Japanese also knew of this plan. Most of the permanent and elaborate defense installations were placed at Tumon Bay. On June 16, 1944 US cruisers, battleships, and aircraft bombed and shelled Asan and Agat beaches. The Japanese now knew where they planned to attack. The US attack was supposed to take place on June 18, 1944 but was delayed because of the battle for Saipan and the battle of the Philippine Sea, known as the Marianas Turkey Shoot. The new date was reset to July 21, 1944. This decision also allowed preparation for an Army division to be part of the invasion. Japanese defensive positions were placed on top and on both sides of Asan and Adelup Points. But the previous defenses in Tumon Bay were left because there was not time to move them. The fortifications of Japanese beach defenses were extensive.

Obstacles and mines were placed on the fringing reef. The beaches and immediately inland were filled with obstacles and tank traps. Further inland were machine gun positions, pillboxes, heavy weapons, artillery and coastal defense guns. And higher inland to shoot down on the beaches were machine guns, heavy weapons, and artillery.

The code name for the Guam operation was “Stevedore”. The United States Armed Forces had 4 battleships, 3 cruisers, and 3 destroyers just off of Asan. Underwater Demolition Teams came in to destroy obstacles before the US Marines landed. There were 12 troop transports containing the 3rd Marine Division and 16 Landing Ships Tank. The bombardment of the island began at 0530 am on July 21, 1944. Over 18,000 various sized shells were expended and nine thousand rockets launched over the island. Then at 7 am the LST’s moved toward shore in Asan to unload 180 armored landing vehicles full of assault troops. The Japanese had perfect observation and firing points from high ground. But the mission included securing those high positions to make the beachhead secure for US Marines and Army soldiers to live, sleep, eat, and stockpile supplies.

The lead elements of the 3rd Marine Division crossed the reef from 200 to 500 yards offshore and landed on Asan Beach, which was defended by the Japanese 320th Independent Infantry Battalion and naval troops manning the coastal defense guns. The plan was to fight between Adelup and Asan Points, referred to as “the devil’s horns”. From east to west, two battalions of the 3rd US Marine Regiment landed on Beach Red 1, one battalion of the 3rd US Marine Regiment landed on Beach Red 2, three battalions of the 21st US Marines came ashore on Beach Green, in the middle, and three battalions of the 9th US Marines landed on Beach Blue adjacent to Asan Point.

The 3rd Marine Division operation order called for the three regiments to land abreast, capture the high ground immediately inland, and prepare for further operations to the east and southeast. Marines assaulted beaches, took Orote Peninsula, and the land behind Asan and the Force Beachhead Line from Adelup Point to Mt. Chachao/Mt. Tenjo. The Army’s 77th Infantry Division fought in Agat, and took Mt. Alifan and the Force Beachhead Line from Facpi Point to Mt. Tenjo. The Asan area was secured on July 28th, but it took until August 10, 1941 to eliminate all organized resistance on the rest of Guam.

About 55,000 young Marine and Army soldiers invaded Guam. An estimated 2124 were killed in action or died of wounds. Because of their sacrifice we now enjoy freedom on Guam today.


Here's another weblink to a great site with lots of history on Asan Beach.

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/wapa/cli/part2a.htm

We feel so lucky to be able to touch these places and to look at the ruins. These were brave men that came so that we might live in freedom. It's overwhelming to try and grasp all the blood that was spilled here for me and my children. I'm so grateful.

More grad pictures

Hello again, well here ya go, more pictures from Friday night. Thanks to you all that have stopped by to leave a comment. We had a good time. A lot of these folks will be moving this summer, it's going to be sad, cause this is such a tight crew. But such is the life I guess.....we'll have friends now where they go and visa versa.
Enjoy the pictures.

Graduation from Initiation

Yeah! It's finally done. Sylvin got his Graduation day/ceremony yesterday and is now a very proud "initiatied Chief" In the Coast Guard you have a choice to be either initiated or not. I guess Navy Chiefs don't have a choice. But anyway, this was something Sylvin wanted to do and be a part of. It's been a very long month but now it's over and we got to celebrate last night. The Chief's mess gave all the initatied Chief's an appreciation dinner. It was held at the Pacific Island Club in Tumon. The touristy part of town. Very nice hotel and it was a nice dinner. There were Chiefs, Senior and Master Chiefs there along with some Officers as well to help celebrate. They even recoginized the spouses with an official certificate. During the ceremony Chief TJ (I don't want to use last names here), (Sylvin's sponser, and they served together on the Reliance) and I got to pin Sylvin's initiated anchors on him. The video is of that event.
We got to sit down and mingle with alot of the people there. Met some nice folks. We even met a lady that actually grew up down the road from Sylvin's best friend Ron in Puerto Rico. I guess Ron has been telling her about us and she's been asking around about us and we finally ran into her last night. Her name is Silga. Her husband is in the CG too. Just goes to show you how small the CG really is. It's a great honor to be a part of something so important. I'm very proud of Sylvin. Oh, there was even a lady there that writes for the Stars and Stripes and she loves submitting stories related to the CG, she took a quote from Sylvin and myself. We'll see it it gets accepted or not.
On a lighter note, Syani has learned how to take off her diapers all by herself. I walked in to check on them the other night and stepped right in the middle of the squishy discarded diaper on the floor. I looked in Sy's crib and no baby.....I started to freak until I spotted both of them in Eve's crib. Sy had no pants or diaper on....and Eve had pants but no shirt on! Sy had CLIMBED over the end of her crib into Eve's. UT OH, you say, yeah...me too! The next night Sy again ripped off her diaper, and was crying so I ran in as fast as I could to find her sitting on the floor next to their cribs. I'm flipping out and calmed her down. Put her diaper back on and put her back in the crib, but put down two big fluffy comforters next to to their cribs in case she climbed out again. Well needless to say she hasn't tried that again. I'm hoping it scared her enough to not do it again. But she's still ripping her diapers off. So I got out the "500 mile a hour tape". Duct tape is the coolest invention EVER! We'll see how long that will outsmart her. Gonna have to potty train them and get em into toddler beds soon. My babies are growing up!
Love to you all.
As soon as I get some photos together I'll post an album to photbucket of the Graduation. So check back for them.