October and November activities

 

This week was Parent Teacher Conferences for both my kids. While I was waiting for Katy's conference I noticed her picture on the wall. It was very cute and I had to take a picture of  it to show her dad...especially because she wrote that he is in the Army. I guess we need a Family Home Evening on the different branches of the military and the rivalries between the branches. :)

 

 

 Yesterday was Jeremy's birthday so we made him a cake. The kids had fun decorating it, obviously. The kids only got to talk to him for a minute but they wished him Happy Birthday. Since it was "date night" (a babysitting co-op where we all take turns watching the 17 kids between the 5 of us), the other 3 couples and I ate the cake and sang to Jeremy when he called. I'm not sure he loved that but we thought it was great. The kids got some cake too. Happy Birthday, Jer!

 

Going back a little to Halloween:

 

He insisted on a moon face. Everything had to be moons.

 

 

Katy LOVES art so she had to color all over it before we carved it. (I can't tell you how many papers I find that have doodles all over them.)

 

We carved these 2 days before Halloween and sprayed them with Bleach water so that they wouldn't get moldy right away. They lasted through Halloween and the morning after they had mold on them.
Thank you to the Douglas family and to Ms. Brittany for helping us experience this tradition. I never found pumpkins this year.

 

 

Katy was Jessie, Cody was Spiderman. They had a great time with all our friends a we Trick or Treated on a warm October evening.

 

 

Our decorated house

 

 

And of course, I have to add a Guammy thing:

We went to American Grocery, which is off the military base. This gallon of milk is $7.79. It made me grateful that we don't run cars on milk and that I get to shop on the base where milk is 4.20 a gallon. :)

This makes me a little humbled...these are coconuts. I delivered medicine to Lovely when she was sick. I kept telling her to get some water and take the Tylenol now. She finally said that her husband would bring home bottled water after work (they have no running water). I gave her what I had in my water bottle in the car but she said that she could go machette a coconut for "water". I took this picture because this is Lovely's water supply...talk about living off the land.

 

Aspen and I also visited a lady named Rosie. Rosie lives in a cinderblock home and I will post a picture next time I visit her. She just got back from the Phillipines. Her mother just died and they sold their truck so that they could pay for her ticket to go there. When we arrived at her house she was crying and said that they had had to cremate her mother because they couldn't afford to bury her. She was also upset because she has a handicapped sister that she had to leave behind because she couldn't afford her ticket to come live with her now that their mom is dead. She wasn't sure what to do. I felt impressed the night before our visit to come and visit her and while we got to bear our testimonies to her and tell her that the Lord loves her, we got to hear her testimony as she bore it to us.

 

She said she knew that these trials were just something that the Lord wanted her to learn from. She had to quit her job because she felt the people were dishonest and something didn't feel right there. She said that she has a job where she can work on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and earn $15 a day. She wants to come to church on Sunday so she will try and see if she can change someone for a different day. There is no Bishops Storehouse here, although it would be heavily utilized if there was, but we offered the services that the church provides here. She told us that she didn't want to be a burden on the church and that she knows that the Lord will help her. Aspen and I were very uplifted with this stong spirit that we get to visit teach.

 

I am trying to reconcile to the fact that I have so much and they have so little. It is strange because we are all equally happy. I am happy to give them whatever they ask for but I don't think that they would be comfortable with all the things that I have, just as I would not be comfortable living in their conditions. Perhaps it is selfish of me because I am the one who has all the "stuff" but I feel like when the Lord says "Unto whom much is given, much is required," (D&C 82:3) he is talking to Aspen and I. I wonder if we were chosen to have the "stuff" because it can be a great trial to overcome gluttony and selfishness. I also wonder if we were sent here to Guam because He knew that we would try to do the things that He needed us to do. I truly feel like our family has been sent here to "serve a mission".

 

I also want to thank everyone who reads about our experiences and especially those who take the tme to comment or send me a personal message in any forum. It was hard to come here and at first it felt painful when no one contacted us for a while to see how everything went with this great uprooting for us. It is always hard when you go through something tramatic and you want to feel sorry for yourself. Fortunately those feelings subsided and the Lord provided good people that are missing their families as much as I miss mine so we spend a lot of time together. I am grateful to the Lord for sending us friends, for placing us in loving families that care for us even from great distances, and for helping our family grow in amazing ways.

 

I will end this sappy post with some Kaitlynn-isms that have come to my mind recently but are from a while ago:

 

Me: "Kaitlynn, I need you to help clean this up."
Kaitlynn: "I can't. My bum is itchy."

 

Cody was doing something naughty and I had told him more than twice to stop. (He was 2). I said to Cody: "Cody, stop playing with that. This is your last warning!"
Kaitlynn: "Yeah, Cody, this is your last morning!"