The First Shipment

The first group of movers is here right now.

They are packing our "unaccompanied baggage," a set of stuff no more than 1000 lbs. that is intended to get to our destination quickly, in about three weeks. The rest of our stuff will be in transit up to two months.

It works a little differently for us. Because I don't have a job lined up post-Navy, right now we don't have a home to ourselves in Colorado. We will be living with my wife's parents until we get our feet back under us. That means we aren't packing anything from our kitchen, no linens, nothing to start a household. What we are packing is all the clothes we might need from now until August 2010. That includes summer clothes, winter clothes, half my uniforms. We have to save some summer clothes for us to continue wearing here in the tropics.

The rest of our household goods depart in 10 days and are going straight to storage. With me detaching from the Navy I'm entitled to store them at government expense until August 2010. Hopefully by then I'll have a job again and we'll have our own place to put it in.

Luckily, most of the childrens' winter clothes will be waiting for them when we arrive on the mainland.

We did pack our bread machine and our bread recipe book. The wife and I both love using the bread machine, and the kids love eating the products. On Guam we've been very limited to the breads we can make from the recipe book. The most exotic flour we've found here is white whole wheat flour. That showed up in the grocery store once and my wife snatched up a 5 lb. bag. We haven't seen it again since. 

There's no rye flour, no cracked whole wheat, no wheat berries, no graham flour. We bake all our own bread in the machine now since it is so easy. Only takes 20 minutes of prep time and the machine does the rest. Since we eat sandwiches almost every day, it's good to know exactly what we're eating.

My wife went to investigate the sweaters we mistakenly left in the hot, humid and cat-ridden garage for the past three years. We only left them there overnight and we swore we would find a place for them in our climate-controlled but limited storage house. That overnight was almost three years ago. The good news is that they smell a little musty, but otherwise have no signs of mold or cat pee. I'm taking them to the drycleaner today in the hopes that they will survive.

The Parent Blind

I'm hiding in the kitchen with my wife because I am tired of playing with the kids.

They are playing quite nicely amongst themselves. Melissa no longer takes a nap but still wants a playmate while her brother and sister are sleeping. So the wife and I switched off playing with her for two hours. Finally, the twins woke up and we can let them all play with each other.

We have a gate separating the kitchen from the rest of the house, and as long as I am inaccessible to the kids they will play with each other. Once I step outside the gate I get mobbed.

Melissa set up a birthday party at the coffee table for Jo, and they all sat together nicely and Lukas and Melissa even sang to her.

The twins just walked by the kitchen hand-in-hand saying "Bye, s'later!"

Sometimes, as long as the furniture is intact and there's no blood or permanent bodily harm, that's enough.

Where Thanksgiving Day Begins

It’s a tired cliché on Guam, but one that keeps our tourism industry moving. “Where America’s Day Begins” is a phrase we constantly manipulate.

Technically, this is not the first American territory to see the new day's sun. That honor belongs to Wake Island. However, Wake Island has no tourist industry and thus no need to claim primacy. I’ve never been there, but according to Wikipedia it is only three square miles and occupied by some military folks.

You can make “Where ********’s Day Begins” fit any situation. I’ve seen it tagline every major holiday, I’ve seen it as a joke, I’ve seen it advertise just about every industry Guam has. And of course, it graces every “I [Heart] Guam” T-shirt.

So yes, we are the first Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving each year.

We are a truly blessed and thankful family, but we didn't have much of a celebration today. Last year we hosted a big to do with several other families at our house. If you’re military on Guam, chances are good you’re not joining your extended family for Thanksgiving. One of those families we invited last year is hosting our same group again this year. However, the husband works at the Naval Hosptial ER and has duty most of the weekend. Our big Thanksgiving dinner will be on Sunday this year instead.

For all of my adult life I've enjoyed Thanksgiving as my favorite holiday of the year. I think it's because of the deep, positive family associations it contains for me. I love my family, and I love getting together with my extended family - parents, sister, nephews, nieces, in-laws. Thanksgiving Day means family, pure and simple.

Sure, we base it around a feast - but that's even better! There are no whinings about "When are we going to open the presents?" because there are none. There are no gimmicks about searching for Easter Eggs, and no birthday games to play. We all simply feast and give thanks for everything God gives us, enjoying time together without distractions. The simplicity of the holiday is probably what I love the best.

May you and yours have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Winter once again

I fear returning to a Midwestern winter. I’ve become very soft over the past three years, living on a tropical island. Haven't checked a weather report once. The local TV news doesn’t even have a weather segment because the forecast is always the same – high of 87, low of 77, 60% chance of showers. I think during the dry season the chance of showers decreases to 20%. Every morning I get up, grab the next pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and I’m in business.

Three years ago in February 2007 we were enjoying our last day at my parents' home in Illinois. Around lunchtime the day before we were to begin our journey to Guam, a blizzard rolled on through the area. We were booked on Continental and we had to hit a single flight, leaving from Houston at 9AM the following day. If we didn’t make that flight, we would wait another 24 hours to catch the right sequence of flights to Guam. We had to take off from O’Hare Airport in Chicago at the ridiculously early hour of 5:45 AM to get to Houston on time, and my parents’ home was 2.5 hours away from O’Hare.

We called Continental and got them to change our flight to the last one leaving O’Hare for Houston the night before. We set off for O’Hare as soon as possible in our little rental car and ended up taking over four hours to get there. Our plane did leave later than expected, but we were in Houston the night before our big flight to Guam, where there was absolutely no snow.

Despite leaving for Guam only 12 hours later than our arrival in Houston, Continental would not let us check our bags back in for the flight. We had spent several weeks visiting friends in the cold Midwest after packing up our household goods, so my wife and daughter and I were all carrying two sets of clothes, one for winter and another for the tropics. We had 12 bags and a stroller. I was very disappointed.

We stayed overnight at the hotel attached to the Houston Airport, into which I wheeled our 12 bags and a stroller, and we all slept soundly on the king bed. The next morning, I wheeled the 12 bags and stroller through the airport again where I checked them. We endured two 8 hour flights, taking a two hour break to deplane and be inconvenienced at Honolulu. We arrived on Guam February 15, 2007. With the exception of a few business trips and vacations, we’ve been here ever since.

Seeing as how we arrive back at Chicago in mid-December, one of my most fervent wishes is that we don’t arrive into the same blizzard that we left from. It’s much more pleasant to go from winter to tropics; not looking forward to the other way around.

A Moment

After three years, we finally did it.

We got our family photo on the beach.

We figured we couldn't waste the rare opportunity. We live 10 minutes from the ocean. This would be our only chance in the forseeable future.

After negotiating with our professional photographer/friend we decided our backdrop would be the beach behind the Pacific Islands Club Hotel. We knew it wouldn't be easy - getting three kids to do anything together is hard, let alone look at the camera and smile at the same time. We've been parents long enough to know that our job is to just hold our smiles and look at the camera while the photographer does everything she can to make the kids look at her.

She knew what she was doing. First we took the collective family shots while everyone was new to the scenery and fresh. It was at 5 PM, when the light was best. The sun had already gone behind the ridge the hotels are built on, giving the ocean a soft, warm glow. After a few family shots we got Melissa to "model" next to a stone wall. She can be so photogenic when she wants to be.

Our photographer probably took several hundred shots and will post them online for us to review. Amazing how digital photography revolutionized an entire industry for the better. No more film, developments, proofs. The photographer gets instant feedback on her shots and can instantly make adjustments to perfection. To me, that takes a lot of the guesswork out of photography and makes the art more accessible.

The magic really came when we stopped posing and just let the kids be themselves. That's when our photographer was able to capture their unique moments. The children, my wife and I will never look like this again. All of us will age, and eventually the children will grow and the magic of their early innocence will disappear.

At least we can now hold on to this memory forever - an enchanted moment of a young family playing on the beach at sunset.

The Plan

We’re in the waiting game now. I’m phasing myself out of a job at my current command and planning our move; what to bring with us on the plane, what to send as an “express shipment,” and what to put in storage until we find a new place to live.

I managed to finagle a good deal out of the Navy for my detachment from active duty. When stationed overseas we’re encouraged to complete our final outprocessing paperwork at a Navy base on the mainland. Since I’m from Illinois and much of my family still lives there, including my parents and sister, I arranged to complete my outprocessing at Great Lakes Naval Station north of Chicago. While I’ll have to report in for work through the week, my wife and kids will have more time than they have ever had with grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins.

Coincidentally, my time at Great Lakes will also coincide with the Christmas and New Years holiday – nice.

Once I’m done at Great Lakes I have 31 days of terminal leave where I will be using up my remaining vacation days before I am completely released from active duty – but I will have no active duty obligations. We’ll be visiting our friends who live in southern Illinois and then flying out to our new home of Denver, Colorado where my wife’s parents live. We’ll be with them until I can find a job with a steady income and get back on our feet.

Inaugural Post

A quick introduction: I’m happily married and we are the parents of three children – Melissa, Josephine (Jo) and Lukas. Jo and Lukas are fraternal twins. All three kids are younger than four. In this blog I'll be using pseudonyms for many of my family members, including my immediate family.

I’ve been stationed with my family on the island of Guam in the Western Pacific as a U.S. Naval Officer since February 2007. The last time any of us were back on the mainland U.S. was October 2007. The twins are young enough that they have never been on the mainland outside the womb. We’re about to experience a huge transition in our lives. We’re all moving to Colorado and I’m leaving active duty service to start a new life as a Navy Reservist and civilian.

I view this as a time of great renewal for us as a family. Having lived on an isolated tropical island for years, we’ve adapted to the lifestyle. Everyone knows everyone else here, traffic is light, local cuisine is awesome, and the weather is enviable. However, there are drawbacks – airline flights are expensive and long, food is expensive with limited selection, and a two hour road trip takes you right back to where you started, just to name a few. We’ll have a fresh perspective of America as we come home and we start a completely new life outside of the active duty military. This is our story – our Mainland Voyage!