Fruit and Flower Tour of Our yard

Backyard/Papaya Tree

Heath gathering our ripe fruit... the banana tree is in our backyard, you can see it behind his hand that is holding the bananas. Notice the garden behind him "before."

The garden "after" we spent 5 hours getting it ready for planting.
We went to the nursery and picked out our babies...
tomato, chilies, Thai basil, and green onion. We also bought seeds to plant.

The pile of leaves we left in the bottom right of the picture are covering our wild chicken eggs, we wondered what the mama was doing in our back yard while we were tearing out the plants and weeds, I guess we were upsetting her nest... oops.

Look closely below... the light, dusty green is not part of this tree... it is an epaphite, or an air plant... it receives all of its nutrients from the air and just hangs out in the crevas of this tree.

These are the two flowers that land on our cars... they are so beautiful.

These are not on our property but ones we took our first couple weeks here.

Fishing

We have wonderful neighbors! The day we moved in we were getting into our truck to grab some grub and our neighbor, Nina, stopped us. She is a very sweet retired nurse, who spends a lot of her time gardening and raising orchids, she is originally from the Palau. Her husband is retired and spends a lot of his time out fishing (maybe he and Heath will be fishing buddies.) Anyway, she said she thought we were going out to get food so she made us dinner. It was Marlin her husband had caught. She also had 16 Mahi Mahi and 1 Wahoo on ice. She taught Heath how to filet a huge ocean fish and filled our freezer with about $100-$120 worth of filet's. Since then Heath has gone out to the ocean right in front of our house and I have been able to see him from our living room. The only way to get to the ocean is by a two track off the main road.

Inside our Home

Kitchen Before... working hard is my dorky (he told me to write that) but cute (my addition) husband Heath.

Kitchen After (There is so much cupboard space I don't even know what to do with it all)Kitchen ViewLiving Room (The ocean is to the right and the hall to the 3 bedrooms is to the left)

Dinning Room (I'm not crazy about our colors with the tile, but they look good with the kitchen. The pictures are not hung yet... it is not as easy to hang things on cement walls)


Master Bedroom... this room also has a view of the ocean. There are two other bedrooms, the main guest bedroom also has an ocean view. The other room, we will turn into our office and storage room, it looks out at our backyard full of flowers and fruit trees.

Master Bathroom
Decorating and arranging furniture is still a work in progress, the two bedrooms and guest bathroom not pictured are not set up yet either. If you have suggestions on decorating let me know. So here it is our Home-SWEET-Home.

Moving Into Our New Home

We did a Discovery Dive and where we went we saw this ship... this is the type of ship that our homegoods and car were shipped over on... hopefully my car is on this one!

The waiting is over... Thursday the movers were scheduled to unload our housegoods... Heath checked off the boxes as they unloaded and I directed them as to where to put the boxes. In three hours we unloaded all of our boxes and then spent the next three days unpacking them.

This is our entrance to our house... my car arrived on wednesday and this is the truck we bought for exploring the island.

This is the view from below the house... we have the upstairs with the wrap-around porch and the lower level belongs to a quiet navy girl.

These are of our view taken from our porch

Waiting and Exploring

Goodbye hotel living!
We stayed our last few days between hotel and home with some friends whom Heath worked with back in CA, this was a wonderful transition into normal living.

While we waited to move into our house we spent our time getting everything set up as well as touring the island... below are some pictures of what we found.

Good-bye, Mrs. Wilhoit

Round Table Times: San Marcos Middle School
Good-bye, Mrs. Wilhoit
By: Shaley Sirisack

(One of the students just emailed me the letter she wrote for the school newspaper. I thought it was cute and somewhat informative for those of you wanting to learn a little about Guam, or me.)

On January 19, 7th grade Art and 7th/8th grade Science teacher Mrs. Rhianon Wilhoit left San Marcos Middle School. Mrs. Wilhoit's husband is in the Navy and they are being transferred to Guam. Guam is a small tropical island in the South Pacific. It is north of Australia and Papua New Guinea, South of Japan, East of the Philippines and West of Hawaii. Mrs. Wilhoit considers the geology around Guam fascinating; they will be 200 miles west of the deepest part of the world, the Mariana Trench. Guam was formed by volcanic activity. It is surrounded by coral reefs great for snorkeling and scuba diving.

She and her husband are very excited about being able to travel the world. She was in her 3rd year of teaching. She is very sad to leave SMMS and the students that she has enjoyed. She is looking forward to her new life and the adventures that await her in Guam. Mrs. Wilhoit is glad she had the opportunity to know several of the students here and to teach them. The new Art teacher is Mrs. York, and she is sure to be just as great as Mrs. Wilhoit. Mrs. Wilhoit hopes to get a teaching job in Guam. She says she'll miss the staff, students, and the weather here. She wants the students she has taught to believe in themselves and they'll find success. She hopes for the best for her students and their families. If anyone would like to contact Mrs. Wilhoit, her e-mail address is wilhoit.mrs@gmail.com. Mrs. Wilhoit would be glad to keep in touch with students and staff. We all hope for the best for her.

Happy Birthday Heath!

Today marks our third week here on Guam as well as Heath’s birthday. Happy Birthday my love! We have had a great day, with great food, great company and a lot to be thankful for!

Things have been slowly falling into place since we arrived with only a few minor glitches. Heath checked in on base during our first week and the past two we have had so much to do to get set up and begin to settle in here. Thankfully, Heath has been on “house hunting leave” from work, so the past 12 days we have been able to get most things done. He just went back yesterday.

So far, we have found an amazing house to rent… we will post pictures once we move in…hopefully this week! You will not believe it! I dream about it all the time, I just can’t wait to get all of our housing items dropped off so we can begin to make it home. I am so anxious to not be living out of suitcases; 3 months has been a long time!

We have bought a little “boonie” truck, perfect for exploring this little island… there are a lot of off road beaches and hiking trails to waterfalls. It will also be great for throwing our scuba or snorkeling gear, surfboards or bikes in the back. My car should be here this weekend. I got my Guam drivers license without having to take any tests, in fact unlike the California DMV or the Michigan Secretary of State, I was in and out of there with my Guam drivers license in hand within 30 minutes (quite amazing, especially for laid-back island life.)

So above I mentioned scuba diving, we are getting certified to dive at the end of this month, part of heath’s birthday present. I have been so nervous… but we did a discovery dive to see if my ears could handle it and if I felt Closter phobic, and I was fine… so I am so stoked! Plus, it is one more thing I can do with Heath… who knows, I may learn to golf out here too, we will see.

Once we settle into our house I will put in my application to substitute at the Naval Middle School and High School. My application is in for a teaching job for the fall. Subbing will be nice and flexible, that way, if I wake up hypnotized by the ocean waves out my bedroom window, I can easily turn down sub jobs depending on the day. :)

More to come on our house soon…you all will be so jealous!