Tropical Storm Man-Yi

Heath is on big time damage control. He woke up Monday morning and stepped out of bed into a puddle of water that he discovered extended into our closet. He then proceeded to enter the rest of the house and found our large air con unit was clogged because of all the leaves that were blown into it and it was leaking water into the dinning room. All of our front patio furniture and the grill had blown across the front of our house, around the corner and was lined up along the side railing of our wrap around patio.

The eye of the storm traveled just south of Guam, so the counterclockwise wind bands are hitting the east side of the island straight on. They are blowing 50 mile/hour winds directly into our house. All the leaves are off the trees and the waves crashing on the reef are about 20 ft. Heath says he can't imagine 100m/h winds that come with some Typhoons.

The power was out for only a couple hours when he got home from work so he fired up the generator. He has to ring out the towels catching the water every 3 hours or so.

He is going to have to call for help to put up the shutters at least for our bedroom window. There is no way he can carry them with his injured shoulder, let alone in 50m/h winds, climb the ladder and boost himself up to the window. It sounds like things are crazy there!

To view the satellite color loop check out the link below.

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/guam/guamloops/guamircolor.html

(Guam is located at 13*N. Latitude and 144*E. Longitude)

Not All Fun and Games

The past month has been a busy and STRESSFUL and draining time! (beware this may be long!)

We had to "ask" our tenants to move out of our condo in Oceanside. And are now hunting for new ones. We had an entire week without any leads and today I received 4 calls and 3 are viewing it today.... We really hope that one of those 3 are the perfect tenants for us... and want to move in asap!

It has been rough having 2-$2000 house/rent payments to make with out me working since January. (I subbed for about a month and didn't make half of one of those payments.) So, it has been difficult. I tried finding a job teaching summer school, but there were no openings and my Guam Teaching Certificate will not be valid until August.

I have submitted all my information for teaching to DODEA (military schools) as well as the Guam Public School System. I have been in contact with a school with 2 science positions and an art position open. GPS has 400 openings for teachers for the fall, and I am highly qualified to teach the lovely middle schoolers, so now I just wait.

My mom is having more health problems and is going to be having a rough summer in preparation for surgery scheduled for October. I wish I could be in Michigan for her surgery to help out, but I am only available for the summer and hope to be a help and encouragement.

My friend Holly is getting married to a fabulous man, Kieth, and asked me to stand in there wedding. I told her I could if if was before the 12th of August. So, I am in her wedding the 11th! :)

So, CA tenant issues, mom's health, holly's big day, no summer job, no money for Heath and I to travel (we hope to save and spend the next couple summers on Guam exploring the surrounding islands) are all reasons I should come home for a chunk of the summer.

My plan was to leave the last week of June, however I came down with the shingles and was bedridden for the week. Friday a MAC (military standby) flight was headed for WA so I attempted to get on the flight along with about 100 other people, many who were waiting for a flight out for 6 days!

So, I am here... they made room for about 80 people and I just so happened to make the list. After flying on 2 military hoppers, one to Honolulu, the other to Seattle, with a 24 hour layover in Hawaii and 36 hours to visit Michael and Rachel in Washington, I booked a commercial flight into Michigan and landed in Grand Rapids after 5 days of traveling.

This past week I have really laid low... My shingles are almost gone, I am now just dealing with bruise sensations, sensitive skin and some twinging pain in my spine area; much better than the initial feeling of being beaten with a base ball bat and breaking out with blisters. Shingles is the worst! You know it's bad when the Doctor looks at your back and says, "Oh! You have Zoster. It really sucks! Hurts like hell doesn't it?" I finally finished taking 28 pills a day and now am fighting something like bronchitis. I am also dealing with crazy jet lag! But it is good to be home!

So, that is what has been going on. My hope now is to get things set up for new tenants, and help out my mama and holly and then get on the first flight out back to Guam to begin teaching. Lots of hoping and waiting.

Heath had to stay home and work, but felt that this is the perfect opportunity for me to come home for the summer. He has lots of projects around the house he wants to work on, as well as hunting, fishing and fiestas to attend. He played soccer one of the first nights I was gone and messed up his shoulder really really bad... it is too painful at this time to tell what the damage is, we are hoping it is just a nasty sprain.

Ending on a positive note: Heath was just chosen to be the LPO (Leading Petty Officer) of the Physical Therapy Department. He is the only E5 in the hospital to hold that title, the others are E6 and above, so it looks great on his record! He also has experience being LPO back at Camp Pendleton. In both situations he was chosen as the youngest, least amount of time in the Navy, the least experience in PT and the least amount of time at that station. I am so proud of him... there is this natural force of leadership and excellence propelling him forward.