Amma! Pank Mark!

MicroChanga seems to have a Stewie Griffin complex these days.

She called yesterday and asked Grandma to spank Mark. She was annoyed because he tried to help her with the push-to-talk feature on his cell phone. She’s fiercely independent and insists on doing things herself. When she gets mad at her Dad, she calls him by his first name. We just spoke with him and he tells us she’s still on a first name basis with him.

She recently tried to feed him with a pretend cookie as he was falling asleep. Let’s just say that it was something from her diaper. Luckily, she missed his mouth and got him just under the nose, whereupon he woke up. Note to self: No tea parties when she visits this Summer!

C.J. Is Bored!

Our Corps has two congregations, one of which prefers to meet outdoors, on the beach. C.J. attends the Beach Church and always has a great time but today, he got a mite bored...

...so he decided that he would help me preach.

Ruh roh! He's already bored again!

This is not looking good.


If you don't like they sermon...tackle 'em!



Finally something to do! He helped serve the food. That bag of sandwiches was almost a big as he is. He also handed out cups of soup and managed to not spill a drop...although he sneaked a few sips from some of them.

MicroChanga Speaks

AMMA. The easiest of all to figure out. Grandma.

TEETEE. A demand she asserts after someone takes a photo of her with a digital camera.

BUBBA. You would think this to be a reference to her brothers but it’s the thing that holds formula and from which she derives comfort, although she eats solid food.

BOWBA. Soba (soup).

BOBBA. Yours truly. Many Chamorro children call their Grandfathers Papa.

DEDANCE. Her response when you ask her name.

EE EE. This lets us know that she wants paper to draw on. Its origin remains a mystery.

MIMISH. She has completed something.

MOMACH. It is full when she has mimished her food.

POO. You were wrong about tee tee and you are wrong again. This can refer to either forks or spoons.

WO WO. The canine order. She is afraid of them but loves to pretend that her brothers are doggies. She calls out “wo wo come” and they crawl after her. She directs them around the house but then gets irritated when they won’t get into the oven as she commands.

She loves to play Wii Rock Band. Here she is, guarding the drums with a bazooka. Thou mayest play with the Wii Stratocaster but Thou shalt not touch the Wii drums, which are hers. Hmm...that bazooka reminds me of....I dunno...a vacuum cleaner attachment?

Taking a moment for a photo op with brothers Ping and Kobe...but she is still between them and the Wii drums....and she has the bazooka at the ready.


She is also in a bike gang. Tough Chic!



Posing and showing off trikes and matching outfits is fun but MicroChanga is all about action!



Our budding drummer at practice. Notice that she had turned her sticks around, in order to get a bigger sound. She's a power drummer!

Missing Books of the Bible Rediscovered!

Today was a very important day for our youth. They have been studying the books of the Bible and had an exercise in which they were to write as many of the books as they could remember.

Upon grading their work, we discovered that there are several books missing from the cannon of scripture.

Here is a list of the missing books, as compiled from their papers:

Old Testament historical books
Sablan

Old Testament poetic books
Mikie
Mirie
Rotti
Den
Pen

Major Prophets
I Doll
II Doll
Higtor
Liner

Gospels
Mohira
Rotti (Rotti also made the list of poetic books – see above)
Clair
I Avenaa
II Avenaa
I Parker
II Parker
Seven

New Testament books of history
Lord
God
Angel
Kill
Devil
Bad
Good
Evil
I Bad People
II Bad People
I Snow Town
II Snow Town

Once we find these lost books, it will be tough to decide where to start reading but I lean toward Sablan, followed by I and II Bad People or I and II Snow Town.

Key Thang

MicroChanga is very smart, and tenacious when trying to figure something out....she just won't give up! Lately, she's just not giving up on locks and keys.

If the key doesn't fit the desk, maybe....

.....it'll fit this door....wait....no lock here.

Can't reach the lock to get the key in....hmmm...maybe if I just turn this thingy...




....or, maybe it might work in this lock.

HA! I found Grandma's big giant key ring and I'm gonna figure this thing out for sure!

MicroChanga At The Kettle

MicroChanga is visiting us again and joined us for her very first Kettle Season!

Grandma was really good at customizing an adult sized apron to fit a Munchkin.

All ready! Where's my bell?


Hey...why doesn't this bell ring?

She especially liked giving out candy to other kids.

Even Ebeneezer Scrooge would drop money into this cutie's kettle!

Corps Outing To Managaha Island

We recently had another of our many outings. This time, we visited the beautiful Managaha Island, which lies in close proximity to Saipan.

A view of Managaha from the boat.

Maggie, Lena, Kayla and Jerome on the boat.

Quinton, Joveta and Mikey on the landing, just after getting off the boat.

Lunch!

This baby Black-Tip shark crashed the party!

The Big 01

A big happy birthday wish to a gal who hit the big 01 last week. Happy birthday, Anisha!

Microchanga Visits!

Microchanga, the youngest of our Chimichangas (Granddaughters) visited recently.

Such progress she's making! She can wink correctly (I've never seen a baby who could do so at her age), blow kisses, show where her nose and eyes are and a whole lot things that make us proud.

I could go on and on but will reign in my dotery (is that a word?).

We have a large toybox for her but this big honkin' pantry was too good for her to pass up.

It has big doors. Grandmas can sneak up behind these and play peek-a-boo.

She wanted to play with a carton of milk and laid the charm on me to get her way. She's knows she can con Grandpa into anything.

Family Day!

We recently had another family day. This time, we went camping at Obyan (pronounced "ob-zun") beach. We had fishing tournaments, great food, fellowship, a worship service and rain.

The first order of business for the kids was to scope out all the tents. From the left: Devan, Trinnie, Libby and Tysha.

When this new tent was taken from the box, we discovered that it came with a latern with a remote control. That's just wrong!

We had an EE tournament for the kids (EE are baby Skipjacks that run inside the reef this time of year). It took Jerome less than ten minutes to win, with six!

Jerome landing another EE and winning the kid's tournament by landing all the fish caught.

More Family Day Photos

Camp Chef Jack grilled up ribs and teriyaki chicken for dinner. The teriyaki sauce was the very best in this galaxy (because I made it, lol).

Happy campers, pictured from the left rear: Esther, Tina, Mia, Merlyn, Trinnie.

Santiago rigging up in preparation for the Mafuti (pronounced "muh-foo-tee") tournament for the adults. Julie won with the largest of only 2 fish caught. Tina came in second place. It was a night tournamant and we failed to get photos of their fish the next morning....d'oh!

It started raining during the night and we had to have our Church service in the rain. I was pushing up part of the tarp, to angle the water away from the folks at its edges.

Graduation!

Kayla recently graduated from elementary school. She carried the flag of Japan when she marched in with her class. Note her beautiful leis.

Random Happenings

Kareoke is very popular in this part of the world and we solved our lack-of-musicians problem by getting a kareoke system. We found a type that uses chips. We got a chip with a lot of gospel songs and the congregation loves it! Here, Kayla and Trinnie lead us in a song.

Joshua is from Nepal and recently taught our Women's Ministry ladies how to make puri (pronounced "poo-lee") bread.

Puli is made with flour and water, rolled out, then fried in oil. Joshua says that it can also be cooked on a stone. It puffs up a little, when fried.

Easter Happenings

Aiyumi, our Japanese exchange student, pitched in and helped decorate Easter eggs.

Alice and her Granddaughter Tihani. Tihani was really excited with her egg finds.

Our Granddaughter Kaydence visited us for the Easter holiday. She can't yet walk on her own but she loves to take assisted hikes like this one. She wanted to stick her feet in all the cups of egg dye and it was a tussle to keep her out of it.

Pesky papparazi kept getting in the way and the MicroChanga was none too happy about it. (Granddaughters are Chimichangas; the smallest one is therefore the MicroChanga).

Upon the advice of her Agents and P.R. people, MicroChanga made nice-nice with the papparazi, offering them a foody kiss.

Another Pool Fellowship

We recently had another pool fellowship. This time, we were at the beautiful World Resort. We have a very strict schedule for pool fellowships and are careful to schedule them precisely every now and then.

Kayla and Mikey floating around on some infaltable thingy.

Cheryl, Abigail and R. J. taking a breather.

More infaltable thingies! World Resort has a large water park and this is the Lazy River section.

Naiomi working on getting brain freeze.