Where in the World is Perry & Smitty?: 2022

Saturday, July 9, 2022

Airport surprises

Flying home is always an adventure. Sometimes there are good surprises....and sometimes it's just frustrating. :) This year was a little mix of both.

I was first met at the Guam airport by Anna Tamayo, a fellow teacher when I taught at MU Lujan Elementary in Yona, Guam. She brought me two jars of homemade mango jam! (I cannot wait to try them!)

I had fairly decent seats coming home. Due to my unexpected paid tickets this year, I was able to upgrade to elite status which got me some seat upgrades with out paying. (Now days one is crammed in the back middle seats unless they are willing to fish out some serious dollars.) Since my flight left Guam at 12:30pm, I had gotten a full night's sleep, so I was able to catch a couple of movies and get some work done before exhaustion sat in.

It took me a bit to make it to Denver airport, because we had a failed landing attempt with a last second pull up and circle. Then the lightening was bad enough they had canceled ground crews until it went away, so we got to sit on the plane a while longer. Then the flight delays to Tulsa started kicking in.

When I made it inside the Denver (finally), I was able to catch up with Alisa and her mom Gentanin. Alisa now works for United in the Denver airport, and her mother just happened to be flying in an hour after me. And since my flight KEPT GETTING DELAYED, we were able to spend a few hours together catching up. I had felt my trip to the islands wasn't complete without seeing them (even though I did see 3 of the family members). So seeing them just put the cherry on top! (Note: I have know the family since 2006 when they lived in Chuuk. Alisa is my original braid stylist. Her sister did some of my braids this summer.)

And I FINALLY made it to Tulsa. (We departed Denver after I should have already been home. Oh well.) Now there's just enough time for a couple of naps and get ready for VBS Francis!

Until next summer...

Last Sunset

How's a girl and a platypus going to spend their last night on Guam? Watching the sunset over the water, of course! :) Perry and I went to Chamorro Village to do a little last minute local shopping and grab some local cuisine (meat and rice). Then we headed to a nice ocean spot to watch the sunset off the water of Guahan.

The view never gets old.

Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Around Guahan

Today was a day of many cancellations. Back-up plans made with more cancellations. So....I just rolled with it.

I was able to have a fish sandwich at Jeff's Pirate Cove and spend time with Jeff himself!

It was pretty rainy, so we didn't get the amazing pictures like usual. However, you can see that Perry enjoyed the museum!

From Jeff's we made our way around the island. We went to the Spanish Fort Lookout

Crossed the cool bridge and stopped in Umatic for a picture of the cross looking back toward the Spanish fort....

Caught the peak of Mt. Lam Lam that we should have watched the sunset from...

And ended the drive with another great lookout...

A Week of Disappointment

This week has gone nothing like planned. (I blame it on the tooth--it set off the curse.)

On Monday, the young adult group was to go the Navy base for the 4th of July (Freedom Rocks) Celebrations. Bands, food trucks, carnival, island dancing, and fireworks were on the agenda. First everyone got sick and then it was pouring rain, so that was cancelled.

On Tuesday, I was supposed to have a lunch with a friend. She was sick. Cancelled.

On Tuesday evening we were to have a big youth dinner and hanging out time. I had goodies for them as thank you gifts from VBS. Everyone was sick. Cancelled. (The Pastor's family and I did go to the nearby Food Trucks and I got some yummy local food!)

On Wednesday, the youth were supposed to hike Mt. Lam Lam in the evening. Everyone was sick (and it had rained too much). Cancelled. So then I made back up plans with the pastor's family to go to Jeff's Pirate Cove, drive around the island, and go to Chamorro Village. Everyone was sick. I still did these things, but it wasn't the same.

This morning I was going to go to Ritidian Beach. Everyone was sick. Cancelled.

I guess we now know why I was sick before I came. So I could fight off all these germs this round. Whew.

WonderFull World Ladies Retreat

This summer's schedule was completely rearranged when I didn't fly as planned. So the ladies retreat ended up being on July 4th--hoping some would have the day off to attend. We had 8 ladies attend the retreat. Some still had to work (work never stops on this island) and some had holiday plans. But we had a really good time traveling to the 7 continents around the world. We sang songs, played games, created our own version of the perfect friend, made baby blankets to donate, explored very cold prayer stations (Antarctica), enjoyed small groups, and studied God's word. It was a great day!

Random Radio

***I just found this unpublished post from July 2019. The original post is in black. I will make updates in orange from the 2022 edition.**

Well, let's just say radio on the islands isn't quite what is available on the US Mainland. Back in the day, I attempted the Christian radio scene. My options were a Catholic Station (too much talking), SDA (too much talking), and Harvest (too many boring slow choir songs--no offense to the choir teachers). Eventually I settled on a station I named, "Random Radio."

You get local Guam news as well as Fox News Minute. There is a large church on island that has a devotion that airs a few times a day. Museum of the Bible has a segment every day. I also love "This Day in History" segment. I have learned a lot through those!

When I lived here, every day going home from work they played some of the awful, awful, awful auditions for American Idol (or one of those talent shows). I would laugh SO hard.

Then there's the music. Basically, there's something for everyone....

Here's a list of the tunes I have heard over the summer (hence the name)...
Friends in Low Places (Garth Brooks)
Walk Like and Egyptian
All for Love (Bryan Adams)
Crazy (Patsy Cline)
Everyone Walk the Dinosaur
You Say (Lauren Daigle)
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)
Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)

I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton)

Close to You (Carpenters)

Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Taylor)

I'll Be There for You (The Rembrandts)

I haven't gotten the radio too many times this summer because Shan is often in the vehicle and controls it with her music. Though I won't allow Justin Bieber, we can at least agree on Anastasia. :)

Just Another Dental Emergency. (Sigh.) WARNING: GROSS PICTURES INCLUDED!

Everyone knows I can't have an island stay without some kind of medical/dental emergency. (Every. Single. Year.) There's been several rounds of Shrek Disease, Guam Flu, the crazy island rash--face edition, the crazy island rash--legs edition, and on and on and on. I just knew by having Covid when I should have originally came to the islands, I was scaring away the normal mishaps. Obviously not.

I'm just minding my own business (perhaps having a small slice of 7D Dried Mango) when I felt something hard swishing around with the mango in my mouth. Either I got a bad mango or something really bad just happened. Unfortunately it was the latter.

I was so upset. Why do I have to have such terrible teeth!? Why? (For the record, this happens to be one of my Shrek Disease Teeth.) I attended a short course at MDS (Messenger Dental School) with my dentist on how to DYI my crown until my return in case I couldn't get in to a dentist. Super glue may have been involved.

On Tuesday, I was pretty positive I needed to see a dentist because the crown didn't seem right and I wasn't too keen on supergluing something to my mouth for them just to pry out later. Sure enough, Dr Island Dentist said it wasn't going to work.

It's funny how things work. Just earlier that day I was praying to God that I really needed the motivation to lose a few pounds. (I'm not looking good in these pictures and had quite a few buffets in Saipan--and ate a lot with Covid. But the food is sooooo good here.) So just a few hours later, God made a way that forces me to eat really, really slowly and my mouth gets so tired and exhausted I don't eat much. Perfect. 😂 (The first 60+ hours, there were sharp points that cut my tongue with any movement--talking or swallowing. During that time I still had VBS and a women's retreat--lots of talking. All the talking made my mouth very painful. The dentist smoothed it out a bit to help it not be so painful, but it's still so cut up from the first few days that it makes eating difficult.)

For the freaks out there who want to see the pictures, here ya go....

The love crater in the back 24+ hours after it happened.
The orange you see means there has been a root canal. (See what I learned in dental school?)

I'm slightly down in my princess powers without this crown.

Rocky Railway VBS

I didn't give a daily play by play for VBS because...well....I was just too tired every night! (And by day, Perry and I had to explore.)

This year's VBS theme was Rocky Railway VBS where we traveled by steam engine through the rocky mountains. On our adventure, kids discover that trusting Jesus pulls them through life's ups and downs. We spent the week exploring the power of God.

We had 31 kids attend. (This was AWESOME because they hadn't had more than five kids on a Sunday in more than a year. Dumb pandemic.) We had 17 youth helpers. I am pretty sure the youth are the most excited of all about VBS! We also had at least 10 adults each night. Kids were fed a full meal for five days straight, which is very important too. It felt so great to be back.