My New Hobby...

My new hobby is...... running!  If you know me pretty well you know that running has never been my forte. During my years of playing sports, the running aspect of the sports was my least favorite part. I have been working out at golds gym since the fall and was feeling as though I needed a goal to achieve. Starting in March I have been running both at the gym and outside. I have signed up for two 5ks in June.  At first I truly thought that it would be really difficult to start running but soon I realized that if you push yourself hard enough you can do anything. I am training for my 5ks because I want to work hard so I am ready to earn a good time.
My favorite part of running outside is I run along the beach path and the views are breathtaking. I feel so spoiled that I get to run next to a beautiful ocean full of green and blue hues. My route right now is from our apartment to the bank and back which is 3 miles. The hardest part for me is most of the time I will get a side-ache so I am working on drinking enough fluids and breathing the right way.
My friend and neighbor Anna is a marathon runner and I asked her if we could run together every sunday. She said yes and then said, "It will be good for me to slow down." So it is a great arrangement because she pushes me and I help her slow down.
I can definitely tell I have improved over time because at first I was not able to run that far without stopping and was not able to talk to anyone else. Now I can run farther without stopping and can hold a conversation:) Mentally I used to dread getting ready to go for a run and now I look forward to my time of running. It is my goal that before I leave Saipan  to be able to  run the 3 miles without stopping.
The first 5 k I am doing will be 2 days after I get back to the states and it will be in Duluth. It is called the Boulderdash 5k.

http://www.northlandrunner.com/run?page=Race&raceId=29

The second 5k is called Run 4 Trails and will be in Gretna, NE on June 16th.

http://gretnarunners.com/Running4TrailsGretnaRunners.aspx

I have realized throughout this experience so far is that you can do anything that you put your mind too and with working out having a goal is the best way to stay motivated.

I am planning on running throughout May to get ready for my 5ks and to start training this summer for a 10k.  :) 

I will keep you updated with my running experiences!

-Kara-

My new running shoes I bought in Guam!

Friends and Thai Food

Hi,
In April is two of my friends(Laura and Alison) birthdays in Saipan. Both parties ended up involving Thai food. Most of you who know me are probably surprised by this since I am a non-adventurous eater. I have really enjoyed Thai food since being in Saipan. As long as it is not super spicy I enjoy it! This is a good thing because I do want to go to Thailand someday. I will need to find a Thai restaurant in St. Paul, MN when we move there.
On April 14th we celebrated my friend Laura's birthday. I planned the party for her and since she does not like surprises I told her all the plans ahead of time. We first ate at Thai House which is a restaurant I had not been to yet. It is a small restaurant with beautiful decorations and great service. From there we went to Laura's apartment pool for some night swimming. I was thinking of the most fun I had ever had with friends while being in Saipan and night swimming was at the top of the list. We ate cupcakes by the pool and spent the night talking and hanging out in the pool. Everyone had a fun night and enjoyed being with friends.

On April 21st we headed to Spicy Thai for Alison's birthday dinner. We sat outside and ate Thai food. Grant ate a whole fish and I had to take a picture since it looked so cool. (I would never eat a whole fish though:) It was a fun time of getting to talk with friends and enjoy some wonderful food.

I am so thankful that Jesus has blessed me with so many great girl friends while I have been in Saipan. I have a million memories with all of them and countless conversations that I will never forget. The ocean and my friendships with them will be what I miss most from Saipan. (I truly am a fish:)

This coming Saturday night my friends and I are having a girls day and a sleepover at night. I can already tell it is going to be a fun night with all the things we have planned. Even though I am married and 24 it is awesome that I can still have sleepovers and feel like a kid!

Enjoy the pictures!

Rach and I at Laura's Birthday Dinner.

The birthday girl(Laura) and her husband (Josiah).

Anna, Becky, and Lynette at Thai House.

Brian and Grant getting ready excited about Thai food.

My meal.

The entire group.

The girls in the pool!

Me with the birthday girl.

Laura with the cupcakes I made for her(the funny part was  that it was so dark she could not see the  color of the frosting).

Grant and Josiah, the first people in the pool.

Grants dinner at Spicy Thai.

The birthday girl (Alison) and her husband (Nate).

Becky, Rach, and Anna at Alison's birthday dinner.

Laura, Amy, and I at dinner.

Day 5 of our Guam Vacation

Dear Friends, Family, and Readers:

      It is now time to end my updates about Guam...Kara will probably write one blog of her own talking about the whole trip at a later time.  I really don't have a lot to say about this day and I will be uploading all the 400+ photos of our Guam trip for people to view on Facebook.  I wanted to blog and share a few pictures before I posted them on Facebook.
   Since we had to leave our hotel by noon, Kara and I got up early and drove to the Tumon Bay touristy area and stopped to swim at Governor Flores Beach.  I felt I owed it to her since we really didn't swim a whole lot while in Guam.  While we were there, Kara was bitten by a fish or cut by the fins.  The fish left three lines on her calf bleeding.  It was honestly more like a scratch, but being a prepared kind of guy I took out my little first aid kit and gave her scratch a cleaning and a band-aid.  She didn't really want to go in the water much after that...but went in one last time after some prodding. When it was my turn (had to watch our stuff), I saw a lot of fish where some tourists were feeding them bread.  Most of them I recognized from Saipan except for the spotted one, which I don't remember seeing in Saipan.  I hope you enjoy the underwater pictures.  This particular beach is fairly deep and is not full of super sharp coral like in Saipan.
     After swimming, we went back to the hotel to change, pack up, and check out.  That took a relatively short amount of time.  We then went shopping for some last minute things that Kara wanted to shop for like new running shoes since she has decided to run two 5k races in June, one Duluth, MN and one in Omaha, NE.  If you are a relative or friend and want to support her the race in Duluth is called the "Boulder Dash" and the one in Omaha is called "Run for Trails" and will take place in Gretna.  I also bought some on sale running shoes for the gym since I haven't bought new running shoes since I graduated college (no joke). That was about our priciest purchase but was still relatively inexpensive considering everything we bought was on sale.  We went to some other stores too, but had to hurry to eat before our plane took off from the airport.        
     We decided to rush and eat at McDonalds.  Unfortunately, when we got to the airport we learned that our tickets had been given to other people (we were still there early by 30+minutes)!  Kara was livid, but I was trying to be as calm as possible.  When I asked the luggage checker why this happened, he told me that when you have an "international flight" a person needs to be at the gate an hour before boarding the plane!  I couldn't believe it, the itinerary says, "Please be there an hour early" not "You must arrive an hour early or we will sell your ticket to earn more money for the airline."   In the end the airlines did right by us and put us on the next flight back to Saipan (four hours later).  I think the thing that frustrated me most was getting through the security check point and hearing the intercom say, "Now boarding for Saipan" and we could have been on our plane... In the end, we arrived in Saipan safe and sound albeit later than expected.
     I hope you enjoy the pictures!  Remember to click them for a larger image.

Kara happy to get the chance to swim at another
beach before leaving Guam.

A panoramic view of Governor Flores Beach as it pointing the
camera to the north. 

A picture I thought would look funnier than it is...the joke is
supposed to be that we are two lovers pointing toward Two
Lover's Point haha

Some cool fish that I've seen before in Saipan.  The skinny/pointy
nosed fish are Needle Nose Fish.  They are not dangerous but
do have a habit of encircling swimmers making them feel uneasy.

The strange spotted fish I had never seen in Saipan.

Guam Vacation Day 4

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers:

     Since I am done grading and tutoring students for the day, I thought I would update our blog and talk about our Thursday in Guam.  One of the first things we did on our Thursday after sleeping in late and watching cable T.V. at our hotel was to go to the Ramada hotel down the road to swim.  The Days Inn, Guam has a deal with the Ramada that allows guests to swim at their pool.  The pool isn't anything special, but it was fun to relax in the sun and swim in water that was not salty.  We had fun just being together and reading the complementary paper that comes with being a guest at our hotel.  

     After the pool, we decided to drive around and in the process we stopped at Ritidian Beach at the northernmost point in Guam.  We went there because the friends we had met (Glenn & Sandy) told us that it was one of the beaches they were most impressed with.  In order to get to Ritidian Beach you have to drive on the incredibly bumpy and hazardous road that goes around Northwest Field (which used to land B-29 Bombers during WWII) and when the road abruptly ends there is a road that goes to the left and is nicely paved.  This road leads to Ritidian Point and snakes its way down to the end where the beach is located.  Ritidian was the location of a large Chamorro settlement 600 years before the Spanish arrived in 1521.  To the Chamorro it was called "Litekjan."  From 1668-1690 (22years), the Chamorro population on Guam dropped from 12,000 to only 2,000 due to the Spanish Chamorro War and European influenza.  By the 1680's, the Chamorro had abandoned their village at Ritidian.  Today, this beach is a beautiful white sand beach with virtually no litter on it.  While we were there swimming/snorkeling and just enjoying the sun there was a Korean orchestral group there having a lot of fun and being really loud as kids are.  Besides that minor annoyance of people having a good time, the only other thing is that the beach is relatively shallow.  My suggestion to anyone who goes there in the future is to bring some sort of shade as there is virtually no shade on the beach and unlike Saipan the beach is wide and if being in sun directly is not your cup of tea... bring something.  Luckily I brought an umbrella that made our time there a little more bearable.  It would make a great picnic area.  Oh, and one last thing I forgot to mention is that because this place was made a wildlife refuge in 1993 it is only open from 7:30am-4pm.

     After deciding to leave the Ritidian Beach area, we drove to a lookout point that the rangers at the War in the Pacific Museum told us would be beautiful and informative.  The first place we stopped was the Asan Bay Overlook Unit (so named on the map).  This overlook was where Japanese were positioned to shoot at Americans arriving at the terribly exposed Asan Beach where the Americans landed.  At the memorial is a list of military personnel that died in the battle and there are depictions in metal plating that show the forced labor of the Chamorro under the Japanese and the emancipation of them by the U.S. forces.  I was also touched by the marble monument dedicated to the local islanders who died at Pearl Harbor, of which there were twelve.  Having visited Pearl Harbor, I feel that their particular sacrifice was extremely sad and worthy of remembrance it it jump started a nation into a mode of industry and defense not often seen in history. We then drove further and found another overlook from which we could see Tumon Bay.  The picture is of the Tumon Bay area (if you visit Guam this overlook is not named to my knowledge so you just have to find it).

     After viewing such beauty, we got back in the car and Kara let me stop at a museum that only cost 3 dollars to enter.  I cannot remember the name of the museum but it was pretty cool.  They had all sorts of donated WWII automobiles and fully restored military vehicles used during the war in the Pacific.  I chose to share some of the historical pictures of people and things rather than the vehicles for the blog as I believe the people are more important.  Since Kara wanted to wait in the car and read, I promised that we would next try and find the Latte Stone Memorial Park in Guam.  Luckily, it wasn't too far from the museum we visited but was a bit tricky to find.  

     The last part of our day was meeting up with Glenn and Sandy and two of their three kids at the California Pizza Kitchen in the Tumon Bay tourist area.   I hope you enjoy our pictures. Remember to click on the pictures to view a larger image.

     

This is the view of Ritidian Beach from the beginning of the
road that snakes its way down toward the gate and entrance
to the beach.

A view of the gloriously clean and awesome beach of Ritidian.

Who else but Kara and I at Ritidian Beach, Guam (no idea why
our hair is so frizzy...)

A picture of the sign at the Asan Bay Overlook Unit showing
tourists what they see in the distance.  This is the same view
the Japanese gunners would have had of our troops landing
along the beach exposed.  You can see the peninsula and harbor
in our picture below. 

Kara and I at the Asan Bay Overlook Unit.

This is one of the metal memorial depictions at the Asan Bay
Overlook Unit.  It shows the Japanese rounding up the
Chamorros from church and farmland and forcing them to work.
The last section shows the American liberation of the island.

View of Tumon Bay from the un-named overlook area.

Picture I found striking at the $3 museum.
And stay they did.

This is Japanese General Takashi Takashina.
He was the commander of all the Imperial
Japanese on Guam.  He died in battle on July 28,
1944 during the battle of Fonte Plateau. 

This is a picture of Sgt. Yokoi  I mentioned in the
previous blog post. This was taken the day after his
capture 26 1/2 years after the wars end in April 1972.

The kid in me couldn't help but post a picture of the American
Bazooka rounds on display.

Picture of Kara standing in front of the latte stones at the
Latte Stone Memorial Park.  For some traditional locals these
stones may be a sore spot in their memory.  These stones are
original and were moved from their ancestral resting places
after the war because construction of the military bases
needed to occur. These particular stones are probably about
8ft tall.  They were taken from Mepo Village in the Fena Valley
and placed in this location in 1955 & 1956.  Latte Stone construction
occurred from 1100-1700 A.D.

Kara and I have seen this in Saipan, but if you didn't know what
a Chamorro house looked like this is how the latte stones
were used. 

Kara and I with two large hot fudge ice cream desserts from
California Pizza Kitchen (One was actually Sandy and Glenn's
but they wanted us to pretend haha)

Guam Vacation Day 3

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers:

It is time for day three of our Guam vacation.  The morning started out with a quick run to K-Mart because I had found a tear in my swim suit the day before and did not want to offend anyone by giving them a show.  The trunks I bought were a little big so when I got back to Saipan I re-stitched the ties in front in order to better wear them.  Kara and I then went to Underwater World Aquarium. Before we actually went in to the aquarium Kara spent some time shopping at a store called DNA Evolution where she found some on-sale items that look cute on her.  As we entered the aquarium the ticket person told us the shark feeding would take place in an hour. So we waited around freezing our butts off in the very chilly underwater tunnel. It was well worth the wait to see the sharks and rays being fed.  I think my favorite part of the aquarium was seeing the sea horses in a small tank on the second floor. Kara’s favorite part of the aquarium was seeing the two large and endangered sea turtles that were swimming around that had been rescued from an illegal trade at an airport in Japan.  After the aquarium, the first thing on our minds was snacking.  I visited a little coffee shop on the first floor of the aquarium building. Kara on the other hand with to a place called “OVeryBerry” that provided great smoothies.  It was located in a little outlet mall on the strip heading southbound from the aquarium. 

            Our next stop was the War in the Pacific Museum.  It is the sister National Parks Service museum to Saipan’s American Memorial Park.  Unfortunately, the exhibit was a temporary traveling exhibit that didn’t have a whole lot to do with the war.  The exhibit was titled “Setting Up Fences.”  The exhibit did have a lot to with Guam in its present state, however, which was interesting.  Fences may not seem like something that relates to Guam, but if you are a resident (or visitor, I suppose) you cannot avoid seeing the miles of fence that has been put up around the military compounds to the north and south of the island.  One fact in the museum gave the actual number of acres, unfortunately I did not copy that factoid down.  The basic figure, however, is that the U.S. Military owns technically 1/3 of the island’s land (that couldn’t have been used for farm land).  Many locals today dislike the military presence and are afraid of the proposed military build-up that will happen in the next ten years as things heat up in the Pacific region.  People are worried about more land being grabbed, noise pollution from a proposed firing range, and perhaps just that fact that more people will be on Guam.  I think my favorite part of the exhibit was a case that had examples of antique barbed wire fencing haha  Having had experience on the ranch with straightening barbed wire, I got a kick out of seeing the evolution of barbed wire.  Kara liked the fact that there was mention of Nebraska in one of the exhibits.

After checking out the exhibit, we watched a short nine minute video clip of the battle for Guam.  I felt bad for the American force who originally held the island before the Japanese came.  There were only 135 Marines on the island against a Japanese force of about 17,000+ men.  When the Americans landed on Guam to liberate it, they first bombed the island for 13 days straight because they had taken such a beating on Saipan (having only bombed 2 ½ days there.  By the end of the battle for Guam 17,000 Japenese soldiers were dead and approximately 1,000 local Chamorro.  Sadly, the Japanese never wrote down their captives names or gave them a proper burial so the true number may never be known.  To the Japanese, the locals were just a work force to be utilized. Our next stop was the hotel to relax for a little while.

            Once our afternoon siesta had fizzled out we went to the Chamorro Village Street Market that takes place on Wednesday nights at the Chamorro Village complex on Marine Drive.  We had a lot of fun just walking around and seeing the sights.  Holding the coconut crab was a lot of fun for me as was talking to an old man who was one of the first to make the famed local machete’s (which are made from the back suspension rods of a truck).  He was a really neat old man who could barely hear.  Unfortunately he no longer makes them, but his knives (fashioned after the ones marines on Guam may have made after the war) were selling for $150.  After we had walked around for some time, and Kara had ridden a Carabao, we went to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner.  It was the best meal I had that entire vacation. I ordered Trout Almondene and Kara had a mix and match plate of min-burgers and other delights. 

            I hope you enjoy our pictures, don’t forget to click on them for a larger image.

A curious sea turtle poses for a picture as an excited Kara
clicks away. 

One of my favorite exhibits at the aquarium are
these potbelly sea horses (I'm not kidding that
is actually their name haha)

I had a splitting headache from not having had coffee for
the first two days of our trip as I looked for a coffee place.
This coffee shop is locate on the first floor of the building
that houses the aquarium.  It was tucked into a corner of
the building, but I knew my pain would be taken away
because the girl behind the counter was listening to Christian
music on the radio.

At first, I had to do a double take of the title to this smoothie
place because I thought it said "Ovary" haha Don't worry it
is not a clinic or something but a great smoothie place haha

Kara standing in front of a two man Japanese submarine that washed
up on shore during the war.  Another museum on the island said it was a
 three man submarine... not sure which museum is correct.  This sub
is on display outside the War in the Pacific museum in Guam.

 A display of the antique barbed wire at the museum that I
thought was interesting.

This was a machete on display at the Chamorro Village street
market.  The tape says it was made in 1984 making it as old as
me.  This is the type of local machete I've been looking to buy
but can't find on the island. It was made from the suspension
rod of a truck making it rust resistant and incredibly strong.

Kara riding a Carabao at the Chamorro Village.
It is a tradition in the Philippines. 

Me holding a Coconut Crab at the Chamorro Village. I saw one
up close in Saipan at a property I was exploring, but this is the
first time I had held one.  They grow to be really large using
their claws to tear open coconuts and drink the juice and eat the
meat in the coconut.  The are almost extinct on Saipan because
hunters over harvest and do so illegally.  They are mainly nocturnal
animals that like to hide in crevices among the rough terrain on the
islands.  They are supposedly very tasty because their meat is
sweet like coconut.  In Chamorro they are called Ayuyu
(pronounced  ah-zoo-zoo)

A cute picture of Kara and I after a long day of having too
much fun in the sun. Taken at Ruby Tuesdays, Guam.

Guam Vacation Day 2

Dear Friends, Family, & Readers:

            I am here to update you on our second day of vacation in Guam. Tuesday was the day we traversed the entire south end of the island.  The first thing we did was travel toward Inarajan pool. On our way to Inarajan we visited some of the WWII invasion beaches like Asan Beach.  Upon arriving at Inarajan we saw a little pool with a makeshift diving platform made out of concrete that was rusting and cracking. The waves from the ocean would hit the reef and trickle over into this pool.  There were lots of people there and many pavilions for grilling out and having a good time. Were there fish in this pool?  Yes, the fish eventually get swept over the side into the murky depths of Inarajan trapped until an unseasonably large surf forms on the ocean to provide an escape on a rough day. Videos of Kara and I jumping off of the platform can be seen on facebook for those of you who are friends with us.

            As we continued down the slow/winding road, we stopped at many scenic overlook areas. We had a great time just slowly making our way around the southern tip of Guam. We eventually made it to a seaside bar/grill called Jeff’s Pirates Cove and the museum that is attached to the restaurant. The restaurant had o.k. food, but I felt that it was overpriced for the portion size I received.  I ordered a fish sandwich foolishly expecting to see a large hoagie bun with a slab of fish at the center but instead got a dinner bun with two pieces of fish meat with lettuce on top…the bun was so small that the fish wouldn’t even stay inside the bun while I tried to eat (I almost thought the two pieces were more energetic fried than when they were alive).  I would go to Jeff’s Pirates Cove again if I were only wanting a beer and some chips.  It has some great touristy items in the gift shop and t-shirts, but I was not impressed by the service or food quality.  The other thing that was strange was that they ended their service 10 minutes early just so they could leave work on time.  I saw two poor Asian tourists pull up just as we were leaving, but they were out of luck.  We were also not allowed to go out the front door because the lady had locked it and she told us nonchalantly to go around back through a fenced gate on the side of the building…very poor service in my opinion.  What made Jeff’s Pirates Cove interesting was the museum.  Inside this super small (free $$ to enter) museum was the vast array of island trinkets.  There were glass bottles from Japan and America from the war, WWII ammo, tons of Japanese Glass Floats, and a rather detailed glass display case with many of the shells I’ve collected on Saipan with their known names and scientific classifications.  I would go to the museum rather than eat at the restaurant.

            Lastly, we went to Talofofo Falls.  There are several falls on Guam, but Talofofo is the touristy one. Upon arriving there were pigs in the parking lot wandering around and a complex that used to look really nice, but was falling apart.  We got a local discount for being from the Marianas and enjoyed our ride down on the Gondola system.  There are actually two falls at Talofofo and they are both beautiful.  The falls used to have a little train/monorail like the one we had ridden in Hawaii at the Dole Plantation, but it was extremely run down and probably didn’t work.  There was also a museum with poor depictions and some grammar mistakes.  Below Talofofo one could also see the cave where Sgt. Yokoi of Japan had been hiding for 28 years after the war.  He survived on the fruit, shrimp & eels (found in Talofofo river), and various other unsavory things, and by bathing frequently to avoid disease. 

            I hope you enjoy the pictures! Remember to click on them for a larger image.

Kara, hanging off the barrels of a Japanese Anti-Aircraft
Gun from WWII that was on display at one of the invasion
beaches southwest of Asan Beach.

Inarajan pool taken in such a way as to look beautiful.  To
right (outside the frame) is the jumping platform and
pavilions. I tried to get most of the people out of the picture.
The pool extends further to the right and is fairly deep.

This is Kara and I behind a beautiful scenic backdrop
along Guam's southern tip.  It was taken at the Guam Vietnam
Memorial Scenic Overlook.

Another beautiful view somewhere along the southeastern
side of Guam.

The big sign you see outside of Jeff's Pirates Cove.  For a
while we thought we'd missed the restaurant until we saw
this sign.

One of the pigs at Talofofo Falls parking lot trying to find
shade wherever possible.

Kara at Talofofo Falls (Fall 1)

Grant (me) at Talofofo Falls (Fall 1)

A rather graphic depiction of Japanese ritual suicide that
occurred at the falls during WWII.  Since the American's
were able to land tanks on the island, they had the upper hand.
The Japanese would rather die than be taken alive and dishonor
their country.