Maia: A Day in the Life...

Sometimes Maia does things that look like only an adult should do, like read the newspaper, text, Yoga and so on. So, I filmed some and put this fun little video together. Enjoy!

Sometimes I Feel Like, Someone Is Watching Me...

How do you know when the Feds are just outside spying on you? Here's an easy way to tell. Using any wi-fi enabled device, search for available networks. If you see "FBI Surveillance Van" you might just wonder what the nonchalant flower delivery truck across the street is up to.
And best of all, the network isn't even secured, so you may get some free internet access out of it...

Revenge is a Dish Best Served Regurgitated (aka Payback is a B...aby)...

Poor baby Maia is sick. Despite the odds, she's barely been sick at all in her first year. She's trying to make up for lost time now. Last night she was having trouble sleeping, likely due to the fever and stuffy nose. So we took her onto our bed for a short time.

While crawling around and just as she was half over me, she had a hiccup, which then accompanied a fountain of partially digested baby food spewing forth from her mouth. I thought the stuff was nasty looking before she ate it. To be fair to Maia, I should have seen it coming. When her head did a full 360 degree turn I had my first warning.

The vomit not only landed on me, but also all over my side of the bed. Somehow, inexplicably, my parents 6 thousand miles away started laughing uncontrollably. Naturally, Anna's side of the bed was as pristine as a showroom display.

Tonight her fever has continued. As we put her down for bed, we thought we might fare better this time. She stood up in her crib and starting bawling. We usually give her a few minutes to cry so she can calm down on her own and go to sleep. But we could tell from this cry it wasn't going to be one of those passing sobs. Anna walking in to check on her and found that she had left a projectile war path of sputum. It was all over her chest, the floor, her crib, toys, dresser and I believe the ceiling. It looked as if someone had hooked her up to one of those garden hose toys that randomly shoots out in all directions.

Anna and I tried to clean the mess before contacting an old priest and young priest who were familiar with exorcism. I got the fun task of hand washing the sick off the linen before we put it into the washing machine. I nearly added more of my own in the process.

I know I donated my fair share of throw-up when I was a child. And I know that I wasn't the one that cleaned it up. So, I suppose its only fair that I am now on the other side. I was just thinking the other day that being a father isn't so bad. But after tonight I found myself thinking that I don't want to be a dad right now. My parents would have gotten a kick out of seeing me deal with this tonight.

These moments pass and before I know it, I'll be reading Maia's blog one day about how she is cleaning up her first child's vomit...

How did this topic get me onto The Circle of Life?

Christmas 2010...

Now that all the dust (and snow) has settled from my hectic Christmas trip, it's time to blog all about it.

The worst part about living in Guam is how inconvenient it is to visit anywhere but the Philippines, Japan or Chuuk. This trip to Arizona would take 24 hours from our house to my parents'. We've never traveled with a baby before, so we were unsure of how the trip would fare.




Maia was remarkably well behaved the whole time. I'd be spoiled if I complained about her during this trip. I've seen people with kids on planes before. Heads spinning, crawling on the celling, opening the windows, riding on the wings... This was much better than I'd expected. I even discovered that the tray tables on the seat in front of you make great makeshift beds. But I recommend you remove the baby before you are served the culinary experiment they call an "in-flight service."

We were only at my parents' house for a couple days before we headed north to visit my Grandma on my mom's side. It will likely be Maia's only chance to meet her. Then, back to Mesa. We visited the Mesa Temple to see the lights.





Then we met up and head north to a cabin. By "we" I mean the whole family. My parents, all my siblings, all their children, casual acquaintances, well-wishers, and we may have even picked up some transients along the way. My mom's excitement was at the boiling point as this was the first time we had all of us together at once in over a decade. We had to take a census just to make sure everyone made it to the cabin.

This cabin was reserved online, so none of us knew what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised. With about 10 bedrooms and plenty of living space, we all fit in much better than anticipated. Having a large kitchen was a necessity due to the amount of food my mom brought. We had enough food to nourish an entire battleship crew at sea for a month.

What I was most looking forward to on this trip was finally feeling cold. Living in Hawaii for several years and now in Guam for 5 years, I miss having my winters. There was some snow, but nothing to blog about...excepting that I'm currently blogging about it...

Me, Maia, Anna, Kris (brother), Sarah (his baby) and Jam (his wife) out for a walk in the snow.

A short drive away there was enough snow to do some sledding. We spent plenty of time there. I bet you expect great footage of this from me. Well, not so much. But I got one cool pic.



At night the kids mostly wanted to run around like wild savages or watch TV...while acting like wild savages. One night we were able to formalize an activity by playing "Minute to Win It." The "Stack Attack" game was popular. This is a game where you start with a stack of cups and need to arrange them into a pyramid. Then, you must collapse the cups back into a single stack in 60 seconds. My nephew Parker thought of a great way to win.

Why bother with the pyramid in the middle? It's so simple, why didn't I think of that?

I participated in "Face the cookie." This is where you place a cookie on your forehead and have to get it into your mouth with use of gravity and your facial muscles. Unfortunately, you also have to use up any ounce of pride you may have left as well. Naturally, I was able to complete the task.



The night before we planed on leaving, we heard there was a storm coming. So, we did the smart thing and preloaded up our cars with the food that we would need on hand should we get snowed in. As it started to snow, we had a snowball fight.





We went to bed to this:


And woke up to this:


The roads were all closed and our cars were buried. We had no choice but to stay. The landscape changed a lot in a short time. Take a look at these two pics. If Al Gore were with us, I'd throw a ball of global warming in his face.

Before
After

I figured we might as well make the most of it, so we played.


Meanwhile, my teenage nieces moaned that they had to be stuck in a multi-million dollar cabin with all the luxuries of home and then some. We all felt for them.

We did have a bit of a scare. Mom decided to start rationing the food. She was rightly concerned we might not have enough to survive the blizzard. Some people a few cabins over came to us food shopping as they had run completely out. After we gave them cereal, a dozen eggs, a couple pounds of russet potatoes, a honey glazed ham, and half slab of beef, our supply of food had depleted to the point that we could see parts of the kitchen counter.

The next morning we were advised of a break in the storm that we could use to make our escape. The cars were about half dug out when a few drove carefully to civilization to purchase snow chains for our vehicles. I completed the digging process.





It was ironic that all I wanted for Christmas break was to be cold. At this point, I was knee deep in snow shoveling my Christmas miracle. And due to the exercise, I wasn't cold at all.

When all the vehicles were chained up, free of snow and loaded to the brim with our meager five year food supply, we took our last group shots.









The ride back was pretty treacherous. At some points all we could see was a white haze ahead of us. We attempted to get out before the storm came back with a vengeance. Due to snow chains eating the surrounding wheel well of my sister's Suburban, we couldn't go more than 20 mph. Even then, with every revolution of the wheel, I could see my sister cringe at the thought of the damage being caused. I don't know what the big deal is. Once the snow thaws in the spring, someone will easily identify her bumper and, thanks to the licence plate, track her down to return it.

One of the vehicles may or may not have been lost in the caravan back, but my wife, child and I made it back to Mesa safely, so no regrets. Well, my mom did have one. Due to being snowed in, we missed our appointment with the photographer. I'm sure we'll get another chance to take pictures with the entire family next decade when we get together. Anna decided to have an impromptu photo shoot of our own in lieu.







New Year's Eve was surprisingly uneventful. But we did learn that if you keep Martinelli's on the shelf long enough, that sparking apple cider starts to blur the line between Mormon-safe and a phone call to your Bishop. It may have been 2011, but we were partying like we were drinking bottles from 1999...because apparently, we were.

The rest of the time I spent visiting friends and browsing in stores that are larger than the entire island of Guam. Another favorite pastime was taking walks. Arizona has so many citrus trees open for the plucking. Anna made sure to get more than her fair share. On one outing my mother was concerned that Maia would have cold hands, so she donated some gloves.

Something about this picture just does not look right.

All other free time was spent being my family's personal technical support. I reinstalled Windows on 3 computers, repaired 2 machines and built 1 from scratch. I wonder if surgeons have to perform free appendectomies and hysterectomies when they visit their families.

Anna and I had just enough time for her to get a patriarchal blessing and we were able to visit the Mesa Temple the day before we left. From Heaven on Earth it was off to Dante's seventh layer of Hell, known as "TSA airport screening" to laymen.

So now we are back. It was a great holiday season. Now comes the price of the trip. My lawn has grown over so much while I was away I found an entire tribe of indigenous people living there when I attempted to mow it today. Work piled up so high I had to get a second desk and declare my first one a loss. As much as I enjoyed the vacation, I'm glad to be home. Now, off to Vietnam to do it all over again for Tet, but this time, in a foreign language...

The Barrigada Guam Stake...

If you are not familiar with the structure of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, than telling you that we now have a stake in Guam means nothing.

Let me break it down. We have two types of congregations, Branches and Wards. A group of Branches makes a District. A group of Wards makes a Stake. It's like the difference between a high school football team and the NFL. A high school team (District) has the same rules and basic game play as the NFL (Stake). But high schools have smaller fields, bleachers, and crowds. And the players are a bit less experienced; not quite ready for the big leagues.

After years of trying, the Guam District has been "upgraded" to the level of a Stake. One key difference is that a District is run by outside counsel, often from mainland US. In a Stake, the leadership is all locals. There are other blessings that come with the change, such as High Priests and Patriarchs, but I think you get the idea.

To make the transition from District to Stake, we had one of the 12 Apostles, Elder L. Tom Perry come to Guam. Some TV stations felt his visit was worth reporting. The best coverage is here:



Part of Elder Perry's visit included choosing the first Stake President. To help him choose the right person within a short time frame, a pre-screened list was prepared. On this list was all of the current local Branch and District leaders. I was on that list.

When my interview came I was a bit less nervous than I would have expected. Partly because I had already met Elder Perry. The day before, he was having connectivity issues with his iPad and cell phone. I was asked to fix both.

During my interview Friday night, Elder Perry saw on my biographical information sheet that I was serving as clerk. He expressed how valuable that position was. He didn't say in so many words, but he seemed to recommend I continue on as Stake Clerk to ease into the transition. I expected that.

The next morning (Saturday) I got a call just before noon. I was about to put Maia down for a nap and grab lunch with Anna when my phone rang. It was the mission president asking me to go to the mission office immediately. I figured they wanted to extend the call as Clerk to me in person. I wasn't expecting that, but was ok with it. They also asked me to bring Anna and Maia.

When we got there we all sat down together. Elder Perry, Elder Stevenson (of the Seventy) and the new soon-to-be-called Stake President. Elder Perry asked Anna if I was nice to her. She hesitated for a second and then answered in the affirmative. Then I was asked if I would accept my new stake calling. Of course, I accepted the call.

After the short meeting, Anna asked if she could get a picture with Elder Perry. We got two. One where Elder Perry is looking down at Maia. One where Anna is blinking. And on both, Maia is on the verge of crying. She missed her nap - I don't think she was afraid of Elder Perry.




After this we were whisked away to a meeting with Elder Perry. He gave us great advice for starting up a new Stake. After that, we had only a couple hours free. It would take us 45 minutes to an hour round trip to go home and come back, so we stayed at the chapel. I set up for the Stake Conference Adult Session that night. Then we had dinner together as a group. Despite skipping lunch, I strangely had no appetite. Then we attended the night session of conference. I got home after 10pm and was exhausted.

The next morning (Sunday) I again went to the chapel early to set things up. When the time came, Elder Stevenson had asked for a sustaining vote to create the new Barrigada Guam Stake. I had no idea it was put to vote. It was unanimous. Then he asked for the sustaining of Arthur Clark as Stake President. He'd been the previous District President and did a great job. No surprises there. Then it was time to sustain Tom Clark as 1st Counselor. He was also in the last District Presidency and not a surprise. Then they called for the 2nd Counselor...Jared W Bodine. It was like in the movies when someone says something audacious in a courtroom. There was a small flurry of quite whispers. Clearly, I was the dark horse.

So now, Guam begins its journey as the Church's newest Stake. When I spoke on Sunday, I related it to a time I was a Boy Scout in Arizona. We hiked into the Grand Canyon to a place called Havasupai. It was a brutal summer hike down. The first thing I did was get into my swimsuit and relax in the cool Colorado river at the bottom. It wasn't long before I realized that despite my victorious triumph at making camp, I was still at the bottom of the world's largest canyon. The true work of getting out lay ahead of me. We have become a Stake and now we must take our new small stake and develop it into a strength in the community.

I'm grateful for the opportunity we have here in Guam. I'm looking forward to the coming months and am grateful that I get to be here for this historic event. Everyone in Guam will have their role to play and I'm grateful for mine. Basically, I'm just grateful all around.

Here's to the Barrigada Guam Stake, the first of hopefully many in Guam.