Happy New Year!

Fireworks over the Phillipine sea. A little preview of New Year's Eve!

December 31st - daytime

Yes, completely worth the plane ride. Our actual travel time was 27 hours - with the longest flight nearly 12 hours - but we crossed the International Date Line so we're here two days later....didn't arrive until the wee hours of New Year's Eve. What a beautiful island! We are on the East side of the island with the Phillipine Sea. Very calm waters as there is a coral reef off the shore and lots of sandbars far into the sea so that you can walk out a long way. Apparently the other side of the island is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and has the deepest spot in the world!

We left on Amelia's birthday so we're having a late celebration today. :-) Here's a big shout out to another one of our favorite birthday girls: "Happy birthday, Hazel!!!"

December 29th - December 31st

Here's a few shots from the plane. The girls were real troopers. Really no complaints just a few, "How many more hours?"  We think that view from the window is somewhere over Alaska. So gorgeous! We flew via Minneapolis, Tokyo and then Saipan. A HUGE thank you to Maria Saulsbury! Not only a 4:45a.m. wake up call...but a show-up call to make sure the snow plows hadn't blocked us in our drive PLUS all the help at the airport. Thank you, Maria! :-)

December 26, 2009

So, we were scheduled to fly in the wee hours tomorrow morning but Mother Nature had other plans! The first photo is from our upstairs window. Somewhere under that snow is our car. Time to start digging. Norah looks cold yet adorable while Mom doesn't win in fashion awards! :-)

Icicles

Hi everyone! I hope you had a good Christmas and Hanukkah. I wanted to show you this big icicle that my Granddad and I found. It's bigger than me! Your friend, Elise

Zeus

December 19, 2009
Dear everyone,

I'm in the car with: Norah, Elise, Mom and Zeus, my dog. We are going to my Grandmom and Granddad's house to drop Zeus off. We are going to stay for two days. Zeus ate my gingerbread house so when we get there we are going to make another house.

Norah has been crying and she's driving me CRAZY!!!! If you're wondering why I wrote this it's because it's part of going to Saipan. Because we couldn't leave Zeus home. Elise can't breathe because Zeus has bad breath. This is what I said to him: you need a tic tac or something 'cause your breath stinks! That's what I said.

Can you help me think of things I could do on the plane?

Love one of your students and friends, Amelia T. H-H