Sumahi is Getting Ready for Christmas!

Sumahi is getting ready for Christmas! Here's a photo of her decorating a Christmas tree. Unfortunately, the number of ornaments she destroyed is way greater than the number of ornaments she placed on the tree.

The Sumahi and Pikachus Choir

May I present to you The Sumahi and Pikachus Choir. They will be performing the Happy Birthday song in honor of Daddy's birthday.

Happy Father's Day

I had nene dressed up since it was Fathers Day, and even though Daddy is not here with us, I'm sure that the pictures would cheer him up. Here're some pictures of the Chamorrita girl!! The plumeria on her hair looks like she had flower growing from her head! Ha ha ha.

Sumahi's Comment on Daddy's Return and On Her 1st Birthday

April 16th is coming up soon!!! In just a few days, Sumahi would not only be celebrating her first birthday, but will also be seeing her daddy again!

Sumahi expresses all her excitement in the following video:

Sumahi Birthday Wishes:






On her Daddy's Return:






8 more days 'til Daddy comes back!

Sumahi Turning One Year Old!

Sumahi would be turning one in just a little more than two weeks, on April 16th to be exact, and Daddy would be returning on the same day too, just in time to celebrate Sumahi's birthday.

We would be having two small parties for Sumahi, one for some of our close friends, and one for families. We'll prepare for a big party (aka the Campaign Party)for Sumahi during the Summer when everyone is back.

Since Sumahi is turning one years old, we'll be making some little changes, such as switching from breastmilk to formula. I'm planning to feed her formula for maybe two months then we will switch to milk and soymilk (will be alternating between the two). I'm also planning to give Sumahi her first haircut, her bangs are getting too long so I'll trim that a little. We'll also be getting Sumahi her passport when Daddy comes back, for we are planning to go on a vacation to Bali maybe in May or early June.

Since Daddy is back to celebrate Sumahi's birthday, we had a lot of activities installed. Such as going to Underwater World with Sumahi, seeing the Magic on Ice show at the SandCastle. But most of the plans involve eating ... eating at Cappriciosa, SamChoy's, Tepanyaki, indulging in shortribs, milkshakes, cinnamon rolls, gelato, sweet-n-sour chicken... *I could see the food flowing around in mid air right now... this is making me hungry* But we would be doing important things as well, such as looking for job opportunities for Daddy, planning for the Campaign party, discussing the Sumahi Storybook, preparing for Sumahi's Campaign video...and the list goes on.

I was thinking that maybe we should take Sumahi to a studio and do a photoshoot or maybe a family photo... maybe we could do that every year on her birthday, so that we could see how much she grew, how much older, fatter, balder, numbers of grey hair we've got as years goes by. I thought that would be a cute keepsake for Sumahi. But Daddy doesn't seems to like the idea, he was more like... "what's the photoshoot for while we have our own cameras" kind of attitude. So... that is still undecided.

But I'm still really excited for Sumahi turning one, for Daddy's visit, for eventually when Daddy finally comes home.

Here're some pictures taken of Sumahi during Easter:

18 more days 'til Daddy comes back!

Sumahi's Nine Months Birthday

Today is Sumahi's Nine Months Birthday, it had pretty much became a habit that we celebrate her birthday monthly. But nine months is particularly special, it means that she had survived 3 quarters of her first year of life with me!

Since it is her special 9 months birthday, I called Daddy yesterday to discuss how we should celebrate this special day. I wanted to read to her one of the Dr. Seuss books that I had brought for her for Christmas, titled "Happy Birthday to You", then open her toys that are for nine months old, so she could play with them. I also wanted to bring her some place, Daddy suggested the beach, and also that I should give her a new food for her to try.

So I picked up Sumahi from the day care after work, and headed to Matapang Beach with Grandma Winnie tagging along. We brought two sets of swimsuits for Sumahi, the red bikini which is only for picture taking, and the other one is for when she gets into the water. I put Sumahi near the shoreline for her to stand and pose for the photo shoot... unfortunately, Sumahi hated it. So we decided to slow things down and have her crawl on the sand instead. She hated that too... and started crying and crawling to me. We realized that it wasn't really the water that she hates, she hates the sand. So we picked her up, walked into the water, and repeat the process of dipping her into the water and then lift her up high in the air. She gradually warmed up and started paddling in the water (her paddling didn't get her anywhere, of course.) We didn't stay at the beach for too long (we only stayed for approx. 30 min.) for we didn't want her to catch a cold.

After a warm bath and eating regular baby food, we fed her a strawberry. Yes, that was the choice I made, Daddy suggested something healthy, so I picked Korean strawberry, sweet and packed with Vitamin C. Well, from her expression, she didn't seems to like it, but she keeps eating it anyway. By the time she was done with the strawberry, she was too exhausted for the other plans that I had install for her, so we let her go to bed instead.

I think those should go on the Sport Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

Sumahi's First Christmas

It was Sumahi's First Christmas, in the beginning, I had a lot of ideas and plans to make her First Christmas special. But since Daddy's stay was short, and with him working on the documentary and getting sick twice, we weren't able to go to the beach as a family, we didn't take any Christmasy photos as a family other than the one you see above which was taken at the Day Care as part of their program (oh, yes, nene is in day care now, I'll talk more about it in another entry.), and nene didn't have a tree (coconut, as her daddy insisted) for Christmas. We also didn't do anything that were pretty traditional for Christmas on Guam, such as going to the Skinner Plaza, and nene kissed no Baby Jesus. While we did bring Sumahi to see the mini train in Hilton, it wasn't as great as I had expected, for unlike the previous years, the train has so many advertisements on it, nene wasn't amused for we couldn't get close to the train as I thought we would be able to, and Daddy was pretty much lying dead on the couch waiting to get home for he was sick.

Although we didn't do a lot of the things that I wish we could have done, we did many other exciting things, like making the Sumahi Video Christmas Card, Sumahi being filmed in the documentary. Sumahi also received a lot of gifts, especially from Daddy and from her grandmothers. She did get to spent Christmas with her family, and most importantly, with her daddy, which was all that matter.

Nene's First Japanese Autumn Festival: Pikachus, Unichi-kun, and Even Yellow Ranger?!

On December 1st, there was the 28th Annual Japanese Autumn Festival on Guam. It's one of the most locally attended annual events (other than the carnival since there are gambling stands) on Guam. Yes, unfortunately, it seems to be more attractive to the locals than the Guam Micronesian Islands Fair. The Autumn Festival features performances from different Japanese dance groups, the Matsuri, in which people carries a mikoshi (a portable Shinto shrine) and walk around Ypao Beach Park (traditionally, it should be carried from shrine to shrine), it is believed that whoever carries it would have good luck for the entire year. There are also raffle drawings (this year there are 3 Wii that were given out as prizes, other prices includes tickets to Japan), food vendors, and games such as snatching goldfish, etc. One thing you would see in the Autumn Festival is kids and teenagers wearing mask and carrying a fan. One of my main objective was to get Sumahi a mask for her first Autumn Festival.

It was very crowded, you could hardly get from one place to another without bumping into people. I saw a guy from the Sapporo Beer stand passing out Pikachu fan, we went and got one. As always, the place was filled with people wearing masks, there were all sort, from Winnie the Pooh, to Donald Duck, and.... EVEN PIKACHU!!! I had my mother take care of Sumahi while I went searching for the Pikachu mask in the mid of the huge crowd.

Sumahi's daddy is crazy about Pikachu. It is a mutual understanding that while Sumahi is the cutest thing in the world, Pikachu comes next, and when the two comes together, the cuteness is too much for a normal human body to handle. Since then, whenever I see Pikachu things that are affordable I would buy them, it had pretty much became a habit.

After bumping into a whole bunch of people, and squeezing into different toy stalls, I finally find the one that sell mask. However, when I got there, there are only three types left: Thomas the Engine, Yellow Ranger, and a little blonde girl mask, they are out of Pikachu... : ( I don't like Thomas the Engine, and I don't want Sumahi to have blonde hair... so I picked Yellow Ranger... well... at least it is yellow too...

I also saw a 2008 pokemon calendar, I wanted to get it, but I had already spent all my coupons on the mask (which was 6 coupons). Therefore, I lined up to purchase a booklet of coupons (which was $10), and went back to the toy stall, but the calendar was gone! So I brought some toys for Sumahi, one was an Unichi-kun (Mr. Poop) from the anime "Dr. Slump" (See that pink soft ice cream like object on top of Sumahi's head at the picture below) another was a star necklace which has different color light that blinks.

Unfortunately, while I remembered to bring my camera that night, I left the memory card at home, so I was unable to take pictures at Ypao. But here are some pictures that I took with the stuff that we got that night.











4 more days 'til Daddy comes back!

Nene's First Thanksgiving

It was nene's first Thanksgiving, I got up early in the morning and went grocery shopping for Thanksgiving Dinner. My family had planned to eat out, but I wanted to bring nene to visit her family from Daddy's side, so I needed to make something to bring over.

I decided to make a vegetarian quiche. I got the recipe online, so I printed it out and headed out to Oka Payless with Sumahi. Sumahi was very enthusiastic about helping me, and kept taking the recipe away from me while I was shopping. Finally, we got home, and I was able to put her to bed while I work on the crust and pre-mixing the fillings. I wanted to get everything ready for I had to show a property at around 2pm, and I needed to get to Grandpa's house at 4:30pm and follow them over to Auntie Eleanor's house.

Even though I got home early after the showing, I was still running late when I left the house, for the quiche took way longer then expected to cook. I left the house at 4:29pm and rushed over to Grandpa's. When I was almost there, I got a call from Kuri, and said that I don't need to rush for they were running late. We stayed there until everyone was ready, then we headed over to Auntie Eleanor's. We weren't able to stay there for too long, for we still needed to have dinner with my family. Sumahi did get to see everyone though, and spent a little time playing with her cousins. Although my stay there was short, it was a nice and wonderful little gathering, and I'm very glad that Sumahi get to see everyone.

I had Sumahi tried the turkey with turkey gravy baby food... and she didn't like it at all, she preferred the real thing. (We teared small pieces of turkey for her for it was soft enough for her to eat) I guess she is sick and tired of being treated like a baby.

I called Daddy a few times so that he could say Happy Thanksgiving to her, but he didn't pick up the phone. I was about to give up and thought that nene would have her first Thanksgiving without hearing Happy Thanksgiving from her daddy, but he called just right before he went to bed, and so... it was a good Thanksgiving.

12 more days 'til Daddy comes back!

The Day Before All Soul's Day

After working on the end of the fiscal year inventory report for my parents' store for the entire week, I finally got a day off yesterday. It is the day before All Soul's Day, I took nene to visit her great great grandparents graves in order to skip the All Soul's Day Mass traffic.

We started off from Dededo, we went on the backroad and headed toward Mangilao, from there we drove to Talofofo to our first destination-- the great great grandparents graves from the Flores side. Since I needed to stop by Agat to put up a For Sale sign on a property that I'm selling, I drove all the way around the South. We stop by C & J Burgers in Malesso on the way for lunch. (Delicious homemade patties for a low low price!) And after the short stop at Agat, we headed to Nimitz Hill. We visited the grave of Julian's father (Julian is one of nene's Godparents) first, who was buried in the Veteran Cemetery. Then we headed to our final destination--the great great grandparents grave from the Lujan side.

Miget took us there before when he was on island over the Summer, it was a grave made of concrete which deteriorated over the years, there was a plexi-glass plat, which has the great great grandparents names spelled with stickers letters on it.

I didn't think that I would have any problem finding it, since I went back once by myself, cleaning up the grave, and there were pretty clear landmarks, it was pass the first telephone pole, pass all the sorry-looking Jesus statues, and right next to a plumeria tree. I spotted my destination from a far, I saw that the silk flowers that I planted on the grave was removed and layout on top. I stepped closer, and I spotted that the cross was broken off, I felt my heart went cold, "oh no, what happened?!" Then when I finally got there, I realized that it wasn't the right grave. I wondered to myself, "What happened? All the landmarks are right. And why do the flowers I brought for them ended up here on this grave? Did someone stole them?" I ended up walking all over the cemetery to every single graves right next to a plumeria tree, and there were many. It was 1:30 in the afternoon, and the sun was radiating its heat on me like it wishes that I get a heat stroke. I walked all around, stepped over graves after graves, always ended up at the same spot every time. Frustrated, I called Miget, and asked him where the grave is. He told me that it is right infront of all the Jesus statues, next to a plumeria tree. I told him that it is not there! He had work to do so he wished me luck on the grave searching, and we hanged up. I stood infront of the grave which I thought was the One, tired, I glanced over the grave right next to it, to the nice, brand new grave, and I saw the name that I was looking for all over the place. All this time, it was just right infront of me, the plat, new and shiny, the name engraved on it smiling at me under the bright sun. And I mumbled to myself, "but I was looking for the plexi-glass plat..."

The grave I was looking for.

The grave right next to it.

Halloween

Nene's first Halloween passed by uneventfully. No, I did not dress her up. No, I did not take her trick-or-treating. And no, she didn't pass out any candy to any kids. When I decided to not do anything for her on Halloween, it was a logical decision. Nene is too young to remember anything, nene is too young to go trick-or-treating, there's no costume that I could find here on Guam that would fit nene unless I order online. But even though I know that it was the right decision, and that it doesn't seem right for us to celebrate any holidays or special occasions without Daddy, I regret making her first Halloween so dull. It is her FIRST Halloween! I should have just dress her up and take pictures of her for my own amusement. I told myself that it's okay, we could just wait for next year, when Daddy comes home, and we could all go trick-or-treating, with Uncle Kuri, with her cousins Dylan, Eliza, and Kin Boy. Maybe we could go in a theme, like we'll all dress as Harry Potter's characters, or Naruto's characters. That would be fun.