I'm in Guam.

But first I was in Provo, then Salt Lake, then Los Angeles, then Honolulu, THEN Guam. Crazy. 

It is HOT here. Hotter than any place I've ever been, and if I'm right, it is autumn here. Yikes. But I have  never been to such a nice beach (becuase yes, I did go to the beach), and I have never been to such a nice USO. 

Before I go any further, CONGRATULATIONS SUMMER!!! Way to finish up the home stretch of home life, and I can't wait for you to come join me in mine. Maybe we can even have an adventure like the one I am having at this moment (I sure wish you were with me now. It probably would make mom feel better too haha!)

An anecdote for all of you to illustrate the crazy limbo of my current state of existence:

Last night (last night? yesterday afternoon? tomorrow morning? who knows) I flew into Guam and got set up in a nice hotel. It was odd being awake at 9 pm and feeling like I had SO much energy becuase it was actually noon. Well, imagine the odd feeling of being awake at 3am and not even being able to sleep because my whole world was upside down and no timing was right. What a relief when 6 rolled around and I felt like i was justified in waking up and getting going. 

So I got going. Running. HOLY HOT! Such sweat! This is the weird thing. I ran past a bank that had one of those signs out in the front that tells you the information and this is what it said:

6:30 am

82 F

5-27.

Whoa. That's weird becuase my biological clock was telling me

8:30 p.m.

40 F

5-26

I'm telling you, everything is crazy here! But I am in GUAM and I enjoyed a lovely run and some Mythbusters and two free donuts and some substantial sightseeing in the DFS (I guess it's like Rodeo Rd of LA? Or Waikiki of Hawaii? I don't know, it's just free place I could get a shuttle to) and after some free lunch at the USO, I'm headed to the beach again. 

All I can say is, you guys should be excited. I can testify from personal experience that tomorrow is a great day. 

Tonga here I come!

The Many Faces of Jimmy

Attention all: The Willis family now has a real table! That equates to real permission to visit them and be treated to solid meals, messy fun, theme park amusement (or is it amusement park themes?), and one or two great games of Mario Kart on the game cube!

I can vouch that you will receive all this and more with just a quick, al-day flight over to Richmond!

But if you are going to accept this offer, be prepared to barely make the flight out of Salt Lake on the last available seat. Enjoy the only good thing about the Chicago O'Hare airport (Ok, so there's two: the lighted walkway and the painted benches) before suffering in the gall of bitterness of 2-hour delay on the runway. Oh, and make sure that since you are going to endure the delay, you cut it as close as possible to the gun time of the race for which you are flying to Virginia anyway.

As close as possible. Like, change into your running clothes in the 3 x3 bathroom in the air (Oh, but don't bring your tennis shoes so when you walk out, the man waiting in line sees you in running clothes and your church shoes... ridiculously horrible), literally sprint out of the terminal, meet with your bro-in-law ("No time for a hug!") and speed to the race place, only to discover that you are 10 minutes late and your sister also forgot her photo id. Never fear, they start the race in waves and you can still make yours if you run. (Isn't that why we came?)

It was a race all in itself to get to the race! But once we were there, Char and I took off into the wilderness of Virginia (who knew there was such a thing!?). We scrambled across rocks, we splashed through mud puddles, we waded the James, we descended 12 flights of spiral stairs, we balanced across a rickety bridge, and we anticipated the mess at the end.

There was a huge mud puddle right before the finish, and they had put a net over it so we were forced to crawl through. It was crazy!

Those are mine and Char's butts if you look close.

It was crazy!!

We tried to use the conveniently located but of course flawed wash stations and eventually just gave up and went in the river. It was cold but awesome! Char ran like a hooligan half-marathoner and we had a blast! Jimmy was a good sport and we all enjoyed the culture shock that is tatooed, beer drinking, cussing, obesing, scantily clad, we're not in Provo anymore Virginian runners.

The next day we went to KING'S DOMINION!!!

It was SO FUN and also exposed the real goodness of the Willises (none of this wig-wearing shyness 10 days after initiation into the family)
They are fine people.

Except when Charina takes after mom and is a godzilla-sumo dumpsquatter. Did Jimmy know about that?


Maybe not, seeing as he is just a precious, gentle fairy boy.

Joke! Joke! He is really actually an indian boy!


OK, that's not exactly true either. The real Jimmy face came out on one roller coaster notorious for its accelarated start and amazing, fear inspiring speed. Not for Jimmy- he's all business.


His friend on the other side, however....In the end, Jimmy loves a good roller coaster as much as the next person, and I loved every moment of my weekend in Virginia!


Thanks Willises!

You can and should all go! You will see that I speak nothing but the truth, and you can see that truth in the many faces of Jimmy!

100!

Family, friends, and other random readers, thanks for sticking around. This is officially my 100th blog post since its origin in September of 2009. Heaven knows you have read at least 100,000 words of mine, so here instead are simply 100 pictures, worth 1000 words each, gathered from the last 3 years. Enjoy!






































































































Now off to Tonga!