Technical Difficulties...

Hey there, we are still alive and i have tried a few nights in a row to update our blog for you. BUT, for some reason i have been unable to upload any photos. I will continue to try and get you filled in on our last few days before school, first weekend on the island, first week of school, and present time, sometime. Until then.... we love you and hope all is well!

Getting Caught up...

I am going to try and get you all caught up to date from the last few days...

On Aug. 3rd, Mark and I attended our new church, Saipan Community Church, for the first time. Not only was everyone friendly, the pastor a good speaker, the music beautiful, but so was the scenery! Now you have to know, that our church building consists of a floor and a ceiling... there are no walls, so sitting in church and looking to your right you can see the beautiful white sands and blue waters! What an amazing view God gave us!

After Church on Sunday, Bobby our principle, and his wife and daughter treated us to a wonderful lunch at a local resturant. Then after lunch they drove us back to the campus and Bobby gave us our classroom keys..

We were sooo excited to see our rooms for the first time! After taking a quick peek, we both knew we had some work ahead of us. Organizing, cleaning, setting up, and planning. Needless to say we arnt quite there yet, but we have started. Here are some pictures from the first time we saw the rooms, i will add the completed room pictures later!

Marks 6-8th grade Language Arts Room

Can you tell he was excited to see that we all had Macs in our classrooms?

Inside Marks room!

Brits Classroom windows and door!

Front of Brits Classroom.

Well, after taking a peek into our new classrooms, Mark, Jake, Jackie and & headed down to our beach where we embarked on something i had never experience before, snorkling! It was absolutly breath taking, i would recommend it to anyone! And the fact that i was 200 feet away from home! ahhhhh, how amazing! Here are some internet pics of some of the creatures we saw!

We are hoping to somehow get an underwater camera so you can see exactly what we are seeing!

Well after 2 1/2 hours of snorkling we made it back to our apartments safely and after cleaning up, we did what mark "had" to bring, we played guitar hero projected onto our living room wall.

Well on August 4th, we celebrated my 25th birthday, a little scary i might add. But it wasnt a bad day at all. I worked most of the day, seeing as though it was our first day to work, but in the evening, Mark surprised me with a wonderful night! We borrowed a fellow teacher's car and Mark took me to Bird island, it is essentially an island that you are able to walk down too, but it is covered in birds! I had only ever seen it in marks photos. It was beautiful, i cant wait for low tide so we can take a hike down to it!

Next stop was the PAC, i didnt know what to expect for dinner, but it was beautiful also, as most of the island. We ate dinner on the beach and watched the sunset go down, and then took a little walk looking for seashells. Oh, what a beautiful way to spend your birthday!

Well, that has been our experience's so far! And it has been amazing. Mark and I keep saying to each other, it feels like we are on vacation, but the cool thing is, we dont have to pack up in a week, we are here for good, atleast for now!

I will update this again, as soon as i can. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we prepare our classrooms, and class starts next monday!

Love,

B & M

We are now Residents of Saipan! Day #1:

We are here, we actually have been for a few days, but i am going to just catch you up on the first day, and then do more later. 

We arrived on our beautiful island on saturday Aug.1 at 1:10 Am, needless to say everything was dark when we arrived so there was not much for us to look at, but we were greeted by some of our fellow Saipan Community School staff; Jackie and Jake Van Dam who are teaching 1st grade and jr. high math and science, Joel Flenniken who is teaching PE and Health, and Bobby and Debbie Winkfield, Bobby is the principle and Debbie teaches religion, art and music. And when we arrived they gave us these beautiful flowered head dresses! 

When we finally arrived to SCS the first thing we did was found the box with all of our bedding, made our bed and crawled in. Jet Lag hasnt been too bad, but I am feeling quite sleepy tonight. 

The next morning I woke up at 6:00 am and it was like Christmas, i was sooo excited to unpack all of our boxes and make our apartment into a home, needless to say 4 hours later it was completed, for the most part. We are still waiting to find shelving for the bathroom to get the cludder our of there. Sometime soon =).  These are all before pictures, i will add the after ones soon. 

After getting settled Jake, Jackie, Joel, Mark  & I hopped into one of the other staffers cars and hit up some major things, Joeten, Ace, and Costco... We needed food, and other essential housing materials....

But the best part of the day was that afternoon, when we went down to the beach for the first time, white sand, blue water, and ohhhh the water was soooo warm! I am in love and i cant believe i only live 200 feet from it... Snorkling stories coming soon =). 

Well that was our first day on our tropical island, and the last few days have been packed full also. I will try and get you caught up to date tomorrow and add lots more pictures... 

Please keep your prayers up as we have begun setting up our classrooms, and adjusting to the heat and humidity... All is well here, and we hope all is well with you. 

Love,

M & B

Kitchen/Dinning Room, Front Door Before Unpacking

Guest Bedroom/ Office, before unpacking ( All of our boxes made it!)

Our Bedroom, before unpacking. 

Livingroom/ dinning room before unpacking. 

Front of our apartment, we are the top right corner.

View from Front Porch

Costco Hotdogs are a little bit more expensive, and dont come with a drink!

Mark and Head Dress

Our Beautiful Head Dresses

Us on our Beach, 200 feet from Home... and Warm! Love it!

Stop #3: Tokyo, Japan!

Well, we made it to Tokyo, Japan! 

After 9 hours of flying we are here, sitting in yet another airport, but it is sooo nice to get a break from airplane seats. The flight however went great! The airlines gave us a plane bigger then needed, so literally the plane was maybe not even half way full. So needless to say most everyone got an extra 2 - 3 seats each, which made for a great bed to lay out on! 

The interesting thing is, to you right now at home as i write this it is 10:41 pm, so most of you are probably in bed, but for mark and i it is 2:30pm on friday Aug. 1 and when it was the usual time for us to be eating dinner, they were serving us breakfast... and one of the choices was fried rice and teriaki chicken, and it was delicious, never thought id eat that for breakfast... 

In about 4 hours we will begin to load our next flight to nagoya, japan, where we will then fly to Saipan, so i think this will be the last time i blog until we get alittle settled in saipan and get some sleep. 

We are so excited to finally arrive there... only about 10 hours more and we are home. Well, i payed $10 for this internet while we are here in the narita airport, so if anything else interesting happens ill get back on and let you know. But, until then, Adios (mark and i will soon learn how to say goodbye in Japanese, korean, Chumaro, and Phillipeano). 

Love,

B. 

I apologize, the internet is being weird, and spell check in obviously not working. =)

Stop #2: Seattle, WA

Well we have made it through one flight... from Spokane to Seattle. I wish the next few flights we are going to be on would go so quickly... only 45 minutes. But I don't think that is actually going to happen... 16 hours of flying 1 down. We now have 15 hours of total flying left. That is not including layovers, etc. Tomorrow morning we jump on our next flight and it is our longest... Seattle to Tokyo - 11 hours of flying. But we are soooo ready.

Yesterday in Spokane we said goodbye to my parents, my little brother and Marks sister Suzanne. I think the hardest goodbye for mark was actually DICKS... For those of you who don't know what Dicks is, it is a quick stop burger shop... the cheapest burgers in town, and by far the best. Mark looked very depressed leaving his glimpse of "heaven", but i think it was all a show. =)

But we are now in Seattle with Marks sister Julie and her husband Rob, and the very patient niece of ours who refuses to make an appearance. =). That's okay though, just as long as she comes sometime soon for the parents sake. We will still love her, and spoil her.

After saying 90% of our goodbyes i think Mark and I have finally hit a tired streak. We are feeling great today, but last night when we got into Seattle we went to sleep at 11pm and slept until 11am... it was amazing. Now we are rested and ready to go. Mark is planning on pulling an all nighter tonight so that he can sleep on the flight tomorrow... I however am not joining him in that venture. I can sleep anywhere, and sleeping is one of my favorite hobbies =).

Well, that is all for now. Hopefully my next writing stop will be in Tokyo, or the Seattle airport. So until then...

Stop #1!

Well we are (well I am) at stop number one of our travels to our new home in Saipan! Today was my last day out on the family farm in Potlatch, Idaho. Mark is still down there until tomorrow enjoying a day of blue grass harvest and driving the combine before taking off. Then tomorrow evening he will join me in Spokane (where i am now). We fly out of Spokane on Tuesday evening to Seattle where will will spend a day with Marks sister Julie and her husband Rob, and crossing our fingers, our niece. Julie is about 5 days past her due date.... All in Gods time though.

Please be praying as we say our goodbyes. They began today with Marks family, and to be perfectly honest, it sucked =). I miss you guys already. I love you.

Also - this last week i found out about some medical problems that i have, and will hopefully get it figured out once we arrive on the island. Until then, i am going to keep it low, but just please be praying for peace for both mark and i about the situation. Nothing life threatening =).


Until next time....

B.

Almost there...

Kara & I. Oh I love you.

Mark0 & I Boating.

Nicolle & I boating on the lake.

Shakespear in the Park... It was awesome!

Sara & I.

13 days and counting... Thats how many days until we begin our traveling journey to our new home. We fly out to Seattle July 29th from Spokane and will be visiting Marks sister Julie and her husband Rob for a day and then from there we fly out of seattle to Saipan. We are hoping to meet our new little niece (Julie and Rob are expecting any day now). Hopefully she will be around so we can meet her.

Our time is running short in this part of the world and it is now just beginning to feel real. Until now it felt like a dream. But lately, not so much. I have begun to get butterflies in the tummy. Last weekend was my first real realization of us moving. Mark and I got the chance to take a road trip back down to Boise and play with friends... Most of all spend some time with my best friend Kara. We had a weekend full of fun; boating, shakespear in the park, dinners out, and just being together. It wasnt until we were about ready to drive away and saying good bye to Kara that it hit. I am not going to see her for a year, unless she comes and visits (hint hint). But as we drove away the tears started flowing. I am going to miss you Kara Marie.

But for those of you who werent there to see the tears, we only have about 13 days left, and we are hoping to see as many friends and family as possible.

Beyond the realization that this is actually happening, we are getting very excited! Quite Jealous i may add. Jake and Jackie, a couple from Iowa and who will be also teaching with us on the island as first timers are on their way, last we saw they were sitting in the Tokyo airport, and we were wishing it were us. We have been waiting for this for 6 months, and it is almost here! Wahooooo.

Please be praying for us as our time with family and friends shortens. Please be praying that moving preparations work out, and that we can just enjoy this time left.

This time is definatly bitter sweet. We are so excited to land on the Island of Saipan, but sad to be saying so many goodbyes.

We will keep you updated through the next few weeks as to where we are. Also, be checking back with us, because once we arrive in Saipan, we will have lots of blog posts coming! Oh- and if you have a blog, please let us know so we can check them out!

Love,
M & B.