In their spare time, they have been making iPhones, laptops, wallets and cameras

 

 

The Lord of the Rings, Junie B. Jones style (a collaborative post by L., A.and BR)

Hi, my name is Frodo son of Drogo, but I just like Frodo and that's all.

At first, I didn't want to be the ring-bearer and I was really scared and complained.  But Gandalf rolled his wizard guy eyes up at the ceiling.  I looked up there, too, but I didn't see anything.

Gandalf the wizard-guy told us we had to spare this guy Smeagol 'cause he had a roll to play in our journey.  I hoped it would be a cinnamon roll 'cause my tummy was rumbling, I tell you!  I just wish Sméagol would stop saying "precious" all the time.  It's so annoying.  It's almost as bad as when I don't get to have my favoritest nephew Samwise come over and play!

I runned to Mordor speedy quick with the ring of power.  And that Sauron didn't like it.  He sended the orcs to catch up with us (not "ketchup" silly!) but we runned away.  That Sméagol guy bited off my finger and falled into the really super duper hot lava of Mt. Doom.

 

 



 (For more strange and comical super-impositions, take a look at Gollum singing "Let It Go."  Kinda creepy for kids, preview first maybe)

No tsunami

This afternoon we felt the earthquake that rumbled off the coast of Guam.  The kids and I were at home and I felt my chair shudder and roll under me and my first thought was, "Am I really dizzy or something?" because nothing else was shaking that I could see and no one else reacted.  It turns out A. felt it too and wondered why the coffee table she was resting her drawing pad on was all wobbly!

the Internet is so cool

We learned about some strangely-named ocean creatures in a book and we wanted to look them up to learn more about them.  The Internet did not disappoint.

 

These guys are territorial and press their mouths up to rival males, as if they are kissing, to show who is dominant and has the larger lips:

 



"sarcastic fringehead"



Whoever named this was the sarcastic one, if you ask us.  Though L. found it "cute."



"sea mouse" also known as "beautiful bristle worm"



Some underwater creatures look like muppets:

 

These odd looking worms feed by drawing water into the tube and eating whatever plankton it might contain.  "Fan-shaped flaps in the middle of the worm's body create a water current.  Food is trapped in a slimy net, which is rolled up and passed toward the mouth.  A new net is then made and the process repeated."  (Eyewitness Ocean) 

Be sure to keep an eye out for the evil starfish in this video.

 

Or, an alternate title (as proposed by L.): "Let's study worm boogers"

If you take a large can and pull off the lid and the bottom, cover one end with plastic wrap taped around the edges with waterproof tape, you've got yourself an "aquascope" for tidal pool viewing:

 

 

And behold: a sea snake!

 

 

sea cucumber

And if you get into deeper water, you can always use the old snorkel mask

 

 

And...tada!  That's what we call school! 

Sure, there's writing and reading and math work, too.  But so far, it has been very science heavy, thanks to plenty of experiments coordinated by our resident Scientist:

 



Here, they were preparing the plumb the depths of the ocean floor. 
They took measurements, they graphed their results--it was fun.



"submarine" experiment

 

 

And now he hath a lithp

School has been happening, blogging has not.

We had a short week for our first week and the kids had one assignment: a research project to learn more about where we are! 

 

L. was to research the CNMI and find out what a U.S."Commonwealth" is and how it is different from Territories, Possessions or States.  BR and AM collaborated on a joint project on the history of Saipan.  

 

We spent a morning at the public library one day and unfortunately found very few resources there, and none geared toward children of their ages.  However, there were some non-fiction books available about Puerto Rico and, as the only other current commonwealth possession of the U.S., those ended up being pretty useful for L., though she ended up mostly relying on the Internet for her information.  As to the history of Saipan, the local CNMI Museum ended up being much more interesting than the library for the kids, and we were happy to have tagged along with another class for a fieldtrip there (no photos, too bad). 

 

 

 

Otherwise, we read some good chapter books, did some Math review and tried to adjust to a new groove at home.  Swim class for P.E. is pretty great.

Lunch on the balcony

 

PE!

Here is a peek at A. and BR's final project, a timeline of the settlement of Saipan:

(It was supposed to look like a traditional Chamorro canoe, like the pictures on display at the CNMI Museum)

 

L.'s assignment was to make a short video of her findings:

 

BR started soccer last week, too, and we found a piano teacher for L.  Hey, so far, so good! 

Nerds, Science Nerds, and Geckos

We have had a couple of guests with us for a week while their parents are away.  It's been a lot of fun.
The kids made dinner one night for all of us: sloppy joes with mini apple pies for dessert.  Yum.

"onion protection"

A few weeks ago, we drafted and had everyone sign a kind of "contract" beforehand so that we were all on the same page about household rules and general behavioral expectations.



the "Pledge" and Chore Chart are on the fridge,
so everyone can remember what's what.

 It has worked out really well.  No one has complained about duties or scheduling or anything.  It seems to have helped everyone and given us all a sense of structure and predictability about our time together. 

In the evenings, we read out loud from our current chapter book (The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster) and then have a "debrief" about our day and go over the plans for the next day. 
This evening routine is not something I had planned in advance, but it just sort of happened and the kids LOVE it so it stayed.

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One of the (many) perks of spending a week with us on Saipan: night swimming!

 



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The two eldest girls went to a week-long summer camp through the National Park Service called "Ridge to Reef," all about marine biology and conservation in the CNMI.  It was excellent.  They had experts come in from the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Bureau of Coastal Management (and others), they got to do bird-watching, hiking in a re-vegetation site, a beach clean-up, they went out to one of the wildlife sanctuaries (an island you can only reach by boat), they participated in the "tagging" of a sea-turtle, they got to ride a semi-submarine... All of that and more in just five days.  

 

L. took the camera along to document the semi-sub voyage.  The montage is pretty hilarious (I thought) but I am told they had a good time and even saw a giant humphead wrasse.

 

 

Blurry images of the deep:

 

Ah, there he is:

 

 

And they learned this song at camp and have been singing it ever since:

 

  

________

 

Probably one of my favorite parts of our week together was when, on Sunday afternoon, after I woke up from a warm afternoon siesta, the kids came into my bedroom with very somber expressions on their faces.

"We have to show you something."
"We really need you to help us."
"I don't know if you can fix this, but I hope so."
(Good grief!  What on earth are they talking about, this sounds very serious!  Why didn't they wake me up?)

I followed them to the living room. 

There was a jar on the coffee table, full of grass and covered with a Kleenex that was secured with a rubber band. 
"We made sure he could breathe."
"The ants were carrying him away.  He wasn't even dead!"
"We chopped up some fruit and gave the bits to him."
"He is not moving.  But he does move, barely.  He isn't dead yet."

It was a gecko.  Who was very near the end, and they were trying to save the little fellow. 
They had written encouraging little notes and displayed them outside the jar: "Get well soon." and "It'll be allright."  With hand-drawn pictures of healthy geckos (for inspiration?).

"We thought that some music would help."
"We chose classical music so it would be soothing."
There were earbuds balanced on top of the jar, plugged into an Ipod.

"We looked up information online about what to do and we found on Youtube this one about a gecko who was eaten by ants in under an hour!"
"He is letting us touch him.  Geckos are not supposed to do that!
"What can we do?  Help us fix him!"

Later, after a swim, we checked in on the little guy and he was no longer responsive.  BR broke the news to the girls: "I am sorry, I have bad news: we lost him."

One by one, they filed in to the house to see for themselves.  And then they made the most tragic discovery of all.  Somehow, the music station had been changed and was no longer playing classical tunes.

"We KILLED him!  It was the KIDZ BOPS!"

Bird Island, Saipan

This is one of several wildlife sanctuaries on the island and a new favorite snorkeling spot of ours.  It's a steep and muddy hike down, but it only takes 10 minutes so it is totally worth it.

 

 

The area up to the little island is shallow and reef-protected so it is quite safe, and the island itself has a lot of little tidal pools on it, some of which are really deep and cool! 

 

Evidently, if you get too close to the birds or start to climb up on the island to get higher, they freak out and start to dive-bomb you and decorate you with their droppings.  So we keep our distance.

 

There is an overlook where tourists stop by to take photos.  Here is my crew of three, two of whom turned Korean for this shot. 

Kids in Trees

 

 

Misc.

The "initial impressions" post I had meant to write never did get written and now, over 2 months in, I don't remember all of them very well anyway.

 

I do remember that it took J. and me awhile to realize that comparing this place to other tropical places we had visited just didn't make a whole lot of sense.  The main reason being that Saipan is an island in the Pacific, and our other tropical experiences were in Southeast Asia, mostly on the mainland. 

 

Breakfast trip to the beach

Besides the price of goods, one of the main differences between Asian islands and mainland Asia is the fauna and flora.  Mostly the fauna: there are many, many imported creatures on the island, and plenty of native ones.  Even still, this jungle is really rather quiet.  Especially at night.  Not nearly the buzzing and chirruping and all the rest that you might think.  It is calm and quiet here.

 

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Maybe the quiet is explained by the fact that the wildlife in these parts caught on to the lacksidaisical way of the human islanders.  The joke is that "Hafa Adai" (which means "hello" in Chamorro) refers to the way local businesses are only open for "half a day."  I mean, why work more than you really need to, right?  J. makes endless puns associated with the expression, but I will spare you.

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Lego dragon (of course)

This has nothing to do with the rest of Asia, but is a "fun" fact: there are no physical addresses on the island! 

 

Two things are not fun about this fact: if you want to receive mail, you need a P.O. Box.  The only hurdle being that the U.S. postal service ran out of them years ago (decades ago? who knows), so now the rest of us get to rent some from private companies.  Second problem: there are plenty of US. companies that won't ship to P.O. boxes, so that makes life just that much more interesting when trying to order necessities online.  (And don't even get me started on how many companies won't ship to Saipan, along with other U.S. territories.  I cannot understand this, given that postage rates are domestic.)

(the kids love to play "spa" now)

The other absolutely hilarious thing about having no addresses is that there are no addresses at all. 
And no recognizable street names outside of Middle Road and Beach Road.  (To be fair, there are streets with names, but no one knows them since it is fairly recent). 

Allow me to explain why this is a problem: you can't just tell people where you live and have them look it up.  You must provide detailed directions, or draw a map, or meet them somewhere and then have them follow you.  Because kinda everyone lives down an unpaved road of some kind with multiple turns and you have to pass a chicken farm at some point (why is it always a chicken farm?).  A little like life on the Rez, to tell the truth.  But the main difference is that destinations are all within a 44mi. square radius so this should be easier, in theory.

Some friends told us about a live radio broadcast they heard once during which the two co-hosts of a morning talk show tried to explain the location of an upcoming event by referring to nearby landmarks.  Evidently, it was a little complicated to do and they kept correcting each other and the conversation lasted for almost 10 minutes.



view from the Forbidden Island hike

Now, you might think that folks would get pretty good at giving directions in a place like this, but it is quite the opposite.  I can't count how many times I have been told, "Oh, you just go down there, and keep going and then it is on your left!" and that's all I have to go on.
 
As a very orientation-conscious person, who prides herself on knowing how to get from here to there, and being able to describe it to others with both detail and precision, with plenty of landmarks and street names included, this just makes me ab-so-lute-ly nuts.



Rainbows pop up just about everywhere. There is just so
much moisture in the air

Tropical storms: A typhoon recently hit Guam and Rota (another island) but we barely saw any of it.  Others have told us that when the season really kicks in, the island's supply chain can get delayed for weeks and supermarkets run out of essentials. 



The supply ship.  Here every Friday.  So far.

Luckily, we have a breadfruit tree in our backyard.  Phew.*


* that's a joke.  I have yet to find a practical use for breadfruit.  (Although according to Wikipedia, "Native Hawaiians used its sticky latex to trap birds, whose feathers were made into cloaks"! So that's always an option...) 

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There are monitor lizards on the island.  They can get pretty big--someone told me that at least one has been spotted that was 5 feet long.  Daddy and BR saw one in our neighborhood that was somewhere between 18 and 24 inches long.  Very cool.

And then yesterday an equally large one showed up on our back patio and was caught sniffing around at the pool.  No photo this time, and I missed it again, but hopefully I will get a glimpse next time.