Family and friends

...Happy Birthday to Kent -- our #2 son who turns 21 today. He's a student at UC Irvine but is at UCDC this quarter. He carries himself well. The picture is of Kent and Betsy (our #3 child) when they arrived on Guam for Christmas. He hadn't cut his hair during the six months he was in Chile. But now that he's in DC he's had to become a lot more respectable. :)

...We've been painting the inside of the condo before moving in. Pretty much every inch of wall and ceiling needs paint. We had to remove the texture from the ceiling in the master bedroom (I can't imagine that textured ceilings seemed like a good idea back in 1993 when the unit was built -- it's a worse idea now). Melissa Heck helped out yesterday afternoon. Anyone who will scrape texture from your ceiling is a true friend.

...I hope all my citrus in California is surviving the unusual cold. Here on Guam, I've got some Key Limes, Calamansi, and bitter island orange seedlings in pots on the condo porch. They're doing great. Of course, the temperatures vary by only a very few degrees throughout the year. Typically the days are in the upper 80's and it will drop into the high 70's at night. Homes do not come equipped with heaters.

My bones and joints used to ache during the damp winter months in Central California. But now they only ache after I've been painting. And the only time we ever get cold is when we're in a restaurant where they've got the A/C (or "air con" as they say here) set too low -- which is often the case. So we always carry sweatshirts or sweaters when we go out to eat. A small price to pay. This is a great place for us.

...Some of the students are starting to find their way back. Technically they're not supposed to be back on campus until the weekend. But I think they're eager to resume their lives at PIBC so they drop by to visit, help with some of the maintenance, or shoot baskets. I'm looking forward to their official return.