Once the whole Gingras family was together, we decided it was time to celebrate Christmas together as a family. It was the first time in three years I had been able to join everyone so it was a treat for me to be there. Last year, Anna and I were here in Guam (and unable to make it home) and the year before, I was deployed to Kyrgyzstan over Christmas.
So, here are a few pictures from that night.
My Mom made herself right at home and treated us to some delicious meals while she was here!
Of course, the big event was opening presents. As you can see, Julie gets rather excited when she opens her presents (this was a new lunch box … she teaches 3rd grade, so now she’ll be the envy of all her students with this spiffy new one!)
Here’s Michael checking out his gift.
Anna trying on her pretty new bracelet.
This is the chaos that ensued after the presents were opened. In fact, since we don’t have a very large condo, it’s pretty much indicative of the state of our place while we have guests! Sorry Mom and Dad. Hope you didn’t mind the clutter too much! 🙂
Well, we also took everyone out on the dive boat while they were here. There is some of the best SCUBA diving in the world on Guam. Ok, so it’s not Palau, but it’s certainly better than most other places we’ve been! They (I don’t really know who “they” is exactly though) say that Guam is better than 80% of the diving in the world. I would have to agree with that assessment (at least from our perspective).
Here we are all geared up. Anna, Michael and I were the only divers. Mom, Dad and Julie all stayed closer to the surface and went snorkeling.
We were fortunate and on the first dive saw 2 sharks. Both small, one white tip and one black tip, but only our 4th sighting in the wild, here on Guam.
Both dives we did were drift dives. So, while we were underwater, we’d just let the current push us along and when we finished, ascend up to 20 feet below the surface and wait three minutes for the safety stop. While doing that, we’d inflate a long orange tube (called a safety sausage) and let it rise to the surface. That way, while were below waiting for our safety stop to finish, the boat captain could see our sausage and motor over to pick us up. If the group stays pretty close, it’s a fast process. If not, it takes a while to pick up spread out groups of divers. Both times were about average for us. 🙂
Here’s what we look like in the water waiting to be picked up.
Well, that about does it for this post. Next one will have the counter point to SCUBA diving. That is deep sea fishing.
–Jim
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Our Family Story.